Dead Rising

- Don't be afraid to start over.

- You can't save everyone and wont be able to until you are lvl 40+.

- Don't bother using guns until they are in abundance near the end of the 2nd or is it 3rd day? (you'll know when you get to this part).

- Killing Adam gives you away around the Convicts.

- Kent sucks. Kick his face in whenever you are goofing off and not playing seriously.

- Tell your survivors where to go. The auto-follow will get them mauled pretty often, and you'd be surprised how competent they become at avoiding zombies once they have a destination.

- As a more specific tip, every time you pass through the food court, it's worth it to grab all the wine you can carry. Wine is the best healing item in the game that doesn't require cooking. If you're got some injured survivors, the wine shop is also a great place to stop and heal everyone with the aforementioned wine because zombies rarely make their way up. It's an easy detour to make if you're going through the park once the gate between the food court and the way back to the security room is open.

- If you're in a situation where you can't use waypoints (typically when you're carrying a survivor), I find it helps to repeatedly hit the "follow me!" button, maybe once every few seconds. There are situations where a survivor's path will temporarily be blocked by another survivor, and I think hitting the button makes the survivor try again, as opposed to running off to find an alternate route.

- Also, take some time (which you'll have, if you don't try to do everything) to explore the mall. If you beeline between objectives, you'll never learn where the awesome food and weapons are. Explore not just the stores, but also any hard-but-not-impossible to reach areas you notice. Try using everything as a weapon at least once, and remember that your only goal is to be back on the helipad in 72 hours -- everything else is optional.

- Get the mini-chainsaws off of the psycho clown, then head to the bookstore. I don't know which ones you need, but there are three books that you can pick up to increase the durability of these weapons. With all three books in your possession, you can use the things for pretty much the entire game; they'll saw through a number of zombies in a single, quick hit, bosses will simply collapse before your sawing might, and if you ever need more you can just return to where the clown was and pick them up. You might need to get a couple more near the end of the game, if you cut through a high number of the undead.

- You're going to die. A lot. Hit continue to keep your XP, level, and unlocked abilities and keep on going. The hardware shop in the north side of the mall has wonderful weapons, especially if you grab the criminal biography book from the bookshop in Wonderland Plaza (the one with the roller coaster), fire axes and the boss's machete fucking rock.

- SAVE THE GUY AFTER THE CLOWN FIGHT, he shows you a very handy shortcut.

- I've often heard people suggest that if you find DR to be difficult, you should get the Zombie Genocider achievement and/or "triple book" the small chainsaws. NO! BAD! Don't do either of these things at all on your first playthrough, or the game will just be ruined! I'm not even going to tell you how to get either of these, look it up yourself if you want to ruin the game.

- If the game is seriously kicking your ass so bad you can't efficiently level or progress, go ahead and do the Zombie Genocider achievement or triple-book the small chainsaws (note that this is only an option for six-year-olds or people with a total of six fingers or less).

- If you want to do the Saint achievement, disregard the previous statements: you NEED the Real Mega Buster and/or triple-booked chainsaws. I don't care what anyone else says, get both of these items if you can.

- Don't get frustrated when you die; you can reload and try again, or start over with all of your experience. Note that single-run achievements can only be unlocked if you get an ending. The ending can be any ending at all, including missing the helicopter.

- The bosses all have a finite repetoire of moves and usually a finite pattern. The only exception to this is Adam the Clown who has a semi-random attack pattern and like eight different moves.

- You can give survivors items; some survivors can wield weapons. If a survivor is low on health, equip a food item, walk up to that survivor, and press (B). They will drop whatever item they may have had equipped on the ground, make sure to pick it up. Generally, only the infirm or female can not equip any weapons at all. Some females can equip handguns and some small weapons, but not shotguns or the like. Some people can equip any type of gun (other than the RMB) and any weapon that can be stored in your inventory.

- There's a gun shop in the North Plaza called the Huntin' Shack. Be warned, from night of Day 1 to night of Day 2, it is occupied by a gun-wielding boss named Cletus, who if you aren't prepared to deal with, will most likely kill the shit out of you. Of course, this is Dead Rising, you can reload and try again.

- Blenders can be used to mix special drinks. There are only two important drinks to concern yourself with: Quickstep and Nectar. Nectar summons a queen upon drinking, and increases queen spawn rates during its effect; it is obtained most easily by combining two OJs; it's so convenient I don't even know the other combinations to obtain Nectar. Quickstep can be created either by the combination of any two dairy products, or combining wine with anything other than cooking oil. It increases your movement speed to an incredibly high rate.