Review: Dead Rising 3 - Apocalypse Edition (PC)

Dead Rising 3 initially scared me a little. When I first saw the reveal trailer, I was concerned the game had tossed away its campy stories and incredibly silly gameplay and weaponry in favour of being more “edgy."

Fast forward to the launch of the PC version. (It was released about a year ago for Xbox One.) I purchased it giving Capcom the benefit of the doubt, and despite some optimization issues, this is Dead Rising at its best.

The game admittedly tries to make the story a bit more serious, with the City of Los Perdidos being in the midst of a massive zombie outbreak.  It’s set ten years after the events of Dead Rising 2: Off the Record, and involves newcomer Nick Ramos and his friends Dick and Rhonda trying to escape the city before it's fire-bombed in five days. The story is passable, but it’s just missing the charm that the other titles had. You’ll have plenty of time to explore and experiment though, as the game opts to give you five days, versus the usual three. There’s also the option to play the game like past entries in hardcore mode for purists though, which gives you the traditional Dead Rising experience. I for one felt like the increased amount of time to explore was a refreshing change and opted to go at my own pace.

Around Los Perdidos, you’ll be able to rescue survivors that in turn join your posse, but you’ll also come across Stranded Survivors. These involve people being overwhelmed and held up in a certain spot in the city, be it on top of a truck, in a store, etc. and they need your help clearing the zombies away. They don’t give the huge boost to PP that rescuing the normal survivors do, but they’re still worth going out of your way for because you don’t have to escort them back to safety. They’ll simply thank you and go on their way, never to be seen again.

The survivors you do escort to a safehouse can be toggled active or inactive at any time in the safehouse. They have vastly improved AI over previous games and can even be directed to scavenge or passively attack zombies in the immediate vicinity. They can also be outfitted with the custom weapons you make, another new change that is quite welcome.

The combo weapons in this game are a highlight. There are 105 combos you can find in Los Perdidos, and they range from past favourites like the Defiler and Freedom Bear and new entries like the Sledge Saw.

A change with Dead Rising 3 is the ability to craft Super Combo weapons. They build off of a previous combo you made, but gain a new ability with each change you make. A new combo, the electro staff gains the ability to shoot fire and ice alongside electricity as you find the other blueprints for it around the city and is easily one of my new go-to weapons. These combos aren’t just limited to weapons though, as you gain the ability to combine vehicles as well, making some truly impressive death-machines to carve through the undead with. My favourite had to be the Rollerhawg, a steamroller motorcycle that spews flames.

Despite the high praise I have for this game, its lack of optimization is even more glaring on the PC than it was on the Xbox One. A large number of users are reporting they are having issues even running the game, but Capcom Vancouver is actively looking into solutions. I didn’t run into any issues during my time with the game, but I have a pretty strong system and still noticed some performance issues. I was getting anywhere from 40-60 frames per second (FPS), but I had to tweak a few settings to get this consistently, as trying to run it at max, 1080p, just wasn't giving me the FPS I hoped for. The game looks nice, but based on reports and other impressions I’ve come across, some users with fairly powerful hardware that eclipses what I use are getting comparable results which is just bizarre. It’s a long shot, but hopefully Capcom comes along with some form of optimization down the line. There are also significant draw in issues with textures and the like taking a bit of time to load in sometimes, but this issue plagued the Xbox One as well, which leads to the question if Capcom Vancouver could have taken a little extra time with this port.

These issues didn’t hamper my enjoyment of the game though, as the game gives you everything that people love about Dead Rising in spades. You’ll kill thousands of zombies, wear suggestive outfits that would have any sane person question if YOU were one of the series psychopaths, and construct some truly bizarre weapons that are a blast to use. Don’t let the game’s more “serious” exterior fool you, this is absolutely Dead Rising at its core.  The series was always known for massive hordes of zombies, and Dead Rising 3 takes it one step further with some impressive numbers of zombies on screen.

- Scott Sullivan

The Good:
- Plenty of Zombies to kill, with a wide variety of tools to help!
- Co-op play uses Steamworks
- Combo weapons and vehicles are absolutely insane

The Bad:
- Game is in dire need of some optimization
- Los Perdidos feels too big, easy to get lost.
- Doesn’t have that B-Movie feel