Genre: Survival Horror
Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Capcom

Like all 360 games, the "shader on nearly every surface" rule applies to Dead Rising, enhancing the wonderful texture resolution and high detail player models. Every last bit of animation in this title is also motion-captured and used to great effect, especially during the frequent, well directed cut-scenes. The downside? A mediocre lighting model, which leaves the game looking too "full-bright" and not as rich as the better looking 360 games.

Dead Rising is all about playing up its unique ambience, which melds B-rated zombie movie, front-page news story reporting, and interpersonal drama. The audio carries more than its own weight in helping to create this personality, with a lively selection of drama music, some nice mall elevator tunes, and some absolutely first-rate voice acting, which really brings all of the characters to life.

Keiji Inafune, Capcom's legendary game designer, was aiming for a "time-based system" for Dead Rising, where key story events happen whether you're at the right place or not. And if the tree falls in the forest and you are not there hear it, then you are derailed from the main story. And as you can have only one save game, at that point you would need to start over if your goal is to beat the main story.

Despite the odd combination of one save only and the event-based gameplay, Dead Rising is also a sandbox title with loads of "Achievements" to be had and, despite taking place entirely inside a shopping mall, provides plenty of things to do. Additionally, your player gains experience and levels up, and each time you start the game anew you retain your experience and stats, Metal Slug-style. And given the existence of several endings, the many "Achievements", and the excellent story telling, you will probably experience Dead Rising's 7-hour play through length at least a few times.