4) Dead Rising 4
Christmas time means mince pies, presents and Father Christmas. Apparently, it also means spilling the blood and guts of a hundred thousand zombies in Dead Rising 4’s mad, whimsical and satirical open world outing, which presents a polished package that both hits and misses.
Frank West returns to the series as the witty and downright hilarious protagonist of Dead Rising’s latest instalment, bringing us plenty of comical lines that will have you giggling through the game’s dense open world. That being said, the narrative that comprises the main story arc is sometimes a little too heavy handed for Dead Rising’s goofy premise.
Gameplay, on the whole, is a mixed bag, too. It isn’t bad by any stretch of the imagination, but the game has diluted its difficulty in favor of giving the players more freedom. Sure, it’s super fun reigning total chaos in a huge variety of gruesome and hilarious ways, but the absence of the countdown timer has reset the difficulty and changed the sense of urgency that was always such a mainstay of the series. The increased duration of weapons and vehicles, too, has altered the emphasis of gameplay, and not necessarily for the best.
Dead Rising’s satirical juxtaposition of violence and comedy has produced another decent game. There’s certainly some issues with the lack of challenge, and the series formula is perhaps starting to ware a little thin, but this over the top zombie shooter still does more than enough good to feature on our list.