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When all you have is a TV... and a whole mall...

Dead Rising is a 2006 action-sandbox-survival game and the first entry in the eponymous franchise, developed by Capcom as an Xbox 360 exclusive, ported to Xbox One, Playstation 4, and Windows ten years later.

It's September of 2006, and the sleepy town of Willamette, Colorado — population 53,594 — has gone completely silent. A military lockdown and media blackout is preventing any information from escaping the rural backwater, and most people wouldn't be interested anyway. But Frank West isn't most people. A freelance photojournalist willing to brave warzones for his scoops, he follows an anonymous tip to the town, chartering a helicopter to bypass the military's checkpoints, drop him off at the local megamall, and return in three days.

There, he discovers terrified locals barricading the entrance and a horde of zombies outside. When a hysterical survivor accidentally unleashes the horde, the others are content to hole up in the mall's security room and wait for rescue — but not Frank. Teaming up with Homeland Security agents Brad Garrison and Jessie McCarney, he braves the overrun shopping center to uncover the truth behind the outbreak, and the identity of his mysterious source...

The game has three defining features (four, if you count the then-astonishing number of zombies the player faces in its Wide-Open Sandbox). First is its combat system, built around the idea of using everything at your disposal to survive: Frank can pick up and use just about everything lying around in the mall, from guns and sports gear to benches and trash cans, and even sillier options like frisbees and novelty masks. All weapons have limited durability and/or ammunition, meaning that the player must constantly scavenge new equipment to replenish their arsenal.

The second (and more controversial) is its constant time limit: starting from the moment of Frank's arrival on the mall's roof, the game begins ticking down a three-day timer (six hours real-time) until Frank's chopper pilot returns. Every mission in the game begins at a certain time and must be completed within a set number of in-game hours, including the story, and once a mission’s time window runs out, there’s no way to access it for the rest of your playthrough. The game has no Game Over state other than death, instead offering Multiple Endings depending on how much of the story Frank managed to complete and whether he makes it to the chopper in time.

Lastly is the game's RPG Elements and approach to New Game Plus: Frank begins the story weak, slow, and unable to carry many items, with his stats increasing semi-randomly as he earns Prestige Points from taking interesting photographs, defeating zombies and bosses, rescuing survivors, and performing random activities throughout the mall. While it's possible to complete the story and even achieve 100% Completion in a single run, it's punishingly difficult — the game instead encourages players to restart the story when they die or reach an ending, resetting their progress to zero but retaining their current level and stats.

Despite the game's overseas success, it sold poorly in Japan due to a number of factors (most notably its Xbox exclusivity and the game's gory B-Movie aesthetic not gelling with Japanese gamers of the time). After a cut-down Wii remake, Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop, received a similarly weak reception, Capcom handed off development of Dead Rising 2 to its Vancouver branch, who would handle the series from then until their closure in 2018.

Frank West would go on to cameo in numerous Capcom titles and even appeared as a fighter in Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All Stars, Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite, and Project × Zone. The 2015 direct-to-streaming film Dead Rising: Watchtower, starring Rob Riggle as Frank, explores what Frank was doing in the years between the first game and the sequel's Case: West DLC.


Dead Rising provides examples of:

