We’re over the halfway mark of story-based DLC for Dead Rising 3, and to say neither of them have really set the world on fire would be a bit of an understatement.

Still, this time around we get to play as a Biker Gang leader and can create lots of chaos now the outbreak is in full-force. This is gonna be good, right?

 

Developer: Capcom Vancouver
Publisher: Microsoft Studios
Release Date: 28th February 2014
Format: Xbox One
Price: £7.99

You play Hunter Thibodeaux, a leather-panted biker who has been locked away for crimes and harrassment. However with the recent zombie outbreak, the biker seizes a chance to nab a set of keys off a bumbling corpse and breaks himself out.  The problem, however, is he doesn’t have a set of keys to go downstairs to the underground car park and drive himself out. The funny thing? You could smash a window in half the time and get out that way. But for the sake of narrative, we’ll just indulge Capcom this one time…

After ten minutes of hacking, slashing and hiking, I find the key, I go downstairs, I hitch a police car and drive out. Yay…

So you manage to break out and go and can now go and visit your old biker pals. Typically, the character you play is a stereotypical hick with a zest for booze and trouble. ‘Woowees’ and ‘Yeehaws’ are about the best you’re going to get for character development here, unfortunately. This guy certainly isn’t a Ben Throttle or Johnny Klebitz. Hunter visits his pals, only for them to tell him he has to be a good dog and go and fetch them some whiskey in order to kick off a round-table discussion.

And just like that, the originality in this DLC is sucked out and we’re back to normal. Let the fetch quests cometh. Again…

To be fair, this fetch quest isn’t as annoying as the dozen we had in the previous installments. The liquor store is a simple trip around the corner, where previous DLCs have made the player go around every awkward corner possible to reach their destination. Still…it’s a fetch quest and I’m genuinely sick to death of traipsing around the same locations, fighting the same groups of zombies, picking up similar-looking objects and delivering them back. I did that in Postman Pat the videogame when I was six – though I doubt vodka was in the package – I don’t want to keep playing the role of escort boy in a next-gen game in 2014. Besides, it doesn’t do much for the image of a take-no-shit, rebellious biker, does it?

But that’s the problem. The enthusiasm that has gone into developing this content is non-existent. It’s so blatantly obvious that the team aren’t even bothering to hide it anymore. If nothing else, the release schedule for the Season Pass has exposed that.

Still, I deliver it back like an obedient hick biker, hoping that this will be the first and last time Chaos Rising puts that on me. Interestingly, the game mixes it up at this point by throwing me in a ring with a bunch of bikers in an effort to prove my leadership qualities. Chaos Rising is trying something a bit different and I appreciate that. The problem is that the AI is horrific. Much like in the recent Lords of Shadow 2, i’m hitting enemies and they’re no-selling my strikes. They’re just taking them, then attacking me back. My attacks are not interrupting theirs and when there are a few of them hounding me at once? Yeah, you can see where this is going…

Regardless, I fight through the frustration and win the fight, only then to get shot in the chest by the so-called current leader of the biker gang. A bit of drama and theatrics, even though it was a non-surprising backstab. It’s the following section that surprised me, though it really shouldn’t have.

I’m right back where I started. Thrown back in the same jail cell I just broke out of… Wow…

But that isn’t the most surprising part. Nope. You remember that police car I drove out of the underground car park to escape? The one that’s surely being picked to pieces by a horde of zombies? It’s back! Fucking hell. It’s conveniently fucking back! Best. Day. Ever. It’s unscathed, untouched and raring for me to hop right back in and do some cruising.

Utterly ridiculous…

And unfortunately the content just goes from bad to worse. You get involved in even more fetch quests, have to go and locate bikes on your own in the wild, walk around the same areas you’ve already visited twice before in Operation Broken Eagle and Fallen Angel and at one point, the game even has the audacity to tell you to go away for a bit, do some exploring and come back later to carry on the main quest.

If you somehow make it through all of that – i’m not sure how I did – the one highlight of the content appears in the form of the new shredder bike. This is a lovely bit of kit that allows you to wade through hordes of zombies, dicing them if they try and catch you from the front or sides.

Sadly, even that becomes stale after a while. Especially when you have to travel to different corners of the map to go and fight more no-hit selling bikers. Anyone would think these guys graduated from the Ultimate Warrior/John Cena school of learning…

Capcom have got one piece of content left to make this right, but we’re not expecting any miracles…

Pros:

• The bike is fun to cruise around on.

Cons:

• Way too short
• An awful main character
• More fetch quests…
• A story not worth telling
• Hefty price point for content offered

Rating:

2 out of 5

Amazingly, the content continues to get worse and is out of ideas almost from the moment it starts. The absolute definition of ‘cash-in’, Chaos Rising is full of the resounding boredeom the developers certainly felt while putting the content together. This is shaping up to be one of the worst Season Pass collections in recent memory.