In Dead Rising, Frank will sometimes stumble upon Psychopaths. They are survivors who are not in the mental state to be rescued. Usually, the Psychopaths will have other survivors held captive and will attempt to kill them. Your first priority is to take out the Psychopaths. We will be going in order of what Psychopaths you would encounter first/last.

I have created this guide to help all players of Dead Rising, the new people who have just been introduced or veteran players who might need some little tips for certain psychopaths. All but one psychopath is listed which is the third Carlito boss, the one in the truck. With that being said, read on to see the guide!

• Location: Food Court and Entrance Plaza
• Time: September 19th and 20th
• Survivor(s): Dr. Barnaby
• Case / Scoop: 1-2 Backup for Brad and Case 2-2 Rescue The Professor

Carlito could be a very annoying boss if you attack him carelessly. There are two ways that you can take him out, depending how good you feel about the fight, or how much health you have.

The first way to beat him is to take the safe path. You would use the food inside of the Food Court restaurants and the pillars to take cover, while using your handguns (if you kept one that Jessie gives you) to chip away at Carlito’s health. When his health drops to a certain point, he will retreat to the roofs at the back of the Food Court. If at this point your ammo is getting too low, you can pick up a hidden Sub-Machine Gun that is sitting at the entrance arch of Chris’ Fine Foods.
The other, but more reckless route to defeating Carlito is to equip either a Katana or Heated Frying Pan (Refer to Section Six: PP Bonuses) and head up to the raised area that is under Carlito’s perch. On one part of the central steps along side of the front edge of the Food Court’s Wild West area are a few boxes that you can climb onto Carlito’s walkway. You will want him as far away to the right of you as possible to give yourself good cover when getting up on the gantry. Then run at him and start attacking. However, you might get hit or shot a few times by him, but if you get too low on health there are many food items around, but be careful since he can throw grenades at you while you’re on the bottom floor. It should take about three or four hits with the katana to defeat him. I prefer this method since if you pull it off, it will be a quick fight.

• Location: Entrance Plaza
• Time: Immedietly after Case 2-1
• Survivor(s): Dr. Russel Barnaby

This fight I even got killed a few times when I had the Real Mega Buster since he is that powerful in this fight. Carlito this time is armed with a sniper rifle, rather than a sub-machine gun.

The best chance you have in defeating Carlito is to head up either escalator right near your starting point and head to the right, and take cover behind the corner of Outta Sight on the left. You should be able to target Carlito on the opposite walkway without exposing yourself to a sniper shot.

Another way to defeat him is into run into the sports shop and grab a hockey stick, and hide behind the pillar next to it. Since it is a longer weapon, you can target Carlito, however he cannot target you. About one stick should be enough to defeat him, if not grab more.

The reckless way that you could defeat Carlito is is to have a Small Chainsaw. You can move to the opposite side of Brad and move up when Carlito is focused on Brad. When he targets him, move to a pillar so that Carlito cannot shoot you. Repeat these steps until you are taking cover next to the walkway across. You should be just close enough that as Carlito fires at Brad you can run up and start swinging at carlito with the chainsaws. If this is your first time doing so, make sure you have food items or Carlito can kill you quite easily. If you try and chase Carlito, he can throw pipe bombs behind him that can deal high damage, so be cautious.

• Location: Huntin’ Shack, North Plaza
• Time: September 19 at 3:00 PM
• Survivor(s): The Gun Shop
• Case / Scoop: None

Well this is one of the bosses I struggled to defeat on numerous occasions. That is until I figured out he has patterns on how he attacks. However, if you get to the the Huntin’ Shack before 3 PM on the first day, you can manage to snag three shotguns and a few sniper rifles, as well as infinite handguns. After you get a few firearms, leave the North Plaza and wait until it is 3:00 PM and make your way back to the shop. There are multiple ways that you can take out Cletus, but I will list the best possible way to do so.

The first method is when the fight starts, hide behind one of the display racks. He will fire at you six times, then reload. When he reloads, shoot him as many times as possible. Your best bet is to pop a few bullets into his head and that should deal high damage. If you get shot one to many times, you can wait for him to reload and grab some wine behind the counter, but be quick since he can lift and throw you over and it could kill you.

