Sylde

To Ethan Thomas:

Have you ever watched a zombie movie? This game vaguely echoes 'Dawn of the Dead', if you've ever seen that.

Are cult zombie movies great because of their straight-faced, zombie-killing plot? Are most of them even genuinely serious in nature?

Of course not! Don't be daft.

This ironic, silly humour is integral for a game like Dead Rising to work. Capcom are quite seasoned zombie-killing-game developers... I'm willing to bet that at least part of the cheesiness was a decision to be intentionally goofy.

The cutscenes and voice acting continually teeter on the edge of hilarity.
Could you tell me the showerhead weapon isn't intentionally meant to be funny?

I think the cheese adds to the charm of the game. Generally zombie games aren't meant to be taken seriously.

I like Dead Rising's Save system, it has the gloss of realism without being too limiting in realism.

As many others have already mentioned, the singular nature of the save slot is one of the few faults with the save system.

Our Xbox360 is shared between two people. The fact that we'd be forced to get another storage device if we wanted our own seperate games seems a bit harsh. I can't imagine this scenario without blood in a larger household.

Indeed, I could buy a memory card to fix the problem. I'd just rather not.

I'm with Otaku, actually. A lot of my girlfriends are into gaming - they just happen not to be particularly vocal about it.

Personally, I think the industry needs a nice warm cup about this topic. They need to find a better scapegoat to blame their woes on.

Re: "OMG GAMER CHICKS ARE HOT!1"... Is this a vocal male minority speaking here? I've never known any guys who find this trait about me appealing, they seem to muchly prefer other characteristics, like the ability to cook (as Dr. Swiss would suggest) or a sense of humour.
In fact, some even resent losing to a girl (my spouse is guilty of this, downright refusing to play games he knows I'll completely annihilate him at)

I know I'm pigeonholing an entire gender here (much like this survey), but it's generally not hard to convince your partner/spouse/girlfriend/bootybuddy to play games with you. Most women like video games, although some just don't know it yet.

It's truly a question of selecting the correct game to appeal to their tastes to draw them in.

Here's what I find appeals to my female gamer buddies. [Disclaimer: This list is by no means definitive or guaranteed to work, it's just a reflection of my experiences with trying to get my friends into gaming.]
a) Party games - Easy to pick up, varieties of games that require different talents are appealing to both the social sensibilities of females as well as our competiveness. It is rare for a girl to turn down a controller to this type of game.
b) MMORPGs - Again, the social element makes the Glorified Chat Room Game genre quite appealing to the fairer sex. The obvious downside is they may get so addicted to smashing monsters with their guild or PvP'ing that they just stop talking to you altogether.
c) RPGs - The Elder Scrolls series in particular has received raving reccomendation from those appreciating great attention to small details in a free-form world. Perhaps not the best thing to get an unexperience newcomer involved in, but they'll love it once they get the hang of it.
d) "Pet" games - This is a horrible cliche, I know - but they really dig those Pokemon games. My non-gaming fashionista sister's actually quite a big fan of Monster Rancher.
e) Wacky Japanese Games - The hardest category to describe, but includes party gems like BishiBashi and rhythm games like Gitaroo Man. Never underestimate the power of novelty.
f) FPS (on the PC) - Great Myth #101: Females are not interested in shooting each other with guns over the internet. Wrong. They just tend to prefer games that are team-based or objective-based, like Onslaught mode in UT2K4 or Battlefield 2 with a team of people you know who aren't asshats, of course.
g) Puzzle games - Puyopuyo, Tetris (DS or otherwise) and Puzzle Bobble. Many girls are already aficionados of this genre.
f) Button Mashers - Smash Bros and Soul Calibre. Quicky, fun and smashy.

I somewhat contest that claim about The Sims. I'm sure it's an accurate statistic, I just don't personally know any girls that play The Sims.
(Perhaps it's an older crowd.)