Episode 649: Dead Rising
Added 2024-11-01 07:00:07 +0000 UTCWhen the HD era of gaming launched nearly 20 years ago, the gaming public eagerly awaited highly detailed experiences absolutely packed with characters swarming around the screen. Capcom delivered just this with 2006's Dead Rising, though gamers anticipating endless zombie mayhem were greeted by what's essentially Majora's Mask in a mall. This week on Retronauts, join Bob Mackey, Henry Gilbert, and The A.V. Club's Will Hughes as the crew chugs gallon after gallon of orange juice (for its healing properties) and chats about the game that kicked off high-def for Capcom.
Comments
Since I likely won't have another venue to discuss this, I will say that while Henry is absolutely right to bring up that a lack of expertise in Unreal was a major stumbling block in Japanese studios transitioning to HD development, the other side of the coin that doesn't get mentioned nearly as much--and that I suspect was the bigger problem for a long time--is that the Unreal toolset straight up lacked anything in the way of a proper Japanese localization, documentation, etc. Much like how many western developers famously stumbled with the PS1 and especially the Saturn in the early years due in large part to lacking support for international developers by the platform holders, it took a long time for Epic to properly offer a Japanese UI and help infrastructure, which definitely hampered adoption and the speed at which developers became fluent in the technology. I imagine Unreal wasn't the only popular western engine to have this problem, and it's not to say there was no natively produced middleware available to Japanese developers whatsoever in those early years, but it really can't be stressed enough that HD development was not *merely* an internal problem of Japanese developers and publishers being underprepared. Just my monthly two cents from Kansai! Love the show as always and happy to see one of my favorite games from that generation get its due! 😌
Tom James
2024-11-05 16:56:36 +0000 UTCRegarding games that arose during the "Zombie Fever" of the 2000s: I may not be a horror fan, but there's one game I enjoyed that didn't get a mention in this episode that feels like it came from that craze: Plants vs. Zombies!
TheLupineOne
2024-11-05 15:29:29 +0000 UTCNever had a problem reading the text on my CRT with the original back in the day. Granted the TV was too close to where I sit to play so that helped.
Patrick McClafferty
2024-11-04 22:36:11 +0000 UTCOne of the best and funniest pieces of episode art to date. The best games don't take themselves seriously. That's why the Yakuza games are great, but the show felt empty by comparison.
Andrew O.
2024-11-04 06:05:18 +0000 UTCI bought my Xbox One on day one for Dead Rising 3. I’ve loved the franchise since this original entry. This was a great episode everyone.
Kellen Taman
2024-11-02 08:29:27 +0000 UTC
