Dead Rising/Psychopaths

Throughout the game, Frank will encounter Psychopaths - survivors of the zombie outbreak who aren't in the mental state to be rescued. Often, they've taken other Survivors hostage and will attempt to kill them; your only course of action is to take them out first.

The list below is in more or less chronological order, and may contain spoilers.

Food Court
Carlito can be tough if you're careless, but there's a couple of different approaches that will work against him - the one you choose will depend how brave you're feeling, and how much health you've got.

The safer course is to use the food court restaurants and pillars as cover, using your handguns to chip Carlito's health down and using the food and drinks in the area to keep your own health topped up. After his health drops a bit, Carlito will retreat from the gantry at the front of the Wild West section to the roofs of the stores at the back. At this point, if your ammo is running low, you can jump up onto the entrance arch of Chris' Fine Foods to pick up a sub-machine gun.

Alternatively, if you prefer the direct and reckless course of action, equip your katana and head up to the raised area below Carlito's perch. On one side of the central steps along the front edge of the Food Court's Wild West area are a few boxes which you can use to climb up onto Carlito's walkway. You'll want to wait until he's as far to the right as possible to give yourself the best cover when pulling yourself up onto the gantry, then run around and start attacking him. You might take a couple of hits from Carlito's machine gun, but you should survive long enough to land the three or four katana hits required to end the fight.

Entrance Plaza
This guy's a tough cookie - not long after his first defeat at the hands of Frank, Carlito is back for another one. This time, he's armed with a powerful sniper rifle, and as such will be much more difficult to get close to than last time.

The best tactic is to head up either of the escalators right beside your starting position, and then head around to the right, and take cover behind the corner of Outta Sight on the left. From here, you should be able to target Carlito on the opposite walkway without exposing yourself to his fire.

Alternatively, you can run into the sports shop and grab a hockey stick, then hide behind the pillar next to it. Since the stick is so long, you can target Carlito, but he can't target you. Just one stick should be good enough, but if you miss a lot, I suggest taking two.

Alternatively, if you are feeling brave, reckless, and above all have a small chainsaw or two, you can move up the opposite side of Brad and move up when Carlito's focus is on Brad then move to a pillar so he can't shoot you. Then repeat until you are taking cover at the pillar next to the way across at that point, you should be just close enough that as Carlito focuses fire on Brad you can run up and chainsaw him with the small chainsaw. And if he tries to run follow him and if you can chase him and get in a few hits he should go down. Do not try this without food and a smallchainsaw the first time. Always have a small chainsaw or it will take longer and you might get kicked if he aren't focused.

Cletus Samson
It is time for crazy Cletus' huntin shack sale where everyone must go. Head over to the north plaza and look on your map for the hutin shack go to the hall way and fight or run from the zombies. If your early before 3:00P.M on the first day head in and grab the sniper rifle. If you are not a good shot take two to three, leave north plaza and comeback at 3:00P.M or later. Grab a desplay rack as he reloads and put it with the one up front, if you don't hurry you can get shot and will have to try again and get shot again and again until he reloads (every six shots) when you have your jerryrigged barricade to stop the shotgun shells, wait for him to reload and pop a sniper bullet in his brain just one unless you like lead in your body.(if you didn't grab one before you can quickly hop the counter and grab one as cletus reloads if he is just a diagonal angle from you. He WILL BODYSLAM you though and at that take a picture of him and his whisky or wine.) Take cover again and repeat the process each time he reloads. If health is needed when Cletus reloads, hop the counter and grab a wine or two if your lucky. Repeat until the irony occurs.

Alternatively if you have a small chainsaw just charge him at the begining and hit him and try to hit him as much as possible, if he shoots you he needs some alcholhol to celebrate. At that time rush him again and chainsaw him. Don't hop the counter or you will be bodyslammed.

The Convicts
The convicts are unique among Psychopaths - they'll respawn at midnight each night, with the exception of September 22, and they don't count towards the Psycho Collector, Psycho Taker or Punisher Achievements.

The first time you encounter the Convicts you'll find them chasing Sophie and another unnamed survivor across the Leisure Park in their jeep. As if the chance of getting run over wasn't bad enough, the jeep has a mounted machine gun which they're not shy of using.

