For those who read each and every post on Dtoid, you'll know that someone's mother posted a tip about Dead Rising Wii over the weekend. Secret's out; that was my mom. Isn't she awesome? Besides being funny as fuck, she also has a nice new laptop, where as I have a virus-riddled PC from 2003. That's why she sent in that tip, as opposed to me just posting the info.

What info am I talking about? Why, it's the info that single-handedly renewed my interest in Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop; info that comes in the form of some choose-your-own-adventure style flash videos on Capcom Japan's Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop website. Here's the original post for those who are interested.

Now, if you read Conrad's hands on impressions of Chop Till You Drop, chances are that you too had lost hope in the game. I hate to say it, because I love me some Conrad, but I don't think he gave the game a fair shake. He doesn't mention that the the game has no more jump button, and that in order to do many of the game's melee attacks, you have to first shoot a zombie in a place that will stun him (the head or the knees), then run up and attack them while they're stunned. Basically, he doesn't mention that (from what I can tell), Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop isn't just using Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition's camera and control schemes, it's using all of its combat particulars as well.

This, my friends, is a big deal.

If Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop ends up playing exactly like RE4:Wii, then it wont matter if there are only 20 or so zombies on screen at the most. With the right enemy AI, the game could still be amazing.

In RE4:Wii, if you get anywhere near a group of enemies, they will kick your ass...hard. Each and every enemy in RE4 can be scary, especially in groups of five or more. They surround you, attack you from all sides, suddenly rush at you, sneak up behind you; in short, you have to stay on your toes around these guys at all times. No matter what, you'll want to keep those bastards away from you, and where you can see them. In that way, RE4 is like a huge game of tag, where everyone is "it" but you, and getting tagged means getting killed.

This is the exact opposite of how combat works in Dead Rising 360. The closer you get to the zombies, the more likely you are to kill them. The zombies are basically defenseless, with the right weapon you can kill 20 of them in a tight space with absolutely no risk of getting hurt (any one who's played the game for more than a few hours knows what I'm talking about). The only way the developers could make the game exciting is to fill the screen with hundreds of zombies, in an attempt it give the illusion of a threat. It's a cheap trick, a trick that works at making a game that's packed violent good times, but it doesn't do much to create any sense of danger for the player.

In my entire play through of Dead Rising 360, I think I was only killed by zombies twice. Every other death came from a boss, or from not doing a mission fast enough. One could say that zombies aren't even really "enemies" in the game, they're really just obstacles. Sure, they are fun obstacles to kill, but mere obstacles can't really be scary, not when you can just run on top of them, or walk up up to them and beat it to death with your bare hands without any fear of retaliation.

Speaking of which, I hope that they take the ability to punch zombies out of the game for Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop. Being able to just walk up to a zombie and punch them, or just punch them away from you if they get too close, would make the "tag" style gameplay of RE4 impossible to implement.

That's going to sound like sacrilege to those who prefer Dead Rising to RE4, but hell, people like that already have Dead Rising on the 360 to play, right? Why would they want Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop to play exactly like a game they already have? Wouldn't it be better to have both Dead Rising 360, and another version of Dead Rising that plays totally differently? If Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop goes well, multi-console owners will have Dead Rising 360 to play when they want a zombie "beat them up", and Dead Rising Wii for when the want a zombies "get the zombies these hell away from me...up". It'll be like having two versions of the same song, one with a full band, and the other purely acoustic.

Hmm, that's not bad a bad analogy. Gotta remember to use that in the Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop review (as long as the game doesn't suck, that is.)