Zombies. EVERYWHERE. What do you do? Grab a shotgun and fight? Run as fast as you can to a safehouse? Sit in the fetal position and sob? Or would you be like Frank West, grab a camera, and think “Mmm zombies, I bet they look pretty in pictures”? With the sequel to the widely-played zombie apocalypse game Dead Rising coming out next month, I deemed it appropriate to focus this week on the protagonist of the original. If running around in a mall full of zombies wearing a Servbot costume while armed with a chainsaw and camera is wrong, then I don’t want to be right.
At the very beginning of Dead Rising, the player is introduced to a freelance photojournalist by the name of Frank West. Frank is riding in a helicopter, taking photos of various strange occurrences down below (ie, zombie infestations). He watches (and photographs) a man being mauled, a gas station explode, and a woman fall off a building after being cornered by zombies. His first reaction? “Oh hey pilot, drop me down to that zombie-infested mall and pick me up in three days. No big deal.”
After Frank realizes what he’s gotten himself into, he becomes conscious of the fact that he is in a mall full of potential weapons. Baseball bats, knives, katanas, and even power tools can be used by Frank to conquer the undead that lurk everywhere around the mall. Even items that one would never expect to help actually come in quite handy in this bloodbath of a game. (Ever seen a grown man adorning a lady’s dress hitting zombies with a purse? It’s not pretty, but oh is it entertaining.)
If staying alive in the middle of zombie hell isn’t hard enough, Frank has the responsibility of saving many other survivors during his three day stay. Some of these other survivors are fairly decent when given a weapon. Others, not so much. Let’s just say there are a few survivors that you grow so tired of, you end up leaving them behind as a nice midnight snack for a pack of cannibalistic undead. (I’m looking at you, Leah Stein.) On top of the survivors AND the zombies, Frank has to deal with a handful of deranged psychopaths running around the mall. Psychopaths could come in the form of cult followers or evil clowns or escaped convicts or even regular-looking people.
Take a look at the trailer for the first Dead Rising to get an idea of the intensity of the game.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdAz4q7sRls[/youtube]
Zombies swarms are bad enough, but dealing with whiny survivors and deranged psychopaths can probably get pretty troublesome for photojournalist Frank West. That’s why this slicing, dicing, photographing, sometimes-dress-wearing man is rightfully named this week’s Badass of the Week.
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