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  • Action Commands: Prompts to wiggle the joystick or press a specific button appear when Frank is grabbed by a zombie.
  • Acceptable Breaks from Reality:
    • Frank can carry an absurd amount of items in his pockets that would be considered bulky and/or heavy in real life: rifles, shotguns, hedge clippers, 2x4s, a skateboard, mannequin torsos, and gallon-size jugs of orange juice. Exaggerated when Frank maxes out his inventory at a whopping twelve slots.
    • Frank just happens to carry an invisible supply of empty glass jars to store Queens in.
    • If you're escorting a pair of survivors and one of them dies, the remaining one will not react to the death of their friend whatsoever, and will continue on as if nothing happened.
    • When Frank is captured by the cultists or Special Forces, they take all of his clothes and weapons, but conveniently leave him with his camera and key items, since they aren't considered items by the game mechanics.
  • A Taste of Power: A very subtle and easy-to-miss example, but Frank can obtain a Shotgun at the very start of the game from a doomed survivor. It is a useful tool for clearing crowds of zombies, but aside from the introduction the only way to get it is to defeat Cletus then grab one from the gun store.
  • Action Survivor: A few, though Frank is the purest example.
  • Affably Evil: In Larry the butcher's introductory scene, he's always smiling and/or giggling creepily and treats Frank as a "customer" (though having captured Carlito, he intends to serve said customer Mexican), one of the only Psychopaths who isn't fixed on ripping Frank to shreds and/or filling him with lead. In fact, when his actual boss fight starts, he'll ignore Frank, humming and sharpening his knives unless you attack first.
  • Alas, Poor Villain:
    • In Cliff's death scene, he comes back to his senses and explains himself. It's... depressing. Still, remember why the Psychopaths are the way they are in the first place and he's not the only one who can take on a Woobie factor.
    • Thomas Hall too. He doesn't actually get a cutscene as he's part of a family of three, but if you take out his brother and his father the rest of the fight is a Curb-Stomp Battle he has no chance of winning — and he was the Only Sane Man trying to stop his family from shooting you. Many internet comments wish there was a way to save him.
    • Cletus is a paranoid gun shop owner who kills anyone who tries to take the guns by force. Considering the situation and the number of psychopaths around, his actions can be justified as a result of being afraid for his life and his victim was warned enough times by both him and Frank to walk away. Even though his death portrays him as a hyprocritical coward, it's not hard to feel bad for him once he's killed by a zombie. It's worth noting that in the Wii version, he is actually savable.
  • Ambiguous Situation:
    • Why weren't the zombies interested in Madonna at the beginning of the game? Was it because they are only attracted to human flesh, or is it because Madonna was already zombified? The, admittedly, non-canon Chop 'Til You Drop has zombified animals, including poodles, but the sequel features a tiger that is perfectly capable of living in a zombie-infested casino despite being a large and easy target for a swarm of the undead.
    • What is the True Eye Cult's deal? What does the cult's hideout being in Leisure Park mean? Was it founded during the outbreak as an extreme coping mechanism by a group of survivors that snapped, or were the cultists lurking in the shadows way before zombies even appeared, and simply saw the outbreak as an opportunity to carry out their desires? Is Sean the cult's founder, or did he just become the group's leader at some point? Does "tainted blood" refer to the zombie infection, not being part of the cult, or something else?
  • America Saves the Day: Inverted. Later in the game, the military shows up on a mission to capture or kill any survivors in an attempt to cover up what happened there so it wouldn't get linked back to what started all this: the Santa Cabeza incident.
  • And Then John Was a Zombie:
    • Barnaby, Brad, and Jessie all end up turning as the story progresses. Hell, Jessie gets infected because of Barnaby.
    • This can also happen to survivors that get killed by zombies. Their reanimated corpse shows up in the horde after their death scene.
    • James Ramsey, the survivor shot by Cletus, ends up reanimating and killing Cletus after the latter is defeated.
    • Subverted with Frank, himself. He gets infected, but Isabela helps him synthesize a zombification-suppressant to keep him alive.
  • And Your Reward Is Clothes: Certain achievements will add new outfits to the Security Room on subsequent playthroughs.
  • Anti-Frustration Features: Played with. While there are a lot of concessions given to the player to make the game easier (such as the camera shop being right next to the security room, or the katana being found in Paradise Plaza, also not far from the security room), there are almost an equal amount if not more things explicitly designed to frustrate the player.
    • One example of the above is the fact that the Convicts, the trio widely agreed to be exceedingly difficult to defeat, respawn every single day, meaning the time and effort you took to take them down is rendered moot no less than 24 hours later. No wonder Adam rewards the player with an easy way around them.
    • Barring a few exceptions, when you’re facing off against a psychopath, the game will kindly clear the surrounding battlefield of zombies so you don’t have to worry about taking twice as much damage from them and the psychos’ already highly damaging attacks.
    • When Frank has to carry Isabela to the Security Room, he has to carry her the whole way there due to her wound (she can walk, but she has even a slower walking speed than normal injured survivors). To compensate, Kindell, a survivor carrying a shotgun, spawns at the exact time and place as the escort mission to help him out. Additionally, there are no True Eye cultists in Paradise Plaza during this case, preventing Frank, Isabela, and Kindell from being killed (or in Frank's case, kidnapped) by a crew of mooks that aren't as easily avoidable as zombies. Justified because Sean’s boss fight is unlocked at the time you have to escort Isabela and Kindell, so the remaining cultists have gathered in Colby’s Movieland, away from the rest of the ruckus.
    • Brock Mason is by far the weakest psychopath in the game in terms of health, which serves as a balance to the fact that you have to fight him with only your fists.
  • Anyone Can Die: Due to this game taking place in a zombie outbreak, no one is absolutely safe, not even in the security room, as Jessie learned the hard way. Excluding the survivors that can be escorted to safety and the soldiers the player can spare, the only characters that survive are Frank, Isabela, and Otis.
  • Armed Altruism: In general, it's better to give your guns to the non-suicidal survivors you rescue because as NPCs they will have unlimited ammo. As an added bonus, since bosses tend to go for you first, doing so frees the survivors to pepper them with bullets.
  • Armor Is Useless: Zig-zagged.
    • Frank can wear body armor as one of his many outfits, but it gives no stats bonuses over walking around naked.
    • Zombie Jessie manages to kill two soldiers in the security room on her own, despite her leg being weakened by a sprained ankle a couple of days prior, and the soldiers having armor and weapons powerful enough to easily dispatch an undead woman in her mid-twenties. Even if they were unarmed, they really should have had no trouble just wrestling her off.
    • The Psychopaths and survivors are absurdly durable compared to the humans mooks despite all of them being unarmored, having from 2,000 to 5,000 hit points on average (zombies average 100 for reference). The least durable boss by far is the only one who wears armor- Brock Mason, at 1,000 hit points.
    • On the other hand, it's averted for the aforementioned mooks- the unarmored True Eye cultists have 300 hit points while the Special Forces soldiers, clad in body armor and helmets, have 1,000 hit points. In an unexpected dose of realism, handgun fire outright does zero damage to them, and it takes quite a few shots from the assault rifle or sniper rifle to put them down. They're less resistant against melee weapons than they are firearms though.
  • Artifact Mook:
    • The game famously gives you the Zombie Genocider achievement for killing a number of zombies equal to the entire population of Willamette. Even accounting for out-of-town visitors and the infection spreading, it seems rather unlikely that that many zombies would wind up in the mall. And they still keep coming.
    • In the last quarter of the game, special forces soldiers show up and kill every single zombie and psychopath in the mall, bar the zombies in the maintenance tunnels. From then on, the mall is empty bar Frank, Isabela, and the soldiers... until it comes time to gather ten queen wasps, after which the zombies all suddenly come back throughout the mall. The psychopaths (including the raincoat cultists) stay dead though.
  • Artificial Stupidity:
    • The survivors you have to escort are dumber than a sack of doorknobs, to the point where injured survivors are the easiest, because you just have to carry them to the safe room. While many players accidentally make this worse by spamming the Holler Button (survivors take a moment to recalculate their actions every time you give them a new order), they're still not very smart even if you do everything right.
    • The pack of survivors that are killed at the start of the game never move, having seemingly resigned themselves to death as soon as the zombies broke through the barricade. Notably, the elderly couple Alan and Kathy are far enough away from the horde that Frank can actually save them if he's quick enough, but they make no attempt to escape with only Alan making a token effort to fight off any zombies that get near him.
    • The soldiers that arrive on the third day are not any better. They will not shoot at Frank until they have closed in to about five meters, no matter what. Coupled with their inability to do things like open doors or climb up to elevated platforms, they are very easy to gun down by taking advantage of these shortcomings.
    • The raincoat cultists are worse than the survivors or the soldiers. You can stand about 15 meters away and pick off groups of them at your leisure with a handgun, and most of them won't even react. The occasional one that does just slowly shuffles towards you.
  • Artistic License – Military: Cliff Hudson's battle strategy is reminiscent of actual soldiers from Vietnam, but it still raises a few eyebrows.
    • His battle strategy of using tunnels as an ambush strategy indicates that Cliff served as a tunnel rat during the Vietnam warnote . If this is the case, he should not be wielding a machete as the tunnel rats had to carry the smallest equipment available to them because of the narrowness of the tunnels - i.e. a standard-issue M1911 pistol or M1917 revolver, a bayonet, a flashlight, and explosives. Tunnel rats were also skilled in unarmed combat and would resort to fighting with their bare hands before picking up an unknown weapon.
    • Machetes were never used for combat since they were too noisy and were only used to traverse through the jungle and vegetation. If Cliff did serve as a tunnel rat or served in Vietnam, he would have used a bayonet or other forms of combat knives, not a machete. However, since Cliff believed he was reliving the Vietnam war, it may just be a matter of circumstance since he couldn't access the weapons he would have used in the war.
  • Asshole Victim:
    • Dr. Barnaby extracted the source behind the zombies’ existence while studying cattle, Brock led the cleanup operation in Santa Cabeza, and Carlito unleashed the virus in Willamette. Needless to say, they are all responsible for the outbreak in some way, and they all die in it.
    • Among the Psychopaths, Kent (an arrogant photographer who tries to zombify someone for a picture), Sean (a cult leader who tries to sacrifice several people), Jo (a depraved police officer who molests women for sick pleasure), and the Convicts (who patrol the Park and kill anyone in sight) particularly have their deaths coming.
  • Attack Drone: Looking like an RC helicopter with a machine gun slung underneath, they help the Special Forces patrol the mall in Overtime Mode.
  • Awesome, but Impractical:
    • The Laser Sword's alternate attack has Frank spinning in a circle with the blade extending to slice everything around him. It's incredibly deadly at close range, but Frank throws the blade away every time this attack is used, leaving you to have to run and find it so you can use it again.
    • Larry’s Meat Cleaver is an above-average melee weapon with high damage, good attack speed, and moderate range. All its good qualities are canceled out by the fact that its durability is awful and it’s found in the Meat Processing Plant, which is so far out of the way that the Cleaver is the only reason to actually go there.
    • The Leadership book supposedly increases the bravery of the survivors Frank is escorting. In practice, this amounts to survivors being willing to run straight into crowds of zombies they have no way of escaping and getting absolutely shredded within seconds.
    • Rescuing Paul will have him supply you with an infinite amount of Molotov Cocktails. Each Molotov takes up a whole space of inventory and it won't be long before you quickly run out if you plan on using them. With this in mind, their best use would be against Psychopaths but Paul is (likely) the penultimate boss of the main story, leaving only Larry. Paul is also no longer present in Overtime Mode, meaning there are no means of getting any more cocktails. Coupled with the fact Brock Mason is forcibly fought unarmed, there is not much use for the weapon at all.
  • Ax-Crazy: The Psychopaths (the local bosses — surviving humans, most of which went completely insane when the zombies were let into the mall), practically as a rule.
  • Badass Bystander: In contrast to most of the survivors, who have to be rescued and armed by the player, Kindell the restaurant manager shows up armed with a shotgun and helps escort you during a story-based mission where you're unable to fight due to having to carry an injured plot-critical character. It's a shame the game's limited A.I. somewhat reduces his effectiveness, and that he also attempts a mutiny later on if he survives (although his mutiny is much easier to calm down than Ronald's).
  • Beef Gate: Cletus. He can be fought anytime during the first two days, and he isn't part of a marked scoop. Since he doesn't have any hostages, the main reason to fight him is that he guards the gun store, the game's only source of Sniper Rifles and Shotguns.
  • Behind the Black: The cause of the Happy Ending Override in Ending A. Ed comes to Frank's rescue, but somehow did not notice that there's a zombie in the backseat. It's even more egregious that the zombie just didn't attack at all until it was most convenient, a.k.a. when Ed is halfway to the mall's rooftop and is signalling Frank down.
    • This almost gets subverted in Ending C, in which Ed spots a zombie behind him as he’s leaving, but it rushes him too quickly for him to do anything about it.
  • Better to Die than Be Killed: Survivors equipped with a handgun may shoot themselves when their HP runs out, to die cleanly without becoming a zombie.
  • Beware the Living: In general, the humans you encounter aren't much friendlier than the zombies, and they're far more resilient. This aspect of the story is lampshaded several times, most notably by the gun store owner, Cletus.
    Cletus: I trust those zombies about as far as I can throw 'em, but I trust people even less!
  • BFG: The M2 machine gun is mounted on a jeep, but Frank can just carry it around after he defeats the Convicts.
  • Big Bad Ensemble: Carlito Keyes, the terrorist who engineered the Willamette outbreak and plans to duplicate his feat on a continental scale, and Brock Mason, a black ops commander who's responsible for both the Fiery Cover-Up in the mall and the massacre that drove Carlito to villainy in the first place.
  • Bilingual Bonus: Carlito and Isabela occasionally speak in Spanish. Also, Larry the butcher has the kanji for 'Meat' (as seen in Kinnikuman) tattooed on the back of his neck.
  • Bittersweet Ending:
    • Ending S, though it’s more bitter than it is sweet. Frank stops Carlito's plan to spread the zombie apocalypse throughout North America, saving millions, and then fights his way through dozens of black ops soldiers before ultimately killing Brock Mason, the commander of both the Willamette cover-up and the Santa Cabeza clean-up operation. Frank and Isabela manage to escape Willamette with enough evidence to expose the U.S. government's crimes, getting them to the public, but the government only admits partial responsibility for their livestock research that destroyed Isabela and Carlito's hometown, and refuse to admit any connection to the zombie disaster in Willamette. Frank's zombification is never fully cured, only halted by Isabella's drug. The story, as a whole, is eventually disregarded and forgotten about, even Carlito's plan of using orphans to instigate the apocalypse to the entire United States, setting the events for Dead Rising 2 5 years later. And while Carlito's plan was foiled by Frank, with the terrorist ending up dead for his trouble, over 50,000 people still died in the Willamette Incident.
