In the previous demo of Dead Rising that was shown at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, the Tokyo Game Show, and the Consumer Electronics Show, it was hard to get a sense of how the actual game would play for one key reason: the demo was far too challenging. Since it was set up as a tech demo in a certain sense to show off how many zombies could fit on the screen at one time, there were areas that were a struggle to even run through, given how filled up they were with enemies ready and waiting to grab you as a chew toy for a few seconds. It was doable to get through, but you had to be extremely careful. Essentially, it was annoying.

Thankfully, the new demo that was shown at Capcom's Gamers Day press event offers a much, much more balanced play experience. Don't get it wrong, there are still areas where you walk in and see the number of zombies and are in awe of how many there are in the room -- that's a big part of the concept behind the game -- but now it feels much more manageable to get past them and take them out.

Part of that feeling comes from how you can use any item you see lying around in the mall where the game takes place to attack the zombies -- chuck cash registers around, throw plates like you're performing in the Olympics, pick up lunch table overhangs and push them in front of you to knock zombies over, etc. It's the proper use of these items that will make your trip through the game much easier -- some are good for taking out one enemy at a time; others work to take out groups. It doesn't seem like the developers want the weapons to be balanced equally either, so just because you can pick an item up doesn't mean you will always want to (i.e. don't throw a stick of corn at a mob walking towards you if you can get a shotgun).

You can also use other humans you come across to help you fend off the zombies. Even though you won't have them around for too long since you're helping them with their own problems, you will have a bit of control over where your friends go, with commands that have them follow you or a marker that you can place in your first-person view to show them where to go. These humans you meet and help out will play a major role in the game's story.

Visually, the game is looking significantly better than before in a few areas -- nothing major on the whole, but the character faces are starting to look extremely lifelike (despite the main character's ugly mug) and certain special effects like the shininess of a wet floor look very nice (now let's not overuse the shininess like everyone else, Capcom -- one scene is cool, putting it on everything is not).

In one of the most memorable scenes from the demo version at Gamers Day, we made our way outside the mall for the first time. The mall is set up in a circular fashion, with a large park in the middle, so once we went through the doors to get to the park, it was mayhem. Apart from the greater than usual concentration of enemies, there were zombies driving around jeeps with gunners on the backs (similar to the Warthogs in Halo). They drove around quickly and kept the rate of fire from the gunner very high, but after a bit of effort we were able to knock the driver out of his seat and commandeer the vehicle. Once we got in the driver's seat, the gunner stopped shooting at us and we were able to take a driving tour of the park -- knocking over easily a couple hundred zombies in about a minute or so. It didn't seem to serve much of a purpose since you are trying to solve the mystery of the mall and complete objectives rather than kill everyone, but it was extremely fun all the same.

And it's scenes like that which look to make Dead Rising fun -- things you can tell your friends about the next day because they were just so unexpected or out of the ordinary. Sure, lead pipes and swords and axes are neat and all, but it's the experiences like our time in the park that will likely provide the best parts of the game.