Dredging this thread up from the murky depths because I am a n00b with a very dumb question (I think):
How do I get the frakkin’ survivors to follow me from one area to another? Because when I try to get those two guys and the mom out from Al Fresca to the Food Court, even while hammering on the Y button, they don’t join me on the other side of the door. Do I need to use the waypoint system to point them on the other side first? Or am I just not being patient enough? Or–am I just stupid?!
Loving the game in any case. Was up until 2 basically restarting until I was Level 10–now gonna try to play through for a bit and see wha’ happens…
They just need to be fairly close to you when you cross into the new zone. Not ridiculously close, but close. You’ll get a feel for it. Setting waypoints for them never hurts in any situation, either. I’m sure you’ve read this in a bunch of places already, but they behave much more intelligently when they are heading for or standing on a waypoint.
Okay, yeah. I keep thinking they’re close enough, and I’ve cleared the path of zombies between me and them and the door…but they’re probably still too far away. Thanks!
also, since I’m still new at this: the zombies are constantly respawning in this game, yeah? There’s no such thing as actually “clearing” one of the areas entirely?
o.k., I’m just starting the game, so I have a super-newbie question - at the very beginning when the zombies break into the mall, how many of the people can you/should you be able to save?
The guideline I sort of shoot for is “are they all on screen?” If not, does doing a 180 show them all right there, just off-camera from when the camera was pointing at the door? Also, a waypoint at or very near (you don’t want survivors blocking you from the door) a door is your most bestest friend, which I usually follow up by wailing on the Y button like it owes me money once I’m at the door.
also, since I’m still new at this: the zombies are constantly respawning in this game, yeah? There’s no such thing as actually “clearing” one of the areas entirely?
I believe that’s correct. I’ve gotten back to the warehouse many times and started chainsawing my way through the zombie hordes only to hear a distress call from one of the limpers who is suddenly being munched upon by a zombie in the hallway that wasn’t there when I passed through.
I’m not 100% sure about this, but I think they only respawn once you’re out of the zone. In other words, you can clear a zone but they’ll all be back next time you leave and re-enter. In the warehouse, there was probably just a zombie in a corner that you missed or something.
Really? O.k., I was deceived by the E3 demo then, since I think they had the NPCs as invulnerable in that demo, because I was really surprised when I first booted up the game and saw all the NPCs die almost instantly, and thought it was just because I didn’t know what I was doing.
Be sure to giive the survivors weapons as well. Makes them a bit more formidable. I loaded up on the mini chainsaws - best damn weapon in the game is right, and passed a couple of those off to my survivors.
In the early game I found taking out the convicts and getting the 50 cal really helped me a lot. I took out Adam, Carlos, Cletus & the grocery store guy just with the 50 cal.
I still recommend giving survivors handguns or shotguns over any sort of melee weapon, but that’s me.
The zombies’ respawn rate in Dead Rising is kind of weird. It’s not so much that you can “clear a zone” as it is that Frank radiates this odd bubble of permanence. When Frank moves, the bubble moves, and zombies respawn.
Frank’s “bubble” is approximately your line of sight at any given time. If you just stand in one place and kill zombies, the zombies will stay dead and their bodies will stay there. However, if you then move to the other end of a large area, zombies will slowly begin to return to the zone.
For example, go to Paradise Plaza on Day Three and kill all the zombies you see near the movie theater entrance. Now move over to the warehouse, then come back. It’ll be like you were never there at all.
Is there any way to start overtime mode without losing your inventory?
When I first beat 72 hour mode, overtime mode kicked in but I just powered off the system, figuring I could come back to it up later. Now when I fire up the game and select overtime mode from the menu, I have an empty inventory, and it looks like Adam’s chainsaws aren’t spawning anymore.
I’m just wondering if I had have kept playing when I first got overtime mode and had possibly saved on the mat in the hideout, would I have still had my inventory from 72 hour mode? I didn’t check my inventory (I don’t think I even hit gameplay from the cinematic, just killed the system) so I don’t know if I would have started with anything.
I’m not looking forward to a mall full of special ops cats if I don’t have my trusty chainsaws!
No more chainsaws, but you can still make a run to Entrance Plaza for katanas and battleaxes. Anyway, I didn’t manage get through Overtime mode until I was level 50, and I was just running past most people and disemboweling the rest at that point. At level 50, you are far faster than the soldiers, and disembowel kills them immediately (and you’ve invulnerable during the animation).
If you start Overtime cold from the main menu, it acts as though you got Ending A without doing anything other than cases. Thus, Isabela’s motorcycle, Steven’s weapon cart, and Larry’s cleaver are present; Cliff’s machete and Adam’s chainsaws are not. The secret passage between Wonderland and Paradise is open, though.
For dealing with the soldiers in Overtime, I recommend running straight to the cutlery shop in the North Plaza and getting a broadsword from the case behind the counter, then using it and the machineguns to nail soldiers until you can get down to the meatpacking plant and score Larry’s meat cleaver. It’s no chainsaw, but it’ll get the job done, and you can extend its lifespan with the Criminal Biography.
I did the same thing, actually. It was actually kind of refreshing to have to play more cautiously and have to scavenge for new weapons. I wound up having more difficulty with it than I would have with the chainsaws, but I still got through overtime just fine.
This is such a great game. However, watching the girlfriend play it drove home how hardcore it is. Who do even average gamers do it?
To keep from getting killed, you have to develop the ability to simultaneously run, spin the camera to follow you because the auto-camera is so bad, and beat zombies to death. The mission system is clunky as hell. The items don’t show as usable until you’re standing right next to them. The weapons constantly wear out unless you can min/max the books. The very first area, Paradise Plaza, has basically zero effective weapons - the katana and SMG are secrets. Whenever you get jumped by zombies, the game provides ambiguous feedback about how to escape, and requires extremely fast button motions to do so.
If you’re playing through normally without knowing where everything is, it switches to night and the zombies get way extra hard by the time you get halfway across Paradise Plaza. To top that off, the damned convicts jump your ass the second you leave the Plaza.
Paradise Plaza has unlimited baseball bats, unlimited skateboards, the bowling ball (one shot kill to the head, or clean multiple zombies out of the way ranged), and a sports book that makes them all last 3x as long. Also, after the first 12 hours or so, there are a ton of knife-wielding zombies for essentially unlimited hunting knives. So I have to disagree with this point.
