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listened to everything, and we worked
with Microsoft closely to see where we
wanted to take Frank. Frank is now 15
years older. The funny thing is, when you
ask a 25 year old what a 50 year old looks
like, they basically describe someone
that is about 70 (he laughs). So we put
all these voices together and then when
the guy showed up to audition, he drove
up in this crappy old van with a mattress
in the back and he just owned the role
straight away. We are super excited about
where the new Frank is going; we just
wanted to take him in a new direction and
we did. We’ve had a lot of what we call
‘mock reviews’ with different agencies,
and they’ve all told us, ‘oh my God, that
acting’s superb.’ We really like the acting.’
There’s real chemistry. It feels good. But,
make no mistake, he is still absolutely a
smartass. That really comes through.
So you could tell he was perfect
straight away?
You know what’s really funny, the
guy showed up and it was almost eerie
because he looked like the Frank that we
had modeled. He looked a lot like him. We
freaked out a little bit. He showed up and
he looked like he’d been out all night. It
was perfect.
Have you ever considered
implementing a co-op campaign
aspect?
One of the things that we’ve always
felt is that Dead Rising is a single player
journey. It’s a lot about discovering things
and solving the mystery this time around.
We wanted to have a different experience
for our online mode, so you could pick it
up and play with your friends before you
go out, or maybe you’ve gone out for the
night and you come home and sort of
wind down. Four player co-op has different
missions to play. The missions you play in
online four-player is completely separate
from the main game. They’re only online.
There’s a time limit that you have to deal
with. It’s a kind of like happy accident that
we found. We wanted to have something
a little bit more casual for people to mess
around in, and it turned out to be one of
the most fun things in the game. Everyone
always seems to like the online mode
because you don’t have to have a massive
time commitment. You just get in, have a
lot of fun and play, and get those scores
posted and see how long you can last.
How would you describe the franchise
to someone that’s never played it?
If you tried to describe Dead Rising to
someone that never played it, they would
have no idea, because it doesn’t make
sense when I describe the ingredients
to our recipe. Are we a zombie game?
Sure. Are we
The Walking Dead
? No,
we’re not. Are we
28 Days Later
, are we
terrifying? What we do is, I think we just
focus on a much better story this time
around. We’ve hired three writers to get a
story in much better shape, and I think we
have deeper characters now. I think what
keeps us fresh and relevant is the fact
that nobody does what we do. We know
exactly what we are. We’re not trying
to be someone else. We’re trying to be
Dead Rising. The analogy I give to a lot of
people, which everyone gets when I say
it, if you look at a serious survival game or
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