Smilee

Aesop Rock - Kill Em All RJD2 Remix

Are you doing the community service out of the kindness of your heart? As for myself, work, work, work, work, work, work, and more work. It's a never ending story. Mainly volunteer service to pad my college resume, but I have done volunteer work with peers just to help out the community.

Painting and community service, a strange match up.

Aesop Rock - Coma

Nujabes ft. Shing02 - Battlecry

Dethklok - Duncan Hills Yes I love cofee.

FORCE OF NATURE, Nujabes, Fat Jon - Hiji Suru Style

Lifeseeker - Gone Guru

Jet Set Radio Future I'm amazed how you can spray graffiti with a single button while grinding down a 90 degree pipe at the same time. This makes real life look easy.

Cannibal Ox - Rediculoid

Jedi Mind Tricks - Blood Runs Cold

What a coincidence, I just came back from central California. Well welcome back.

Non-Prophets - The Cure

Aesop Rock - Flashflood

Geometry Wars for the 360 is just an updated graphical version of the game than the original one in Project Gotham Racing 2. I found the updated version to be more fun however.

Aesop Rock - Fishtales

Aesop Rock - Boom Box

I'm pretty sure everyone thought a similar fate for the phantom, for some reason the developers didn't grasp the idea.

Yeah I had trouble deciding whether to score the game a bit lower yet I kinda overlooked the cons a bit too much. There are 50 achievements and some take quite a while to complete for one rental!

I think Capcom made the right choice to not include online play as the game really is based on singleplay enjoyment. Boss's are basically people that have gone insane from the zombie presence (ex. A crazy clown with dual wielding chainsaws or a Vietnam vet that see's everyone as Vietcong). Some bosses tie into the plot and some are just there to kill and terrorize. They are all delusioned and some are quite difficult to beat but drop powerful weapons and other items when defeated.

