Dead Rising 4 was released right at the beginning of the month, but folks are still unhappy about it. While I enjoyed the game myself, Dead Rising‘s veteran fanbase bristles with discontent at what they see as a “dumbing down” of the series and the removal of its best elements.
Usually, a controversial release like this would be drowned in negative Metacritic user reviews at launch, but it took some time for the negativity to boil over this time. Here we are though, on Christmas Eve, and what better way to celebrate a season of goodwill than looking at some really angry comments on the Internet?
Yes, Dead Rising 4 has been METABOMBED… at least after a relatively long period of accumulation.
The Xbox One version got the lion’s share of the assault, with an average user score of 4.2. 91 positive reviews were drowned out by 141 negative ones, plus plenty of disappointed paragraphs from fans.
As always, I’ve dug into those paragraphs to bring you the funny, poignant, and interesting user reviews resulting from this expressive protest.
Hawkedis kicks us off, and as a fun game you may want to guess what exact word prompted me to share this one.
Bad camera, low resolution (resulting in fuzzy/soft picture quality), poor performance even on the Xbox One S. The game’s story is short and weak. They took out the timer instead of giving players the choice. The took out co-op. They took out the psychopath bosses and instead gave us some buffed up enemies in the map that aren’t memorable in any way. The whole game screams “casual” so they could get more sales. All of this is because western developers thought they could make a better game than the japanese developers. Thanks for nothing Microsoft and Capcom Vancouver! (0/10)
Here are some thoughts from jro3001.
Awful camera. Just awful. Seriously, at no point in testing did anyone say hey that fov might be a little too narrow? I played the game for 30 minutes and was ready to throw up. Tried turning off the chase camera in options, zero improvement, deleted the game. TERRIBLE qa the game is unplayable if you have any issues at all with motion sickness. Add an option for christs sake. (0/10)
Bigredbearded’s review interests me, because I have to wonder if this their first Dead Rising. Many of the complaints here actually seem fairly consistent with the series.
I couldn’t even play this for 20 minutes. The controls are atrocious, the camera is annoying, the graphics are decent but the overall gameplay is awful and there are multiple bugs even after an 11gb patch. (0/10)
A lot of people hated the multiplayer, which I find fascinating because I’ve never cared for it in any game like this. Apparently Dead Rising multiplayer was a treasured feature. PreyingOcelot provides an example.
Single player is meh at best, good fun but no real challenge. Multiplayer is the worst crap I’ve played in a long time. Why can’t you do the story mode in multiplayer??? WHYYY. I’ve been a huge fan of dead rising since the beginning but this is just awful, just awful……… (0/10)
Now it’s time for eldumloido!
Totally misses why the first two games were popular. No time limit, no co-op, no fun. Resolution is awful, graphics aren’t that great and sounds suck (they changed voice actor). It’s mildly fun for like 30 minutes if your drunk. (2/10)
It’s not just the negative reviews that can raise an eyebrow. Here’s a glowing recommendation from Fahedq8_90.
The game is good i love this gameing cap com put Why weak results And vice versa is the game beautiful But no one appreciates tired of others I see do not have imaging problems (10/10)
Some more praise, this time from dlwatso15. If you’re a longtime Dead Rising fan who didn’t care for DR4, you’ll adore this review.
Excellent addition to the series. Everything the fans were asking for and more. Sure, there are some fans that only play Dead Rising and other games because they love to complain, they have made some false reviews out of hipster hate. All in all, it’s a terrific game and a fantastic Dead Rising game. Have fun! (10/10)
Goddamn, these positive ones are great. The 10/10 reviews that crop up in response to a Metabombing are always full of delightful antagonism. Let’s see what partyintheback has to say!
Best Dead Rising yet. The timer is gone, but that allows for more exploration. The Christmas setting and level layout make this the most enjoyable Dead Rising to play. No more confusing level layout like Dead Rising 3. This is the most polished and well-designed game in the series. Don’t let the haters dissuade you. They’re just mad because it’s supposedly not “hardcore” enough anymore. Why should you be mad that there’s no longer a timer, crappy A.I. survivors to save, etc.? They trimmed the fat. As someone who still owns the blue Dead Rising pre-order shirt from Dead Rising in 2006, I can recommend Dead Rising 4 without any hesitation. (10/10)
A lot of the user reviews go into huge amounts of detail compared to the drive-by shitposts we normally see fill user review sections. Let’s look at this novella from Just_Some_Gamer.
