10 Video Games That Punish You For Being Curious

Perhaps one of the Xbox 360's finest and most impressive titles, Dead Rising was the Dawn of the Dead game we didn't know we needed.

Playing as Neanderthal-faced photographer Frank West, players are trapped inside a shopping mall during a zombie invasion, and must survive three increasingly-dangerous days as the situation gets more and more dire, before a rescue chopper appears to extract Frank (and any other survivors the player may choose to save).

What's particularly novel is that the player is free to do as they please; players can choose to spend their finite time saving survivors, finding the real scoop, or even just shooting zombies with Nerf darts for three straight days (stopping only to chug down several litres of orange juice). However, with this limited time and such a wealth of options, players might find themselves... curious to diverge from their plan of action, and get dragged into a park bench duel with a cult leader in the mall cinema.

What this inevitably means is overly-curious players will lose track of time and miss out on some elapsed content - but that's also precisely why the temptation to explore is so irresistible.

Later games completely axed the timer (and with it, any sense of urgency, and objective management/priority) which effectively just turned Dead Rising into Dynasty Wars... with zombies.

Anyone who's been drawn in by a "limited time sale" can attest - knowing there's a time-limit associated with the object of your desire just makes you need it more. And for me, that desire was to leave my main mission to go dropkick a lunatic greengrocer.