I’ve been caught in stun locks, against environmental blocks and more, and the game just falls to pieces whenever it deviates from the zombie combat it’s used to, resulting in infuriating deaths and boring replays. In the end, Dead Rising 4: Frank’s Big Package is the best way to experience the game. Dead Rising 4: Frank’s Big Package Review. Dead Rising 4 for the PS4 is a gift that keeps on giving. Review by Pierre-Yves L. Dead Rising 4 is back. Violence is a core part of the game mechanic, with players creating makeshift weapons to charge into massive hordes of the undead and leave bloody carnage in their wake. Sadly, Frank’s Big Package is still the same creatively bankrupt outing we saw almost a year ago, with a few extra goodies thrown in. Families can talk about violence in video games. Here, Frank takes on the infested town of Willamette, while also gaining access to costumes and abilities of other popular characters from Capcom games, which can help him eliminate many undead citizens in the pursuit of getting his story. Dead Rising 4 offers up playgrounds wherein to experiment with your array of ridiculous weapons, but the place itself just never captivates. The problem is that Frank has absolutely no way to defend against their ranged attacks, and while you can boost your resilience to gunfire, that particular upgrade is locked until you’re level 25. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t still the worst entry in the series by quite a wide margin. Overall, Dead Rising 4: Frank's Big Package feels like a near-perfect bookend to the Dead Rising series and a weirdly satisfying holiday experience that's only slightly less violent than some actual Black Friday shopping events. Dead Rising 4 was already a highly enjoyable game when it released last year, but Frank’s Big Package really takes it to the next level. It sprawls out into the surrounding suburban areas, junkyards and more, but each district isn’t that visually interesting, and getting from A to B is made frustrating by the constant presence of zombies. You’ll run around Willamette racking up your murder count into the tens of thousands, but other than a few key moments spent playing around with a newly acquired weapon, combat never excites. Dead Rising started out as an Xbox 360 exclusive, a Capcom production directed by keiji Inafune, which together with Lost Planet served new horizons within the company’s franchises. Costumes in Capcom Heroes mode highlights characters from Street Fighter, Mega Man, Devil May Cry, Viewtiful Joe franchises, others. The only real reason to continue the killing is to watch the kill counter rack up, and to get from objective to objective. Common Sense is the nation's leading nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the lives of all kids and families by providing the trustworthy information, education, and independent voice they need to thrive in the 21st century. Dead Rising 4, like the third game before it, has been locked behind a contract allowing it to only be on Microsoft platforms like the Xbox One and PC; but now the updated version, called Frank’s Big Package, has been released on the Playstation 4 and gives players who own the Sony console a chance to play the series once again.. Game Name: Dead Rising 4: Frank’s Big Package What to Watch, Read, and Play While Your Kids Are Stuck Indoors, Common Sense Selections for family entertainment, Check out new Common Sense Selections for games, Teachers: Find the best edtech tools for your classroom with in-depth expert reviews, Cómo hablar con los niños sobre la violencia en el Capitolio de los Estados Unidos, Actividades sobre el Mes de la Historia Afroamericana, Which Side of History? With the massive amount of cool stuff that comes attached to this already fun game, Frank’s Big Package is a no-brainer. Despite horror/comedy theme, actually some positive messages outside of usual "good vs. evil" tropes. It is the fourth installment in the Dead Rising series. Hurling hadoukens as Street Fighter’s Ryu and darting across Willamette as Mega Man is fun at first, but once again lacks any sort of substantial depth to keep things interesting. Dead Rising 4: Frank’s Big Package – Review . Fighting against the series' signature psychopaths and rescuing civilians trapped among the zombies has also taken a bit of a step down in priority, more like optional side quests than any essential story element. #mergeRow-gdpr fieldset label {font-weight: normal;} It was announced at Microsoft's E3 2016 press conference on June 13, 2016. Survivors and psychopaths, major parts of previous titles, have been reduced to meaningless map icons and generic bullet sponges that feel completely soulless. Dead Rising 4 … With the exception