Dead Rising Marxist Analysis COMPLETE!

That would be pretty cool! What kind of thing were you thinking, like you draw or graphic design?

Bump for Americlaps

The next game will be State of Emergency btw.

Fuck you chad you said you would do MGS2

I'll do it at some point sure… I'm taking a break from super long videos ATM though.

last bump i guess

I like your stuff. keep up the good work famalam

Thank you! I'm hoping to have the next video out within 1-2 weeks since I just started my new job. (Unless I said that already)

Also, to the guy/girl who was offering to do something with my YT banner, you could message me on Twitter if that's easier? It's @MarxistMedia or @Marxist_Media I forget.

pls fuck me, based raccoon comrade

You ever plan doing a quick video on the Capitalism series? I find how they abstract markets showing how bourgeois industrialists view capitalism.

Schnitz pls

I could do, I've played that a little bit, I don't know how much ideology per se it has though. I mean besides the obvious, but it doesn't really have a story or anything or make any kind of moral judgements. However, I'm sure I could come up with something, good suggestion.

Well off the top of my head is that the local market is abstracted away. The local capitalists market share is represented by white on the pie chart and you can still see the average stats for local capitalists but for you the player that is just a "virgin market" for you to grow into with the other corporations being made far more important in terms of competition.

You also have labor abstracted as part of your fixed capital. To you the player, all the matters is producing commodities that are sold for surplus value with labor just part of the production process from the players point of view.

Digital design, I can't draw just use my comp, i do work with social media and can make well looking pics and shit

Sorry I got back to you so late. Gimme a theme and i can come up w. a draft

Okay. Hmm. Damn I'm kinda stumped now. Well obviously it needs my channel name, some video games stuff… Soviet imagery is always popular but I'm not really wedded to that, use it if you like, but my 'favourite' region if you will is Latin America, though I don't know much about art in any region… These are some examples of interesting stuff though (from Cuba which I guess is my 'favorite' leftist regime).

ospaaal.com/

But yeah I don't know, it's your work so as long as it looks pretty I'll happily use it, if you have an idea just run it by me. Like I said obviously videogames needs to play in there somehow… Like maybe one idea is commie stylised videogames related stuff? (logos, controllers, characters, w/e) No idea how hard that is to do haha. Yeah okay so, we can use this topic to chat if you like, just let me know what you're thinking.

Obviously theres quite a range on that site so here's some that look cool to me (to get a sense of the style I like I guess?)

I'll make 2-3 drafts and you can see what you like

nice man. just about to go to bed. appreciate this though fam.

I got a new Patron! Thank you whoever you are!

My hard drive space has become an issue so while my next review is still coming, I'll be releasing the remastered unabridged version of my Dead Rising analysis first so I can get all those files deleted. Hooray for 8 hour rendering times.

die

sorry you feel that way

Thus we are introduced to Dead Rising, but more importantly to Willamette, our prototypical suburban, middle-American wasteland. This bland, mostly featureless town is the canvas upon which all the game's themes are writ large. And by that, I mean that the political themes of Dead Rising are hardly understated. Does make them less valuable? Well, in my opinion no. Classic politcal satires like Dr Strangelove or The Great Dictator deliver their messages with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer, but that makes them no less effective. As we are introduced to the game proper, through a brilliantly atmospheric sequence that shows off one of the key mechanics, as well as bringing to mind ideas about Guy (pronounded gie) Debord's Society of the Spectacle, where instead of trying to save your fellow man you dispassionately use his gruesome demise to capture the most impressive possible images, I should preface this video by saying that Dead Rising is one of my favorite games of all time, which is partly why I'm covering it ahead of many other more obvious choices. The other reason, of course, is its recent release on Steam ten years after the original release, which seemed to be me the perfect time to replay a game that I adored when I was much younger. As such, this video, as I'm sure you've seen, is a long one, as I feel there is a lot of ground to cover in the main story, the side missions, and other more metatextual aspects, but I hope you'll stick with me as I show you the politics of one of the Xbox 360's best games. I should also point out that this review will be full of spoilers, so if you're at all interested in its brand of goofy action survival-horror I would advise you to play it yourself if you haven't already. Otherwise, we'll continue. To keep things simple, I'm going to be tackling the game in basically chronological order as it's played, otherwise I know I'll get too confused and forget things. This does mean that a lot of the game's cutscenes are going to be frontloaded at the start of the video to establish the story, but I promise that I'll catch up on commentary as we go on. Additionally, I want to apologise in advance for the length, but I feel there's a lot of ground to cover.
Like practically all great zombie movies, particularly Romero's work, and the bad ones too, our colorful cast of characters is largely made up of broad stereotypes and caricatures, and the first, our main character, is probably the most important. Frank West exemplifies, well, the West, in particular America, as seen through the eyes of Japanese developers CAPCOM. He is brash, obnoxious, reckless, and ambitious to a fault, and yet somehow comes out of it all as strangely likeable, mirroring Japan's own fascination with the United States. As an avatar for the player, who is here to explore, experiment, have fun, and ultimately insert their own will into the game world, he is perfect.
Here we also meet Carlito, the mysterious stranger who clearly knows more than he lets on. More on him later, but for now, he's just vaguely sinister. And he's Central American, so of course he's wearing the most stereotypical clothes possible outside of a Sombero. Like I said, broad stereotypes.
Soon we move inside the mall to see the eponymous Rising Dead up close for the first time, and meet more idiot caricatures that are only here to ramp up the body count.
Whoa, I think the game's contempt for what Marx would have called 'the idiocy of (semi-)rural' America is showing. From the moronic rich old woman who thinks anybody really cares about her poodle right now, to the fat, inept middle-aged patriarch who has taken control, it's really putting the boot in. Of course, this is a zombie narrative, so stupid characters are a given.
Here we also meet an ill-tempered old man, but again more on him later.
And of course, the fates of everyone in the mall are sealed by the aforementioned pensioner, who suddenly develops super-strength and throws off grown men, but that might just be because they have no will to live - he doesn't even try to get up! Hey, just because I like this game doesn't mean I think it's perfect, but it does capture the sometimes-dodgy action of the old zombie flicks nicely.
Even though you can pick up your first weapons here and try to save the other survivors here as the game proper begins, they just stand there dumbly until they get eaten, so there's really no point.
We've now seen all of our core cast and set the scene for the main action, with the non-voiced old security officer Otis giving you advice over walkie-talkie - yeah, I know, Japanese games, don't ask me to explain that one. More importantly, are- (interrupted) yes, thank you.
If you want, you actually can just wait here in the security room for 72 hours until the helicopter comes to pick you up, but if you don't go down into the mall there isn't much of a game, so you're soon roped into the main plot.

