Fans of the original Dead Rising might remember, bitterly, Otis. Otis, the annoying guy who calls you when you’re fighting for your life. Otis, the guy who will chew you out for hanging up on him even when he can see you’re in the middle of fighting off zombie hordes. And now Capcom, through SmartGlass, wants a crack at your actual phone with Dead Rising 3, so Otis, or somebody very much like him, can call you in the real world.
To be fair, if this were any other franchise, this might actually sound pretty neat. But upon hearing Capcom’s plans, a lot of Dead Rising fans are going to involuntarily flinch:
…it’s part of an upcoming version of the Xbox SmartGlass app and will function much like the current version. It actually skins your phone to be like the phone from the game’s universe.
You’ll get calls from a character that are only on the SmartGlass device. So if you don’t have SmartGlass, you won’t get those calls from that guy. Which also means you won’t get those missions.
The idea itself is relatively interesting, but at the same time, a lot is going to depend on the execution. It sounds quite a bit like you’re going to have to take an actual call from this guy in order to get the mission, but will he keep talking if you hit pause on Dead Rising 3? Do you have to juggle a controller and a phone just to unlock a side mission? And will he leave you a voicemail, or will he keep calling, and calling, and calling?
We’re not completely down on SmartGlass: It’s a pretty neat idea, albeit one where the execution is going to heavily determine how popular it is. But there’s a reason everybody hunted Otis down in Infinity Mode, Capcom.