    • Ending B: Frank manages to escape from Willamette all along, and even brings the survivors he rescued along with him. Unfortunately, the cause of the zombie outbreak is lost, and the outbreak continues to spread across the country.
  • Black-and-Gray Morality: Only between the Military and Carlito's plans. Frank, while rough around the edges, is pretty solidly White who's thrown into all this mess. Most of the time.
  • Bloody Hilarious:
    • The Excavator is a laugh riot. Using it impales a zombie on the tool's spinning auger, upon which you lift the spinning, flailing undead into the air and pummel other zombies with it. Limbs and bits of flesh fly off in every direction with each hit you land. Fun for the whole family!
    • Spearing zombies with the Lead Pipe or the Shower Nozzle also qualify for this trope: the pipe slowly siphons the blood out of their chest cavity until they collapse, and the shower nozzle is plunged into the top of their skulls, providing them with their own private red shower until they too cave in on themselves from blood-loss.
    • Running down zombies with an industrial strength lawnmower, literally cutting a bloody swathe through the horde. Trying to frantically kill zombies in a toy store, plastic swords and tennis balls bounce harmlessly off the dead, biking/skateboarding directly into a mass until you inevitably get tossed, and at one point you get a ping pong ball-shooting Mega Man gun.
  • Blown Across the Room: Cletus' shotgun has one hell of a kick, which is why his boss fight is so damned frustrating. To wit, the animation where Frank gets knocked backwards and staggers to his feet is only minimally shorter than the time it takes Cletus to rack his shotgun.
  • Book Ends: In the opening to the game a woman and her daughter are trapped inside a car that’s empty of gas and is being surrounded by zombies while a bird’s eye camera zooms out from the car (and the two most likely Getting Devoured by the Horde). In the true ending After Frank defeats Brock he realizes that the tank he’s standing out is surrounded by zombies (Those not closing in on the tank instead closing in on Isabella standing on a flipped over car). Looking around at the apparent impossibility of escaping Frank screams into the air and the bird’s eye camera zooms out from his face.
  • Boom, Headshot!: A gun will kill any zombie instantly if you shoot them in the head (unless they're wearing a hard hat, in which case it won't work). One survivor (Ross) will take his own life if you fulfill his request and give him a gun, another asks you to bring her a gun just in case she starts to turn, and some of them will put a bullet through their brain if you equip them with a gun and they run out of health from the zombies.
  • Boss-Altering Consequence: You can participate in a photography challenge with rival photographer Kent. If you can pass his first challenge, he orders you to meet him the next day at noon. Arrive on time, and you'll stop him from zombifying an innocent survivor and fight him with your current arsenal. Arrive too late, however, and Kent will have already zombified the survivor and will tie you down at gunpoint and strip you of your weapons, forcing you to fight him barehanded.
  • Bottomless Bladder: Amusingly subverted; while Frank isn't required to use the restroom, doing so is one of the many methods of saving the game. This makes even more sense when you realize that ''liquids'' restore much more health than solid foods, so Frank is usually carrying (and drinking) lots of orange juice.
  • Bowdlerise: The Japanese version of the game is completely bloodless, due to rating restrictions that would get the game banned.
  • Bragging Rights Reward:
    • The Laser Sword unlocked by achieving 5 Day Survivor in Infinity Mode, a mode unlocked by already having completed the game in its entirety. It will kill just about everything in one hit, but its cutting arc and limited durability technically make it inferior to the Small Chainsaw.
    • Subverted with the Real Mega Buster unlocked through the Zombie Genocider achievement. While it also kills most enemies in a few hits, the general impracticality of firearms in the game does not make it a significant game-breaker. It is also a critical part of efficiently taking Infinity Mode on to unlock the aforementioned Laser Sword.
  • Breakable Weapons: All weapons break over time, though some last longer than others. Books can be found around the mall to increase certain weapons' durability.
  • Bullfight Boss: Steven the grocery store manager is easier to beat if he crashes his shopping cart or gets the blades attached to the front stuck while charging Frank.
  • The Butcher: Larry.
  • Cabin Fever: If you've gathered enough survivors, by the third day, some of them will have started arguing or occasionally knocking each other around. If you've gathered most of the survivors, by that time several of them will start actively pummeling the others (though, thankfully, they can't kill each other).
  • Camera Sniper: Used in cut-scenes as well as incorporated into gameplay.
  • Car Fu: The most-effective (and possibly only) way to get the "Genocider" achievement in the required 72 hours is to drive laps through the crowded underground parking garage running down zombies and changing cars as necessary.
  • Censored Child Death: The game never shies away from implying or downright stating that a child has died or is going to die. However, no child is actually seen getting killed onscreen.
    • The opening cutscene ends with a mother and her six-year-old daughter screaming as zombies surround their stranded car. They were more than likely killed by the undead.
    • One of the first survivors Frank can encounter is Leah, a distraught mother who is distraught to the point of near-suicide, because she had to listen as her young daughter was eaten alive.
    • Adam is a mall entertainer that snapped because he witnessed the zombies devouring his audience, which obviously included children.
  • Chained to a Rock: A mall fountain, actually.
  • Chainsaw Good: Both subverted and played straight. Subverted with the chainsaw you find (Slow, prone to needing startup time, and only usable by spinning or inaccurate flailing), played straight with the mini-chainsaw you can obtain from an early boss (One-handed, can be shoved into inventory, terribly damaging, and very fast).
  • Character Level: This game implements a level-up system: you kill zombies and take pictures to gain experience, and each level gained results in either a stat boost (Speed, Power, Inventory, etc.) or a new move (Double Lariat, Disembowel).
  • Chewing the Scenery: The grocery store manager boss, Steven. "This is my stooore!".
  • Church Militant: Raincoat Cult leader Sean Keanan kicks ass for the mannequin-god Lord!
  • Cold Sniper: Roger seems to be a pretty textbook example.
  • Combat Pragmatist: Nearly everything you see in the mall can be picked up and used to clobber zombies. This includes benches, rocks, and trash cans.
  • Continuing is Painful: Somewhat subverted. There's not a penalty for dying per se, but you won't get far towards the best ending unless you start a new game with some pre-gained EXP at the beginning.
  • Contrived Coincidence: The zombie onboard Ed's helicopter just does not move an inch nor make a peep until Ed is well on his way to pick up Frank.
  • Crazy Survivalist: Some of the Psychopaths' flavor of crazy in the midst of Zombie Apocalypse.
  • Cruel and Unusual Death: Besides the traditional demises at the hands of zombies, this is surprisingly averted, since most of the psychopaths and major characters that end up dying pass away either peacefully or in somewhat non-painful ways. However, some deaths do stick out:
    • Brad, who gets his stomach ripped open by zombies before succumbing to the infection and becoming a zombie himself.
    • Adam, who falls on his still active chainsaws, slicing his stomach open in the process.
    • Sean, whose eye is impaled by a pointy edge on the idol he worshiped when said idol falls over him.
    • Paul, if you let him die, ends up burning to death, with the fire starting on his crotch.
  • Cutting the Knot: In the very first case, if Brad dies, it is possible to kill Carlito right afterward. At the expense of the whole plot, Frank essentially stopped most of Carlito's diabolical plans.
  • Cutscene Incompetence: Happens to Frank every so often. A good example is the cutscene before the alternate Kent fight, in which the by now really powerful Frank that can take dozens of bullets before going down in gameplay is chained up, stripped to his underwear, and has his entire inventory taken away by Kent, and all because Kent threatened him with a handgun.
  • Cycle of Hurting: A big contributor to the game’s difficulty. Just about any attack will make Frank stumble in place if he gets hit. This includes swipes from zombies, attacks from psychopaths and survivors and even being shot from across the map with a gun. The biggest contributors are Cletus, Carlito and Kent. Cletus’s shotgun is racked so fast that Frank will get shot again by the time he’s back up; Carlito’s sniper rifle sends you flying backwards and Frank again gets up just in time to catch another shot from it (and it takes off TWO blocks of health per shot), and for some reason, Kent’s punches stun Frank for about 2 whole seconds, meaning he can just back you into a wall and slowly punch you to death.
    • This is also why escorting survivors is so hellishly frustrating. All it takes is for one zombie to hit your survivor and make them fall behind. Then another one hits them. And another. And another one after that. At this point, you have such a huge crowd of zombies constantly swiping at your survivors that the zombies swipe faster than it takes for the stagger animation to finish and will continue until they die or you intervene. Cue controllers being thrown.
  • Deadly Lunge: Most zombies are rather slow, but they speed up once they get close. There's also the occasional zombie who can quickly close distance.
  • Death Is Dramatic: If a survivor's HP runs out while they're in the same area as Frank, gameplay will halt to show a cutscene of their death. Usually this involves being overwhelmed by a pack of zombies, but if they're equipped with a gun, they may shoot themself to avoid being zombified.
  • Death of a Child: The extra cutscene accessed by waiting on the opening screen ends with a mother and her young daughter trapped a car surrounded by zombies, and once inside the mall, Cliff went insane after watching zombies devour his granddaughter, it's implied Adam saw this happen to his entire audience, and one of the survivors will tell Frank that her baby was eaten.
  • Death Seeker: Several survivors have become this before Frank arrives and talks them out of it. Leah, for instance, is ready to lay down and die so she doesn't have to live without her baby daughter, while Ross is incredibly injured and asks for a gun to kill himself with (he goes through with it if you give him one). And judging by how Carlito was willing to blow up the mall with him still inside it, he clearly has no care for his own life.
  • Defeat Means Friendship:
    • You have to attack Burt before he teams up with you.
    • When Paul catches on fire, you can put him out and he will join you.
    • It also takes defeat for Isabela to start to cooperate with Frank.
  • Depraved Bisexual:
    • The alternate version of Kent's boss fight has left some either guessing or assuming.
    • Jo Slade is also strongly implied to be one of these, and in unpleasant ways.
  • Developer's Foresight:
    • In the last segment of Overtime Mode before the final boss, the player has to carry Isabella through an underground tunnel full of zombies. Once you pass through, you enter a separate area where you can leave Isabella waiting. Even though there is no reason for the player to go back to the tunnels alone, Frank has a different set of sounds for his Holler Button in which he yells out loud "Heyy!!" instead of his regular "Hello?" and "Anyone there?", just for that specific circumstance.
    • A minor one, but if you get ending B, Ed and Frank’s dialogue will be different depending on how many survivors you rescued. For example, if you only rescued a couple of survivors:
      Ed: Who’s this you got here with you?
      Frank: A survivor, plucked straight from the depths of Hell.
    • And if you managed to rescue most of the survivors:
      Ed: Holy shit! You didn’t say there’d be this many people!
      Frank: Aw, come on! We can’t just leave ‘em here!
      Ed: Well, you’re paying for the extra fuel, I tell you that!
    • Thought you would get crafty and try to hole up in the supermarket to make Infinity Mode a breeze? Think again, as there are shutters in front of the doors and the Maintenance Tunnel door by the pharmacy is also locked to force you to survive through your wits.
    • Every survivor in the game has a line for when you rescue them, even though only one survivor per group will speak upon returning to the safe room. There are tons of lines you may have never heard before simply because hearing them requires another survivor to be killed first.
  • Devoured by the Horde:
    • If the survivors you're trying to rescue takes enough damage from zombies, a cutscene will appear where the zombies are eating the survivors. Some of the cutscenes include the zombies devouring and pulling out the survivor's guts, the zombies dog piling on the survivor and devouring them, four zombies pulling on the survivor's limbs, or the survivor shooting themself with the gun you gave them.
    • After an intense fight between Frank West and Brock Mason on top of a tank that's surrounded by a huge amount of zombies, Frank kicks him off the tank into the zombies and they all devour him.
  • Difficult, but Awesome: The regular chainsaw is like this, especially in Infinity Mode before you get the Small Chainsaw. The standard swing is awkward as hell and leaves you vulnerable to attack after each swing, and you drop the weapon if you take a single hit from anything (forcing you to pick it up and rev it up again). However, the running attack absolutely scythes through zombies and bosses as long as you make absolutely sure never to stop moving, and if you constantly swing while running, it becomes nearly as lethal as the small chainsaw.
  • Digital Bikini: One of the wearable clothes in the original Xbox 360 release is a black sleeveless top emblazoned with a black-and-white photo of a topless woman. The PC port of the game gives the woman a modest bikini top, likely because of the improved PC graphics, the nudity would be more noticeable this time around.
  • Disc-One Nuke:
    • The Small Chainsaw can be collected from the clown boss, and will carve up all of the subsequent bosses with ease. If you get books to extend its life, the first one you grab will last you until the end of the game. Not only that, but if you grab it before you stop the roller coaster, you can get a second when the cutscene ends. Also, if you leave that section of the mall and come back, it will respawn at the control station.
    • The Mannequin Torso weapon is one of the best in game, easily dishing out more damage than most other everyday items. It has a fast swing speed and deals huge damage even when Frank's attack stat is low. It is also incredibly common, with North Plaza, in particular, having mannequins strewn all over the show.
    • The machine gun on the back of the Convicts' truck. Kill the gunner, snatch the gun, then waste the other two. Hold onto it afterwards and kill more bosses with it.
  • Doomed Hometown: Santa Cabeza, for Carlito and Isabela.
  • Downer Beginning: A mother and a daughter are shown to be devoured by the undead inside a broken car at night in the prelude.
  • Downer Ending: Endings B through F are all downers, though B and E are just a tad happier. Ending A, however, is hardly any better, as the helicopter you have planned to get on crashes because of a zombie aboard. Although this one is narrowly averted later by the Overtime Mode, we arrive at the true ending — Ending S.
  • Do Not Run with a Gun: Made worse by the fact that aiming causes the camera to reset over Frank's right shoulder, meaning that in the time you come out of cover, stop, slooowly bring the reticule around to point at the boss, and fire, that boss has already done all four, and knocked you right off your feet with a single shot.
  • Driven to Madness:
    • An accidental case. Kent probably wasn't all that stable to begin with, viewing a zombie apocalypse as an opportunity to score some great photos, but when Frank one-ups him, he does not take it well.
    • Carlito is one definite case. The loss of his hometown to the sinister livestock research program leads him into a Roaring Rampage of Revenge all over the USA.
  • Driven to Suicide: Ross asks for a gun, which, if you deliver, he uses on himself. This is also a random death cutscene that can play for any survivor armed with a gun. They won't come back as a zombie if they do this.
  • Dropped a Bridge on Him: Carlito meets his end not at the hands of Frank or the military, but a random Psychopath who put him on a meat hook.
  • Drought Level of Doom: Infinity Mode serves as a version of this. There's plenty of food at the beginning, but it doesn't respawn, so you must balance your inventory carefully, and fight dangerous psychopaths and survivors to get more. Then, on day 7, all psychopaths and survivors disappear and you are left with the quickly dwindling food supplies.

