Dead reckoning

Despite the genius of the trailer and the enthusiastic reviews its garnered I think I'm going to hold off buying Dead Rising, either til it drops in price a bit or til it turns up in CEX. Fact is that 50 quid for a game is a lot of money, even when the likelihood is that the game will be good. I don't think I've bought one at face value since getting my 360, and if I'm going to do so at all this year I think I'll hold fire until Just Cause, which is genuinely jaw-dropping in a way that Dead Rising... well, isn't. Not that the latter looks inferior - far from it, they're different animals entirelly one a claustrophobic slaughter-fest the other an explore-em-up with a GTA mission structure and some beautifully thought out free-roaming controls (parachute, grapple gun etc). Thing is Just Cause has the next-gen polish of Oblivion, GRAW, Battlefield 2 and Rockstar Table Tennis - i.e. the games for 360 I've enjoyed the most (contradictory to this, I believe The Outfit is still on my 'Most Played' list but that's only because - for reasons unknown - I chose to grind through the tedious single-player campaigns). Dead Rising, for all its high zombie count, does not, retaining a degree of clunkiness in both looks and control methods.

Superficiality is not normally my thing in video games but having finished off the boat-based section of the demo roaring into a dazzling sunset, I've pretty much been sold.