Dead Rising

Some things you never finish, and some things you never really even start. This is one of the latter, and I am only including it here because of a particular way in which the modern games console can shame the player, a brutal technique far outweighing the mere Nintendo hard difficulty levels employed by past machines and their creators. I talk of course, about achievement scores.

Public achievement scores.

In my defence, Dead Rising seems like a pretty poor game. I thought that some free-form zombie mashing was exactly what I needed after completing Mass Effect for the second time, but I didn't realise how boring it would get if you didn't know what was going on. The game started with cut-scene after cut-scene. I started by skipping cut-scene after cut-scene. When the game proper actually happened I realised I didn't have a clue how to play it, so I decided to hit pause and see what the onscreen help said. Oh, wait. I couldn't read the onscreen help. Apparently gamers don't own 15" CRT TVs anymore, as the resolution on the text was so small that it actually couldn't display on my telly. I went right up to the screen to check.

I did eventually find a bowling ball, and I did eventually manage to smash some zombies in the skull with it, but it was pretty lacklustre, and I had no clue what was going on in terms of the various missions I could complete. Occasionally something would flash up on the screen, and I would shrug and throw a CD at huge pack of creatures. And then I switched the game off.

Except, that was not it, because on the XBox you can't delete played games from your profile. So it sits there, on my achievement's list, a matter of public record, proudly displaying a zero as a testament to my inability to complete even the simplest of tasks. I mean, most games give you a 5 point achievement just for pretty much switching the thing on. I am a terrible zombie killer.