    E-J 
  • Early-Installment Weirdness: Naturally, being followed by three sequels gives plenty of weirdness to the first game. Several staple mechanics such as combo weapons and vehicles are absent from this game; you simply pick up whatever you can find and go to town on the zombies. The only real "combos" the game has are the blenders where you mix food items to create special drinks. The plot is also more convoluted and mysterious than the future games, although justified since this is the first outbreak to occur in America. The various skill moves are also more clunky and difficult to pull off consistently due to their wonky inputs; an issue that would be resolved in the later games. The survivor AI is also at its most abysmal here while the survivors in the sequels are much more intelligent. The time limit here is also ridiculously strict and wouldn't become more lenient until the later games.
  • Easy Levels, Hard Bosses: Zigzagged. The bosses are fiendishly difficult at earlier levels, but progressively become mere nuisances at the highest levels. The frail zombies, on the other hand, are always threatening due to their sheer numbers.
  • Eaten Alive: It can happen to survivors you’re trying to save, and canonically, it happens to Cletus, Ed, Brock, and everyone in the Entrance Plaza at the beginning aside from Frank and Brad.
  • Empathy Doll Shot: When Frank meets Adam, he glances into a passing Space Coaster car and sees two bloody dolls propped up in the seat.
  • Enemy Posturing: Subverted with Brock Mason, the final boss. He starts the fight by laughing at you, but you're not actually supposed to attack him when he does; if you try, he'll preempt your attack with a shoulder block. Instead, you have to wait for him to come at you, sidestep him, and then attack him.
  • Escort Mission: A great deal of the game; some are entirely optional while others are needed for story purposes. The death of the character you were escorting results in no punishment, but a successful rescue gives a hefty reward.
  • Event-Driven Clock: The game is going to end in 3 days. Your actions affect what ending you get but not when it comes. Other game events also happen on time regardless of player action, though on a sliding window of opportunity rather than an exact time. As long as you arrive within that timeframe the event happens and it's Always Close.
  • Everything's Sparkly with Jewelry: Can be used as a weapon, but not effectively at first.
  • Evil Laugh: Brock has one that can be photographed for Drama points.
  • Evolving Attack: As Frank levels up, his attacks become more powerful. He also becomes a ninja.
  • Eye Scream: Sean Keanan's death.
  • Failed a Spot Check: How the hell did Ed not notice a zombie in his helicopter?
    • Ed almost subverts this in Ending C, where he does spot a zombie sneaking up on him while preparing to leave his rooftop, but it charges him too quickly for him to back away in time.
  • Failure Is the Only Option: Every one of the survivors in the intro will die; even when you beef up in a New Game Plus, they don't have the AI to follow you to the stairs. Even when you have the ability to pick them up, you won't be holding the survivor once the cutscene ends note .
  • The Family That Slays Together: The Halls, a trio of zealous survivalist snipers — a father and his two sons.
  • Fan Disservice:
    • Zombies in cropped tops and short skirts. Taking photos of them nevertheless scores major bonuses for "erotica", as Frank leers "goooooood".
    • Frank does the grind when trying on women's clothing. Grab the Brain Bleach, you'll need it to remove the Squick and horror.
    • Taking a panty shot of an elderly female survivor will score Horror points instead of Erotica points.
    • If a male survivor dies due to a zombie, a female zombie may be shown going down on him in the 69 position and biting into his groin.
  • Fanservice:
    • Jessie and Isabela are drop dead sexy.
    • Cheryl, one of the rescuable survivors, wears a small black dress and even poses for the camera in a special side mission.
  • Fat Bastard: Jo and Larry are among the nastier bosses (in Jo's case, that includes personality). Ronald is probably more of a Fat Slob, but he's one of the more Jerkass survivors.
  • First-Person Snapshooter: One of the most justified examples, given that Frank is a freelance photographer. He's covered wars, y'know.
  • Fisticuffs Boss: Brock Mason, waiting at the very end of Overtime Mode.
  • Foreshadowing:
    • The loading screen that appears after the cutscene where Frank meets Kent for the first time is the same bloody one used for psychopaths, before Kent snaps and becomes one of the game's psychopaths.
    • One of the injured survivors, David, says that he got wounded by a man who shot him and called him a thief for trying to take food from the store. Frank meets the deluded store manager, Steven Chapman, himself a few in-game hours later.
    • Similarly, Ross says that he got shot by someone who was trying to kidnap Tonya. Five in-game hours later, Frank can encounter Jo Slade, a policewoman who is kidnapping women and is indicated to have killed other men for protecting them.
  • Friendly Fireproof: Completely absent. Other survivors are quite capable of shooting or smacking you to the ground, and vice versa.
  • From Nobody to Nightmare: Most of the psychopaths were common working men and women getting on the daily grind.
    • Cletus Samson and Steven Chapman were just shopkeepers forced to fortify the workplace to protect themselves from looters and other hostile survivors.
    • Larry Chiang was just a common butcher who was driven insane and became a cannibal.
    • Adam the Clown was just a regular mall clown until he witnessed the zombies devouring his child audience, which forced him to kill them all in self-defense at the cost of his sanity.
    • Kent Swanson was a photographer who developed an obsession with finding the perfect photo.
    • Cliff Hudson was a retired Vietnam veteran trapped in a PTSD flashback.
    • Sean Keanan and his cult were common citizens who saw the outbreak as an act of God and banded together under the belief that sacrificing survivors can stop it.
    • Jo Slade was a mall cop who used the outbreak to sexually abuse women for being prettier than her.
    • Paul Carson succumbed to his anxiety and lashed out at people who allegedly abused him in the past.
    • The Hall Family were just a family of hunters who had to resort to any means necessary to survive the outbreak. By the time they encounter Frank, they force the relatively innocent Thomas into fighting him.
    • Carlito and Isabella Keyes were victims of the Santa Cabeza outbreak and wanted revenge on America for killing their friends and family and destroying their town.
  • Gameplay and Story Integration
    • If a survivor holding a gun takes too much damage from the zombies, they will put a bullet in their head. They won't come back as a zombie in this case because they were shot rather than Devoured by the Horde.
    • The special forces only come to clean up the mall if you complete "The Facts". Jessie's calling for help after you finish "The Facts" will cause DHS to send in Special Forces to kill everything and everyone in the mall.
    • All the Psychopath bosses and survivors (outside the security room) disappear after the Special Forces arrive, even if you never dealt with them, as do the raincoat cultists. The obvious implication is that the Special Forces killed them along with the zombies.
    • Case 7-2, the case dealing with Carlito's bombs, grants the player Ending F if they fail to complete it in time, since the case timer doubles as the timer on the bombs.
    • Brad and Jessie normally count as rescued survivors for the "Saint" achievement, even though you don't have to rescue them. However, if you go for the true ending, they succumb to Plotline Death and no longer count as rescued, affecting the strategy for the achievement.
    • In the Lovers scoop, Tonya will only go where Ross is going due to her devotion to him. She’ll ignore any of Frank’s commands. This can lead to a Unintentionally Unwinnable situation should the two get separated between areas.
  • Gameplay and Story Segregation:
    • In terms of characterization in cutscenes and dialogue, Frank is a rather selfless man that does what he can do save others. This does nothing to stop the player from role-playing as a psychopath in gameplay, killing any survivor they see fit or dressing Frank in women's clothing.
    • The Japanese tourists use the same recycled English voice lines as the other survivors.
    • At the end of the game if you get ending A, Frank is somehow infected with the zombie virus. In gameplay, Frank can get munched on by zombies for three days straight and not have to worry about zombification. In the same vein, if you never get hit by a zombie throughout the whole game (pretty much impossible), Frank will still end up infected by Overtime Mode.
    • Even if you exterminate the entire population of Willamette, reaching 53,594 kills, (which nets you an achievement and the Real Mega Buster), zombies will continue to appear in the mall.
    • When the Special Forces arrive at the mall towards the end, they swiftly begin killing all of the zombies with impunity. By the time Overtime Mode begins, the Special Forces withdraw and every single zombie in the mall is dead...until Frank has to gather some queens for Isabela's serum at which point, the mall is completely full of zombies again.
    • Story wise, the zombies only break into the Entrance Plaza in the intro, yet when Frank goes through the air ducts to get to Paradise Plaza immediately after the intro, the zombies are somehow all over the mall despite having only entered it minutes ago. Even more jarring is that there are shutters in the Entrance Plaza that prevent access to the other areas, so it's unlikely that the zombies could have overrun each area so quickly, especially since in gameplay, zombies can barely move past a slow shuffling pace.
    • In Cletus’ introductory cutscene, he kills James Ramsay with a shotgun blast to the chest. In his death scene, James somehow turns into a zombie and comes back to kill Cletus despite not being infected.
  • Gas Mask Mooks: The Special Forces soldiers.
  • General Ripper: Brock.
  • "Get Back Here!" Boss: Paul isn't the hardest Psychopath to defeat and he will often damage himself from most of his attacks, but the real challenge is getting close enough to actually hit him since he never stops running. You can't make a straight beeline for him either, or else you'll be blown apart by the copious amounts of pipe bombs he drops behind him.
    • The Hall family also counts. They easily fall apart from a few good swings from a decent weapon, but they will sprint full steam away from Frank when he gets within a certain proximity to them.
  • Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: Done intentionally with most of the bosses, many of which are not connected to the Big Bad or the plot in any way — but just regular people who suffered a Freak Out as a result of the outbreak and have become a danger to other people. Larry is a particularly good example, as unlike many of the other bosses, he has very little background to be inferred and very little of his personality is revealed — but he still shows up out of nowhere and causes major problems to the main plot. In any case, many of them are even in missions that seem like any other, where you might not even know a boss is coming until the cutscene starts.
  • The Government: Who enforces lockdown. There are Black Ops soldiers (who look like HUNK and have M-16s) on the loose. Oh, and they were involved with the Mad Scientist who found out what causes the zombies — a species of hornet.
  • Glass Cannon: When Kent goes Psychopath, he's easily defeated with a few good hits from a rock... but let him catch up to you and he'll kick the living hell out of you before you can land even one of those hits.
  • Glowing Eyes of Doom: At night, the Zombies' eyes start to glow and they become significantly more difficult to defeat.
  • Goofy Print Underwear: Arthur's Boxers from Ghosts 'n Goblins are unlocked for lasting seven days in Infinity Mode. (Frank's default boxers are not particularly goofy.)
  • Groin Attack:
    • Female zombies will often attack Frank's crotch. This is just as awful as it sounds.
    • One possible cutscene that plays if a male survivor is killed by a zombie is of a female zombie biting into the poor guy's Johnson in what appears to be the "69 position". Yikes!
    • Paul accidentally sets his crotch on fire when you defeat him, giving you the opportunity to save him with a nearby fire extinguisher. One mistake many players make is to use the aim button to spray the extinguisher, which causes Frank to throw it with all his strength... into the guy's groin.
    • Even Isabela also does this to Frank after being defeated in her boss fight and before going to his side.
    • If Jo knocks Frank down, she may stomp on his balls. Repeatedly, and hard enough to draw blood.
  • Guide Dang It!:
    • Fifteen of the rescuable survivors (Jeff, Natalie, Bill, Sophie, Heather, Pamela, Jennifer, Nick, Sally, Kindell, Gil, Brett, Jonathan, Alyssa, and Susan), as well as Cletus, have no in-game indication of their location or even their existence; however, you're pretty much guaranteed to meet Jeff and Natalie (who spawn right outside the Security Room), and Kindell will cross your path if you follow the story.
    • Kent's photo challenge also counts as one. He simply tells you to "go out there and take even better pictures than the ones I just showed you." This gives the impression that the player simply needs to show him ANY photo that has a significant amount of PP in it. However, when you meet Kent the next day, he specifically asks for an EROTICA photo (which must have 700 PP to pass the mission). Getting an EROTICA shot worth that much at the point this mission comes about is another Guide Dang It! moment, as you're supposed to snap a shot of Jessie sitting next to Brad while you get medicine for him, but due to the strict time limit, players may not think about it until it's too late.
    • You can forget about finding all 100 of the PP Stickers in the mall without consulting a guide; little white stickers that are plastered on very specific objects in very specific places, including the long-winded Maintenance Tunnels. You'll give yourself an aneurysm trying to find them on your own.
  • Guns Are Worthless: Against zombies; they're not bad but their low ammo and rarity makes them a liability against big crowds of zombies. They're much more useful against bosses and some human mooks.
    • Averted with the .50 machinegun you get from the Hummvee driven by the escaped convcits, who h will fell a psychopath in a few shots but is hard to come by later on.
  • Heroic BSoD: Frank falls into a very brief one when he discovers that he has been infected in Overtime Mode. While he originally dismisses the prospect of a cure as just delaying the inevitable and would rather just die, discovering that Carlito may have spread the zombie virus across all of America through infected children makes him fight to get out of the mall again.
  • Heel–Face Turn:
    • After getting shot by Carlito, Isabela sides with Frank to stop her brother.
    • Paul's fight gives you the option to save him or let him roast. If you do choose to save him, he regains his sanity and joins you, even giving you Molotov cocktails as a bonus weapon later on.
    • In Chop Till You Drop, Cletus can be persuaded into becoming an ally.
  • Health/Damage Asymmetry: Inverted. Frank can have up to 12,000 HP (1,000 HP per life block) and most weapons don't deal more than 1,000 damage. Meanwhile, none of the psychopaths' HP goes higher than 6,000 and can deal up to 3,000 damage (equal to three blocks of health).
  • Healthy Green, Harmful Red: Psychopaths' and survivors' health bars are shown as green while the damage they take is shown as red.
  • Hide Your Children:
    • Death of a Child is heavily implied with the disturbing deaths of children (the opening cutscene, Cliff, Leah, Adam...). As for onscreen, Paul is 19? Not too hard to see. Jack is 23? A little more of a stretch. "B-But Daddy" Thomas is 20? Hm.
    • Carlito's ultimate plan, involving a bunch of infected children being sent across America as ticking time bombs.
  • High-Pressure Blood: The Shower Nozzle invokes this by defying the laws of physics. Then again, what doesn't in this game?
  • Holler Button: Used to call and lead survivors. Oddly, can be used in Infinity Mode, where the survivors are trying to kill you.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: Paul ends up setting himself on fire in the cutscene after his boss fight, though he can be saved, not to mention what happens to Adam and Sean...
  • Homage: Hmm... zombies... in a mall full of goodies... and the only way to escape was by helicopter... Sounds familiar. Actually, an early warning was to inform people that the game wasn't based on Romero's movie, and they still got sued by the company with the rights to the movie.
  • Hope Spot: When Jessie is finally able to contact headquarters, she learns that the government will not come rescue the remaining survivors, but rather kill everyone in Willamette and cover up the incident.
    • A first-time player might realize that since Jessie's death happens over the course of a few cutscenes that play no matter what part of the mall Frank is in, they might think of going to the Security Room as soon as possible in the last case to perhaps save her. Unfortunately, the cutscene where Jessie turns and kills two soldiers always plays before Frank can use the warehouse's elevator. As a result, Frank trying to contact Jessie on the rooftop, only to not get a response and find her glasses next to bloodied corpses in the Security Room is inevitable.