Now for the “cheap” way to defeat him you could try this method. Go to the Al Fresca Plaza fountain and grab the sub-machine gun inside of it and grab some handguns from zombie police officers. Trigger the fight and immediately run back outside of the store. Open only one of the doors to the Huntin’ Shack and hide behind the wall next to it. If you stand at the very edge, Cletus will rarely hit you with his shots, but you will have a clear shot when he moves far over enough. This method could take a little while but it is one of the safest. You could even combine this method with the first one and use sniper rifles or a shotgun to take him out.

• Location: Leisure Park
• Time: September 19 at 6:00 PM
• Survivor(s): Sophie Richards
• Case / Scoop: Prisoners

The Convicts are a different type of Psychopath since no matter how many times you kill them, they will respawn every midnight. They also do not count towards the Psycho Collector, Psycho Taker, or Punisher achievements.

The first time you encounter The Convicts, you will see them chasing after Sophie and Sid around Leisure Park in their military jeep. You must keep in mind that they can easily run you over, and to make it worse the jeep has a mounted machine gun which can wreck your sh*t in seconds. That is unless you already unlocked the Real Mega Buster (Refer to Extra Five: Zombie Genocider).

The most effective way to defeat The Convicts is to use a Rifle. Your main target is the gunner on the back of the jeep so that they cannot attack you from long distance, then your next target is the driver. When you defeat the driver, the passenger will jump into the driver’s seat. You know what to do from here.

However, if you don’t have access to rifles, go to an area with a lot of trees so the driver will find it hard to maneuver around them. Aiming at The Convicts could be annoying while the jeep is in motion, so try using a sub-machine gun or a shotgun.

The other “risky” method is to get the small chainsaws from Adam. Hide behind the trees and wait for them to get stuck, so that you cannot get run over. Go run for the gunner and start attacking. Then the passenger, then finally the driver. When you defeat The Convicts you can gain access to the jeep, and the mounted gun on the back of it which has a whole lot of rounds. Once you get in the jeep, you will unlock the Carjacker Achievement.

• Location: Wonderland Plaza Space Ride
• Time: September 19 at 9:00 PM
• Survivor(s): Greg Simpson
• Case / Scoop: Out of Control

Right when the fight starts, Adam will be on the opposite side of the Space Ride track. Shooting him in the head is the most effective way to defeat him, but the best tactic is to run out of the Space Ride station away from Adam, and onto the walkways that surrounds Wonderland Plaza. His chainsaws are extremely powerful so you want to keep your distance and shoot the balloons that he inflates before they hit you, they could damage him more than anything you probably have. The balloons will also stun him for a few seconds, so shoot him in the head a few times. However if you use any melee weapon on him, he will break it almost immediately.

Another strategy is to drop down off the walkways into the kid’s play area below, and kick the toy cubes at Adam. Make sure you do the first person view to increase accuracy (Hold RT). They can knock him down, and it will allow you to get a couple of shots in before he hits you with his fire attack. The Sledgehammer or the Katana are great weapons to use while he is knocked down but just be careful about his attacks.

Once the boss fights over, you will get the key for the Space Rider ride. Go over to the control panel you saw at the first cutscene and interact with it. Once it stops, you will see Greg. He will guide you over to one of the bathrooms in the plaza that will give you access to the shortcut from Wonderland Plaza, to Paradise Plaza. This is a great shortcut if you do not feel like defeating The Convicts.

• Location: Seon’s Food Store
• Time: September 20
• Survivor(s): None
• Case / Scoop: Case 2-3: Medicine Run

Steven the crazed manager of Seon’s Food Store, and has a hatred of vandals. There is a prisoner stuffed into his modified shopping cart, and that prisoner is Isabela. If his cart wasn’t bad enough, he also has a shotgun for when you’re trying to run off. A good thing for you is that you have plenty of cover behind aisle shelves with loads of items to get your health back. Steven’s shopping cart turns very slow, so start by running down the aisle away from him, then duck to one side and stand a few aisles over with your guns ready, waiting for him to come out. Fire at him a few times and then go to another aisle and repeat. If Steven gets too close, you can hop on top of the aisles and go to a different aisle. While it seems like a good thing to stay on top of an aisle, Steven will greet you with a shotgun blast.

The other method is if you use a small chainsaw that you picked up from Adam (If you already defeated him). Get the Entertainment and Interior Design books from the book store in Paradise Plaza, and the Serial Killer’s book from Sir-Book-A-Lot in Wonderland Plaza to make it last alot longer. If you jump onto a shelf and wait for him to take out his shotgun you can then jump down, run at him with the chainsaw from behind. 2-4 swings should put him down.

