It's a little known fact that one of my favorite games on the Xbox 360 is Dead Rising. By sticking photojournalist Frank West (he's covered wars) in a mall to fend for himself against hordes of slow-but-plentiful zombies, Capcom took the zombie survival genre and put it on its head. Dead Rising showed us all a humorous, more fun side to the idea of a zombie infestation, and now that same experience is making its way onto the Nintendo Wii in the form of Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop. But one concerning question has remained in the minds of pretty much every fan of the original game – will Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop be able to retain the magic of its Xbox 360 counterpart?

Up until recently, all we've had to see of the game were a few poorly scanned screenshots and a shoddy quality video that didn't show very much, so when I got the chance to play it at Nintendo's Fall Media Summit last week, I jumped on the opportunity. Unfortunately, I was left with a bad taste in my mouth and concern remaining in my head over whether or not this game will be a worthy addition to the Dead Rising series.

The first portion of the demo takes place in Paradise Plaza, which looks pretty much the same for the most part. My first reaction when seeing it, though, was that it looked a whoooole lot emptier. The amount of zombies on-screen in this iteration has been a heated point of controversy among fans, and Capcom's showing this time around didn't really sway my opinion in the direction of relief. Dead Rising on the Xbox 360 contained an intricate but brilliant way of balancing out the difficulty of the enemies: they were slow as sin and dumb as a brick, but there were dozens upon dozens of them obstructing your way, making it tough to find a safe way through the mall without paving a bloody path of your own. In Chop Till You Drop, it seems like that delicate balance of difficulty may be disrupted due to a lack of zombies – they're still the same speed and intelligence, but less of them makes it too easy to navigate through the mall and takes away that slight fear that's integral to any good zombie game. I'm hoping that the lack of zombies was just Capcom taking it easy on the demo and doesn't reflect the final game.

Moving on, the demo starts with Otis sending you a message via walkie talkie asking to kill as many zombies as possible within the time allotted (which I think was something like 3 or 4 minutes). With my mission as plain as day, I took a second to try and get a grasp of the controls… and then took a few more seconds after that. I should probably mention that the game uses the same engine used for the Wii version of Resident Evil 4, and it showed from the behind-the-back camera angle to the item pick-ups to the controls. If you've played Resident Evil 4 Wii before, then you've pretty much got the controls down… except for one thing. I'm a bit embarrassed to admit this, but throughout the two demo sessions that I played, I could not for the life of me figure out how to cycle through the inventory. I waggled like a mad man, I tried almost every button combination possible on the Wii remote and nunchuk, I even managed to access the game's debug mode, but I could not change my weapon. It was frustrating, to say the least, and probably a big part of why the demo left a bad impression on me.

Other than my little inventory gripe, everything else seemed pretty standard fare. You can tell that the game is much more focused on the shooting aspect of zombie killing than in the Xbox 360 version (which makes sense when you factor in the Wii remote). Zombies actually drop ammo for weapons now along with money, all of which have that glow that'll be familiar to any Resident Evil 4 player.

Two new enemies made their way into the demo that surprised me. The first was a zombie dog (presumably the dog that starts all of the chaos) that I ran into a couple of times but couldn't take down because it was so short and fast, and two giant rent-a-cop zombies with electrical abilities that I encountered on the second floor of Paradise Plaza. I wish I could tell you about the best way to take them down, but it's hard to do so when you can't even change your weapon. Oops.

After your time limit is up, Otis gives you another ring and tells you to get to the roof of Paradise Plaza, which is easy because it automatically teleports you there. Greeting me on the roof was that dual-chainsaw-wielding clown that's normally in Wonderland Plaza. He rushes at you with chainsaws, throws knives at you, rolls side to side to dodge bullets, the basic stuff. The first time I fought him I ran out of time, but the second time I was able to take him down, which ended the demo. Both times, I put down the controller wondering if I still had any faith left for the game.

Dead Rising on the Xbox 360 was a great game that showed that you could make sandbox gameplay work even if it was combined with a genre so far off as zombie survival. It pains me to say it, but I have trouble believing that Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop will be able to capture that feeling of freedom and mayhem that made the original game so fun to play. And with the game's true sequel stuck in the limbo of rumor and hearsay, the future of Dead Rising looks as grim as its prime inhabitants. Capcom still has time to turn Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop into a winner, and here's hoping they use every minute of it wisely.