In honor of Dead Rising 4: Frank’s Big Package’s release on the PS4, we thought we would revisit Frank West’s latest outing and it’s associated DLC, including the newest add on Capcom Heroes.

The Main Campaign

After a title has reached the staggering amount of 7 releases, something needs to change (we’re looking at you Assassins Creed and Call of Duty) to keep the players engaged. While some will add a new protagonist or new arch nemesis, Dead Rising has opted to return to its roots and bring back the somewhat popular Frank West for his 4th appearance in the series while streamlining many things that made the previous offerings such a success.

We begin Frank’s newest adventure as he and his student Vick are trying to get the story behind a strange military base, where they find the shady agency known as Obscuris conducting tests on zombies. After things don’t go as planned, Vick leaves Frank behind, meaning he has to go into hiding as a wanted man. Months pass, and we find Frank living under the name Hank East and teaching at a small community college, until a government official tracks him down and asks him to come save the world from the zombie menace… again.

You’ll spend your time exploring the town of Willamette again, this time after a strange outbreak decimated the town on Black Friday. Much like the previous games, you’ll be using found items around the mall to create deadly and often humorous tools of destruction, ranging from house hold items to vehicles, creating aberrations that would make the team behind Pimp My Ride go home crying to mommy. My most sought after tool of destruction was the new mech-suit that can be found sparingly across the game world. These allow you to essentially become near-invincible and allow you to pick up cars, street lights, and other items that Frank would never be able to wield.

The writing is as good as it’s ever been in my opinion, swapping out the trademark tongue-in-cheek “bad” writing for a more sarcastic Frank, which works on most levels. Despite saying the same lines throughout the game, I never grew tired of Frank saying “I’m too middle aged for this S***”. Frank, as well as some of the supporting characters, were much funnier than they had any right to be.

The overall presentation, while not perfect, is admirable – especially when taking in the sheer number of zombies that can be viewed on the screen at any one time. Once you’ve upgraded Frank and progressed through the story, you’ll soon be mowing down hundreds of zombies in seconds as you drive from one area to another. That being said, there are a number of visual bugs that do occur here and there, but nothing that makes the game unplayable.

The biggest change to this entry is the timer that was once the bane of my existence has been removed. While some missions are timed, they are few and far between, which allows you the freedom to explore the town at your leisure, testing out weapons (which can now be combined at any time and do not require you to do visit a workbench), and finding the many featured collectibles which are a necessity to upgrading Frank’s abilities and arsenal. These upgrades are essential to progress once the enemies and their numbers scale to your level and come often enough to keep the player engaged.

The other noteworthy changes, which also make the game slightly less appealing, are the lack of an overtime mode and additional endings the previous games offered. The single ending, which is not really a fitting close for the story, is also a cliffhanger that requires you to purchase the game’s DLC, Season Pass, or Frank’s Big Package edition. Between these features being removed and the lack of worthwhile Maniacs or other NPC survivors that the previous games highlighted, it feels a bit unfinished. While you will still find a few of these encounters, none of them feature the spine tingling intros that the other games offered. The survivors you face feature even less backstory; you’ll regularly find them in the open world and they only require you to clear out a small group of enemies around them. While a good source of XP, they get about as old as being tasked with saving a settlement for the 500th time in Fallout 4.

Players will also notice the lack of co-op play for the main story. While this feature has been around for most of the previous games, it has been replaced with a multiplayer mode more akin to Left 4 Dead than Dead Rising. You’ll assume the role of one of the random survivors from the main story and battle hordes of undead in randomly generated scenarios, which get increasingly difficult with each objective cleared, with up to 3 other players. While nothing out of the ordinary, it does provide a mild distraction, but the addition of co-op through the story would have been a more welcome addition to the overall package.

The game does control well in most instances, with some frustration stemming from the lackluster platforming segments. While these are typically only required when searching for collectibles or on various challenges, the frustration can build quickly, especially when falling just short of your goal.

While the game was not as enjoyable as the previous entries, it was a worthwhile addition to the series. I would recommend anyone wanting to live out their dreams of destroying the hordes of zombies that inhabit a shopping mall to purchase, at the minimum, the main game to catch up on Frank’s newest adventure.

7 out of 10

Pros

• No Timer
• Fun Weapons/Vehicles
• Huge Open World

Cons

• True Ending Behind a Paywall
• Lack of Maniacs/Good Supporting Villains
• Lackluster Platforming

Frank Rising

I covered this expansion when it was originally released – the full review can be found here.