of a few skill trees, everything else has been streamlined to a glaringly obvious fault. We won't share this comment without your permission. Read full review. The same holds true for Dead Rising 4: Frank’s Big Package. Deck the halls with parts of bodies in mature action game. The game was officially announced at Microsoft’s E3 2016 press conference on June 13, 2016. Photographer Frank West is back in action in Dead Rising 4 Frank’s Big Package on the PlayStation 4. Thank you for your support. As many adults you want the best for your kids. Four games in and Dead Rising as a series has all but exhausted its core concepts, but these tricks might still entertain you if you just want to cut some rotting meat in half. Starting out life a an Xbox exclusive, Capcom’s seminal comedy horror zombie-fest, Dead Rising, has always been an impressive showing of on-screen action. This mature action game spreads a healthy mix of holiday cheer and macabre horror in a game that's perfect for older gamers, and the extra content boosts the humor and chills. On the bright side, Dead Rising 4 runs almost flawlessly on Sony’s console, with no performance problems at all in my playthrough. While we may never face a zombie outbreak, what are some steps to take if you're ever caught in a disaster situation? The real kicker is that killing zombies in Dead Rising 4 just isn’t that fun, satisfying or moreish anymore. Related: The Last of Us Part 2 news and rumours. Your privacy is important to us. Dead Rising 4 – Frank’s Big Package review: improved and expanded, but Frank West still has an identity crisis. See something that needs to be addressed? Overall, Dead Rising 4: Frank’s Big Package gives you fantastic value for your money. Our ratings are based on child development best practices. Mischievous, scary fun leaves players wanting more. If anything, Capcom Heroes is an unfortunate reminder of the properties I’d love to see Capcom revisit instead of poking at the shambling corpse that Dead Rising has become. Some references made to certain drugs in story. Dead Rising 4: Frank’s Big Package Review. Dead Rising 4: Frank’s Big Package still comes with all the flaws and warts it had during its original release, but if you can look past that, and deal with some laggy multiplayer connection problems, there’s still a fun and varied story experience waiting for you here. In the years since that original outbreak, the people of Willamette have put the event behind them and rebuilt their town, topped off with a bigger, better, and more extravagant mall filled with all kinds of shops brimming with sales for the upcoming holiday season. It’s also hard to take what little story there is seriously when Frank struggles to stop making sex jokes amongst the unusual mannequins playing the role of NPCs. When you’re not slashing up soldiers or beheading the undead, you’ll be investigating suspicious scenes for clues, snapping the evidence with Frank’s camera. Giving players a new tongue-in-cheek way of destroying zombies just adds a ton of replayability and fun to the gameplay. 5. While Dead Rising categorically isn’t a survival horror game in any way, despite what its Wikipedia entry might say, the lack of fraughtness of contemporaries like Dying Light – and in some ways even the much-maligned Dead Island – results in a complete absence of atmosphere. The game’s other draw – putting hundreds of zombies on screen at any given time – may have been a big deal in 2013, but it’s no longer particularly impressive. Dead Rising 4: Frank's Big Package goes back to its roots, not only with its star and setting but with its deft blending of humor, horror, chuckles, and carnage. One minute you're fighting for your life by chopping your way through a swarm of zombies, and the next you're stopping long enough to get a few quick selfies with your photogenic foes. We recommend moving this block and the preceding CSS link to the HEAD of your HTML file. How you feel about Dead Rising 4: Frank’s Big Package depends on how you feel about the Dead Rising franchise. It runs really well and comes jam-packed with content. Overall, Dead Rising 4: Frank's Big Package feels like a near-perfect bookend to the Dead Rising series and a weirdly satisfying holiday experience that's only slightly less violent than some actual Black Friday shopping events. Aaron Birch January 9, 2018. This edition also includes all of the previously available downloadable content (DLC), which included items like costumes, game modes, difficulty levels, and weapons. For me, Dead Rising 4’s surface schlock quickly became tedious shoddiness, and the result is a disappointingly dull open-world game that simply can’t hold a candle to this year’s best. Shows how ingenuity, thinking