Unless you've unlocked the Real Mega Blaster, the most effective way of dealing with the convicts is to use a Rifle; go for the gunner on the back first so that they're not able to attack you from a distance, then take out the driver. The passenger will then jump into the driving seat, so take him out too.

If you can't get a Rifle and have to get close, head into an area with lots of trees so that the jeep will find it tough to maneuver. Aiming at the convicts can be difficult while the jeep's moving, so at close quarters a Submachine Gun or Shotgun will be a little more effective.

An easier way, but exploits the AI, is simply hide right behind a tree. They'll keep ramming the tree, trying to get to you. I suggest taking out the gunner first, then running behind and stealing the gun to shoot the driver and passenger.

If you get the van out of the Maintenance Tunnels, you can also use it to ram the jeep and kill the convicts, but you'll then run the risk of destroying the jeep as well, which will prevent you from getting the Carjacker achievement, so it's best just to take out the gunner this way and then concentrate on the other two using the tactics above.

If you are feeling particularly brave and have a small chainsaw, it is JUST possible to hack at them as they go past in the jeep. This method is best if you have lots of health or a suicidal death wish.

It is also possible to lure them towards a park bench. When they run over the bench they're likely to get stuck which will give you a good opportunity, but remember, the zombies are still there.

Adam MacIntyre
This clown went insane after seeing the children he was entertaining being killed by the zombies. He now obsesses over the Space Ride that he worked at, and will not allow anyone to stop it.

At the start of the fight, Adam is on the far side of the Space Ride track. Head shots are effective against him, but the best tactic is to run out of the Space Ride station away from Adam and onto the walkways around Wonderland Plaza. His dual chainsaws are capable of doing a lot of damage, so you want to keep your distance and shoot the balloons he inflates before he throws them at you; they'll damage him much more than almost any of your weapons can, with the bonus of distracting him for a few seconds to land another couple of shots.

When the fight is over, stop the Space Ride to save Greg, who will open a shortcut for you between the Wonderland Plaza and Paradise Plaza bathrooms.

Steven Chapman
The crazed manager of Seon's, Steven has an intense hatred of vandals - and a prisoner stuffed in a tricked-out shopping cart, in the form of Isabela, the woman Frank saw in the Entrance Plaza just before the undead hordes swarmed in.

As if Steven's murderous shopping cart wasn't bad enough, he's also got a shotgun for those moments when you're out of range. Fortunately, the store has plenty of cover in the form of the aisle shelves, as well as loads of items to help you get health back when you need it.

Steven's shopping cart is very slow to turn, so start off by running down the aisle away from him, then duck to one side and stand a couple of aisles over with your guns out, waiting for him to come out. Fire a few shots and then duck back down another aisle then repeat. If he's getting too close, you can also hop up onto the shelves and into an adjacent aisle; while it might be tempting to stay up there, Steven will just resort to his shotgun.

It is possible to get behind Steven to use melee weapons, either by outrunning him or using the shelves (he can't turn around once he's down an aisle) but it's really not recommended as your first course of action unless you've got a katana or two handy and have plenty of health just in case.

If you have no weapons of the bullet-firing persona, don't fret. You see, in the area near the bread, a way of hurting people is here to help you. Wait! Make a Brawl reference and keep your hands off that bread! On the aisle next to the bread, there are some soda cans. Soda cans, which cannot be used as health because....uh...let's say they're filled with photojournalist-killing poison, are actually pretty good weapons. And if they're not, there's a infinite amount, so shut up about it. Get behind your friendly neighborhood manager and start lobbing the cans at him. Simple, right?

Cliff Hudson
Wow, pictures! Okay, time for some actual help. Cliff is one tough guy, if deductive reasoning is not your forte. Health is always good to have with this boss fight. There's nothing in the actual store, but on the fountain outside the store, there is a snack. Of course, that won't do much for your bleeding wounds. However, in the fountain, there's a box. If the programmers like you enough, chances are there could be a useful health item there. Or you can make a trip to the supermarket with infinite amounts of health. But who really wants to walk, honestly?

Whoa, got off track there for a moment. Anyways, Cliff. Once you pummel him a bit, he'll scamper off to one of his hidey holes. Get a picture of this and you're in for some PP points. Because when I read a paper about a zombie outbreak, the pictures of the insane man jumping into openings in the floor catch my eye faster than any humdrum cannibalism.

