Part Three: A Weekend In Willamette. Maxing out Dead Rising.

After Sony dropped their ‘PS3 delayed in Europe’ bombshell, my loyalty to the Playstation brand wavered, swerved and was left in a crumpled wreck faster than you can say ‘Princess Diana’. Two generations of unquestioning love, albeit with a rather steamy affair with the Dreamcast, came crashing down and suddenly I found myself being wooed by the 360.

Still, I was never a fan of the original Xbox and it was going to take a bit more than Sony being shit for me to jump into bed with Microsoft. No, it was going to take a killer exclusive and it was in the previews section of GamesTM that I found it.

Dead Rising. Bloody hell. If the gameplay could cash the cheques these screenshots were writing this would surely be one of the best games ever.

I ended up buying my 360 in a bundle with Dead Rising and Dead or Alive 4 (which is a piece of shit) and naturally Dead Rising was the first game that I fired up. A few minutes later and I found myself falling off of a shelf in the warehouse.

‘Achievement Unlocked.’

‘Freefall’ – Drop from a height of at least 16 feet (5 meters). Unlocked on the 9th of September 2006.

‘Ooh! Interesting’. I carried on playing, unaware that a seed of obsession had just been planted. After a week or so I started unlocking other achievements and after 16 months and several run-throughs later and I finally maxed it out. It started in Sept 06, I then got round to beating the game once in Jan 07, sorted out ‘Frank The Pimp’, ‘Saint’ and ‘Transmissionary’ in Sept 07 and finally did the survivor achievements in Jan 08. This has been a very on-off relationship.

Anyway, it is done. Dead Rising maxed. My Achieve-o-Everest has been conquered and if you want this game out of your hair, this is the path I recommend.

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‘they leap out a little’

Dead Rising can be a particularly difficult game with x360a rating it a 9 out of 10 for achievement difficulty and there really are no shortcuts. However, with some organisation and preparation the 1000 is doable.

One downside however is the save system which will regularly punish you in Saint and Transmissionary runs if you are not careful. As such, I recommend you use this walkthrough. It is particularly well-written but I recommend that you highlight the survivors in red and the transmissions in blue just so they leap out a little.

The way to approach Dead Rising is with several playthroughs. Some help you level up, some mop up achievements and others are the hardcore dedicated sessions for the big achievements.

1. Playthrough: Regular play

Without using a guide, just play the game. Don’t worry about the survivors, just do what you can, but play it and enjoy it. Follow all the case files and don’t worry about the side-missions (or survivors) too much. This run will be the most fun and is for enjoyment only for you to get the Dead Rising experience. It’ll level you up and will get you used to combat. On day three you’ll have a few hours to kill so you might want to go achievement hunting a little.

Remember to go and see Isabella at 10am on the last day to get the best ending and unlock Overtime mode.

2. Achievement Run: Zombie Genocider

Go out of Paradise Plaza, cross the park (bear right a little) and look for a gap in the wall. Follow that path, grab the red car and enter the tunnel.

In the tunnel head left and follow it round. Grab the white truck and drive it to Paradise Plaza (DO NOT LEAVE THE TUNNEL). At the Paradise Plaza entrance is a white car. Drive it back to where you found the truck. Opposite the truck’s location is a door to the meat packing room. Go in, come out. Truck has respawned. Drive it to the white car and rinse/repeat.

If you find yourself needing food just go into Paradise Plaza. After 24 hours you’ll get the ‘Indoorsman’ achievement (they have to be consecutive hours). I recommend killing 60,000 zombies just to make sure you get ‘Zombie Genocider’ and therefore the Real Megabuster which will be your best friend during subsequent runs.

This achievement can be hellishly tedious to get.

3. Achievement Run: Collections

This run is all about achievements. Punch and kick your way through 1000 zombies for ‘Karate Champ’, grab some guides and get all the clothing and food and if you get a chance attempt the PP stickers. Bear in mind getting two of the stickers requires getting caught by the cultists so don’t expect to get that achievement in a regular run if you want ‘Unbreakable’ (complete the game without getting knocked out). Hopefully you’ll be at, or near, level 40 by the time you finish it.

