Where Are the Save Points?
Save points are spread throughout the mall in bathrooms and on green couches. The save points are clearly marked on your map, which you can bring up by pressing the Back button during gameplay. You also get to save whenever a new case file starts.
What Happens When Frank Dies
When Frank dies, you are given two options. You can “Load Game” (load your last save) or you can “Save Status And Quit” (restart the game from the beginning but you retain all of your accumulated experience and abilities). This isn’t as clear as it should have been, but you only have to pick the wrong one once to learn your lesson.
How Does It All Work?
The beauty of this save system on the Xbox 360 is that you are expected to die several times when you first start playing. You just keep going back through and gaining prestige points (you can get about 50,000 easy points within the first 10 minutes) so you can level up which makes the game much, much easier with each successive playthrough. You figure out where the save points are, how to defeat bosses, where the good weapons are, where to get lots of points, and so on and so forth so the game gets easier and more fun the longer you play it. The challenge is getting over the initial frustration of dying so much, but once you wrap your head around the save system it seems perfect.
Tips and Tricks
Bottom Line
Dead Rising is a difficult game and you will die a lot. Period. But that is the whole point behind the save system. You die, but you get more powerful. It goes much faster every time you do it and you get to kill thousands of zombies, which sounds pretty good.