Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop
The Attack of Killer Zombie Poodles!
I meant to do a short review of Dead Rising for the Wii, but in order to write anything even remotely objective, I would be have to be able to forget that I played the Xbox 360 original. This, however, has proven to be an impossible mission, since I kept comparing the two versions while playing, continuously cursing this remake.
Basically, I’ll repeat what almost everyone who reviewed Chop Till You Drop said before me – it works if you haven’t played the original, a number of problems and issues from the original have been fixed, but a lot of things were cut that weren’t supposed to be. Here are just some of my pet peeves.
Firstly, the Resident Evil 4 Wii engine used in the remake and the number of buttons on the Wiimote have imposed certain limitations, and because of that, there is no ‘jump’ button. In those rare instances when Frank needs to make a jump for it, the “A” button is used. In the original version, you had the option of wandering around the mall, getting away from the zombies by jumping into the fountains and pools, you were able to smash and enter through the shop windows or find hidden weapons on the awnings over the shop entrances. You can forget about this in the Wii version – shop windows are unbreakable, you can’t jump into the fountains or the grass patches, and just to make things a bit worse, some new barriers were inexplicably added, forcing you to walk a set path. Instead of a sandbox game, we’re getting a very linear experience.
Secondly, shopping around the mall is an important element for a game set in, well, a mall. In the Xbox version, Frank had a lot of clothing, footwear and accessories at his disposal, and although it was not crucial for game-play, it was a nice time-waster when you got tired of bludgeoning the undead. Two novelty items were announced for the Wii version (Bionic Commando kit and a bikini), but none of the press releases mentioned that most of other clothing, footwear and accessories will be cut.
To make the game wiieasy, the developers gave us more lawnmowers and bikes which enable safer passage outside, but they took away the car which was useful in the underground tunnels. And the whole underground tunnel bit (which had an insane number of zombies in the original) was magically transformed into a mini-game with a bunch of zombies who just stand around, do nothing to attack you and just wait for you to kill them off. And you also have to pay Otis to play the mini-game.
The worst idea, however, was taking away Frank’s ability to take photos. Basically, you have a photojournalist who carries his camera everywhere with him, even in states of utter undress, but the camera remains unused. The pre-rendered cut-scenes are another thing – they were pre-rendered in the Xbox 360 engine so you can easily see what the game was supposed to look like before it was ‘adapted’ for the Wii.
In Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop, there is less of everything, with the exception of zombie parrots, zombie poodles and explosive gas tanks, which are, for some reason, kept right in the middle of the mall. You need think carefully whether you consider that a sufficient trade-off.
Zombi-pudlice napadaju!
Namjera mi je bila napisati jednu kratku recenziju Dead Risinga za Wii, ali da bi ta recenzija bila iole objektivna, morao bih potpuno zaboraviti original za Xbox 360. To se pokazalo nemogućom misijom, jer sam cijelo vrijeme igranja Wii varijante uspoređivao i, iskreno, u sebi pljuvao ovu lošu, lošu preradu.
U principu, mogu vam reći ono što su rekli gotovo svi recenzenti igre – Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop funkcionira ako niste naviknuti na bolje, iz nje su izbacili dosta stvari koje su se spočitavale originalu, ali nestalo je i puno stvari koje nije trebalo dirati. Navest ću, po meni, najveće nedostatke.
Prvo, Resident Evil 4 Wii engine i smanjen broj tipaka na kontroleru uvjetovali su izostanak tipke za skakanje. Kada nešto već morate preskočiti, to se radi “A” tipkom, ali tih situacija ima puno manje. U originalnoj verziji mogli ste lutati kamo god ste htjeli, bježati od zombija u fontane, razbijati i ulaziti kroz izloge ili pronalaziti skriveno oružje na tendama iznad ulaza u prodavaonice. To ovdje možete zaboraviti, jer osim što su izlozi neprobojni i ne možete hodati fontanama ili zelenilom, postavljene su još i neke umjetne arhitektonske barijere i prisiljeni ste hodati putem koji vam je igra zadala, što sandbox original pretvara u jedno linearno iskustvo.
Drugo, važan element originalne igre bio je element kupovine, pa je Frank imao na izbor puno odjeće, obuće i (po)modnih detalja, s kojima ste se mogli zezati kad god ste se htjeli odmoriti od umlaćivanja zombija. Za Wii verziju najavili su dva nova odjevna predmeta (između ostalog i bikini), ali nisu u tim najavama spomenuli kako su ostatak odjeće, obuće i detalja osiromašili na tek mizeran dio stare ponude.
Kako bi olakšali igru, ponudili su puno više kosilica i bicikala za siguran prolaz vanjskim dijelom, ali je nestala mogućnost vožnje automobila kroz podzemne tunele. Taj dio s podzemnim tunelima (koji je u originalu imao sulud broj zombija) postao je mini-igrica sa šačicom živih mrtvaca koji stoje na mjestu, ne napadaju i samo čekaju da ih pokosite ili dokrajčite oružjem koje ste odabrali. Ahda, usput morate i platiti Otisu za to zadovoljstvo.
Vrhunac loših odluka u izradi ove varijante bilo je oduzimanje mogućnosti fotografiranja. Frank je sada foto-reporter koji svoj fotić nosi oko vrata u svim bizarnim i obnaženim situacijama, ali fotografirati ne možete. Cutscene su priča za sebe, jer su preuzete s Xbox varijante igre, pa možete zorno vidjeti kako bi igra trebala izgledati i uspoređivati to s onime što Wii može ispljunuti.
Igra je, dakle, znatno osiromašena i jedino čega ima više su zombi-papagaji, zombi-pudlice i eksplozivni plinski spremnici koji se iz neobjašnjivih razloga drže usred trgovačkog centra. Jesu li to dovoljne zamjene, odlučite sami.
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