4. Achievement Run: Frank The Pimp

This is the first really horrible achievement. On the plus side it earns you shitloads of PP and unlocking it is very satisfying. Opinions are split on this one but I reckon you can sacrifice Sophie, she’s rubbish, and just carry Leah around for a while. Jo the cop provides four more and the two friends in the shops in Wonderland count for another two.

At this point you do not want any other scoops active as they’ll stop you seeing your eighth girl. Kill any men that you see or that come up in scoops. My last girl was Jennifer, the captive of the Cultists. She’s outside the cinema in Paradise Plaza. You don’t have to take the eight girls back to the Security Room for the achievement but it will earn you a huge amount of PP if you do.

This will unlock ‘Tour Guide’ as well. If you didn’t get all the PP stickers last time round you can do it on this go also as you’ll still have a couple of days left.

5. Playthrough: Saint

You may still have some regular achievements left but it’s now time for Saint. This achievement is one of the hardest in any game as it takes meticulous planning, a lot of skill and even more patience. Bear in mind that unless you are waiting for the next day to start, time is always an issue. You need to be efficient so make sure you get the short cut open (after killing Adam the Clown go back to the train controls) and pick up the maintenance tunnel key from the warehouse room in the tunnels (from the carpark outside go in, right, left, right).

Whilst you don’t need to save everyone, I don’t recommend skipping any people either. Eventually you’ll fail to save someone so always try to leave that safety net for as long as possible.

The hardest part is near the beginning when you escort Burt, Aaron, Leah and Sophie across the park when you first see the convicts. Make sure you arm the boys and carry Leah as much as possible. Kill the convicts ASAP though and after that just take it slowly back to Paradise Plaza.

The medicine run section is also very tight for time, especially with Survivors. Be aware of that and arm anyone you can.

The achievement unlocks at 12 noon on the final day.

6. Playthrough: Transmissionary

This is the same as Saint but with the bonus that you can kill a lot of the survivors. You do need to save some though as they instigate more calls from Otis the cun… I mean janitor.

The key thing is to rescue three people from each list as well as the other three ‘essential’ survivors.

Note: this can be done on the same run as Saint if you continue onto Overtime mode. I don’t recommend it though unless you are feeling quite ‘pro’.

7. Playthrough: Overtime

This section wraps up the story and unlocks the true (or ‘ture’) ending. I recommend a guide for this as it’s not always clear what you are meant to do.

8. Survivor Run

The ultimate badass achievement. 14 hours to unlock. No saves. This can be approached in various ways but this is how I did it.

Woke up at 8am on a Saturday with a view to doing the achievement in one go. I didn’t fancy leaving the 360 on overnight.

Have a big breakfast and get comfortable. Whilst you can take breaks it is still a very long amount of time and if you get irritable you’ll lose concentration and that’ll get you killed.

Have something to do. I watched TV all day in the corner of my HD screen. You can’t really play PSP games or whatever as you’ll be too nervous about messing up and letting Frank die.

Generally though the plan is to circle the mall looking for survivors and psychos to kill. Psychos are a godsend because they drop a lot of food, survivors usually drop one food item only. You need the three food books as they give you much more energy from your food.

Health 1. Sir Book-a-lot. Wonderland Plaza.

Health 2. The Sinister Read. Entrance Plaza.

Survival. Empty store next to Crisplips (North Plaza).

Then start circling. My route was;

Security Room
Entrance Plaza
Al Fresca
Entrance Plaza (I avoided Food Court for the last four days because of a rumoured glitch that crashes your 360)
Paradise Plaza
Warehouse
Security Room (for ammo)
Warehouse
Paradise
Wonderland Plaza (via shortcut in ladies’ toilet)
North Plaza
Crislips
Park (watch out for convicts! Also, sniper family turns up on day one and drop enough food to last a day. Grab what you can, climb up onto the picnic area roof, drop it, get the rest and hide back up there for a day)
Tunnels
Meat-packing room
Tunnels
Park
Paradise Plaza
Cinema
Paradise Plaza
Warehouse
Security Room
Roof

Rinse and repeat. Remember, you only stay still if there is food that you can’t carry. Hide somewhere safe and wait until you can eat something and pick up the remaining food. DO NOT USE MALL FOOD UNLESS YOU ABSOLUTELY MUST!

Good luck!