As many complaints I have with the game's design, like Que I didn't really have trouble with those two things you are complaining about. For instance that roll thing... I didn't even know you could do that. Or at least I don't remember ever doing it or maybe I didn't ever "learn" how to do it in the game context. As for your second point with the weapon breaking, I don't think I had that problem either. I mean the weapons all broke really fast for me, but you kind of get stunned for a second and see the weapon falling down after it breaks. Sure I had some frantics trying to get a weapon equipped at times, but I never accidentally used a health item or anything.
Yeah... Find three specific books and put them in your inventory. The combination of these books makes your weapons last like 48x longer or something like that (seriously). Then just go the psycho clown area and equip all your remaining weapon slots with his chainsaw - you'll have to keep leaving and re-entering the area to do this obviously. Note though that this makes the whole game significantly easier. For instance I found that boss you're talking about to be complete cake.
I stood at the end of an isle, luring him down. Then I just moved to the endcap area and he'd shoot past some. Then I'd melee him with whatever I had for a bit. Then I'd run down the next isle and do the same thing. I thought he was probably the easiest boss I faced.
I kept jumping over the shelves from aisle to aisle, dropping behind him, and smacking him with bats, knives, and so on. Then when he finally managed to turn around, I'd hop over the shelves again.
I guess that's pretty much what Scott did.
I beat the butcher. You were right.
Shotguns are the answer. I stayed as far away from him as I could, ducked his lobbed sides of beef (or human) then let him have it.
OK, I made it into overtime mode, and now I'm contending with a 24-hour clock to zombification, and these special-force soldiers. Questions: Do I have a shot at the real ending and the survival mode for sure now? If so, what's the exploit for that "impossible" final boss you mentioned before?
Edit: Never mind about the 1st question in the above spoiler. I found the answer at Wiki. Still need an answer to my 2nd question?
I'll post the exploit in spoiler tags in case you want to try it legitimately first. My guess is that you'll find it as frustrating as I did if not more so given the tone of some of your previous rants, and it drove me insane, so don't feel any shame in it.
The last-last boss is a fistfight, and it's about as unfair as you could want. Unless you're a much better player than I, you'll hate it. I did manage to sort of hold my own for a while, but it was just so long and drawn out I hadn't the stamina for it I guess. After losing the first time, I just didn't want to go through all the crap you have to go through just to get to the fight again, let alone actually spend another twenty minutes trying it, so I just caved in to the exploit. Supposedly the best legitimate move you can do is the spinning around thing. You know, the one where you stick your fists out and spin (or stick your weapon out if you have one ready, which will be flung to the far corners of the earth near the end of the spin). That did work pretty well, but it still wasn't really doing the trick. What I ended up doing was simply mash the attack button with a repeated punching combo. The guy will block you, but you'll still do a little bit of damage. Not much, but a little. So when I started to get desperate during my second attempt and realized that I was going to lose, I just pounded the guy over and over again without stopping. He'll block the entire time and never let up, but since he loses a tiny, tiny bit of health each time, you'll eventually win. I hated the fact that I had to do this, but I consider it worth it just because of how cool all the end scenario stuff is. Even if the fight pisses you off, there are a lot of cool moments in overtime mode, and the setup for the end fight is really cool and worth seeing. Just a shame they didn't pull it off any better than they did.
I read that there was an achievement for killing 53,594 zombies, which gives you the real Megaman Mega Buster. I didn't read how to do it, but I figured it out. (Run them over repeatedly in the tunnels.) I dedicated most of one game to that, and ended up with over 70,000 kills and Frank at Level 49. You need to play until you get an ending to unlock the Mega Buster. I ended up with Ending B.
I started a new 72-hour game, and tried out the new shooter. This is immensely powerful, and comes with 300 shots. Bosses are cake with it. You can drop it on the rooftop, and pick up a fully loaded one in the security room area. I imagine it should be the ticket against those damn special forces in Overtime mode.
