Dead Rising – Dawn of the Dead
Games That Were Heavily Inspired by (Or Ripped Off) Movies
There are only so many ways to tell a zombie story and only so many settings to frame that story. The best locations provide a sense of paranoia and twist comforting areas into terrifying parodies. Add a dash of claustrophobia and some obvious jabs at modern culture, and you have a recipe for excellence. George Romero did just that when he chose a shopping mall as the backdrop for Dawn of the Dead, and then Capcom just decided to rip off that idea with Dead Rising.
Of course, Dead Rising didn’t copy Dawn of the Dead wholesale. The movie didn’t exactly star a freelance photographer who voluntarily jumped into a mall from a helicopter to get an exclusive scoop on the world’s first zombie outbreak, let alone discover the conspiracy behind the outbreak. But, Dead Rising’s setting, NPCs who only want to escape, boss enemies who treat the ordeal as an excuse to go insane, and underlying critiques are more than just similar to many aspects from Dawn of the Dead. There’s coincidence, and then there’s Dead Rising.
