Part II
~ Dead Rising 3 ~
I was so pumped to finally play this game.
First reaction: Holy s***! You start out in front of a howling and groaning horde of zombies (same confined demo stage we've all seen) which is a sight to behold as they approach you like one hell of an ugly wave.
This is a next-gen game no doubt. Seeing so many zombies at once automatically makes you prepare for that unavoidable framerate stutter... that it doesn't happen no matter the chaos you cause is a really irritating feeling at first, but needless to say, it's a great one. In a very odd way and despite Ryse being the obvious graphics champ on the surface, DR3 more often reminded me of the fact that this is running on brand new hardware. There's just so much going on at once: Lots and lots of zombies (way more detailed), blood and body parts flying around (blood/bodies don't disappear after a small amount of time), particle effects and other effects, objects moving around (great physics engine) - and again, all of that with a stable framerate. This is an impressive game technically and not given enough credit for what it's achieving.
I was positively surprised regarding the sound department too: Zombies really sound menacing this time, music (yeah there's music this time!) adjusts to the gameplay (dramatic score kicking in in the heat of the action) and your character comments on the situation (panic when facing horde, relief when safe again).
Probably the in-game night time added to the impression but all in all DR3 felt grittier and more threatening. While a lot of old and "funny" elements (costumes,...) return (I stumbled into a ladies' wear shop and put on that fine skirt on for that epic looks) the over the top goofiness is somewhat reduced. It's not that you can't choose to kid around it's that you have to make that decision otherwise the game won't stimulate such a behavior as much as it's predecessors.
DR3 on the other hand really gets your adrenalin flowing and into a blood frenzy. This is a gory game, no wonder it has been banned in Germany. Anatomically correct dismemberment, bodies and limbs lying around, sprays of blood (effects on the character, on the environment), brutal special moves (electro-hammer + zombie = torso gone) and hundreds of ways to pursue your bloody business. I threw a stick of dynamite into a horde of zombies just to see it explode in a cloud of blood.
X is your typical melee attack directed at one zombie while Y is your roundhouse-kick for crowd control. Traversing through the horde felt easier than in the previous games probably because the number of zombies is so much higher. From time to time you're dragged to the ground and have to press a button quickly to escape. LB is sprint, RB opens up the item menu. LT (hold) puts you in first person mode, RT is for shooting. You can activate a powerful special attack from time to time. No workbench anymore - you can create items anywhere which on the one hand doesn't afford as much strategic planning but doesn't interrupt the flow of play as much on the other hand.
From my time with the game I think that DR3 will be appealing to lots of people who couldn't get into the former games. For oldtime-fans the changes could be a controversial issue, a higher difficulty or the nightmare-mode could at least solve the problem for those who miss the harsh challenge. All I can say is that I played (and loved) all the DR games and after a little adjustment I had a blast with DR3.
DR3 is less japanese, bigger, badder and more akin to a AAA blockbuster-game and thus has a broader appeal. Day one for me.
wird das geil!
das liest sich absolut hervorragend 
