Why bringing Dead Rising to the Wii was a mistake
From day one, we’ve been baffled as to why Capcom thought it a good idea to bring Dead Rising over to the Wii. Capcom made a fantastic decision when they ported GameCube classic Resident Evil 4 to the Wii - the game was a dream to control, it looked better than it ever did thanks to the inclusion of Progressive Scan and a 16:9 aspect ratio, and best of all, the man hours required to bring the game over to Wii were minimal, and thus Capcom could offer an absolutely stellar piece of software to gamers at a fantastic price.
Dead Rising was truly overwhelming in terms of numbers
However, the situation is somewhat different with Dead Rising; the game is all about sheer numbers, scale and scope, and it’s something we feel seems completely and utterly out of place on Nintendo’s rather underpowered console. The original mall-crawl on the Xbox 360 saw you surviving wave after wave of infected, hungry zombies, and as screenshots have proven, Dead Rising: Chop ‘Til You Drop just doesn’t offer the same experience in term of numbers, or in the sense of being overwhelmed.
Thus far, screenshots have shown us desolate malls, with almost no sense of activity whatsoever. In the majority of screenshots, the zombies on display can be counted on your very fingers, and we were lucky to see the head count rise over the lofty heights of 15. All-in-all, it simply fails to capture the essence of what made Dead Rising so god damned fun on the 360; 100s upon 100s of zombies, like lambs to the slaughter.
We held out hope for the game, after all this was Capcom, the developer who’d brought gaming gold to the Wii, not only with fantastic updates of classics such as Resident Evil 4 Wii Edition and Okami, but also fresh, new IPs with sleeper hit status, such as Zack & Wiki: The Quest for Barbaros’ Treasure. There’s more; one only has to look to the near future to see Capcom’s stellar line-up for the Wii- Monster Hunter G, Monster Hunter 3 and Tatsunoko vs. Capcom to name but three. After all, how could such a fantastically talented and productive company like Capcom ruin one of their well established IPs?
The answer? Like this…
Not only does that look horrible, but just by watching it being played out, you can tell that the game - at least, this section of it - is going to play horribly too. The floaty controls, the woeful colission detection, and the downright shameful AI have left an extremely foul taste in our mouths. It’s made worse when you compare the video to the Maintenance Tunnel section of the 360 version; of course the 360 version is going to have more zombies, of course it’s going to have better AI and more realistic physics, but that doesn’t mean that the Wii version should look like, well, shovelware.
So we’ve established that the driving aspect of the game looks well and truly godawful, so how about the game’s main appeal - the combat? How does that fare? Well, not too cushty it would seem. When Capcom brought the game over to the Wii, they actually built it using the Resident Evil engine. While the engine and its associated movement and aiming work well in a game like Resident Evil 4, where the emphasis is on tension, and where the zombies are somewhat slower, it doesn’t make a great match when it’s applied to a game like Dead Rising. The end result looks to be clunky, and painstakingly awkward, almost to the point where it’s painful to watch.
Chop 'Til You Drop, however, fails to capture the essence of the original
We’re disappointed to see Capcom take such a halfhearted approach to the game, but still remain cautiously optimistic about its future. However, with its awkward controls, shockingly poor AI and lesser emphasis on environmental combat, as it stands, Dead Rising Chop ‘Til You Drop remains a horrific blemish on the otherwise fantastic Capcom Wii lineup for 2009, and a mistake we think we’ll want to forget about pretty quickly.
Our suggestion? Just wait for Dead Rising 2.
/Rory’s just written his first article for Hide and Geek.
Tags: Capcom, Chop 'Til You Drop, Dead Rising, Nintendo, Wii
February 12th, 2009 at 11:18 pm
[...] Article here // Cache-busting and pageid values var random = Math.round(Math.random() * 100000000); if (!pageNum) var pageNum = Math.round(Math.random() * 100000000); document.write(”); document.write(”); [...]
February 12th, 2009 at 11:30 pm
[...] Article here No comments for this entry yet… [...]
February 12th, 2009 at 11:52 pm
[...] Article here [...]