I just finished Dead Rising tonight. Actually, I finished the story about two weeks ago, but I got the final achievement tonight. After I wrapped the playthrough and finally took one of the best zombie games I've ever played out of my 360, I checked up on what Kotaku had posted today and found this little gem: Dead Rising could soon be in hot water over the game's similarity to George Romero's Dawn of the Dead, essential viewing for any zombie fan. It seems the copyright holders are finally deciding that they don't like that Capcom copied their "zombies in a mall premise" and are likely getting ready to file a lawsuit.

I can not overstate how retarded any potential lawsuit would be. It's not like Capcom was ever claiming this game was related to Romero's classic, and the game even bears a disclaimer stating it's not related to it in any form. Capcom never actively marketed it as a worthy successor to the movie, so claiming that it's a knockoff made just for a quick buck would be irresponsible.

That means the only thing that the MKR Group can stand on is that both the game and the movie have the same premise of zombies in a mall, with survivors hanging out in the security room. Sure, it's undeniable that the setting is exactly the same. But as anyone who has played the game will agree, the tone of the game is completely different than the movie. In Dawn of the Dead, the few survivors act with extreme caution in anything they do and try to avoid conflict as much as possible. Dead Rising, in contrast, allows the player to take great pleasure in killing as many zombies as they can with whatever weapons they can find, running about with reckless abandon as you take no permanent penalty for having a zombie chew on your shoulder. Futhermore, while Dawn of the Dead is a social commentary on consumerism in America, Dead Rising's plot is more concerned with an international view of America as an resource-consuming entity, mixed with ridicule for common American stereotypes. (The game's psychopaths, or bosses, include a goth pyromaniac, a corrupt cop, a shell-shocked Vietnam veteran, a redneck, and a trio of snipers who brag about their rights granted by the Second Amendment.)

Needless to say, the MKR Group doesn't have a leg to stand on. There's no way to copyright a premise or setting. If there were, then we'd (thankfully) have a lot fewer WWII games and movies.