Game Review: Dead Rising 3 – Season Pass (Xbox One)

As is now customary for most big game releases, Dead Rising 3 came with a season pass. This season pass would give players 4 untold stories of Los Perdidos where they play as 4 new characters with new stories & weapons that tie into the main Dead Rising 3 plot.

The first of these untold stories was:

Operation Broken Eagle

You assume the role of Adam Kane, a Special Forces commander who has been instructed with hunting down the president of the US within Los Perdidos. Kane is under orders to capture the president & exterminate anyone that gets in his teams way.

The first problem with playing Kane becomes apparent almost immediately…he is a humourless walking cliché, a no-nonsense soldier that follows orders unquestionably. In a series so in love with it’s wacky & unique characters Kane stands out for all the wrong reasons.

The brief story comes in at around an hour (a running theme for all the DLC’s) & is extremely un-memorable….even it’s payoff is poor as anyone who has seen a Kane-like character before can see the ending coming a mile away.

To flesh out the DLC we have a number of side quests (read: collectibles) that have you playing the bad-guy. Infecting the safe-zones should have you feeling deliciously evil but instead just becomes another fetch quest that barely register mentally after the 4th or 5th one. You can also hack ZDC cameras, recover squad members that have survived & collect dog tags from fallen comrades.

Get used to collecting stuff in these DLCs….

Fallen Angel

Part 2 of the untold stories sees you taking on the role of Angel, a bad-ass illegal who hates the government. She likes to have a drink (you’re going to hear that a lot) but only wants what’s best for the other illegal safe-houses.

Fallen Angel is a slight improvement over Operation Eagle thanks to Angel who is a much more interesting character. Her story is a lot more relatable & she fits into the Dead Rising universe better.

She is also the first female playable character in any Dead Rising game.

Her story forces you to see a few areas of Los Perdidos that you may never have explored before which was pretty cool but once again it is far too short & barely reaches an hour long unless you are collectible hunting which there are plenty of. This time you can enjoy rescuing survivors from execution, destroying ZDC Cameras & the worst one of all, burning propaganda posters.

Los Perdidos is in ruins & filled with zombies….like posters telling you to get chipped really matter.

Chaos Rising

*sigh*

Here is the worst of the bunch…you play Hunter, a psycho biker that you killed as Nick in the main game. What were they thinking? He is so unlikeable & his voice grates to such an extent I pressed mute.

It has some of the worst missions tied into some cliché story were Hunter wants revenge on the guy (Spider) who put him in prison. Spider just so happens to now lead the gang of bikers that Hunter led & won’t give them up without a fight.

One of the main quests has you getting whiskey for the new boss…a fetch quest which wouldn’t be so bad in the overall scheme of things except for more collectibles including one for collecting whiskey!

Even the excitement of driving a new custom bike made by local expelled biker-gang handyman, Torque wears off as the game dictates when you can use it.

The map is a pain to navigate & the DLC has the worst collectibles of the bunch so far…emergency phones need to be destroyed (Hunter don’t want no po-lice showing up), whiskey needs to be collected & all custom motorcycles need to be found & then delivered to Torque in one piece!

The story lasts about an hour (as usual) & ends in one of the most un-inspiring boss fights in any Dead Rising game….you’re finally going to get your hands on Spider. Man to man in a ring of fire…this should be good but as soon as I gained control of Hunter I found I had all my weapons still & was able to gun him down in a matter of seconds with a splitshot. Fun…

The Last Agent

The final piece of the 4 DLC stories bows out in the usual fashion, short & filled with collectibles. Yay….

Surprisingly though it does offer a much more interesting story with a character you actually want to see succeed. You play ZDC agent Richard Park…one of the good guys. Not all ZDC agents are dirty & Park is out to prove this while getting to the bottom of what happened to the president.

The opening scene is great as we see Park, a victim of his implant heading to zombie town before a dubious Nick gives him a shot of Zombrex before going out the window. With this second chance Park sets about finding out the truth.

Sadly the missions themselves bog down the story…they are the usual fare for the Dead Rising DLC & mostly see you going from A to B picking something up or delivering it.

The usual bundle of excessive collectibles are evident as always with ZDC chips & bootleg Zombrex to be picked up, Biohazard bodies burned & survivors to be rescued. The survivors are the worst ones & there are 20 of them. I’m giving them special mention because you can activate the quests without even noticing (just driving near them) resulting in them dying. If that happens it means another full play-through.

Even the odd fleeting glimpse of some favourite faces isn’t enough to make this a better overall experience.

The chance to continue the story after Nick should have been better then this…so much better. These 4 untold stories are clear cash grabs & I would suggest waiting until the season pass goes on sale (do not buy them individually…that would be a colossus waste of money). They offer very little new & if they didn’t have achievements I would probably suggest avoiding them completely.