Can you tell I've finally really gotten into this game? Except for the idiocy of the roll-forward move, it's so much fun now. I can get anywhere to anywhere underground, now that I know where 3 cars are parked. I've figured out how to order items in the inventory (which involves dropping an item, scrolling the remaining items, and picking it up in the right slot). This all but eliminates my problem with ending up drinking something or reading a book while in the middle of a twich fight with the hordes. I finally defeated the 3 idiots on the jeep too. Like I said, a very powerful weapon.
I'm going after achievements, and finally the "true ending" in OT mode, whatever that may be.
Actually, I haven't been playing with a guide either. Not really. There are a few specific things that I wanted to know about, and that's when I ran across the Zombie Genocider achievement. As I said, I didn't cheat in learning how to do it. It became fairly obvious when I realized the carnage vehicles do, and that those vehicles respawn when you go between areas that have to be loaded from the disc.
There's no boss involved in getting complete access to the tunnels.
The key is hidden in a store room, somewhere in the middle of the map. Otis will even tell you (if you bother with the damn phone, which thankfully works as you drive) when you first enter the tunnels that he left the key in there somewhere. It's good to get it at the beginning of a game, when you have plenty of time to run around.
Yes, definitely, I feel the game was a great purchase now. For a while there, I felt cheated. Glad I was stubborn enough to stick with it. Had I acquired this game in some other way, as I have some PC games (er, eval versions, yeah . . .) then I doubt I would have had the motivation to stick it out.
Edit: On a wildly different subject, the vs CPU and puzzle/mission packs for Lumines Live (http://www.xbox.com/en-US/live/marketplace/luminesxboxlivearcade/downloadpack.htm) will debut at 100 pts each for about a month, starting on the 24th. (Regular price after: 300 pts each.) Q? and M$ have gotten hammered for the distribution model used by this game, and to some extent, I agree with the criticism. It's a lousy precedent. The total cost for base and advanced single-player I think is around 1800 pts, or about $22. Add more packs at the expected 400-pt-apiece price, and you end up paying more for the game than you should. At 200 more points total, though, the whole thing ends up costing $25, which is not bad for what you get. This is not an ancient arcade game, or even a rehash of an ancient arcade game. It's something pretty special, I think, and $20-25 is not a bad deal. Plus you really don't need to buy the whole shibang, if all you ever play is challenge mode.
There will be an extra skin for Gold members, free. I'll make sure to grab it before my gold expires early next month.
I have now beaten Dead Rising finally. That last guy was very annoying.
I tried punching him rapidly, but he'd always get me in a choke hold from behind, and drain away a bunch of my health. I tried finding something to make it easier, but to no avail. The hunks of meat (zombie arms) barely dented him, if at all, and it would have taken forever even so. I was successful clearing out most zombies around the tank the 2nd try, but that helped me very little. It's nearly as easy to walk over them. When I was almost dead the 2nd time, I realized that kicking and punching him from the lower part of the tank seemed to help. He never got me in a hold while I stayed off the turret, and he'd always seem to want to climb back on to it. Otherwise, I'd hop up & run across the turret, then drop down on the other side of the tank. He killed me, but on the 3rd attempt, I used that technique with a lot more health, and it worked. His dealing with the height changes delayed his attack & defense just enough.
I'm now in infinity mode. It looks like I can't save, it's ridiculously late, and I don't want to leave the 360 on for the next 6-8 hours. Ugh. I gotta get some sleep.
Edit: I aimed a box fan at the 360, and left it on while I slept. (I swear this thing needs more cooling. I'm concerned about longterm damage. Maybe there is something to all the horror stories about failure rates. If it's true that the GPU is soldered on rather than socketed . . . but I digress.) I went back to the game this evening, and managed to survive 4 days, 20 hours and odd minutes. Dammit! Just missed the 5-day achievement. I got 2 health books right off the bat too, but I still ran out of food/drink. There must be something else I need to do to stretch it out.
Infinity mode is much more open-ended than the regular game. There is no structure. All you have to do is figure out how to survive. Heath drops slowly, so the real challenge is finding food & drink. You can otherwise go anywhere and do anything. That weapon from the Zombie Genocider achievement makes the occasional hairy fight much easier. I can't see going through that again soon, though. It takes so long, and the way to improve times is to do very little that's risky. So I can see a lot of dead time, sitting in a safe corner, just waiting to eat/drink when enough health goes away.