Yeah, I'm not sure that's quite how embedded reporting works, but we do indeed jump right into shooting zombies and killing people, so what do I know. It's worth taking in mind that this is 2006, so the war that Frank, a relatively young American, was in, was most likely Iraq or Afghanistan.
So, after a battle that's way too hard for how early in the game it is, you chase off Carlito, and finally start getting some answers.

So, we finally move through the mall to complete the first day's story missions, known as 'cases', and get some freedom, where I can talk about the gameplay a bit more. Now, the voice acting in this game is generally great in my opinion, but Brad in this scene always cracks me up.
So here we come to one of the most controversial aspects of the game in terms of mechanics, the 72-hour time limit, or 6 hours in real time, plus cutscenes. Some people say this made the game overly restricted and rushed them, but I feel that it kept the game tight and focussed, and made a perfect run a real challenge.

But of course, this is a political analysis, so let's take a look at some of the key themes of the game.

With that said, there is plenty to indulge the player when it comes to combat focus, with 140 improvised and purpose-built weapons from the comedic to the deadly, and with varying degrees of effectiveness. This, in my opinion, is part of the game's broad satire of the consumerist ideal of freedom and the overstaturation of choice.

and a shortcut through the mall which helps meet the deadlines.

Also in the area are a pair of cheesy Japanese tourists who inexplicably decided to vacation in Nowhere, Colorado. Ah well, Capcom has to throw a bone to the hometown audience, even if nobody in Japan actually owned an Xbox 360.

Yep, it's a fetch quest, but one with more than meets the eye as you head to the supermarket.

This was originally the end of the first part, but since you're watching the unabridged version, you'll be getting my magnum opus as it was intended.
I remastered some of the dialog and added a few sentences, and I'll be correcting some mistakes, but you won't be missing out on anything except the outro at the end of each part.
However, this does mean that there are some gaps to fill, and due to the way it was edited it would be too time-consuming to remove those portions of video, so I'll add anything I forgot to mention in these segments.

Of course the US government is here to protect someone who is clearly evil instead of the general public, but I guess that's what Frank is here for.

Cletus, because of course his name is Cletus, represents many of the same themes as Steven did, but is more of a cliche of the gun-toting redneck small businessman. A more explicitly political portrayal, it's easy to imagine the fat, insecure, reactionary survivalist Cletus glued to his TV watching Fox News. In this case what I speculated about Steven is stated implicitly, that Cletus is more scared of the humans than the zombies.

Clearly, it doesn't take much prodding for the inner psychosis of many 'second amendment advocates' to be revealed, and to see the meager value placed on human life, especially of the poor, as opposed to material possesions by the middle-class crusaders for property rights.

Suffice to say, this battle can be challenging without getting your hands on Cletus's weapons first, but the courageous can choose to go in hard with a powerful melee weapon instead. Thankfully she seems no worse for wear after being brutalised.

I actually kinda like Brad, but trust him to act like he's in charge when he contributed nothing to saving Isabella. When she wakes up, we'll finally get the truth about the zombies, and see a big part of the game's moral message. It's a long sit, and you might want to get a drink or something because it's 6 minutes long, but as in practically all monster movie narratives, the origin story is a critical scene that tells us what moral message the writers were trying to convey, be it a warning about pollution, nuclear weapons, genetic engineering, biowarfare, corporate greed, or just the sins of mankind in general through something mystical.

For a fed he actually seemed like a good guy, and I honestly felt a little sad even replaying this bit. Rest in peace, Brad.
But, even in an emotional scene like this we see the game's encouragement of voyeurism, with an achievement awarded for snapping a photo of the zombified Brad. The scoop comes first after all.
Seeing my inventory in this clip reminds me of something. Leveling up Frank will improve many attributes like damage and health, but the only way to improve weapon durability or do things like skateboard kickflips is through books you can find around the mall. However, reading them just tells you what the book actually does. To get the benefit, you have to be actually be carrying it around with you, using up one of your inventory slots. Huh?… Apparently Frank is one of the people who believe it's more important to show off how many books you own than to actually read them. Regardless, it is worth it to have this knaawledge, because, for example, the right combination of three books of 3 times durability will give a stacked 27 times buff to the mini chainsaw, taking it from 80 hits to 2160 hits. Whoa.

youtu.be/_EbQNOUsLsM

This is the new remastered full cut of the Dead Rising video! If you've already watched it I don't reccomend you see this one, but for completenesses sake I wanted to produce a copy I was absolutely happy with before I deleted the ~300gb of files on my HD.

Any progress on that banner, comrade? Obviously I'm not rushing you, just wondering if you came up with anything yet. I hope it's going okay, haha.