Forum Overview :: Gamerasutra :: Who cares about the theming? They're abandoning the core gameplay!

[quote name="Jerry Whorebach"]Dead Rising was a game of time management. Events would play out over the course of three days, and you had to make sure you were in the right place at the right time to influence their outcome. The zombies were merely an environmental hazard, a complication to creatively circumvent on your way from one appointment to the next. By removing time limits from the new one - apparently because they made players feel uncomfortably empowered, like the choices they were making actually mattered? - they're turning Dead Rising into just another "sandbox" game about doing yard work until all the fucking yard work is done. On the other hand, I honestly don't have a problem with the more sombre tone. I always derive more enjoyment from acting like a crazy jerk in a world that takes itself at least moderately seriously than one where everything is LOL so random to begin with. It's like the difference between being a hilarious asshole heckling some clueless performer or just another audience member shouting suggestions to a semi-professional improv comedy troupe. A semi-professional improv comedy troupe composed of GAMES DESIGNERS. The original Dead Rising struck the perfect balance, by giving you all the tools necessary to author your own comedic experience (without shoving them down your throat - there was no tutorial mission introducing funny hats, for example) in the midst of what a particularly unclever person could interpret as a straight horror story / anti-globalization parable. God, it's almost sickening how fucking well-designed that game was.[/quote]