Video Game Review: ‘Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop’ Should Be Better

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CHICAGO – Not every game fits every platform. Every once in a while, a game can make the jump from one next-gen console to another, but it’s just as often that a title misses the mark and crashes to the ground. Such is the case with Capcom’s anticipated “Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop,” a shooter with fun moments interspersed through awful gameplay and horrendous storytelling.

“Dead Rising” was one of the more popular games in the early days of the XBox 360 and the announcement that Capcom would be porting and redesigning it for the Wii in “Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop” made zombie shooter fans drool with brain-dead excitement. After all, Capcom had rocked our worlds before with one of the best Wii games of all time - the import of “Resident Evil 4”. They also earned high praise for upgrading “Okami” for the system.

Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop
Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop
Photo credit: Capcom

“Chop Till You Drop” is the first downgrade for Capcom, the first time that the company has actually released an inferior version of a game that really worked on another system and a generally frustrating experience. Sure, there’s still some joy to be found in aiming your shotgun at a zombie’s head and the concept of using the Wii-mote to grab items and swing or throw them to defend yourself produces some clever moments, but it’s an overall disappointment.

Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop
Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop
Photo credit: Capcom

“Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop” could accurately be described as “Dawn of the Dead: The Game”. You’re an investigative reporter who ends up helicopter-dropped on to the roof of the Willamette shopping mall to see why the city has been shut down. You stumble across a band of survivors in the mall and one makes the mistake of opening the front door, allowing the zombie invasion inside.

From here, “DR” is an episodic series of zombie encounters and rescue missions. For example, there’s someone in the toy store that is surrounded by zombies. Get them to safety. Many of the items in the mall can be picked up and used as weapons along with your typical fire arms.

“Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop” isn’t your typical survival horror like the “Resident Evil” games. It’s more of a zombie shoot-em-up, a free-for-all of brain-eating blasting. Mall courts are filled with creatures slowly ambling towards you and a ticker in the corner keeps track of your kill count. These are the early Romero undead, not the speedy zombies of movies like “28 Days Later”.

The idea of being in a mall full of items that you can swing at zombies clearly sounds like a fun one and there are moments of enjoyable gameplay, but it’s frustrating overall. The dialogue, graphics, and mission-based gameplay all feels like a relic of a system much older than the Wii.

Of course, Nintendo’s hit machine is not known for graphics, but this is ridiculous. There are elements of the design of “Chop” that simply look horrible. The visuals clearly needed to be scaled back for the Wii, but it feels like corners were cut. “Resident Evil 4” looked significantly better and that was an early Wii game. This looks more like N64-material than Wii.

Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop
Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop
Photo credit: Capcom

And the writing feels like a relic as well. Video game storytelling and even dialogue has excelled in just the last few years, but “Dead Rising” has not improved with age.

There’s more freedom in this version that allows you to wander the mall and try on new outfits, searching for the newest thing to pick up and throw at the undead, but the photographic element of the XBox 360 version is gone, kind of making your journey to Willamette a little less satisfying and making the fact that the developers didn’t bother to take the camera off his neck all the more confusing.

There are enough elements of the successful original intact to make for a diverting afternoon, but “Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop” feels like it was ported to the Wii with just that in mind. When they took “Resident Evil 4” and “Okami” to the world of Miis, they did so with the goal of delivering a unique experience that rivaled or even surpassed the original, not just an enjoyable rental.

“Chop Till You Drop” is a faded copy. It’s worth a rental when you’re done playing “Resident Evil 5,” but don’t be surprised if you drop it from your playing schedule quickly.

‘Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop’ was released and developed by Capcom. It is rated M (Mature). It is exclusively available for the Wii. It was released on February 24th, 2009.

HollywoodChicago.com content director Brian Tallerico

By BRIAN TALLERICO
Content Director
HollywoodChicago.com
brian@hollywoodchicago.com

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