outside the box can lead to wildly creative solutions to problems. Copy supplied by publisher. Published on Dec 5, 2017 Hey everyone for this review I take on Dead Rising 4 Frank's Big Package for the Playstation 4brought to us by Capcom. Clunky survival sandbox-style game with unmoderated play. 7 Good. By Alex Donaldson, Tuesday, 5 December 2017 11:50 GMT Instead, you level up far too easily, and dispatching enemies is so trivial that it hardly feels like a difference has been made. The Capcom … When I looked over this game I noticed the language was full bars. Frank Rising was the debut DLC pack for Dead Rising 4 and it allows you to play as Frank in zombie form. */ Become a member to write your own review. I was nervous when I saw this. #mergeRow-gdpr {margin-top: 20px;} Browse titles with similar subject matter. The allure of the original Dead Rising’s goofy and gratuitous zombie slaughter was the reason I bought an Xbox 360 back in 2006. He’s a complete jackass with a frequent disregard for most human beings, but he makes the game’s story – a tale of conspiracies and cover-ups – at least mildly entertaining. With each subsequent entry in the franchise, though, the games got darker and more serious, losing a lot of the laughs that gave the original its charm. In fact, in an odd twist, it's what it has dropped from the previous games that makes it a better experience overall. But here we are; 2016 delivers another devastating surprise. Dead Rising 4: Frank’s Big Package is an enjoyable experience, that can prove to be fun if you enjoy crafting the weapons and killing a large amount of zombies. Frank West has also appeared in other games as a guest star. Now, more than a decade and a half later, he's headed back to where it all began, a little tougher, a little wiser, and a whole lot more fun. ... Let’s take a look at how well the latest entry in the zombie apocalypse slaughter-play-house does in our Dead Rising 4 review. #mc-embedded-subscribe-form input[type=checkbox]{display: inline; width: auto;margin-right: 10px;} Read on for our original review of the Xbox One release by Sam White. Read Dead Rising 4: Frank's Big Package reviews from parents on Common Sense Media. Does Dead Rising 4: Frank Big's Package's over-the-top arsenal of weapons make a bigger impact? Your purchase helps us remain independent and ad-free. It runs really well and comes jam-packed with content. As someone who didn’t get to play Dead Rising 4 when it first came out, Frank’s Big Package was a great way to experience the latest entry in the series, complete with all its DLC. More accessible than Dead Rising games because it drops the infamous game timer, and makes rescuing survivors and fighting psychopaths more optional side goals than main quest points. Dead Rising 4: Frank’s Big Package, however, ditches many of the series’ stalwart mechanics, and while it’s arguably a more enjoyable game for it, fans of the franchise will feel left behind. Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners. Returning to Frank West’s life is perhaps the wisest decision Dead Rising 4 makes. © Common Sense Media. People are chased down, chewed apart by zombies, while living dead (and living not-so-dead) also get chopped up, blown apart, run down, otherwise eviscerated in countless imaginative, very gory ways. #mc-embedded-subscribe-form .mc_fieldset{border:none;min-height: 0px;padding-bottom:0px;}. While the game still challenges players to get creative with ways to take out the undead, the updated formula removes many of the tension-building obstacles that made the original games more difficult. We're updating our reviews to better highlight authentic stories and accurate, diverse representations. But, considering his constant quips, I was more than happy to feed him to the undead anyway. Dead Rising 4: Frank’s Big Package is an exceptional port of the original package, with additional content that fans will have a blast with. Dead Rising 4, the final Xbox One exclusive of 2016, picks up the trail of photojournalist Frank West – the famed protagonist of the original game – as he returns to the Coloradan town of Willamette to do what he does best: investigate biohazard breakouts with his freakishly modded camera, while also killing a ton of undead along the way. Dead Rising 4 Frank's Big Package is a perfect pick for any fan of the IP as it's filled with content, but in spite of the "Capcom Heroes" mode, the game still retains all of the original drawbacks like a lack of fun and repetitive fights. Reviewed on: Playstation 4. We display the minimum age for which content is developmentally appropriate. Frank regularly runs across other survivors in need of help, which he can choose to rescue, escort to safety.