    • In Ending A, after rescuing so many people and seeing many others die, including the two DHS agents he bonded with, Frank excitedly sees Ed’s helicopter flying towards him. Unfortunately, a zombie managed to get into the helicopter and attacks Ed, making the helicopter crash and explode, killing both Ed and the zombie, and leaving Frank stranded in the mall.
  • Horror Comedy: Of the Horror Dominant variety. The main story takes itself rather seriously, rescuable survivors are often quite traumatized at seeing their friends and family eaten and turned, the psychopaths are disturbing individuals who have fallen completely off the deep end from the apocalypse, and the entire plot was caused by a man bloodthirsty for revenge for what happened to his village because of an experiment the US government covered up. The comedy comes from the numerous and oftentimes ridiculous ways Frank can slaughter zombies off, the various outfits he can wear (which carry over into cutscenes), and the occasional weird sidequests he can perform, none of which detract from the seriousness of the main plot but instead provide levity in the times between.
  • Hot-Blooded: Burt, one of the survivors, swears in every other sentence and attacks everything that moves. Even if he has to go out of his way to do it, making him a somewhat annoying escort.
  • Humans Are the Real Monsters: The zombies are easy to outrun and can be defeated with everyday items, it's the humans you have to be more worried about. Psychopaths like Brock Mason, Carlito Keyes, Jo Slade and Sean Keanan are far more dangerous than the zombies. The zombies themselves were a result of human greed and gluttony forcing scientists to find a way to produce more beef cattle to match customer demand. At the end of the story, Special Forces come to Willamette to kill all the remaining survivors and prevent the truth from getting out, just like they did in Santa Cabeza.
  • Hyperactive Metabolism: The only restorative items in the game are food and drinks. While there is a pharmacy in the mall and you can pick up a first aid kit from there, it is purely a quest item.
  • Hysterical Woman: Very few female survivors are actually capable of wielding weapons in the game, often requiring the player to hold them by the hand to escort them to the security room. Men, on the other hand, are capable of wielding weapons and some of them will act like the outbreak didn't even phase them. Women are also restrained when zombies only grab one of their arms, while men are restrained when zombies grab them with both hands. None of the women thinks to use their free hand to fight back, requiring Frank to free them himself or for the woman to free herself eventually.
  • Idiot Ball:
    • In the beginning of the game, Frank may bump into an old woman called Lindsay Harris, frantically searching for her dog Madonna. A few minutes later, she spots Madonna trapped outside with the zombies. What does she do? Overpower the dozens of men attempting to stop her and break the barricade, setting the zombies inside and single-handedly started the game. The kicker? The zombies didn't even show a single bit of interest in Madonna herself.
    • James Ramsey willingly ignores Cletus' threats and tries to call his bluff by walking towards him while being held at gunpoint. Cletus kills him and then turns his attention to Frank, intiating the battle. If he did what Cletus and Frank told him to do, it's likely that Frank could have saved them both.
  • Improbable Aiming Skills: Averted. Frank, being a reporter, isn't familiar with firearms. The gun mechanics reflect this by having Frank feel very clunky while turning, and hitting faraway targets is naturally more difficult. He's competent enough with them without being useless.
  • Improbable Weapon User: One of your best ways of clearing a path for yourself involves a parasol or mall umbrella.
  • Improvised Weapon: Just about anything you can find. ANYTHING. A small sample of the more unlikely weapons — Paintings, LCD Televisions, Park Benches, Bowling Balls, Baking Flour, Ketchup, Fistfuls of Diamonds, Traffic Cones, 12-packs of Canned Soda, and Ice Augers.
  • Indecipherable Lyrics: Good luck deciphering all the words to Adam’s theme and Kent’s theme. Both of which have barely audible vocals but with no official lyrics for reference, fans have to guess exactly what the artists are saying.
  • Infinity +1 Sword:
    • A laser sword! With extend-o-hilt! The Real Mega Buster would also count, except that it's theoretically possible to get before completing any story missions, as long you don't mind spending an entire playthrough driving backwards and forwards through a tunnel first.
    • The small chainsaws. This overlaps with Disc-One Nuke, but let's face it; the small chainsaw is much, much easier to get a hold of, you can carry more than one at a time, and if you triple-book it, it'll last a hell of a lot longer than the laser sword. King of weapons, hands down.
  • Insecurity Camera: Averted. The cameras all do their job well, both for advancing the overall plot and allowing Otis to spot any survivors (or psychopaths) hiding in the mall's many stores.
  • Intoxication Mechanic: If you drink too many alcoholic healing items at once, it causes Frank to throw up.
  • Intrepid Reporter: Frank West, of course.
  • Inverse Dialogue/Death Rule: The more important a character is, the longer their death seems to take.
    • Survivors abruptly die as soon as they run out of health and the game moves on. If zombies kill them, a short cutscene will play.
    • The grouped psychopaths (the Convicts and the Hall family) do not get death cutscenes, but the other psychos get to say or do one final thing before dying.
    • The major character deaths are all prolonged:
      • Dr. Barnaby reveals his role in the Santa Cabeza incident, and how the zombie parasite was initially created, then laughs maniacally upon succumbing to the infection.
      • After getting gutted by zombies, Brad manages to push his gun towards Frank, confirm that he’s done for, and tell Frank to not let Jessie know about his demise before finally turning.
      • Carlito monologues about how the American government ruined his life and how zombies and Americans are very much alike. Before dying of blood loss, he asks Frank to give a locket to Isabela.
      • It takes an entire day for Jessie’s infection to kill her, and her final moments are five cutscenes long: the first one has her feeling hopeful due to being to contact headquarters, the second has her being consumed by despair and weirdly taking her glasses off because of the government planning to cover up the incident, the third one has her silently turning and killing the soldiers interrogating her, the fourth one has Frank, unaware of her death, trying to contact her on the receiver, and the fifth one has Frank find the mess she posthumously caused in the security room.
  • Item Amplifier: Weapon durability can be extended by obtaining a certain book or magazine.
  • The Jaywalking Dead: You can kill zombies by running them over with a car. They're so stupid that they make no real effort to get out of the way. In fact, vehicular manslaughter is an effective way to rack up the 53,594 kills needed to unlock the Real Mega Buster BFG.
  • Jerkass: Frank seems to qualify at a few points. In the cutscene where you first meet the raincoat cult, he seemed perfectly content to sit in the back and take pictures of a survivor being sacrificed up until their leader points him out and they attack.
    • Ronald Shiner, one of the survivors. He won't come with you unless you give him some food, and if you save him, he'll try to start a mutiny later on because he ate all the food in the security room and demands more!
    • Kent is incredibly cocky and clearly jealous of Frank’s photography skills. He doesn’t hesitate to brag about his talents, is passive-aggressive when proven wrong and reveals himself to be willing to take sadistic leaps in order to get a good photograph.
  • Jerkass Has a Point:
    • Dr. Barnaby refuses Brad's offer of protection because Brad can't guarantee safe passage to the security room and he'd rather stay in the bookstore he's in because the gates are down and he's safe. He yells this at Brad for no reason other than paranoia, but even Brad himself is able to admit he has a point.
      Brad: The old coot's not dumb. He wants us to call for help first.
    • Kindell's betrayal is an absolute dick move, but he is correct that they have absolutely no reason to believe a word that Frank says about the helicopter. Frank is noticeably calm during this mission and peacefully allows Kindell to take control of the situation should the helicopter not arrive, suggesting that he sees his point.
  • Jiggle Physics: Jessie is quite bouncy.
  • Joke Item: Several of the weirder items Frank can pick up, although the toy laser sword is at least useful as a flashlight at night.
    K-O 
  • Katanas Are Just Better: Well, they are good, but no more than any other non-motorized bladed weapon.
  • Kill on Sight: The army is ordered to kill literally anyone they see, zombie or human (this ranges from Psychopaths to regular survivors)
  • The Klutz: Paul. He even has a knack for getting caught in his own explosions in the middle of his fight.
  • Laserblade: The Beam Sword and Toy Laser Sword.
  • Last Chance Hit Point: Frank can survive an otherwise lethal attack with one life block remaining. This is because each life block secretly contains 1000 HP, so if Frank were to have 2 life blocks remaining and takes a hit that deals 2 blocks of damage (2000 HP), he would instead take 1999 damage and have 1 HP remaining, allowing him to take one more hit before dying.
  • Laughing Mad:
    • Adam, which isn't a surprise, considering that he's a Monster Clown.
    • Paul also, whenever he ups his own confidence by getting firepower at the ready. It counts as a Photo Op if you snap a picture of him hyena-laughing in the middle of a fight.
    • The survivors may start laughing in place of their normal scared quotes if given powerful weapons like the small chainsaw.
    • Frank himself tends to let out a rueful little laugh whenever he's right up against his breaking point.
  • Lethal Joke Weapon: A few of the improvised weapons you can use can be surprisingly deadly.
    • Special mention goes to the Mannequin Torso. Acquired only by destroying a Mannequin, it actually has one of the highest damage values in the game, swings in a large arc, and is a common sight within the mall (including the warehouse you go through when exiting the saferoom).
    • The King Salmon is surprisingly powerful, able to kill zombies in one hit and take a good amount of health off of Psychopaths. However, it breaks in only two hits, so it's rather impractical... unless you give it to one of your survivors, who don't have to worry about weapon durability.
  • Let's Split Up, Gang!: Over the course of the game, two survivors will attempt to start a mutiny. Ronald will make his attempt after eating most of the food in the safehouse, and he'll leave along with everyone in his room to search for more if you can't placate him. Later on, Kindell will get sick of waiting for rescue and propose that the group break themselves out of the mall. Once again, if you fail to talk him down in time, he'll leave with everyone in his room. The worst part? If either mutiny goes through, every survivor involved will die.
  • Lightning Bruiser:
    • An infuriating number of the bosses — Cliff for one, and Jo and Larry move much faster than their enormous sizes would lead you to believe.
    • Sean, the sword-wielding cult leader, has remarkable ninja-like speed and agility for a man who's nearly old enough to be the Pope. He can take a decent number of hits, too.
  • The Load:
    • Injured or infirm survivors are unable to use weapons or run normally, and have to either be carried by Frank or left to limp around at a ridiculously slow speed. While this is actually a benefit for solo escorts (Frank is much harder to hit by zombies when carrying a survivor), it can turn a group escort from manageable to TV-smashing frustrating as babysitting the injured survivor leaves you unable to defend the rest of the group.
    • Most female survivors are pretty much useless, being unable to use weapons, running slightly slower than normal survivors, and often prone to panic, making them even more of a chore to escort than normal. For what it's worth, though, heavy-set or middle-aged women can use weapons and are generally capable combatants.
    • Aaron, who you meet relatively early on, gets a special mention as he seems to have a unique "spastic coward" A.I. setting. He has a bizarre running animation that can only be described as mentally challenged, and even though he can be equipped with weapons, he rarely uses them and instead cowers, cries, or runs in circles when zombies approach him. He also tends to get separated from the group or stuck in one spot more often than normal. On top of all that, his AI actually prioritizes "run over to Burt, the not-at-all-incompetent NPC" above "follow Frank, the highly-competent Player Character".
    • Some NPCs become more self-sufficient and aggressive depending on which weapon you give them.
  • Loophole Abuse:
    • Wanna get that god-forsaken 7 Day Survivor achievement, but don't feel like playing for 14 hours straight? No problem! As long as you are playing on the Xbox One or Play Station 4, you can set your console to the Instant Power-On mode and turn off the console while the game is running. When you next boot up the console, the game will still be suspended and will pick up right where you left off when you choose to resume; a much more viable tactic than staring at your tv for 14 hours, although the only downside is that you can't play any other games until you get the achievement or give up.
    • You don't have to kill all of the Convicts while you're fighting them. If you want to farm them for some PP points, you can kill any two of your choosing and simply leave and re-enter the park while one is left alive. They'll all be there when you come back. Granted, it's only a few thousand PP, but it's a great way to gain some levels when you're starting out.
    • For some reason, the meat carcasses in the Processing Plant count as acceptable targets, so you can get the achievement for having 100% accuracy with a machine gun by standing on a table and unloading into one of the carcasses.
  • Macrogame: It is very unlikely you will complete the full story on your first playthrough, much less save all of the survivors or reach max level. This is okay though, as all of the levels you gain carry over between playthroughs. So you will have more health, slots, and abilties at your disposal on subsequent attempts.
    • The game's achievements often encourage this, such as one achievement that requires spending 24 hours straight outside, something you normally won't do at all.
  • Mad Artist: By the time Kent attempts to photograph a human becoming a zombie, you know he's lost it — and indeed, he's one of the Psychopaths.
  • Mad Scientist: It's revealed that Barnaby was responsible for a research facility that focused on mass producing cattle to prevent humanity's food stock from running out. In the process, he created the Queen Bee, which, instead of making cattle reproduce faster, created the zombie parasite, leading to the Santa Cabeza outbreak and the subsequent government coverup.
  • Made of Bologna: Used to save on rendering effort, when zombies that are dismembered don't even have a skeleton to speak of. Their insides are clearly visible after such a cut, but all of it is a vague, pink mass with a visual effect like Spam or corned beef.
  • Made of Iron: Pretty much all the Psychopaths can take dozens upon dozens of bullets to bring down and are unrelenting in their desire to turn Frank into meaty chunks.
  • Made of Plasticine: Frank's later abilities include ways to dismember zombies with his bare hands, such as twisting their heads off or ripping their guts out. While it makes sense that this would work on a zombie's rotting flesh, it's also an effective attack against the fully human raincoat cultists who are also wearing thick ponchos as well as the special forces soldiers wearing body armor.
  • The Mall: The main setting, as part of the game's homage to Dawn of the Dead (1978).
  • Magikarp Power: Jewelry, plates, CDs, and cases of soda are fairly useless when you first start out. It's when you gain some levels and up Frank's attack stat that you all of a sudden have a plentiful supply of deadly ranged weapons. This rises to Boom, Headshot! levels once you've maxed out your attack stat.
  • Male Gaze:
    • Lampshaded the first time with Isabela. She is revealed using the standard POV shot panning up from the knees... only for a fat guy to jump in the way. "This is NO TIME to ogle pretty girls, son!"
    • Jessie gets a few of these herself - and the easiest way to beat Kent's photo challenge is to take a shot of her in just the right angle for a cleavage plus panty shot.
  • Malevolent Masked Men: The Raincoat Cult.
  • Man on Fire: Paul's Molotov cocktails set zombies on fire rather than killing them outright. Paul himself gets set on fire after his boss fight, though Frank can put him out to gain the use of his weapon for himself later on.
  • Meaningful Echo: Pachamama. Carlito first says it while taking potshots at Brad and Frank with a sniper rifle and it's never heard again until Isabela receives Carlito's locket and says it again, at which point she realizes that it's actually the password to his computer. Their parents said it a lot when they were children.
  • Million Mook March: In the ending credits.