Also, he'll go on top of the shelfs and throw things like grenades and smoke flares. Since Cliff has the bad habit of being in shape, he runs pretty fast is a bit tedious to keep up with. Ah, well. Shouldn't be that hard. Okay, now to the part of actually defeating this guy. Well, I don't really have definite strategies for ya. All I can say is hit him until he stops trying to kill you. Well, there are the matter of the chainsaws located in front of your nose at the start of the fight. I guess one of those can help if you get it revved up before Cliff decides to stab you in the spine, you filthy communist.

Raincoat Cult
I really don't like this cult. The whole logic behind it really baffles me. How do you form a fully functional in cult with a large amount of members dedicated enough to sacrifice their lives to putting up posters during a zombie apocalypse in just two days?! Is Willamette that uneventful of a town that when someone brings up the idea of a cult people spring forth like no tomorrow? Okay, enough of that. Let's talk, kids.

The Cultists make their first appearance, attempting to sacrifice Jennifer, near the entrance to Colby's Movieland in Paradise Plaza early on the afternoon of the second day. Like the Convicts, they don't count towards psycho achievements, but you'll get a 500 PP bonus for every one you kill.

The Raincoat cultists, aside from being the life at all their college parties, are kinda annoying to be around. You see, when not muttering unintelligibly in groups praying to the air, they are after you. Because you got too close to them and broke the air-cult bond they had. You deserve to be stabbed. And you will be stabbed, considering you get to close. You see, unlike our zombie friends, are definitely not zombies and therefore take a bit more to kill.

If you decide it'd be a good idea to try to talk to one of them about whether or not orange juice is better blended with milk or with coffee creamer, chances are you will gassed. If you are gassed, you are captured, put in a box, and taken to a storage room in Leisure Park. Instead of playing Magic the Gathering, like you'd expect, the raincoats are doing more chanting/praying. But this time to a sword.

Okay, your weapons are gone. Also, because Ted, the newest member, is planning a prank on the blue poncho gang before the big football game, your clothes have also been taken. The sane thing to do is to simply leave the room. However, because the raincoats desperately want no one to interrupt the chanting this time, they have locked the door which is only accessible through a passcode. Only thing left to do is to foil Ted's plan, defeat the raincoats, and secure the win of the big football game to the ponchos. Go Wolves!

Sure, fighting all the raincoats may sound tedious, and that's because it is. But there is a step ladder, and a box, which could be filled with health or something useful. Oh, and a sword. You can use that too, if you want. And once you kill them all, you learn the passcode. Kill first, ask questions later, I'd say.

They'll also keep showing up all around the mall up until the A Strange Group scoop at 12.00am on the 21st.

Jo Slade
Now, Jo is one of the psychopaths in this game that I do not and probably will never understand. Now, I know very well that a zombie apocalypse can drive some people mad. But Jo seems perfectly sane to me. Given the odd camera shots in the cutscene before you fight her, she just has an unusual liking to young women. And she is planning to rape them with the nightstick, I guess. I don't know; I'm not the one who comes up with this stuff. I'm not sure how zombies trigger that kind of madness, but whatever. I'll play along.

Now for some reason, torturing young women is now against the law or something in this mall, and Frank must become a hero and stop Jo from torture and/or rape.

She usually fires her pistol at you or smashes you over the head with her nightstick, but she occasionally zaps you with her stun gun so she can go back to torturing the women. If you take too long to kill her, she may have killed some of the women before you win. In addition, the time limit for this scoop is unusualy long. The reason for this is that Jo will kill off the women as time goes on before you even confront her. When the timer is blue they are all alive. Once it turns to yellow one (Not Kay) will be killed. When it turns to red one (also not Kay) will be killed. When the red bar gets about halfway down the last one that is not Kay will be killed and Kay will survive until the scoop is lost.

Once you defeat Jo, Carol Bach y Rita gives her best dying impression she can do, scoops up her paycheck and rides into the sunset.

Isabela Keyes
As soon as the fight starts, Isabela guns the engine of her bike and drives straight at you. That bike can do significant damage if you're not careful, so the first order of business is to keep out of the way - you can either dodge, or if you're a decent aim and have a gun, a well-placed shot will cause her to swerve.

