Gamescom 2013: Dead Rising 3 Hands-On

Dead Rising is amaaaaazing. I’ve just played the gamescom demo and, despite the terribly dull trailers of E3, this is very much in keeping with the previous games.

There’s still a time limit to figure out what’s going on but it’s significantly longer than the previous games. Hardcore players can go for the Nightmare mode, but to be honest, I just want to talk about the weapons.

I’m sorry, Capcom, for saying your weapons were boring. (You should have shown us all these other ones before

Where the trailers focus very much on the sledgesaw, there are plenty of other weapons to build. My old standby, the laser sword (definitely not a light saber, nuh-uh) is still around. If you buy the right perks however, you won’t need to memorise the locations for gems and a torch. Instead, unlock the electrical items perk and you can make the laser sword with any combination of gems and electronics.

Components and blueprints are littered about everywhere. Grab some dynamite and a wheelchair to make the electric chair that zaps any zombie who tumbles into it. Or combine dynamite with a bit of zombie (I think) to make DynaMeat. Toss that in to a horde, watch them scrabble for tasty flesh and get flattened by the ensuing explosion.

You’ll find lots of references to old Capcom games as well. Picking up a pair of boxing gloves and a motor engine and you’ve got yourself a Dragon Punch. Use the alternative attack and surely you can Shoryuken yourself out of the hordes. (Hahaha, I am funny).

But the real focus is on the vehicles. Slam any two active vehicles against each other and you can combine them in to a new, stronger class of vehicle. Nick is a mechanic, so he’ll quite happily slice and dice a motorbike and a steamroller together to make a… Well, I don’t know what it’s called but you can steamroll zombies at speed and it shoots flames out the front. Skip to the end of this trailer to see it in action.

Splice a sports car and aroma, car together for the Junk Car, a much faster vehicle the sprays acid out the front. Be wary with the Junk vehicles though. They come with a self-destruct button so don’t bail out unless you’re sure you don’t need it any more.

The lady in this trailer is one of the “illegals”. Following on from Chuck’s story in Dead Rising 2, there are plenty of people, like his daughter, who are living with the disease. They get Zombrex implants to keep them human and must be registered and tracked by the government. Strangely enough, not everyone wants to be monitored 24/7.

Of course, the silly clothes are back too. Slam cones on zombie heads. Wear dresses and brandish a coat hangar through the serious cutscenes and swap into a shark costume to relax.

It’s gonna be great.