  • Mobstacle Course: Zombies. Are. Everywhere.
  • Monster Clown: Adam.
  • Multiple Endings: They're also ranked accordingly.
    • A: Complete all cases, talk to Isabela at 10 PM on the last day, and be at the helipad when time runs out. Ed shows up to rescue Frank, but there's a zombie in the copter, which causes him to crash, stranding Frank in the mall and unlocking Overtime Mode.
      • True ending: Complete Overtime Mode. Frank escapes from the mall with Isabela, and breaks the story to the public. They care, but only a little.
      • The 2011/2012 IDW tie-in comic, Dead Rising: Road to Fortune, extends the true ending slightly and expounds on how Frank escaped Williamette.
    • B: Fail to complete all cases, but be at the helipad when time runs out. Frank escapes the mall with any survivors he rescued, but his story is missing the most important parts. Eventually, other cities fall victim to similar zombie outbreaks.
    • C: Solve all cases, but don't meet the other requirements for ending A. Ed watches the mall’s rooftop from another building for Frank, but is disappointed when he fails to show up. As Ed prepares to leave and laments Frank’s probable death, a zombie rushes and eats him. Willamette is lost to the zombies, and nobody ever finds out what happened.
    • D: Be in Special Forces custody when time runs out. Frank is airlifted out of the mall as a prisoner of the Special Forces, presumably to be executed or put in a government prison to prevent the truth of the outbreak from being told. Isabela is also left behind in the mall in this ending, meaning that she can't report on the incident either since she has no means of escape.
    • E: Don't be at the helipad when time runs out. Brad and Jessie evacuate the survivors Frank rescued, but they have to leave without Frank. He may or may not have survived.
    • F: Fail case 7-2. Carlito's bombs go off, destroying the mall and spreading the zombie parasites through pretty much the whole country.
  • Mundane Utility: Both the toy and real Laser Sword can be used as a flashlight as long as Frank has them in his inventory.
  • My Death Is Just the Beginning: Carlito really overprepared for overrunning America with the zombie plague.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: Steven Chapman seems to have a moment of this just before he dies, when he realizes that his STOOOOORE doesn't have much purpose when he's killed all of his customers.
  • My Name Is ???: Any pictures taken of zombies during the opening helicopter ride will have them credited as '???'. It is only after Frank enters the mall and discovers their true attributes that they become named as zombies.
  • Never My Fault: Barnaby dies in a zombie outbreak he's partially responsible for while proclaiming that he never did anything wrong.
  • Never Split the Party: If Frank puts too much distance between himself and any of the survivors he's escorting when he moves into a different area of the mall, their life bar will slowly drain until they die.
  • Newbie Immunity: If Frank loses all his health when the zombies first break into the Willamette mall, he will wake up in the security room instead of dying, having been rescued by Otis.
  • New Game Plus: The game is practically dependent on it. If you game over at any point in the game, you are given the option of starting over at the level you currently are. You might as well just use this tactic to level up past 20 before you tackle the storyline.
  • Nintendo Hard: While the game is a perfect example of Schizophrenic Difficulty, it's always consistently hard. It just depends on how hard the game is feeling at the moment.
    • Clearing Zombie hoards and doing the Scoops? Not too bad. Doing Psychopaths, the main quest, or escorting survivors? Good luck. There's a reason why the PP system is in place, and it's to make the game go from unimaginably hard to fairly easy.
  • Nightmare Fetishist: Frank comes off rather creepy whenever you take a photo that could be categorized as 'erotica'. That leering 'yeeeah' is unsettling.
  • Non-Damaging Status Infliction Attack: Most of the Joke Item weapons: the stuffed teddy bears, and the water pistol. These have the exact same effect: they make zombies flinch. Nothing else.
  • No-Gear Level:
    • If Frank gets captured by cultists, he's stripped to his underwear and put in a box. You have to break out of the box and fight your way through hordes of cultists, armed with only a step-ladder (until you find the katana on a shelf). Notably, you can avoid this by defeating them at distance and thus avoiding their gas attack. This is rather difficult in most cases, although the Infinity Plus One Mega Buster renders it laughably easy. And when the Army shows up near the end, they will capture you if you "die." They strip you to your boxers and tie you up. Oddly though, even though they are there to cover up the incident, they take your pants but not your camera.
    • You lose your entire inventory during the Final Boss fight, so you're forced to used Good Old Fisticuffs. It's not that unfair, since the final boss doesn't use any weapons either and his health is significantly lower than other bosses to compensate.
  • Non-Indicative Name: The "Randomizer" blended drink doesn't randomize anything, it just makes Frank sick.
  • Non-Standard Game Over:
    • If Frank is unable to defeat Isabela before the Girl Hunting scoop expires or accidentally leaves the area during the Boss Battle, a cutscene will show Isabela escaping on her motorcycle. This will fail the remaining cases, although you can continue playing until the helicopter arrives.
    • If Carlito manages to kill Brad during his second Boss Battle, the same cutscene you get if you win the fight will play, except Carlito escapes over the railing without being injured by Brad first. This will also fail the remaining cases and you are still able to continue if you wish.
    • If Frank can't kill Larry in time during his boss battle, Carlito is put into the meat grinder and dies, failing the story once more.
    • During Overtime Mode, If Frank doesn’t collect all of Isabela’s supplies or the queens within 24 in-game hours, he will succumb to his zombification and drop dead on the spot. The ending text refers to his death as a “humane end to his hopeless situation”.
  • "Not So Different" Remark: What Carlito believes of the Zombies and Americans.
    Carlito: Hey... Aren't zombies great? I mean, all they do is eat, and eat, and eat. Growing in number... Just like you good red white and blue Americans.
  • Not Using the "Z" Word: Completely averted. Pretty much every living person uses the Z-word without fail.
    • The very first survivors Frank meets straight-up call the undead "zombies", much to Frank's confusion (though he's not aware of the situation yet).
    Ryan: Hey! You lookin' to get yourself eaten alive by zombies!?
    Frank: What? Did you just say "zombies"?
    Ryan: Take a look out there! [points toward the mob of undead outside] If those ain't zombies, what would you call 'em?
    • Possibly forgivable because of his delirious state, but...
    Frank: Dr. Barnaby, answer me! Were you involved in experiments with zombies?!
    Barnaby: (as if everyone hasn't been talking about/surrounded by zombies for 2 days) ...ZOMBIES?! Yes...
  • Obliviously Evil: Cliff is a Shell-Shocked Veteran caught in a Vietnam flashback when you fight him, and doesn't realize what he's actually doing.
  • Offscreen Moment of Awesome: After the Action Prologue, Ed is seen flying his helicopter away from two pursuing military helicopters. Considering The Reveal that the military is killing all witnesses to prevent the incident from getting out, the fact that he is able to return three days later means that he somehow escaped from them.
  • Older Than They Look: Just about everyone short of being middle-aged, check the profiles. The Hall brothers in particular look as though they were designed to be about 14 and 17, but their profiles assure you that they're 23 and 20.
  • One-Man Army: Actually averted. Despite all you can do, there are very few situations where you can just take on the zombies in your way (the cars being one of them and, of course, the Small Chainsaw being the other).
  • One Size Fits All: Averted. While Frank can try on clothes from any shop (including children's shops), the clothes sometimes don't fit him properly, which only adds to the surrealism.
  • One-Steve Limit: Conveniently, no survivors share names for easy identification.
    • Or indeed any of the named characters in the game, of which there are around 90.
  • Only a Flesh Wound: Brad and Isabela are both seriously wounded by gunfire, and recover almost completely over the course of about 5 or 6 hours. Carlito gains about 10 pounds over the weekend which is JUST bullets, but skips around the mall for nearly 3 days before succumbing to possibly-unrelated wounds after being abducted by Larry. And then there's the time when Carlito was strung up on a meathook through his ankles.
  • Only Sane Man: They do exist among the Psychopaths. Isabela could count, and Thomas Hall isn't exactly comfortable with it when his dad orders him to shoot the clearly non-zombie Frank in the face unprovoked. Paul is also willing to be saved and can become a survivor if you choose to do so.
  • Optional Boss: All the Psychopaths, barring Carlito, Steven, Isabela, Larry, and Brock, are the focus of side quests rather than having any importance to the plot.
  • Our Zombies Are Different: Zombies in this franchise are more or less pretty close to standard zombies, with two exceptions: Their eyes glow red at night, and the cause of zombieism isn't a virus; it's wasp larvae. This isn't too far from Truth in Television as far as some of the hideous things certain wasps do to their victims.
    P-Z 
  • Permanently Missable Content: Thanks to the game's very strict save system, if a Case or Scoop is missed, odds are you're stuck without it for that playthrough.
    • Failing a single Case, whether by having time run out or getting Brad or Isabela killed, fails the entire storyline, although you can still play in free roam until the end of the game. If you save at the wrong time, you may be caught in a case of Unwinnable by Design where your save is too late in time to continue the story, forcing you to start all over or just choose free roam. Case 7-2 is unique in that it ends the game completely if you fail it, leaving you no choice but to restart.
    • After completing Case 7-2, the cutscene showing Brad turning into a zombie is easy to miss if you don't know where to look, though it is optional towards completing the game.
    • All of the Psychopaths have unique weapons that drop upon their deaths, but they will not spawn if they are never fought. Adam's chainsaws and Cliff's machete in particular are a blessing for players who know just how good they are. Similarly, all of the psychopaths have savable survivors attached to them that can't be saved without killing the boss first.
      • As a minor example of the above, Jo's Scoop time is longer than most, but if you take too long to find her, the amount of survivors she has with her drops from four to one.
    • If you never fight Adam, you can't rescue Greg, meaning you can't unlock the shortcut between Wonderland and Paradise Plaza. Good luck having to deal with the Convicts every night if this is the case.
    • Failing any of Kent's challenges or killing him outright during either of his appearances makes Tad Hawthorne impossible to save.
    • Bill's location is a complete Guide Dang It!, and if you haven't found him by the time Case 2 begins, he disappears completely. Similarly, there's only a four hour window to find the three survivors in the gun shop; find them too late, and they can disappear forever while you're getting them the picture they need.
    • Simone, Ronald, Kindell, Cheryl, and Paul have additional Scoops after they are rescued, none of which will be available without them being saved. Paul in particular actually gives you his unique weapon like the other psychopaths do, but you have to save him first so he can give you his cocktails as a sign of good will.
  • Pet the Dog: After discovering the reason being Cliff's descent into madness, Frank takes the time to close his corpse's eyes as a sign of respect.
  • Pink Is Erotic: Pink is used to highlight erotica photo elements, which is when Frank takes photos of a woman's cleavage and/or crotch.
  • Plotline Death: If you follow the cases all the way to the true ending, Brad, Jessie, and Ed will all die. The only way to avoid this is to fail the case they die in.
  • Poison Mushroom: The "Randomizer" blended drink makes Frank sick instead of powering him up like the others. It's not clear how this constitutes "randomizing" anything.
  • Power-Up Food: Food and drink replenish your health.... but if you take certain foods and put them in the completely working blenders/microwave, their health benefits double and garner status effects! Unless you get the Randomizer drink, then it just makes you vomit.
  • Present Day: The game was released, and takes place, in 2006.
  • Properly Paranoid:
    • Steven and Cletus are fiercely protective of their respective stores and won’t hesitate to kill if they feel threatened. Considering the former manages a grocery store and the latter owns a gun shop, therefore having a lot of very useful supplies, and survivors are willing to do anything in a desperate environment, their craziness is somewhat justified.
    • Cliff and Adam can also be considered this. While Cliff is wrong in assuming other survivors and zombies are enemy soldiers, he is still surrounded by cannibalistic walking corpses. Adam only attacks Frank because he wants to slow the Space Rider down, which would stop scaring zombies away from that specific part of Wonderland Plaza.
  • Psycho Lesbian: Jo Slade comes across this way, with an added dose of terror.
  • Pyromaniac: Paul, one of the Psychopaths (suitably).
  • Raincoat of Horror: In this zombie game, there's actually an enemy cult full of people who wear green masks and yellow raincoats, called "The True Eye". Why they wear masks and raincoats is never explained.
  • Real-Time Weapon Change: Choosing which weapon or power up to use on your available slots.
  • Red Shirt: All the survivors in the Entrance Plaza when you first enter the mall. Except for Isabela.
  • Redemption Demotion: Paul is significantly less capable as a survivor than he was as a psychopath, given that he loses all of his special attacks and enhanced speed and A.I., trading it for the regular dumb-as-rocks survivor A.I.
  • Removable Turret Gun: On the convicts' car.
  • Respawning Enemies: The zombies, cultists, and spec ops forces. Also, the gang of convicts in the jeep respawn once per day. Contrary to popular belief, destroying their car does nothing to stop this. Most annoyingly, zombies will respawn on the same map, as soon as you get more than about 100-200 feet away from their starting location (you can even see them appear out of nowhere in larger areas). This can often result in a horde of zombies spawning right on top of your escorted survivors should you run too far ahead of them.
  • Retro Universe: Though the game blatantly states from the beginning that it's events begin the night of "September 18, 2006", and demonstrates this by introducing us to Brad Garrison and Jessie McCarney, agents of the DHS, after which you're handed a small yellow walkie talkie by Otis to carry, along with your compact filmreel camera, it clearly deviates from some modern tones by the severe lack of cellphones, next-to-no mention of the internet, and the somewhat backwards sense of general fashion/aesthetic in both the mall, and it's inhabitants. This can be justified like in a work which makes a similar choice, Napoleon Dynamite, in that this game takes place in the midwest, where a smalltown like Willamette, Colorado is sure to be "behind the pulse of society", in some ways. Upon retrospect, it is a seemingly perfect place for a terrorist attack to happen.
  • Sarcasm Mode: Frank laughs bitterly upon Isabella's revealing of Carlito's plan to bomb the entire mall — "Oh, great!"
  • Save the Villain: After Frank and Isabela find Carlito's computer and can't figure out the password, Jessie discovers Carlito has been captured by Larry, a cannibalistic butcher, leading Frank to track him down and save him to get the password. He kills Larry, but Carlito dies anyway.
  • Say My Name: The Halls do this for each other as you take them down.
  • Scenery Porn: A very overlooked aspect of the game is the detail in the mall. Gamers just think the zombie count pushes the system, but the environments are some of the most varied of any video game. And unlike the areas in typical sandbox games, it's all in one area, although not without some streaming.
  • Shell-Shocked Veteran: One of the bosses is a Vietnam veteran who reverts when he sees his granddaughter eaten. He thinks you're Viet Cong. A fight ensues. In one of the most tragic scenes in the game, after you defeat him he regains his senses just long enough to explain why he went crazy before peacefully dying, with Frank closing his eyes for him.
  • Shirtless Scene: For whatever reason, enemies that capture Frank love to strip him to his skivvies. The cult, Kent, the Special Forces, everyone does it.
  • Shown Their Work: As detailed under Artistic License – Military, Cliff's battle strategy actually evokes the strategy of the real life "tunnel rats" from the Vietnam war, who specialized in ambush tactics like the ones Cliff uses in his boss battle.
  • Siblings in Crime: Isabela was helping Carlito carry out his revenge by Zombie Apocalypse plan originally, if against her better judgement. Of course, up until her Heel–Face Turn.