If you don’t have access to weapons that fire bullets, that’s okay. The aisle next to the bread there are soda cans. They are a very underrated weapon that could do pretty good damage. Get behind Steven and start chucking the cans at him.

• Location: Crislip’s Home Saloon, North Plaza
• Time: September 20 at 8:00 AM
• Survivor(s): Josh Manning, Barbara Patterson, and Rich Atkins
• Case / Scoop: Hatchet Man

Cliff is a very strong boss, so you will definitely need to bring healing items for this fight. The only healing item in the store is a snack, which is literally pointless since it only gives you one block of health. Since the Supermarket is inside of the North Plaza, you can get access to infinite food so try and stop by there. Once you hit Cliff enough, he will jump into one of the hatches into the ground. Right before he jumps in you can take a picture of him to get some Prestige Points (PP). If you try to engage him in melee combat, it will trigger him to jump into the hatches. The best weapon is the Shotgun since the gun store is on the way. Shooting Cliff with a shotgun will briefly stun him. Run away from him and then wait for him to show up near you and then shoot him again. Keep repeating this method for an easy defeat. If Cliff gets too close to you, just simply run away from him. Cliff’s attacks will make him stationary, so if you keep moving he will stop to attack which should give you just enough time to blast him with the Shotgun. After you defeat him, exit the store. On your right there should be an empty room with three survivors. Rescue them, and pick up the Survival Book. It will give a 100% health increase to food items.

• Location: Lovely Fashion House, Wonderland Plaza
• Time: September 20, 12:00 PM
• Survivor(s): Kay Nelson, Lily Deacon, Kelly Carpenter, and Janet Star
• Case / File: Above The Law

Jo will usually fire her pistol at you or smash you over the head with a nightstick, but her main attack is zapping you with her stun gun so she can go harass the other female survivors. If you take too long to defeat her, she can actually kill some of the female survivors before you can defeat her. Also, the time limit for the scoop is incredibly long. The reason the scoop is long is because Jo could kill off some of the survivors as the time goes before you first encounter her. When the timer is blue they are all alive. Once it turns yellow once will be killed. When it turns red another one will be killed. When the red bar gets halfway down one more will get killed. And then when the scoop is lost all survivors will be dead.

The most effective way to kill Jo is to use a bladed melee weapon, the best being the small chainsaws that you get from Adam. But make sure you stay away from the survivors so you don’t harm them. It shouldn’t take too many hits to defeat Jo, but just make sure to bring healing items such as Wine or Orange Juice so you can heal yourself or the survivors once you rescue them. The other method is to get a battle axe from Ned’s Knicknackery in Entrance Plaza. It will take four shots to defeat her.

• Location: Outside Seon’s, North Plaza
• Time: September 20
• Survivor(s): None
• Case / Scoop: Case 4-2: Girl Hunting

Right when the fight starts, Isabella will book it right towards you on her motorcycle straight at you. The motorcycle can do significant damage if you are not cautious, so your main priority is to stay out of her way. You can dodge her, or shoot her to swerve her.

If you want to exploit the game’s infamous AI, you can run to the center scaffolding near Seon’s and climb to the tallest platform. Just aim right at her with your pistol or sub-machine gun whenever she stops. If she drives away from you, jump down. Then when she drives back towards you, jump back up. Rinse and repeat.

Make sure you do not go inside Seon’s. When you go in the store Isabela will escape and you’ll fail the case. If you’re running low on time, the small chainsaws will help you. Try to run to a corner and maneuver Isabela to it to get her stuck. A few swings with the chainsaw should do the trick.

• Location: Entrance Plaza
• Time: September 20 at 5:00 PM
• Survivor(s): Wayne Blackwell
• Case / Scoop: Mark Of The Sniper

This scoop consists of a father, an older son, and a younger son. All of them are armed with hunting rifles. The father, Roger is the best shot and he should be your first target. However, all of them are equally easy. You will start at the same place as when you fought Carlito the second time. Go ahead and make a Quickstep before the fight. The small chainsaws are the best way to defeat the family. They are slow so you should easily catch up with them to lay a few hits on them. Just target one at a time, chase, swing, kill. Repeat until all of them have been defeated. Once all of the snipers are down, go back to the cosmetics shop you passed on the way and go inside. You will find Wayne at the back right of the store. Rescue him.

