- Weapon crafting
- Giant locales to explore
- Co-Op play
- Three save slots and more places to save
- Crazy story fits the kind of crazy setup in the first game
- Boss fights that may induce
Broken Controller Syndrome
- Some weird graphical bugs
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Dead
Rising 2
Score: 8.5 / 10
After the zombie outbreak in Willamette,
the plague spread. But rather than completely stamp it out with military
force, some jackass thought it would be a good idea to set up a reality
show where the single goal is to slaughter zombies (or "infected").
Chuck Greene is taking part in the slaughterfest to earn money to keep
him supplied with Zombrex, which inhibits the "turn" of the infected. In
this case, it's his daughter Katie that needs the drug. But then, as
these things are wont to do, the shit hits the fan and Fortune City -- a
replacement Las Vegas, which has been wiped from the
map -- is overrun by shambling monsters
that no amount of socialized medicine will cure. If that weren't enough
for Chuck to deal with, he's been framed for the outbreak. So besides
basic survival, keeping his little girl alive, and saving other
Survivors, he has to clear his name before the military arrives.
If you played the original game, you'll already be familiar with the
basic
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premise of being trapped in a mall-like area swarming with zombies. Many
items in the environment can be picked-up and used as weapons. Trash
cans, benches, you know the kind of things. Then he has access to a
giant list of specifically offensive items like baseball bats,
chainsaws, hand guns, and machetes. The difference for Dead Rising 2 is
that Chuck can combine specific items into more powerful weapons, a
craft system that still extends to the various cocktails Chuck can
mix-up. A chainsaw is awesome, but when it's combined with a kayak
paddle it becomes that much cooler (and gruesome) to wade through hordes
of zombies. Or what about a lead pipe and some fireworks for an
improvised rocket launcher? Or a fully operational Blanka cosplay mask?
Some of the items required for these kinds of combos are scarce or
located in very specific areas of Fortune City. It's probably the first
time I've made notes about where to find items since the original Dead
Rising, and that's a good thing. In this way exploration is encouraged
to some extent.
There's a fixed 72-hour timeline, with events happening at specific
times during the story. There are plenty of optional missions to take
on, but the emphasis is really to stay as close to the story missions as
possible. At least, until Chuck has levelled-up to the point where he's
faster, more resilient and has more moves. The ability to restart the
game with a high-level Chuck can make it much easier to explore Fortune
City and race from point to point and rescue even more Survivors and
take down more Psychos.
The Psychos are the boss fights, and, man, can they be a pain in the
ass. There are plenty of optional boss fights (which can accidently and
unexpectedly be stumbled upon) but the main story line can't help but
have a few encounters. Each boss has a definite pattern to recognize and
take advantage of but because most of them have attacks that drop
Chuck's health to almost nothing very quickly, learning how to defeat a
boss can be very painful. It's especially jarring because the zombie
hordes are so easily eliminated, it's difficult to adjust to more
calculated movements.
To be honest, even with a bout of Broken Controller Syndrome, I found
myself having more fun with Dead Rising 2 than the original for a few
reasons but one of them is the fact there are three save slots. The
original had one, which meant that if you saved at the wrong time you
might have to restart the game simply because you weren't keeping an eye
on how much time was left on certain cases. With three save slots and
many save locations throughout the game, Dead Rising 2 allays the
frustration that ran all through the first game. This way, if Chuck's
experimentation or exploration ends in death, you're not too far from
the point at which he died. On my first run through I didn't restart the
game once. In the original I played the first 30 minutes of the game
over and over again until I reached Level 15 before really digging into
the rest.
Dead Rising 2 also adds a multiplayer component that is a welcome
feature. Playing along with a buddy, is fun, even if the story progress
only counts for the person hosting the game.
There's also a mode that focuses solely on events from the crazy
zombie-killing game show, which are played for cash. It's a little like
a gory version of Fuzion Frenzy. Four players vie for points performing
such mundane tasks as scopping up zombie guts with a "Zomboni" then
spraying the remains into a big clown head or "moosing" -- charging then
flipping the zombies onto a weighing platform. And of course my favorite,
which actually opens the single-player game, riding around in a closed
arena on a motocross bike with revving chainsaws strapped to the
handlebars. The only goal: kill anything that moves, especially if it
has a balloon attached to it. Those are worth more points. The cash
earned during the TIR session are carried over to your single-player
progress, which makes trips to the Pawnshop for vital items merely a
bump in the road, rather than a race against time.
There's a lot to see and do in Dead Rising 2, even after the credits
roll. Loads of nooks and crannies to explore and strategies to develop.
Money well spent!