However, if you want to cheat a bit and exploit the horrible AI, you can run to the center scaffolding near 'Seon's' and climb to the tallest scaffold. Just keep aiming and firing with your pistol whenever she stops (either to try (poorly) to run you over or to shoot at you). If she starts to head away from you, jump down. Then, when she's coming back, jump back to the top scaffold.

If you need to recover some health, climb up onto the scaffolding in the area to get out of the way before eating anything - but don't try to get into Seon's, as Isabela will escape and you'll fail the mission.

The Hall Family
This is a family with the Dad, older son, and younger son. All three are armed with hunting rifles. The Dad is the best shot and should be taken out first. They are all pretty easy.

Sean Keanan
The cult leader is an annoying person to fight, as he is very fast and his sword makes you stumble and stop attacking. The best way to kill him is to use the small chainsaws, or hide behind the seat rows and shotgun him mercilessly. Once you kill him, you are treated to his spectacularly messy cut scene death. ouch.

Paul Carson
Paul seems to be a nerdy kid who is paranoid of girls making fun of him. Easily a relateable boss. However, he is potentially dangerous. He seems to have a knack for arson and will throw bombs at you. Frank can't bother with this kind of nonsense so your only option is to pound on the guy.

Paul's main method of combat is running. 12 years of evading bullies has made him an extremely talented runner and it shows. He will also drop bombs while running away from you. If you're not stupid enough to walk into these explosions, you should be fine. The zombies that get in the way should be blasted, so there's not much need to play attention to them.

Paul also has the ability to use remote controlled bombs. I am not kidding. They walked and everything, man! It was crazy! Ah...fun times. Anyways, run up to Paul and hit him. Or if you can't keep up with the guy, there is an ample supply of police zombies with guns near the stairs near the store of where the fight begins.

Once your photojournalist might overpowers Paul, he accidentally sets fire to his crotch. It happens, y'know? My advice is to take a picture of the hilarity and then save Paul by putting out the fire with the conveniently placed fire extinguisher. If you accidentally thought the fire extinguisher had an aiming sight and you accidentally throw it, there's another on in the closet of the store.

Kent Swanson
Makes his first appearance in Cut From The Same Cloth and shows up again in Photo Challenge.

In Photographer's Pride he's got a hostage.

Oh, Kent. Kent, Kent, Kent. Kent can be talked to very early in the game, and once you do meet him, if you can read the text without your eyes shutting down from straining, you can tell he is an ass and should be killed. And he is. And he should be. Deductive reasoning is fun, no? Anyways, Kent is a professional photographer trapped in a mall full of zombies looking to get some good pictures. That's not fair. I'm sure he was here first, but you had a flashier entrance.

He decides he should give you pointers and by that he means you need to take some good snapshots of the him before he'll stop bugging you. If you can do that, hooray! You don't suck and you can continue your reign as a good photojournalist.

However, Kent sees your fancy pictures of him and decides to take this up a notch. He presents you with a challenge of taking a better picture than him. Simple enough. You're goddamned Frank West. There can be only one!!

Larry Chiang
It's important to note that if you take too long against Larry (10-15 Min), Carlito will end up in the meat grinder - and while that may seem like reasonable punishment considering the trouble he's caused you, it won't help solve the mysteries behind the zombie outbreak. Also Carlito is vulnrable to "Frendly" Fire, so be careful as you try to shoot/slice Larry.

Keep your distance and use the hanging meat as cover when you need to eat, but watch out for thrown items - including the cattle carcasses, which Larry will occasionally throw at you. Submachine guns and shotguns are great for chipping away at his health, but if you get in close, a katana will also make short work of the butcher - although you'll have to watch out for his cleaver.

Brock Mason
The commanding officer of the Special Forces unit sent to Wilamette and driver of the XM3 Experimental Tank, Brock has a nasty habit of getting you in holds. If he does, you'll take a couple of units damage before you'll be back in control of Frank. The military man is also very adept at blocking your attacks, which can make him an extremely frustrating opponent.

The most effective move in your repertoire is the somersault kick; if you're Level 50, four or five of these will take Brock's health down extremely quickly.