Game: Dead Rising System: xbox360 Developer: Capcom Rating: Mature Type: Singleplayer-Horror Capcom returns to the zombie genre in a new piece of destruction and horror. However, straying from the Resident Evil series Capcom has provided us with a more upbeat and humorous title that concentrates on the destruction of the sole enemy that has made itself famous among other titles: zombies. The game features countless amounts of zombies on screen at once and the same amount of weapons that you are able to use to deal with them in any way you please. There are so many weapons that can be used to defeat your normal zombie foe that if you think a specific item can be used as a weapon chances are it will. Dead Rising is seen and played as more of a sandbox game with similar techniques utilized by other games such as GTA. Story: You are photojournalist Frank West set on a mission to obtain the biggest story of all time by visiting the quiet town of Willamette, Colorado from a tip. As you make your way into the heart of Willamette via helicopter you begin to notice something wrong. The army has blocked all roads into the town and people are wondering the streets moaning and wailing. Cars have stopped dead on streets and some people are attacked by various mobs. Your instinct as a photojournalist springs up and you immediately take pictures of the strange occurrence not knowing of what awaits you ahead... As you head to the center of Willamette you encounter probably the biggest mall that you have ever seen, complete with various plazas, food court, amusement park, and Environment Park. You tell the pilot to drop you off on the helipad on top of the mall, before you jump out of your getaway ticket you tell the pilot to come back in three days to pick you up. Gameplay: There are a lot of gameplay concepts in Dead Rising so this section will tend to be long. o Dead Rising features a level system that enables you abilities and perks to help you throughout the game. This gives the game an RPG feel while still retaining combative elements. o Your health is represented by orange bars, as you level up you can increase the number of health bars you are able to contain, to a maximum of 12.You can regenerate your health by eating food which will give you back a specific amount of health bars depending on the food. o Your inventory is represented by empty blank boxes; you can level up and have a max of 12 slots of items. You can keep items in your inventory however each item takes up one box of inventory; during the beginning levels players must choose wisely which items are required to complete a case. o Prestige Points (PP) are points that level Frank up. You can obtain massive amounts of PP by taking specific pictures, rescuing survivors, completing cases and scoops, and defeating bosses/psychopaths. As you level up (max level 50) you can upgrade your stats like life, inventory, attack, etc. and obtain some new moves. However the game gives out these upgrades randomly but gives special moves in relation to effectiveness to specific levels. o Main missions are dubbed "Cases" and will advance the storyline further. Cases must be completed to advance the story if the player wants to. Optional missions like rescuing survivors are called scoops, failing a scoop does not inhibit you in any way except a loss chance at obtaining more exp. If you fail to accomplish a case the story will end and you will be presented with the option to continue playing the game (players usually choose this to get achievements, unlock weapons or goodies that take too much time to actually play through the story), or load from a previous save. o You are given missions by a janitor named Otis that calls you with a transceiver. Whenever you pick-up the call you cannot attack, jump, nor use any weapon. You can however switch to a different item and cancel the message; however Otis will simply call again to give you more missions. This can get quite annoying when surrounded by zombies and your transceiver decides to ring. The game and its many missions revolve around game time. The whole game lasts 3 whole days or 72 hours. In relation to real time the game takes around 6 - 7 hours of real time to fully complete. Each mission contains a time limit that constantly drains, however the game gives you enough time to complete the main missions and optional side missions. Thankfully you can access a menu by going to your wristwatch that tells the time and the list of missions and how much time they have left (you can also enable a guide arrow for each objective). The game can be harsh on the time limit if you tend to take a *long* time on specific missions causing you to rush through hoards of zombies just in time to make it to the next mission. When you die in Dead Rising it's game over. It's frustrating to find out that you've been playing for about 2 hours and forgot to save only to die and reload from your last save or start the story all over again. However you keep your current stats when you restart the story. The save system is probably the aspect that receives much criticism from many players. The save system is limited to a single save slot per save device or gamercard. You can overwrite that slot with another save however you cannot have multiple saves to a single gamercard. There are no checkpoints in the game and progress can only be saved in bathrooms or the "safety room." This frustrates many players if they have saved during times when there is not enough time to complete a mission and players must restart the story, there is nothing lost when the story mode is restarted as you keep the statistics of what you had before you restarted. So players can play the story multiple times to level up and acquire more moves, life, etc. The Camera is vital to gameplay mechanics as its major purpose is to rack up PP. As you take pictures certain entities on screen are classified in different categories giving you various amounts of PP: Horror: pictures of zombies. Drama: pictures of survivors in dire or relieved situations. Brutality: pictures of zombies being killed or blown apart. Outtake: ex. putting a Kobun mask on a zombie and taking a picture of it. Erotica: pictures of female zombie / survivor cleavage. Misc.: Pictures of nothing really (repeated pictures of survivors give Misc. points). The Camera's use can also be tied in to specific scoops and cases to advance the story. Weapons: Ah the main basis of the game. Dead Rising features a countless number of weapons that can be used to bash the heads of mindless zombies. However Capcom has imported durability and each weapon has a limited use before being broken apart. However books from bookstores extend the life of various weapons and keeping various books in your inventory can make weapons last for a very long time before falling apart as book power ups stock. With all of these weapons and powerups available to the player, Dead Rising gives a much more open feel to the zombie killer genre and replayability. Ai: The Ai in the game tends to be "not very smart" but unfortunately I’m not referring to the zombies themselves but to the survivors that you must save. The survivors tend to lag behind or get themselves stuck in a corner. As you rescue survivors they tend to obey your commands like stay here or follow me, however each survivor behaves differently, some are aggressive and will attack anything causing you to go back and save him/her. Others are complete cowards and will tend to be petrified in a mob of zombies and some will eventually outright kill themselves (if given a gun) of their own will due to their hopelessness. So keeping survivors alive is a pain, but successful rescue will rack you crucial amounts of PP. Graphics: The graphics in Dead Rising don't really represent the term "next-gen" as most of the character models have been toned down to compensate for the massive amount of zombies on screen (The 360 can support around 1000 zombies on screen without slowdown). The mall itself is pleasant to the eye yet doesn't feature eye-popping graphics. Capcom has made its point on focusing on the gameplay element than the graphical aspect. The in-game text however is almost unreadable without an HDTV as the game was ment to be played on HDTV and is a real let down for players without one. You can fix this problem by altering your Xbox360 to a widescreen format. Sound: Each weapon contains it's own unique sound and impact on zombies that represent it's effectiveness. A simple bucket thrown at a zombie will resound with a low *thump* while a katana will give a loud *shing* with a dribble of guts and limbs hitting the floor. The sound effects are clearly heard and have no hindrance to the gameplay but to please the player on what he/she had done to eradicate hoards of zombies. Like every mall, Willamette mall features various forms of Muzak that coincides with various blood splatter hitting the floor and complements the game's atmosphere very well. During boss battles commercial songs are used by various artists that don't really hinder the gameplay yet are kind of distracting due to the lyrics. However the xbox 360 lets you play your own music during the game. The voice acting in the game isn't unbearable yet it's not the best but what you would expect in a video game. The game tries to add tension with pauses between dialogue, however various speeches made by survivors aren't really up to par with the main cast. Controls: Dead Rising gives a simple control scheme that is relatively easy to use and maneuver. Conventional button layouts are used such as X: Attack, A: Jump, B: Use, Y: Command Survivor, Right Trigger: Aim/Throw Weapon. Items are easily accessible with the left and right bumper and the camera is brought up with the Left Trigger. There are really no problems with the controls as they are simple to use and are easily learnt by beginners. Now lets recap: PROS: *Countless amounts of zombies on screen without any slowdown. *Innumerable ways of dispatching zombies with various weapons. *Easy controls *50 achievements and various unlockables. *Humor *Camera is easy to use and ties in well with gameplay. *Replayability *Plot twisting story with 6 different endings. CONS: *Save system is meant for players to not take advantage of a save system, yet causes frequent frustration when a player screws up. *Inability to attack while receiving mission information. *No online play * Some of the boss battle music doesn't really fit in well with the game. *Not so smart AI Controls: 10 Gameplay: 9.0 Graphics: 8.5 Sound: 8.5 Overall: 9.0 Grade: A-

Non-Prophets - Outro

GZA - Beneath the Surface

C-Rayz Walz - Black Out

Dead Rising review will be up soon. Yes I was bored, yet I put my boredom to good use. EDIT: Review is up. http://www.1emulation.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=19111