2 out of 10

Pros:

• Short
• Playing as a Zombie is a Fun Novelty

Cons:

• Rehash of Old Content and Lack of New Content
• Price ($9.99 as a standalone)

Super Ultra Dead Rising Mini Golf

While I am not a golf enthusiast, this version of mini golf is mildly addicting and is the best piece of content released post launch for Dead Rising 4. The add-on is an arcade style mini-game that tasks you with playing golf, using absurdly large balls and one of the game’s many tools of destruction as a club. You will play golf in holiday themed levels based on areas from the game world, with zombies meandering around the courses.

The game plays very similar to the Outlaw Golf franchise, with fairly simple controls. While it does take a few attempts to get the timing down for a perfect swing, the game is pretty forgiving. This mode can be played solo or locally/online with up to 3 other players. While I would like to say its fun to play this mode with other friends, I have yet to experience this since the online lobby for the Xbox One has been dead since this expansion was released.

Regardless of how you play, you’ll earn cash to purchase cosmetic items for your player, as well as new clubs and balls. These are a bit grindy but are worth the effort, as each upgrade does improve your game drastically.

This doesn’t reinvent the golf genre, nor does it take the place of an official game, but Super Ultra Dead Rising Mini Golf is a nice break from the standard zombie slaying or the frustration normal golf games offer. If you have Dead Rising 4, there’s no reason not to check this mode out.

9 out of 10

Pros:

• Accessible Controls
• Fun Courses
• Great Sense of Progression

Cons:

• Lack of Online Community
• A Bit Grindy

Capcom Heroes

The newest part of the Dead Rising 4 package is the Capcom Heroes mode, which was a free expansion for the vanilla edition and included in the newly released PS4 version. This mode replaces all of the weapons, combo vehicles, and mech suits with the ability to take on the persona of one of many characters from Capcom’s history. Featuring a number of characters from various franchises, you can be sure at least one of your favorites will be present.

These characters are unlocked by progressing through the story, which is the exact same story from the original game, or by finding one of the new collectibles featured in this add on. While they may control a bit different, they are all essentially the same. You’ll have a handful of melee options, a ranged attack, and some sort of grenade ability. You’ll be limited with each character to 5 minutes at a time, at which point you’ll need to seek out one of the arcade machines that are now hidden throughout the open world, at which point you can refresh your current choice or change to any of your unlocked characters.

Boasting the same story while making you start your character progression over does add a large chunk of time you’ll spend with the game, if you wish to complete the mode. While leveling is still essential, this entry limits the upgrades to either your health or stamina, and does not allow you to pick which one, it simply alternates. This takes a great deal of the depth out of the game and also makes the middle of it either really easy or really hard, depending on what characters are in your tool box.

As far as side quests go, you’ll be treated to the same repetitive ones featured in the original story mode, with the addition of 2 Hero Trials per character. These will vary, but usually involve reaching a specific combo hit counter, staying alive for a set period of time, or killing a number of enemies within a time limit. While most of these are fun and worthwhile, some are buggy messes which slowly suck the will to play this game from your soul. With one particular trial, the enemies quit spawning for about 30 seconds in the 2 minute timeframe while I had to keep my combo going. After witnessing this randomly 10 or more times, I gave up.

While it’s not going to change your opinion one way or another toward Dead Rising 4, Capcom Heroes is an extra mode that was provided for free, so at least most gamers won’t be out any money for checking out this lackluster, if not slightly broken mode.

5 out of 10

Pros:

• Free
• Seeing Frank in Drag Can Be Funny
• Fun Novelty to See Other Capcom Characters in DR World

Cons:

• Rehash of Old Content and Lack of New Content
• Very Buggy
• Platforming is Still Awful
• Unbalanced

Dead Rising 4 and all of its DLC was developed by Capcom Game Studio Vancouver and published by Capcom. The base game was released in March 2017 for PC and X1 for $59.99. It later launched with all of the DLC in the form of Frank’s Big Package on PS4 December 5th, 2017 for $49.99. The game and its DLC was not provided to us for review on X1. For more on Dead Rising 4, visit the developer’s official site.

 

Here at GBG we use a rating method that you are more than likely familiar with – a scale of 1 to 10. For clarification, we intend on using the entire scale: 1-4 is something you should probably avoid paying for; 5-7 is something that is worth playing, but probably not at full price; 8-10 is a great title that you can feel confident about buying. If you have any questions or comments about how we rate a game, please let us know.

 

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