Dead Rising: Triple Pack Review – The Dead Keep Rising

For those of you who’ve played the original Dead Rising series from its launch nearly 10 years ago and are interested in this triple pack released by Capcom, you may end up with a few old memories of your experience with the game, and possibly some nostalgia. But that’s about it. Dead Rising Triple Pack is the combination of Dead Rising, Dead Rising 2, and Dead Rising 2: Off the Record, with little more than a slight polish and upscale, you won’t be seeing anything new in this edition. Sure, it has all the DLC released for those games during their initial launches, but without anything else to add to the mix, you’ll likely be at the store ready to reserve the upcoming sequel Dead Rising 4.

For those new to the series or missed out on these games, Dead Rising is a survival horror series with a ton of comedy thrown right into the mix of flesh eating dead zombies. You play as Frank West, a journalist always trying to get the latest and big scoop. Once a legion of killer zombies breaks out, it becomes West’s job to help the survivors and to use his journalistic abilities to find out just how this all happened.

"Dead Rising has always been about the unconventional way of targeting and eliminating zombies in a fun, hilarious fashion."

Dead Rising 2 stars the character Chuck Greene. Greene is on a hunt for money to save his daughter. He needs money to make Zombrex which is a drug that has to be taken every 24 hours to be a preventative for turning all zombie-like. So in other words: his daughter is going to become a zombie if he doesn’t procure enough Zombrex.

Dead Rising 2: Off The Record (which was a stand alone DLC) oddly enough goes back to Frank West’s shoes. The story is almost identical to Dead Rising 2, in this version you will be on a time limit to finish each mission which will stress you out if you aren’t prepared for what comes next. There’s also a sandbox mode in this version that lets you go about at your own will.

The Dead Rising Triple Pack doesn’t actually “pack” much more than the first three games. What the game does come with is all of the DLC that was available for each of the original games, and each one of them plays in 1080p and 60 frames per second. More frames per second means the game runs a lot smoother than it did from last generation. With a whole lot of zombies on screen at the same time, there is less lag which makes it a lot more intense.There’s no reason to say this is a bad deal, however, if you still have an Xbox 360, you can get all of these games for that system for cheaper than this triple pack.

"My biggest questions while playing through these games is were: Why weren’t the graphics upgrades from 10 years ago, and why did they also bring forward some rather annoying bugs, as well?"

Dead Rising has always been about the unconventional way of targeting and eliminating zombies in a fun, hilarious fashion. Taking a toaster and bashing it across a zombie’s head, or a funny costume to help show off your “professionalism” in being a zombie killer are some of the unique ways this series changed this genre up on its head. With a ton of laughs, memorable characters, and so much stuff to kill with and uncover along the way, you can literally spend dozens of hours, just on the first game alone, having a blast while mowing down zombies left and right.

My biggest questions while playing through these games were: Why weren’t the graphics upgraded from 10 years ago, and why did they also bring forward some rather annoying bugs, as well? It feels like this game is a cash grab in the sense that it was slapped onto a disc, or download file, and handed out to gamers. AI in the game still gets caught up from time to time. Rescuing survivors will force you to keep your eyes locked onto them as they’ll often run into things (like zombies!).

With the mostly unchanged game, you’ll still be receiving the hilarious voice cast that really amps up the effects of how the story is told, as well as a great musical score that can really tell when you are in the midst of a hilarious apocalypse and when you’re just running around being goofy.

With that being said, if you are new and need more zombies to fill your flesh eating desires, by all means, get this game. If you’ve already enjoyed the games in the past and are looking for something new, I’d reserve a copy of Dead Rising 4 for that.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 4.