My Rating - 8/10 

Dead Rising is a hard game to put your finger on. I loved the demo, had TONS of fun with it, but after about an hour into the full game, I absolutely HATED it. Then, sometime down the road, I liked it again. Going into it, I thought I could do the story, slicing zombie faces and leveling myself up along the way… but I was wrong.

The game is near impossible to go through on your first try. You’ll most likely die not too far into it, and be forced to restart (your stats are carried over into your new game) or reload your last save. The fact that you only have one save slot is kind of a stupid idea, since you might not make it to a case file (story mission) on time and have to restart your game… again. It does, however, make a little bit of sense within the context of the game, so I guess it’s somewhat forgivable.

The good part? Killing zombies is fun. As you level up and earn new skills, it gets even better. Want to suplex a zombie? Punch into a zombie’s gut and rip out some intestines? Do Guile’s Flash Kick from Street Fighter II and kick some heads off? You can! Add to that the many weapons you can find, from your traditional pistols, machineguns, knives, and swords, to your more unconventional stuff, such as a piece of plywood, a potted plant, a bench, a can of paint, or a mailbox, and you’ve got a plethora of options for dispatching zombies.

Graphically, a lot of stuff is pretty impressive. The skin textures on Jessie’s face are nice - you can see little peach-fuzz blonde sideburns, and those are the most impressively-modeled ears I’ve ever seen! Seriously! The real-time reflections on sunglasses are also great, and you can still even see the eyes in there!

The game is really good for what it is, but I have to say that I think FORCING people to play through the game multiple times to see and do it all is kind of a lame way to give the game replayability. Beating the not-so-great story DOES open up infinity mode, but I personally found it kinda boring.