Following the latest media backlash bemoaning the lack of zombies, photography, and “Xbox 360 like” features in Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop, Capcom spoke up to defend the upcoming horror title. In Gamedaily’s most recent “My Turn,” a bi-weekly column that gives industry professionals a soapbox, Product Marketing Manager Colin Ferris tries to show critics why they are misguided to judge the new Dead Rising so quickly.
Let’s get this out of the way: Will DR:CTYD look as beautiful on the Wii as Dead Rising did on the Xbox 360? No. Will it have the same number of zombies on screen at the same time? No. Does that mean we should deny Wii gamers the joy that 360 owners had in surviving three days in a zombie-infested mall? The answer is, obviously, no.
Ferris makes a strong argument for multi-platform gaming as a means of spreading the fun around to everybody, but misses the point when it comes to what’s upsetting the fan base.
Critics and some gamers are in the lucky minority, in that they have all three systems, or at least two, so that they can experience every game regardless of system. However, especially in these troubled economic times, many gamers have only one system they can afford… DR:CTYD will be much different than the 360 version, but should we allow a small group of critics dictate how the game should be experienced by everyone else? Should Capcom deny the Dead Rising game experience to a Wii owner because they do not have a 360? When Capcom creates a good game, shouldn’t we try to let as many gamers experience the game as possible? This question is not talking about the quality of the game made, just whether or not the game SHOULD be made.
emphasis added
It may be a stretch to interpret Ferris’ words as an argument for quantity over quality, but a hands on experience with the Dead Rising demo certainly makes them hard to swallow. Ferris mentions gamers who can only afford one system – Wii owners who long for the Dead Rising experience, but don’t have the console necessary to play the original. I approached the Dead Rising Demo at Nintendo’s fall press event as a member of that group. After shrugging off the complaints of critics who had demoed the title at E3, I sat down for what I was sure would be the highlight of the show – only to leave disappointed. “Jeeze,” I thought, “That’s too bad.” I knew I couldn’t expect a game with visuals to rival it’s Xbox counterpart, but I had at least expected it to retain some of the excitement of Resident Evil 4, whose engine DR:CTYD is based on. Despite surprisingly solid gameplay and some humorous item uses in battle, the lack of suspense, challenge, and fun left quite a bit to be desired.
Still, Ferris insists that Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop will be a very different game – unique and fun in it’s own right.  “We’ve changed just about everything but the overall story.” Writes Ferris, “The save system, the weapons, the point of view and even the mission design have all been touched in order to make them ideal for the Wii audience.” Although such changes make me wonder why they didn’t just scrap the whole re-make idea and make a new Dead Rising game with a new story unique to the Wii, I could be wrong – in fact, I’d prefer it. The Wii could use more games like Dead Rising, and the last thing anyone wants to see on the system is a major flop – but if a game is going to succeed, it should be a good game. Something of a quality that can be respected and admired. I hope that Colin Ferris is right, and Dead Rising will be “must have” Wii title, but I still have my doubts. We’ll find out in about a month.
“Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop” will be released February 24, 2009.
I think part of the reason consumers are bashing the new Dead Rising was because this game goes against everything the original game was. You were trapped in a mall with thousands of other zombies, but now there's only going to be a handful. The Xbox 360 had large open areas full of zombies, which are now going to be barren on the Wii version. That pretty much ruins the atmosphere.
Capcom would have been better off releasing a spinoff of the series rather than a port of the existing game. I can't even make the argument that this will be good for Wii-only owners because it's not going to be the same experience.
Actually I think the most insulting part is where he talks about doing what they can to bring their big games to big audiences, while simultaneously snubbing us on Bionic Commando (PS3 360 PC) who's audience came from the NES, Bionic Commando Rearmed (PS3 360 PC and PSP!) who's audience came from the NES, RE5 (PS3 360) from whom a large portion of the audience come from the Gamecube/Wii and SFIV (PS3, 360 and PC for cripes sake) who's audience comes mostly from the SNES. Giving us cheap/shoddy ports of 2 or 3 year old games (RE4, Dead Rising, Okami) and advertising poorly does not sound like a meaningful game plan to bring fun games to all possible audiences.
I agree people is judging the game before they play it, which kind of annoys me. But I also agree a spin off of the series would have been much better, rather than something that will raise negative comparisons everywhere.
