“A big package indeed”
I played a little bit of Dead Rising 4 back on Xbox One a few months back and enjoyed what I played of it. Of course, being as busy as I was, I wasn’t able to put as much time as I would have liked into it, but I did enjoy my time with the game. Now, after a year of exclusivity, it is finally coming to the PS4 in the form of Dead Rising 4: Frank’s Big Package. What’s so big about it? Let’s find out.
For those that don’t know, Dead Rising 4 is the continuation of the series that brings back the first “hero” Frank West. He’s thinks he’s going to play mini-golf with a journalist friend, but finds himself back in Willamette at a secret laboratory where they are experimenting on zombies. Things go very wrong and now Frank is running from the government as public enemy #1. A few months afterwards, he is recruited by the Zombie Defense Control to go back into Willamette and find out what has happened in the past month, which happens to be right during the Christmas rush.
Platforms: PS4, PC, XB1
MSRP: $49.99
Price I’d pay: $49.99
Dead Rising 4 combines a lot of different things from the previous games. Frank can take photos for Prestige Points, like Chuck Greene and Nick Ramos, and he can now combine items to create combo weapons that have some pretty crazy effects and attacks. Gaining enough PP will level Frank up and allow him to upgrade himself via skill trees that revolve around different attacks, survivability, and other aspects.
The Christmas theme plays a lot into Dead Rising 4. Most of the combo weapons are Christmas themed, and all the menu music is remixed versions of Christmas songs. They throw a lot of this out to make it completely ridiculous and it works. In fact, while the story is not mind blowing, I found the humor and less serious nature of DR4 refreshing from all the overly serious games that comes out nowadays. Dead Rising 4 is straight up goofy at times, and I kinda love that.
Now, I will be the first to admit that the controls are not the best in the world. Frank still feels clunky and maneuvering can become a hassle. On top of that, I constantly felt like I was out of my league when taking on psychopaths, Dead Rising’s version of boss fights. Here, I ended up cheesing most of them to keep me from exhausting all of my resources. The loading times aren’t doing it any favors either. When I died, I had better get ready to wait a good 30 seconds before jumping back into that boss fight that keeps killing me.
Frank’s Big Package is the “ultimate” edition of Dead Rising 4. It comes with all the previous DLC like all the costumes and even Super Ultra Dead Rising 4 Mini Golf as well as the newest add-on Capcom Heroes. Capcom Heroes is a new mode that has Frank playing through the full game of Dead Rising 4 but with the ability to transform into Capcom characters from other games. He does this by finding arcade machines scattered throughout the game and chooses a character from a list of unlocked Capcom heroes. Those characters can range from X from Mega Man X to Ryu from Street Fighter to even Sissel from the obscure title Ghost Trick.
Capcom Heroes abandons the formula of Frank finding weapons and creating crazy combos to relying on the character transformations to power up Frank. There are other things to do while running around. Looking for collectibles that can unlock new heroes as well as special challenges that when completed will unlock new abilities and looks for the costumes. The only issue is, players must begin a new game in order to play this mode. Because the costumes are so overpowered, it feels like the story mode goes by much faster in Capcom Heroes mode.
There’s a lot to see and do here in this full DLC game. There’s multiple modes to play, a lengthy story mode, ridiculous characters, and for the most part, a pretty fun time. It has its issues, but honestly, every Dead Rising game I have played has had them. I still like them all the same, and when getting into it, it can be a really fun time. To top it all off, Frank’s Big Package is only 50 bucks, and with everything that comes with it, there’s a lot of content here for what you’re paying for. Dead Rising fans should most certainly pick this one up, and people looking for a fun zombie killing game will find it here too whether it’s with a sledgehammer with a cement blade strapped to it or kicking them to death as Cammy from Street Fighter, you’re going to have a pretty fun time.
Review copy of game provided by publisher.