  • Skyward Scream: After completing Overtime Mode, Frank lets rip a glorious one of these whilst on top of a tank, complete with the camera pulling out and spinning.
  • Smart Bomb: Queen wasps. Frank discovers that killing one causes all zombies nearby to just up and die, often with their heads popping like ugly zits. From that point on, capturing and throwing jars with queens can be used to clear out large swaths of zombies.
  • Soundtrack Dissonance: During the mall's opening hours, you can hack away at the zombie hordes with cheery muzak being piped in over the speakers, as well as pre-recorded advertisements to many of the mall's special offers.
    • Some of the psychopath's theme songs are mismatched for whom the represent. A grocery store clerk is given a heavy metal song as an example. While awesome to listen to, it highlights the fact that something is wrong with the psychopaths mentally and a majority of them are as much victims of the outbreak as the other survivors.
  • Sprint Shoes: The skateboards, and the "quickstep" blend of drinks.
  • Standard Hero Reward: Subverted, while sex is never protrayed or shown in the game, Cheryl asks Frank to take erotic pictures of her for saving her life and so she has something to be remembered for when she dies. These photo opportunities can garner 700 prestige points.
  • Status Buff: Mixing food items in blenders yield smoothies that provide one, including:
  • The Stinger: Steven provides a particularly hilarious one.
  • Suicide Attack: The Cultists will from time to time attempt to grab or pounce on Frank while holding a lit stick of dynamite.
  • Super Spit: Frank can create Spitfire, a mixed juice that gives his otherwise harmless spit technique the power of a handgun.
  • Take Your Time: Mostly averted. The game is brutal with time limits, but it's possible for Carlito and Brad to engage in a two-day-long gun fight while you wander about.
  • Taking You with Me: Carlito's plan B in case of being rendered incapable of carrying out his scheme as planned? Blowing up the entire mall, the blast sending zombie parasites all over America.
  • Television Geography: Averted, the terrain and city you fly over looks a hell of a lot like western Colorado. The only thing blowing the illusion is that the game is set in late September but the sporting goods stores do not stock any skis.
  • The Peeping Tom: The erotica photo element requires you to take pictures of women in certain positions and the only woman in the game who verbally consents and requests it is Cheryl. In the game, Frank just randomly takes pictures of unsuspecting women while they are traumatised by the outbreak (In "Above The Law" he can take erotic photos of the women who were held captive and may have been sexually abused by Jo). While a large portion of women are dressed modestly, some are often impractically, scantily clad for the sake of the erotica photo opportunities (3 of them even ask out of the blue if there is a shower in the security room of all places).
  • Timed Mission: The game is one long timed mission, often on very tight schedules to make it between Scoops and Missions without failure.
  • Throw a Barrel at It: One of the many, many ways Frank can kill zombies.
  • Throwing Your Sword Always Works: You still have to go pick it up, though. Unlike most examples of this trope, however, it always works because Frank actually throws it correctly.
  • Throwaway Guns: You can't actually reload your guns after they run out of ammo; you can only drop them and find another. Averted in the Wii version, which has significantly different gameplay.
  • Too Dumb to Live: Early on, things seem to be under control - some of the survivors have successfully barricaded the mall entrance, and no zombies are getting in. However, when the hysterical old woman sees her pet poodle (who appears to be a zombie) outside surrounded by other zombies, she takes down part of the barricade and opens the door to get the dog - not only becoming overwhelmed by zombies, but letting them at everyone else, too. Granted, with the psychopaths — and Carlito — on the prowl, they probably would have gotten in eventually, but that doesn't excuse letting the zombies in before the survivors could cluster in a safe locale.
  • Took a Level in Badass: Frank West eventually learns how to disembowel people with his bare hands. Multiple times.
  • Tragic Villain:
    • Cliff is one of the few sympathetic Psychopaths, who is a Vietnam War veteran having a PTSD-fueled flashback. This was brought on by the death of his family, and even Frank (who has been somewhat of a Jerkass to everyone) shows sympathy towards the guy upon being forced to kill him.
    • Adam is a clown that lived to make everybody happy, but has been driven completely insane by the outbreak, and is desperately trying to save survivors by sticking them on the ride he guards. He only attacks Frank because Frank is trying to prevent the ride from going out of control.
    • Thomas Hall is the only one of his family with a conscience, refusing to shoot an innocent man for no reason until his father and brother make him. He gets dragged into the ensuing battle against his will, and there's no way to save him.
  • Trigger-Happy: On the 3rd day, you will find 3 rednecks (one who looks a lot like Francis if not for the fact that this game came first) holed up in the gun store. They shoot first and ask questions later. Once you walk in, they open fire from three directions. If you manage to make your way back out of the store, one of them walks up and asks if you're still alive. Trying to go back into the store makes them open fire again, so you have to somehow persuade them to follow you back to the security room from the door.
  • Trust Me, I'm an X: After Larry Chiang sticks Carlito on a meathook, he assures to Frank, "Trust me, I'm a butcher."
  • Twisted Ankle: Jessie gets one early on, which is why the reporter is the one running around slaughtering zombies and not the government agent.
  • Unlockable Content: Completing various feats unlocks costumes and weapons in the safe room.
  • Unintentionally Unwinnable: Predictably for a game made top-to-bottom of Timed Missions, saving too far away from the helipad or Carlito's bombs and too close to the time limit will lock your playthrough inescapably into a bad ending, as the game has no function to assist with this scenario other than restarting the story.
  • Unwinnable by Design: For a definition of "win" that requires a properly satisfying ending — missing one case deadline locks you out from the rest, making it impossible to learn the true facts of the zombie outbreak. When this happens, the game gives you the option to restart the story, keeping your levels, but if you opt not to, you're locked out of ending A for that playthrough.
  • Updated Re-release: Got one for current-gen consoles, including the Playstation 4 this time. Notable in that aside from a framerate increase and fixing the text error in the Unbreakable achievement, nothing changed. Including the survivor AI that is very much better in future games.
  • Vague Hit Points: While in-game, Frank just has non-further-gradated 12 segments of his Life Meter, internally, those segments are 1000 Hit Points each.
  • The Voiceless: Otis, a surviving mall security guard, never speaks during cutscenes; in fact, the only time you do hear what his voice may sound like is when you kill him in Infinity Mode and hear his one-of-a-kind death scream.
  • Video Game Cruelty Potential: During the last segment of Overtime Mode, Isabela is completely immune to damage but still bleeds and yelps if she's hit. A player feeling she didn't get much comeuppance for her role in the outbreak can pummel her to their heart's content.
  • Video Game Cruelty Punishment: If you attack a survivor too much, they'll defect — they won't follow Frank anymore, and will attack him if he gets too near. This means no reward for bringing them back to safety, and if they were part of a plot-critical case, there goes your ending.
  • Wake-Up Call Boss: Adam is one of the first psychopaths the player can encounter, and he's a steep step up in difficulty from the regular zombies you've been facing. He does a lot of damage, can take quite a few hits, and can block your weapons, instantly breaking them. It makes sense that your reward for beating him is twofold- his Small Chainsaw, and a backdoor from Wonderland Plaza to Paradise Plaza, eliminating the need to cross the park and deal with the Convicts.
  • Weapon-Based Characterization: Each psychopath carries weapons that reflect their personalities. If you kill them, you can often get these weapons (which respawn very quickly) to use for yourself. This is good, as a lot of the weapons they use are absolutely deadly.
    • Adam drops his Small Chainsaw, which is a positively deadly all-purpose weapon that deals a shit ton of damage and can clear hordes easily. It also has a decent bit of durability, and if you get three bladed weapon books turns into an Infinity +1 Sword. If you follow the survivor you get for beating him, you also unlock a backdoor across the mall.
    • Cletus allows access into the gun store (including his devastating shotguns and sniper rifles), which is vital for defeating Psychopaths like the Hall family and dealing with Isabela and/or Steve, who coincidentally reside only a few meters from his store.
    • Larry, despite not being optional drops his Meat Cleaver. This weapon is about as strong as the Katana and Small Chainsaw, but its low durability and out of the way location means it's not really useful.
    • Paul doesn't drop anything. Unless of course you succeed his Guide Dang It! mini-quest, then you'll get both his Cocktails and his help as a survivor.
    • Cliff allows access into the tool store, which is filled with an assortment of lethal melee weapons- including his Machete, which is almost as good as the Small Chainsaw (and perhaps even better due to it's high rate of attack).
    • Jo drops her taser, which can fry zombies with a small charge. However it also allows for human enemies to take a decent bit of damage as well.
    • The Hall Family drop their sniper rifles, which are a good reward if you don't want to deal with Cletus- justifiable, as Cletus is definitely That One Boss incarnate.
    • Sean drops his Ceremonial Sword, which while no better than any other bladed weapon comes with a secondary attack. If you jump kick while it's equipped, Frank instead swings the sword down. This can bisect zombies, and does a huge amount of damage to other psychopaths.
    • Steven allows access back into the Grocery Store, and drops his weaponized shopping cart to use.
    • The Convicts drop their heavy machine gun. This can trivialize the rest of the game if used judiciously, and makes short work of other psychopaths. Unfortunately, the Convicts respawn every day, meaning your reward is somewhat short-lived. Killing them also makes the park easier to traverse for 24 hours.
    • Kent, who is so hard to find out he even exists that it's unlikely you'll fight him until a second playthrough, drops a photography book that doubles the amount of PP Frank gets from photographs.
  • Who's Laughing Now?: An aspect of Paul's psychopath status, as implied by himself.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: Not long before Case 7-2, Carlito will broadcast over the mall about his plan to bomb the mall. If the player lets Case 7-1 expire, it's unknown what became of Carlito as his threats never go through and the Security Room staff is left bewildered.
  • Weapons Kitchen Sink: It's like Jackie Chan made a zombie film...
  • Weld the Lock: When you and a few survivors first barricade yourselves in the Security Room, Otis welds the entrance door shut. It wears off by the third day.
  • Wide-Open Sandbox: While the game tries to nudge you to meet plot requirements or rescue hapless people stranded about the mall, you can choose to ignore everything even vaguely resembling a story and just find inventive ways to cave in zombie skulls or take on psychopaths. There's a catch, however; not following the plot prevents you from getting the best endings, and survivors are the fastest way to level up.
  • Women Are Delicate: Jessie plays with this trope. Brad states that she's a rookie and regrets bringing her into the outbreak, hence why he's so protective of her, but the game still treats the two partners differently:
    • On one hand, Jessie is a DHS agent, making her the most prepared woman in the game aside from Isabela for a situation like this. She is also perfectly capable and willing to fight in the midst of a zombie outbreak, and only spends most of the game in the security room due to her sprained ankle, meaning she can’t walk anywhere. Even then, despite her injury, she only relents when Frank, out of guilt for accidentally scaring her, convinces her that regular protocol is useless in a situation like a zombie outbreak and he knows how to use handguns. Despite being sidelined very early on, she remains useful since she watches the monitors and informs Otis, who then passes the information onto Frank. She’s the one that finds Carlito shortly before he dies and even though it has disastrous results, her contacting headquarters allows Frank and Isabela to defeat another person responsible for the outbreak, escape the mall, and expose the American government's crimes.
    • On the other hand, her and Brad's similar fates are played out in very contrasting ways. Brad gets shot in the leg by Carlito early in the second day, forcing Frank to get medicine at the grocery store. Not only is Brad’s injury healed after around five in-game hours, but it doesn’t stop him from chasing Carlito in the maintenance tunnels on Day 3. Meanwhile, Jessie’s sprained ankle is never brought up again after the first mission, and she never steps out of the security room despite being able to fight like Brad and Frank. By day 2, Jessie is shown walking perfectly as shown by how she takes Brad to the bed and how she approaches Dr. Barnaby to talk to him.
    • The partners both turn into zombies but in widely different ways: Brad goes to fight Carlito on his own as Frank goes to remove the bombs from the maintenance tunnels, only for the terrorist to kick him down the stairs and lock him in an area full of zombies, which infect Brad after disembowelling him. When Frank finds him, the zombies are either gone or dead, implying Brad successfully fought enough of them off for them to leave him alone. In contrast, Jessie is infected by Dr. Barnaby in the security room through a scratch, in front of Frank, Brad, and Isabela. Considering that Barnaby is an elderly man and she’s a young, freshly trained government agent, she could’ve easily wrestled him off but it requires Frank to hit Barnaby and for Brad to drag Jessie to safety to counter the doctor’s sudden ambush. Her infection was also a lot less glorious and heroic than Brad's, as she lacked any safety precautions while conversing with Dr. Barnaby (she goes to check on him without any means to protect herself, she was willfully unaccompanied by her partner, and she doesn't factor in the possibility that she should have the door open in case she needs a quick escape or to get help when needed). She does finally pull a proper action stunt after succumbing to her infection, by taking the two soldiers threatening her life and taking her dignity down with her.
  • Wrestler in All of Us: You'd be surprised how effective a German Suplex is when cornered by a bunch of zombies.
  • You ALL Look Familiar: Those two people in the intro, where Frank and Ed are flying over Willamette? Take a close look at them. The one on the white car is Rich (one of the three people that was held hostage by Cliff), and the one on the building is Michelle (one of the five people held prisoner by the cult). Also, the woman getting pulled out a car, which you can optionally see on the security cameras, is Kay (one of the four people tied up by Jo, and also the one featured in Jo's cutscene). And speaking of Cliff, the little girl in the very first intro is the same girl that's on Cliff's family photo (though the developers hinted that this particular one was intentional and they may be one and the same).
  • You Are Too Late: Carlito's plan largely succeeds.
  • Zombie Apocalypse: Averted in this game, since only one small American town is affected by the zombie plague. However, thanks to events in this game, the sequels reveal that zombie outbreaks continued to occur across America over the years, though people became remarkably casual to the idea of zombies. Alternate endings, however, hint at the possibility that this ends up occurring if Frank either doesn't escape or doesn't complete the story before escaping.
  • Zombie Gait:
    • For most of the zombies, though there are exceptions, such as the occasional zombie sprinter.
    • This was one of the unlockable abilities. It allowed Frank to shuffle his way through the hordes undetected, a la Shaun of the Dead. It's severely disadvantageous, however, as Frank's zombie shuffle is (necessarily) extremely slow, so it's usually much faster, if not necessarily easier, to just slaughter your way through them.
  • Zombie Infectee: Repeatedly.
    • Simone, the last survivor you can encounter, was bit. She can only be saved if Frank is aware of Isabela's medical knowledge.
    • It's heavily implied that Leroy is one, considering he keeps scratching the same part of his body and vehemently denies that there's something wrong with him.
    • Barnaby becomes one offscreen, and turns Jessie into one shortly before dying.
    • Frank himself becomes one at the end, and using kids as Zombie Bombs was Carlito's whole plan.
  • Zombie Mall: The entire game is set in one of these.
  • Zombie Puke Attack: Queen Zombies vomit infected blood.