I can see something of both points-of-view here. I was definitely in the camp that wanted Dead Rising on Wii because it's my only system. But what did I want from a Dead Rising Wii? I didn't want the 360 version, I knew that was impossible. All I wanted was a game where I could wander round a mall killing zombies with the numerous items to hand.
It seems like I'm getting that, but the apparent lack of effort (I hope to be proved wrong on that) has really put me off. Of course there aren't going to be hundreds of zombies on screen, but Capcom don't seem to care that the way they've failed to handle that fact really appears to have impacted on the overall feel of the game.
The apparent sparseness of the main atrium in the mall and the barren outdoor scenes all make Dead Rising Wii feel like a cheap knock off rather than an attempt to emulate the feel of the original game. A few smart design choices could have totally averted that: narrow the hallways, make the atrium smaller, turn views of the outdoors into cutscenes. The lack of zombies could have been massively alleviated by increasing their density. It's not the number of zombies that counts, it's the number per square inch of the TV screen (a tactic that producers of budget movies are more than aware of).
Put bluntly, Capcom seem to be giving far greater weight to the importance of maintaining the mall map (no doubt a costly asset to develop) than they have to maintaining the heart of the game. That's a great shame.
Ahem ahem! He says…
"When Capcom creates a good game, shouldn't we try to let as many gamers experience the game as possible?"
Yet this same Capcom recently slammed the Wii as not being able to run the intro scene for Resident Evil 5, a game that Wii owners are hoping for.
Talk talk talk…
I think that every hard work to offer the best possible experience will be welcome.
Not going to reply to anything except this: "Let's get this out of the way: Will DR:CTYD look as beautiful on the Wii as Dead Rising did on the Xbox 360? No. Will it have the same number of zombies on screen at the same time? No. Does that mean we should deny Wii gamers the joy that 360 owners had in surviving three days in a zombie-infested mall? The answer is, obviously, no."
The joy that 360 owners experienced was because of the amount of zombies and all the other features that are now missing from Chop 'Til You Drop. What's a photojournalist without a camera? He's covered wars, you know.
God, I hate PR reps.
The main problem is this is from a PR guy. I would like to see what the creator of this port says. Seriously res evil 4 looks and seems to play better? Monsterhunter 3 looks frigging great! It also begs me to ask why did they think dead rising was a good game? Every one knows it was a tech demo for the 360 and people bought it because their simply was hardly any games out.
elmer:
Maybe if the Wii wasn't such a piss-poor system, with respect to sheer graphics and terrain engine power, you could have the same games that the rest of us real gamers have.
Oh well, guess you'll have to go spend the bank-breaking $220 (arcade + refurb hd) and hop on like the rest of us who DON'T whine about everything. After all, that's less than you spent on the Wii when you bought it, assuming you weren't one of the retards who ebay'd it for like $500.
Yeah Farlander, it's a real shame that such a piss-poor system has outsold "sheer graphics and terrain engine power" by nearly a factor of 2 world wide. Do you really want to start a bitch-war about the graphical phalli of your preferred system? Because I've got some pretty convincing numbers that say size doesn't matter.
At this very moment, I think capcom is a great company when it comes to the game, but presenting such a stupid argument as "The Wii can't handle RE5's front end menu". In fact I've just played the RE5 demo, and there wasn't anything super powerful about it. IT was a simple moving background that the Wii can indeed pull off. The in game graphics on the other hand would definitely have to be dumbed down.
Back to the topic at hand. Once I had read a list of the changes to DR:CTYD I stopped considering it a port. With so many changes on the fundamental level, it seems to be a whole different game. THe original actually wanted you to take pictures and rely on melee weapons instead of guns (plus the gunplay sucked.) So I'm kinda on the side thatthis is not a port, but now a bit of a spinoff. It contains the same story, yes, but again on a gameplay level it's entirely different.
FOr all those hating on this game, why not view this as an entirely different game than the original, considering the gameplay is completely different. For those that do have a 360, I'll suggest getting the 360 version. But if not, go ahead and get the Wii version so that you can get some zombie slaying goodness in on the wii.
However, it would be nice if these "core" developers would focus on pushing the system's features completely to the max (gameplay options, graphics, audio, etc.). I will admit, people said the port of Okami wasn't that good, I thought it was better than the PS2 version.
well said, finally a good report on this stuff