Just a shame, that’s all. They could have easily had the traditional campaign, but offered a sandbox mode(story included) stripped of the timer for buffoonery. Instead of getting rid of all of it. Everyone could have been happy. While I can appreciate buffoonery, it’s not really meaningful game play. With no essential Dead Rising campaign, there’s no reason to buy the game in my opinion. Combat is akin to Saints Row, where you are vastly overpowered. You are free to kill thousands of zombies, if not more, in all imaginable manners. Health is regenerative and plentiful. You won’t likely die . Gone is the combo based food and drink system, another layer of game play. There is also no longer co-op or psychopath bosses. I’m not entirely sure what the point of the game is. There are plenty of generic zombie games out there already – I guess this one will go on to join those. Dead Rising was a unique game, it’s success was determined by it’s concept. That’s gone. Looks nice though, and there are lots of zombies to kill. Fans of the franchise – stay away. For the time being, you’ll need to accept that the series is just Dead. This rating is based on the standard of the previous titles, and their subsequent depth and value – since all of that has been gutted, and replaced with nothing this is the score. With a user review, I can help determine an aggregate. If the developers had simply put in the effort, we wouldn’t have less of a game. I can’t recommend it. Production values are ace. That’s a given. Perhaps it is your cup of tea. (1/10)
Another essay, this time from Trebor_UK.
Dead Rising used to be my favourite zombie franchise of all time. Not anymore. Capcom are lying in every aspect when it comes to this game. They said they wanted to bring the series back to it’s roots, but if anything it is the polar opposite. They have oversimplified the game with the following changes; adding regen health, adding three separate inventories, so there’s no need to resource manage anymore, removing the timer (The sense of urgency is gone) oh, and they added it back in a DLC, a checkpoint save system (no more awkward saving in toilets, etc. To be fair I like this change), you can no longer throw stuff, why? Removing multiple endings, and hiding the real ending behind DLC. Really Capcom? Removing the kill counter (now it’s a hit counter), removing the psychopath bosses (now they are just random survivors who go down in a few hits), and finally, they slapped every fan in the face with the return of Frank West; Frank is totally different, and not in a good way. Overall, gameplay wise this game is terrible and is far too easy. However, it has a nice Christmas setting that is great, and they bought Frank’s camera back, but that alone cannot redeem this train wreck of a game. Sorry Capcom, you’ve just lost a fan. (1/10)
There’s some gold in here, but Xertaron loves talking almost as much as they hate line breaks.
Seriously Capcom what the hell. Seeing how people give 10 to this game just makes me want to give this one a 0. But i won’t. Game isn’t complete garbage but compared to previous Dead Rising games it’s just a shadow of it’s former self. If you never played any Dead Rising game then it might grant you some fun moments. But for me it’s complete waste of time for various reasons: -No time limit in any form. I know lots of people didn’t like this part but for me it made first 2 games so intense if you wanted to go for perfect run (i did many times) and removing it completely just makes game generic. It was challenging and fun. -No psychopaths. Instead there are maniacs. Which are very poor replacements. They got no backstory, no motivations, no character or any personal depth. They are just slightly (and i repeat – slightly) stronger versions of regular enemies (often with minions). They die quicker from any weapon than bosses in DR1 from mini-chainsaw. They are simply pushovers. -No different endings to the game. Like why ? Game loses any replayability because of that. There is one ending and let me tell you – it sucks. But to be honest it’s perfect analogy of the series. Ending is just perfect considering quality of this game. -No co-op campaign. I don’t even know what to say about that. It was huge addition to 2nd game and it kept me playing after i beat the game on my own. Now it’s gone. But considering game is not exciting at all in single player i doubt co-op would help much here. -Completely gutted escort missions. Another thing that not everyone liked. I did though especially because survivors were different (sometimes they couldn’t walk by themselves, they needed specific item etc.). Here you only kill zombies around survivor (which is annoying as hell because zombies keep coming their way and they won’t move their sorry asses untill you kill every single zombie in the vicinity and they may get killed before that happens) and he just runs to the shelter. It’s tedious and it feels more like collectible or some fetch quest. -Changing Frank West. Now i know people change in time. But Frank changed from DR1 to Case West/Off The Record quite a bit but not to the point you can call him someone else. Frank West in DR4 is not Frank West. He’s trying to be funny all the time but really it worked much better in OTR. Here i was embarrassed to hear most of his lines. He also looks MUCH younger than in DR2 timeline (which was 11 years earlier). I just can’t take him seriously. They made Frank into someone else. It’s just not the same person. Period. -Very generic story objectives. It’s just take photos of few things in the room, kill all enemies in the area or go to certain location. That’s it. It never varies anything and gets dull really quickly. -Difficulty set for microbes eating organic remains from the walls. Dying in this game is impossible. It’s easy as hell mode entire game that gives no challenge and satisfaction from beating any part of the game. Even Dead Rising got to this point which saddens me. -Smaller things. Like gutted inventory management, inability to throw anything you want besides throwable weapons, boring side characters, redundant and bad designed open world. If it wasn’t Dead Rising i would give this 6 maybe 7 out of 10. But from Dead Rising series (like every series) i have specific expectations of what i can find in those games. Dead Rising 4 throws them all away and tries to be something it doesn’t have to be. It lost it’s identity and besides combo weapons there is nothing left from Dead Rising franchise. And if Capcom thinks they can sell me dlc that adds time limit and real ending they are tremendously mistaken. This story mode won’t fit for “72 hour mode” because it wasn’t created with that in mind. It just won’t work. Thanks Capcom for ruining yet another of my favourite franchises. (3/10)
I think iHUGcreeperz has some spoilers in here? Maybe. I didn’t read it all, I just figured there’d be some gold in this complete mess.
