If you braced yourself for the worst when you heard the latest-gen zombie massacre sim Dead Rising was being ported to the Nintendo Wii, the above comparison video might not be so bad. It juxtaposes bits of Dead Rising in its original form on the Xbox 360 with the same bits in Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop on the Wii. In terms of how well the graphics engine holds up, it could have been a lot worse.

But what's conspicuously absent -- and all the more conspicuous because it's crucial to why Dead Rising is so great -- is about two thirds of the zombie population. I could deal with losing Frank's interactive helicopter ride into town, the lack of dismemberment physics, and not being able to drive the car in the parking lot. But thinning out the zombie herd is simply unacceptable. It would be like a version of Left 4 Dead that you could only play with two players at a time, or a version of Grand Theft Auto without driving, or a version of Doom without a shotgun. Luckily, Wii owners who need to kill some zombies have a much better alternative. Keep reading...