Zombrex: Dead Rising Sun Provides Examples Of:

    Zombrex: Dead Rising Sun 
  • Big Brother Instinct: Shin.
  • Bittersweet Ending: The standard ending. Shin is dead and both Mary and George are infected, but they've found a massive supply of Zombrex.
  • Death by Irony: Takahashi told his girlfriend she was here "to give him head". After George did some serious damage to him and he flees away, he ran into his zombified girlfriend, who gave him a "zombie blowjob".
  • The Determinator: Mary. Who has been bitten several times by the zombies and been tortured by Takahashi and Dan.
  • Downer Beginning
  • Downer Ending: The Extended Ending. Mary dies from her wounds. Then, George, who is finally able to find the strength to use his legs to a degree (and fight!), gets shot in the head by Dan as he's escaping the warehouse.
  • "Everybody Laughs" Ending: After fighting their way through zombies and George's wheelchair getting destroyed in the process, George and Mary finally found the zombrex, and instead of injecting themselves with the zombrex immediately, they start laughing happily, knowing that they will survive. The End. Seriously, that's how the movie ends.
  • Foreshadowing: When George imagines how he will die at the hands of the psychopaths, he pictures a gunshot wound in his forehead. In the Extended Ending, Dan, on the rooftop, puts one through his head and he ends up with an exit wound in his forehead.
  • Genius Cripple: George when he created his modified wheelchair.
  • Handicapped Badass: After George becomes brave and creates his zombie-fighting modified wheelchair, he beats Takahashi by drilling his right ear off, burning his face with a blowtorch, and cutting his ankles with blades that appear under his wheelchair.
  • Heroic BSoD: When George realizes he should not rely on others to help him.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Shin, George's brother, got himself killed by the psychopath thugs in order for George to get away from them.
  • Karmic Death: Takahashi suffers this after getting beaten into humiliation, coupled up with a painful expression with a burnt face.
  • P.O.V. Cam: Some of the movie is taken place through George's eyes.
  • Recursive Canon: In Episode 1 George is playing Dead Rising 2.
  • Shout-Out: Considering this movie is directed by Keiji Inafune, who worked on a lot of Capcom games, you will expect to see some of them in the movie.
    • In episode 1, George is playing Dead Rising 2 in the beginning and the overweight thug is wearing a shirt that has a Servbot on it.
    • The "Goblin Mask" is a mask of Blanka from Street Fighter.
  • Super Wheelchair: George's wheelchair is modified with a blow torch, a drill, blades (on the side and bottom of the chair), a shell that prevent him from getting shot, and he uses a chainsaw to move himself forward in his chair.
  • Took a Level in Badass: George
  • Zombie Infectee: Mary. She's been bitten many times and still hasn't turned into a zombie. And George in the finale.

AND YET HE COMPLAINED

THAT HIS BELLY WAS NOT FULL


 
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Jo Slade

Amongst the Ax-Crazy bosses of Dead Rising, Jo Slade stands out. A sadistic police officer who brutalizes young women, she was one of the creepiest enemies in the game.

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