I was so excited for this game…once more i got the game pre order for free because my friend bought it for me. Dead rising 1 is by far, my most favorite game of all time. and thats no joke. so being able to play as frank again back at the mall seemed amazing, but no. we got screwed pretty hard. Now im not going to go through every nit picky problem with the game like control, or franks new voice actor (which does a good job i just like the old one better) instead i would rather point out one of the things that frustrate me the most that i haven’t seen anybody talk about yet (props to you if you have talked about this issue before. DR BARNABY: this man is pretty much the single reason why the zombies were created. And why? because BELIEVE IT OR NOT, Dr. Barnaby is actually a good person…The zombies were an accident created in the attempted to, as Barnaby says (in the first game) “We were trying to mass produce cattle…do you have any idea, how much meat…Americans consume, in a single day? That research was absolutely necessary!” Dr Barnaby is taking a drastic extreme measure to help his country (and while yes kills many people) does it for the good of the people, and not to make a profit…and now dead rising 4…Dr Barnaby has been turned into a money loving, scheming power loving villain. The new story is that all of the original plot was just a complete lie. Now Dr Barnaby is looking for “the truth to immortality” So they can mass produce is and sell it to rich people…REALLY…and you know, what if the original plot is still true…then why would Barnaby want to keep people alive forever to overpopulate the country further to have even more food shortages. Its just stupid, and what really drives home the hurt for his character further are his dying words…”I…haven’t…done..anything…wrong…” Those were the words he chose to leave with…and nope he has been a villain this whole time…(shakes head) Now thats just my feelings for one character. How about something gameplay wise. Another two things that i dont see anybody mention are throwing weapons. Is it just me? or are they garbage? Honesty my main concern with them is the fact that they are set to a permanent ark that is stupidly difficult to hit anything with. Why not just right in front of you? Like honesty the throwing items in this game feel like the rocks in Friday the 13th or the textbook in bill and ted for the nes. I know i sound like AVGN now but i just cant believe that they would bring an issue from the old nes days (amazing system btw) its just weird to me tho. Another thing for gameplay is, did anybody else notice that sneaking is broken? And im not talking about sight detection, that seemed to work fine. It was the audio detection. Example: I was on the mission were you have to go shoot up the farm to save somebody right. Did you know you can walk through the main house with a LMG while sneaking, shoot somebody in the face and nobody else in the house will hear it??? Lol ok. Also quick question, what happened to the timer? Like i understand that some people had a problem with it because they felt that they couldn’t explore anything. But you do realize the whole point of the original games was you fail the main story and click “continue playing” go ahead and level up a little and try the main story again (and not to be rude but you could also get good, because lets be honest the only hard dead rising game is the first one, partly why its my favorite) but im just saying. The timer added a sense of urgency, which intern, added a cool sense of progression. Going from timer to no timer, i just didnt feel like i was accomplishing anything. Now this review has gone on long enough so im just going to make a closing statement now. One of the most infuriating things about the build up for this game, is the fact that the devs continuously mention that they were wanting to go back to their roots…(oh you mean the first game?) what a load of crap. And so my closing for this, is a list of missing content: The timer, Zombie rage at night, Queens, escorting survivors, psychopaths (good ones), Normal zombies being an issue, Also any sense of challenge, Any callbacks to the original, And any love for original characters AND DONT EVEN GET ME STARTED ON THAT ENDING!!! (triggered) (1/10)
Yeah… that’ll do, I think.