• Location: Screen 4, Colby’s Movieland
• Time: September 21 at 12:00 AM
• Survivors(s): Ray Mathison, Nathan Crabbe, Michelle Feltz, Beth Shrake and Cheryl Jones
• Case / Scoop: A Strange Group

To be honest, there really isn't much to say about this boss. If you have the Mini Chainsaws, just hit him a few times and he should be done for. If you do not have these, ranged weapons work well on defeating him, such as a shotgun.

Without the chainsaws, he is a pretty difficult boss fight. His attacks do high damage and knock back, so it's always a good thing to let him attack first then hit him. You can always resort to your good friend, the Katana to defeat him. Remember, play out this fight smart. You do not want to be reckless.

• Location: Casual Gals, Wonderland Plaza
• Time: September 21 at 6:00 PM
• Survivor(s): Mindy Baker, Debbie Willet and Paul Carson
• Case / Scoop: Long Haired Punk

Paul has a combat tactic which involves running away from you, and dropping explosives behind him. They aren’t that difficult to avoid, so you should be alright. A good thing about the explosives is that they could actually kill zombies in his way so it should give you a good path to attack Paul. He also has remote control bombs that will chase you down. You could destroy them by shooting them so go find some police zombies and take their handguns to destroy the cars. So this method is basically keep a distance and fire at him.

If you happen to be lucky, you can trap Paul inside the starting point and take a few swings at him with the mini chainsaws. Paul should go down in a few swings and he won’t even get a chance to run. In the cutscene, Paul will accidently light himself on fire. Once the cutscene ends, you have a choice to save him or let him die. If you are going for the Saint achievement, you can use the fire extinguisher to get rid of the fire, however just hold the X or Square button to use the extinguisher. Where the closet is inside of the starting point, you will find the two survivors and another extinguisher just in case you run out of the other one. When you escort him to the safe room, he will soon be able to give you infinite molotovs when his scoop comes up.

• Location: Colombian Roastmasters, Paradise Plaza
• Time: September 21 at 12:00 PM
• Survivor(s): Tad Hawthorne
• Case / Scoop: Photographer’s Pride

Kent makes his first appearance in the “Cut From The Same Cloth” scoop, and shows up again in “Photo Challenge”

In the “Photographer’s Pride” scoop, he has a hostage.

The fight itself is really simple if you have access to the mini chainsaws from Adam. Simply hit him a few times with the chainsaws and he should be out. You could also use a katana to clip away his health, or use a shotgun at a distance, but you will need to look out for him since he can shoot you with his handgun.

• Location: Meat Processing Area, Maintenance Tunnels
• Time: September 21
• Survivor(s): None
• Case / Scoop: Case 8-4: The Butcher

A very important thing to note is that if you take too long to defeat larry, Carlito will end up going into the meat grinder. So if you are going through the story, keep that in mind so try to defeat Larry as fast as possible. Carlito is also vulnerable to friendly fire, so be careful with your shot when trying to shoot Larry.

The method of defeating him is to use the hanging meat as cover when you need to use your health items, but Larry could also throw the carcasses at you and do high damage. Sub-machine guns and shotguns are going to be your main weapons at clipping away his health. However, you can still alternate to the mini chainsaws or a katana to kill him, but watch out for his cleaver and grab attacks which can kill you quickly.

• Location: Tunnels
• Time: Overtime
• Survivor(s): None
• Case / Scoop: Overtime Mode

The final boss. He is the commanding officer of the Special Forces unit sent to the town of Willamette, and also the driver of the XM3 Experimental Tank. Brock has a variety of moves and can deal a few units of health from Frank before you can even move. He also blocks most of your moves which makes it annoying to defeat him.

But the most effective move in defeating him is the Somersault Kick; that is if you are a level 50. Using the move four or five times on him will knock his health down very quickly. If you time it correctly, you can chain the kick into a roundhouse kick.

And thats about it! Thank you for reading my guide! In the future, I might make an Infinity Mode guide if this one goes well. One more thing to add, if you need any tips or help in the game, feel free to contact me. Thanks again for reading!

2022 Update!

Been quite some time since there's been some new information; since the re-release of the game! If you feel any confusion or concern about the psychopaths, feel free to reference the comments below, or to do your own research!

Do not hesitate to comment your own strategies, as they very well may help others in the future!

Thank you, yet again, for keeping this guide afloat. Happy killing!

Sources cited:

http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Dead_Rising/Psychopaths