The premise behind Dead Rising appealed to me greatly. The idea of a game in which your sole objective is to survive the night by killing zombies seemed brilliant…. on paper. Don't get me wrong, it's not perfect, but it is far from a failure. The graphics are incredible. The character movements are fluid and eerily life-like. The developers show great detail in every aspect of the mall, the characters, and everything in between. If you slice through a zombie with your trusty katana blade, blood splatters on your character's face.

The voice acting in this game is also nothing short of breathtaking. Obviously the zombies only moan and groan, but the living characters deliver a fantastic performance. Even the sound effects provide a realistic atmosphere, all the way down to the muffled "twang" of smashing a zombie with an acoustic guitar.

You begin the game as Frank West, a devoted journalist who has supposedly been through the basic trials and tribulations of a good field reporter. Brought to the roof of the mall in a helicopter, your mission starts out as a picture hunt. You score player points for every breathtaking picture you can turn your lens at. Points are given for capturing gore, drama, and even sex.

As soon as you finally make your way into the consumer area of the mall, you realize that Frank is definitely going to be in for more than your average run and shoot field journalist gig. Zombies immediately make their way into the mall and you must use everything in the mall - yes, everything - to save your life. From your touchdown, you have 72 hours to return to the roof to be picked up, or else you will be left for dead.

Along the way, Frank is given certain side missions which he may chose to either complete or neglect. That's the beauty of this game, your only primary objective is to stay alive. Keep in mind, though, completing objectives opens more of the story and gives you more information on the characters you interact with.

You'll grab everything from potted plants to chainsaws as you struggle to open more and more areas of the mall as the clock counts down to your evacuation. Along the way, Frank has the ability to level up and enhance the game by offering more weapon slots and health bars. You can even read books to better your skills.

Since Dead Rising only has one objective, the game is as difficult or as easy as you want it to be. You can hide out in a store and wait til the whole thing's over, or you can pick up a sledgehammer and save as many lives as you can.

As Frank levels up, the strength - and numbers - of the zombies increase, making it more and more difficult to move throughout the mall. Also, you have a limited amount of time to complete your objectives - sometimes you've got six hours, sometimes you've got half an hour. Not all objectives unlock part of the story, sometimes it just feels nice to run some careless civilian through armies of flesh-eating zombies to safety. Then again, we don't all have the good angel on our other shoulder.

The only downright flaw of this game is its slow and inaccurate aiming system. The game has an auto-aim function that operates only when Frank is standing still. Since it doesn't aim for heads, prepare to spend all your time either carefully aiming or wasting far too many shots into a zombie's chest.

A slap in the face to frequent savers is the fact that the only place you can save is either in the security room or in one of the public restrooms found throughout the mall. This isn't easy to do in quick wrap-up scenarios. Sometimes you just want to turn it off and go outside, but you have to fight your way though a whole section of the mall just to save before powering down.

There are literally hundreds of ways you can kill zombies. Some are for laughs, some are for gore, and some are just downright silly (such as putting a mask over a zombie, making them blind and ultimately harmless). This game has many aspects that will appeal to different types of gamers. Hack-and-slashers will love going through the mall taking out zombies left and right, while the readers and story-followers will be compelled by the game's B-movie-esque storyline. The game also offers unlockable modes including a Survival mode, in which you fight as hard as you can and as long as you can against never-ending hoards of bloodthirsty zombies. The sad part is, without the storyline, it gets tiring after the fiftieth time you kill a zombie with a grocery cart.

If you're the type who loves killing everything in sight with everything in sight, but are willing to take the time and risk your character's life to save your progress, then Dead Rising is your game. If not, its at least worth a rental just to see what happens when you run over a zombie with a lawnmower.