Others say...

"Good fun, mildly repetitive"
A must own game for anybody with a 360 and an affinity for zombie movies. Fighting off hordes of zombies is a hoot, and the different kinds of moves that you can pick up are a lot of fun to acquire. The only question is how many zombies can you kill before you feel like doing something else?

"awesome"
I got this game for getting honor roll. I put in in the second I got home--it is so cool. After completing the mini-quest you can explore anywhere in the mall, acquiring armor and weapons. I love that you can do that. One thing worth mentioning is the difficulty saving the game. Each save point is heavily guarded by zombies. I must have died 5 times trying to get safely to a save point and was forced to restart each time. My mom bought me this game thinking it was not violent. Well, it is--especially for kids under 10. Still, this game is awesome.

"More fun than a barrel of zombies"
I've played this game through and find myself playing it again and again. There are some drawbacks to the game design, but the graphics, plot, action, and for the most part the controls are so great that I think this fully deserves a five-star rating.

Pros: Graphics, plot, re-playability, weapons, bloody fun
Cons: Otis the Janitor (read below), lack of voice acting, controls, save feature

Here's a little more in-depth discussion of the pros/cons of the game:

Graphics - a little cartoony but for the content - literally hacking zombies and other enemies to bloody pieces - it's totally appropriate. It's remeniscient of another Capcom title, Resident Evil, but far less gloomy. Character details are quite good. The only drawback is that there are only a few different zombie designs, I'd say less than 20. The problem this presents is when you have 50 enemies on screen (you frequently do) it's disappointing to see the same zombie five times.

Plot/replayability - zombies in a mall. 'nuff said. There are several different endings and with the number of survivors and psychopaths, you can choose where you go and what you do over the course of the game. If I can just add my two cents on the whole "Day of the Dead" thing - there aren't that many places where a person can hole up during zombie armagheddon. A house, a mall, a store, or a military base. Hopefully this won't prevent a sequel, which, for this genre, could be very, very solid.

Action (aka bloody fun) - plenty of it. This game is pretty much hack 'n slash without much finesse, however, the sub-plots about saving survivors in particular really adds another layer of challenge to this game. If you pick up a chainsaw and try to hack your way to a survivor, chances are you'll end up killing the survivor instead so there are definitely some tense moments in leading survivors through a pack of zombies.

Controls - This is where the game really gets frustrating at times. The aiming mechanism is frustrating (you pull the right trigger and then slowly, oh so slowly, move an aiming reticle to your target). You don't have very tight movement - the movement is extemely similar to Resident Evil. You may also find yourself consuming a snack (which are basically precious health packs) without meaning to, because you basically scroll through your inventory to get to whatever you're carrying - weapon or food - and use the same control to "use" it. This can be very frustrating. Still, once you get the hang of it - and once you start to level up and get more health, speed, and inventory slots, the overly simplistic controls aren't as much of a hassle.

Save feature (and timing) - The inability to save a game except in one or two locations in the mall is frustrating. The time limit is sort of frustrating if you want to "do everything" (you have 72 hours to survive in the mall, and each mission is broken down into a smaller part of that 72 hours - fail a mission and you fail the game). On the other hand it adds a true sense of urgency and pacing to the game which I think keeps it very interesting and intense.

Otis the Janitor/voice acting - Otis is a character who is more or less necessary to your completion of the game. He will periodically call you over a walkie-talkie to give you information on survivors and missions. Without the info, you can't complete the objective. However, you have to stay on the walkie talkie while he is "speaking" - which he doesn't really do, it's just subtitles, as it is with most characters except in cut scenes. If I remember Resident Evil is the same way - hopefully Capcom, if they make another sequel, will put alittle more effort into voice production, which would really increase the fun factor/reduce the frustrating factor, without affecting the difficulty of the game at all.

Overall - this game is immensely fun. I hope to see a sequel with the controls and save features improved. It would also be nice to have somewhat more competent survivors - they often let themselves get taken down by a hoarde of zombies instead of just running like hell. And of course a different location - either in the town itself (a parallel story) or in another town, the mall thing would probably be repetitive.

Bottom line: for the $20 or so this game now goes for, it's quite a bargain.

"Not original"
Personally I preferred to collect original ones without any platinum hits and et cetera. Its been hard for me to find any brand new originals until I saw this item with original covering which enthrilled my thoughts into grabbing the opportunity to capture one for my own. Since I did researched through-out on amazon.com and there re games that specific labeled saying its platinum hits including pictures as well. Except for this game... so if your one of people who prefer collect originals then this wont be what you expected. Sorry, it did disappointed me greatly. I wished it used platinum hits covering which would stopped me from buying. However the review on gaming itself, ingore it because of course we all know its one of those great games.

"Fun with a few problems"
Although the front cover says otherwise, I can't help but compare Dead Rising with the movie Dawn of the Dead. The fact is you can do anything you want in a mall. Personally when I think of a mall, I think of Dawn of the Dead, and Dead Rising sort of allows me to play out my fantasy.

Dead Rising is one of the most unique Zombie games out there. Capcom is truly the master of Zombies games much like how George Romero is the master of Zombies on the big screen.

To explain Dead Rising, think Grand Theft Auto meets Resident Evil. The game's world is limited to a mall, but don't worry, there's plenty to do at the mall. If you want a comparison, think of a huge mall with roller coasters, grocery stores, toy stores, movie theaters, and all other wonderful things you'll find at the mall.

In Dead Rising you play a journalist named Frank whose love for the latest story lands him in a town overrun by zombies. The most unique thing about Dead Rising is that you can choose what to do. You are given basically three days of play, and within those three days you can uncover the story of the zombie plague, help survivors to safety, create chaos by killing zombies left and right, stop psychos, or you can do a combination of all.

Dead Rising unique system doesn't end with the fact that you can choose how you want to spend your 72 hours, but also the fact that you can choose how you want to defend yourself from the zombie plague. Do you want to bust TV's over zombies head? You can do that. Do you want to pick up an umbrella and use it as a ram to plow zombies? You can do that. Do you want to pick up chainsaws and cut zombies in half? You can do that. Pretty much anything can be used as a weapon in this game... right down to pies and foam bats and can sodas.

Overall a fun game to play for any zombie fan. There are few minor problems with the game which includes the fact that on some TVs it will be hard to read the text on the screen. I highly recommend playing the game on HDTV otherwise you'll be having a hard time reading the text on standard TV although I heard for some people it isn't a factor. Ironically on the front cover of the game, the main character has a standard TV to break over the zombies head... perhaps it is a precursor to the fact that you'll be doing that to your TV when you are overrun by anger.