Ten years after releasing the original Dead Rising on the Xbox 360, Capcom has up-rezed some of the games from it’s zombie-themed series for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The Dead Rising Triple Pack digitally bundles Dead Rising, Dead Rising 2, and its Frank West-starring expansion, Dead Rising 2: Off the Record, plus all their associated DLC costumes. But that’s about it.

So what’s special about this collection? Other than being able to easily play these games with all their add-ons at 1080p and 60 frames per second, which is definitely the best way to do it, not a lot. There’s no making of or retrospective content here – it’s the games and nothing but the games. The additional outfits are nice if you’re looking to dress up like a ninja, a cardboard robot, or cosplay Frank as katana-wielding Johnny Cash, but their value is cosmetic and fleeting.

for "great", though the decade-old zombie-slaying experience hasn’t aged especially well, and bumping up the resolution can only do so much to improve it.

Performance-wise, the bump to 60 frames per second certainly helps smooth out the panning camera, especially since there are usually dozens of zombies on screen at once. So that’s a lot easier on the eyes. The only place the frame rate takes a dive is when using a few specific weapons, such as the sledge hammer. That has to be a bug.

But let’s call it like it is: The Dead Rising series hasn’t ever been about twitchy reaction time. Zombies are slow and their reach is pretty forgiving. So the frame rate isn’t going to make you a more efficient slayer of the undead. The original Dead Rising in particular leans pretty heavily on mechanics that mitigate input lag. Buildup time for power attacks is still a major part of the experience. So though the boost in framerate is welcome, it’s not really a game changer for this style of action game.

Dead Rising 2 received and 8.0 from IGN, and Dead Rising 2: Off the Record originally scored a 7 for "good". Thankfully, both of these games get much more out of the up-rez treatment thanks to their relatively more recent visuals

They’re essentially the same game, story-wise, though Off the Record adds an excellent sandbox mode with challenges that the series has always needed. Both these games handle much better than the Dead Rising, and therefore similarly get more from the 60 frame-per-second bump, though some cutscenes still appear slightly jerky and jagged.

Another caveat is that this bundle does not include Dead Rising 2: Case Zero, or Dead Rising 2: Case West. That’s strange omission considering they’re part of Dead Rising 2’s family of games.

The Verdict

The bottom line is if you haven’t played any three of these games, this is the best looking console version to date, and these enduring zombie-smashing games are still worth a playthrough. Outside of that, there’s nothing new in this Triple Pack to draw old Frank West fans back to experience the chaos again before he returns in Dead Rising 4 this December.