And then zombies showed up. As they do.

[trinityvixen]

Dead Rising is the perfect video game for those of you who loved Resident Evil but always secretly thought: "Jeeze, I can hold WAY too many items at one time. It's ridiculous. Also, I can save everywhere and all the time it's ridiculous." It's also a perfect nexus between those folks and the ones who thought that what Pokemon Snap really needed was more of a challenge, with, say, the Pokemon actually attacking you when they do their super moves.

I'm not even kidding. It's a survival horror game where you have to take pictures to level up. Yes, kill zombies, but you level up faster with good pictures. And? THERE IS NO PLACE TO SAVE FUCKING ANYWHERE ZOMG. The last time I had trouble with a game that put its save places so far away was with the beginning of Resident Evil 2, where you had to run through and avoid zombies for about twenty minutes of gameplay before you got to the police station and a save point. Dead Rising? IS WORSE.

However pissed I am that I am BACK to square one each time I died and had to start over, I will say that I do find it immensely funny that it's not the zombies that I have a problem with: it's the fucking psychopath survivors! Sheesh. Never have I hated the humans MORE.

Of course, since I played for hours prior to going to bed and went to bed frustrated all to blazes because I DIED AGAIN (MOTHERFUCKING HUMANS!), naturally, I dreamt about a zombie apocalypse. Or, rather, preparing for it. I was in a mall (what a surprise) and in a store kind like a Sams' Club or Wal-Mart that had a wide variety of a lot of shit and really, really tall cabinets that were wide enough that I made plans to climb up and make my little home up there. The dream consisted of me picking and choosing what to take with. I grabbed food stuffs and water without thinking, but I spent the greater part of the time deciding on what craft projects and books to bring with. (This is so perfectly me in real life--I never leave the house without at least a dozen things to occupy myself with should I get stuck somewhere and so that I don't run the risk of boredom.)

Then, randomly-but-not-if-you've-played-Dead Rising-all-night, I started grabbing giant containers of liquid detergent and stuff like that to have up there with me and to throw down should any zombies get ambitious and start climbing up to the top of the shelving where I was. In true Supermarket Sweep style, I weighed them based on how expensive they were (because of course that's a better estimate of how well they'd fend off zombies) and how heavy (makes more sense). Other people running around the store thought I was nuts. Well, I'd show them who was nuts when I had stuff to chuck at the zombies' heads!

(In case none of that made it clear, I actually really, really love Dead Rising already. I'm definitely its target demographic as I loved both Resident Evil and Pokemon Snap. It's only the impossibility of reaching the save points that's killing me. Because it exacerbates a problem I already have where I tend to be cocky playing video games and already don't save much. So it's saying something that Dead Rising doesn't even offer saves enough for someone like me.)

Comments

[edgehopper.livejournal.com]

You do know that bathrooms are save points, right?

But still, the game's not really playable through until you've done enough "save character and restarts" to start around level 8-10.

And since you didn't mention it, you must not have found the most awesome weapon yet: the chainsaw. I'll let you figure out where to get one :)

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

...I do now.

Actually, I went home and played over lunch and managed to get to the friggin' mensroom in the exercise store. So at least I don't have to do that again.

Currently, the lead pipe and the 2x4 are my favorite weapons. There's something satisfying about how they smack the shit out of zombie flesh. Although I found a sledgehammer in the warehouse I've been meaning to try out. And the frying pan is always good for a laugh if not entirely that useful (the kitchen knife though...whoa). I'll keep an eye out for the chainsaw. Methinks I'll have to figure out the conditions for the infinite game to have a lot more time to run around killing things with various pieces of furniture.

And when you say I have to save and restart...do you mean the game is too hard to get past if you don't reach 8-10 start over and level up further to get past the same point you were 8-10 previously? Because I'll cry. It's taken forever to get even past my first scoop because I kept dying. I suppose I should just be glad that there are "only" 53,000 zombies possible in this game...

[edgehopper.livejournal.com]

And when you say I have to save and restart...do you mean the game is too hard to get past if you don't reach 8-10 start over and level up further to get past the same point you were 8-10 previously? Because I'll cry. It's taken forever to get even past my first scoop because I kept dying. I suppose I should just be glad that there are "only" 53,000 zombies possible in this game...

Pretty much. If you die and you felt like you didn't really have enough resources to not die, you should probably do the "save character and restart" option rather than the "restart from last save" option.

My favorites: The baseball bat (especially when combined with the sporting goods book), the sledgehammer, and both the chainsaw and the mini-chainsaw. And note that books stack, which I loved (get the book on edged weapons and hardware and your chainsaws last 9 times as long!) If you've gotten to the bathroom in the exercise store, the chainsaws are very close by.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

What's this about books?

[edgehopper.livejournal.com]

Next playthrough, stop by one of the bookstores and look at some of the books they have. Bookstores are really important for you; some books will boost skills, other books will make certain classes of weapons last longer, some will teach you Japanese...

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Amazing!

Um, what are books? (Kidding!) I think I might vaguely remember this from my first failed, unsaved play-through. Don't you have to use up an item slot to keep them in your inventory? Or can I put them into that mysteriously empty "inventory" under my status somehow?

I supposed I'd know all this if I read the booklet, and yet I never do...

[edgehopper.livejournal.com]

Yup, they take up an item slot, but since they'll extend the lifetime of your weapons by three times, it's worth it, and even more so if you can get them to stack on a particularly good weapon. Knife + book lasts 1.5 times longer than 2 knives, and the proportions get better with the more knives you can store. Also, longer lasting knife means that you're less likely to find yourself in the middle of the park with no weapons having to survive a zombie horde with nothing but their own detached limbs to fend them off.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

If I ever wind up in a horde of zombies that I can't fend off, I will just shriek and die because I'll be ineffective and therefore freak out. I've been sorta avoiding that to the best of my ability. Because even though it's happening to my character, I will flip out.