Well people here it is – the game that zombie and Dead Rising fans have been waiting for… the all-knowing horror game Dead Rising 2. In case some people don’t know what I’m talking about (which I doubt), the basics of the series is this: in Dead Rising 1 there was a zombie outbreak in a mall in Willamette, and over the course of the game the outbreak was dealt with. This sequel is basically a second outbreak which occurs in Fortune City, but has you playing as a new character this time around. His name is Chuck Greene, he’s a motor-cross champion, and the reason he is here is to compete in a show called “TIR” (“Terror is Reality”) to win money so he can buy Zombrex for his infected daughter Katey. Zombrex is the only thing that will stop her from becoming a walking corpse and Zombrex only lasts 24 hours. On the game show the players are paid to kill the living dead, so in other words it’s pretty much like a game show only about killing zombies. But unfortunately the zombies somehow get free and overrun Fortune City. Someone has framed you, and now everyone thinks you caused the outbreak. Your mission (should you choose to accept it…) is to clear your name, get Zombrex for your daughter Katey and escape Fortune City.
- Money, girls, braaaaiiiinnnnssss… the choice is yours…
The big thing in gameplay for Dead Rising 2 is the “combo-weapons”. There is a variety of combo-weapons to create, at least 50, and they are really creative and (most importantly!!) fun to use. The downside? Because of that, now basic weapons are garbage. I understand they were trying to encourage creating combo-weapons, but why would you downgrade a weapon?! I don’t understand why in Dead Rising you could kill a group of zombies with one hit but here you have to swing the bat constantly to kill just one Zombie!! I might not have any weapons I can combine when I’m fighting a boss, what then? I’m dead that’s what and not the undead type.
Speaking of which, the mini-bosses (AKA the “psychopaths”) really impressed me. As with most enemy types, there’s quite a variety of styles ready to tear your face off and it was fun to fight all of them. The one grudge I have with some of the psychos is that some of them aren’t too well explained as to why they went crazy, some feel just as if they were added ro make up numbers or because they looked cool. Then again, most of them are detailed and the others still are fun to fight, so the more the merrier really.
- “Hey batter-batter, swing batter-batter…”
In a very disappointing move by Capcom, they got rid of survival mode. This was the mode in the original where you can just run around and do whatever you want, for as long as you want. Now, personally, I was actually quite furious that they decided to do this – sure you have a Co-Op mode available but that is no excuse because you’re both still going to be under a time limit.
One other thing Dead Rising fans will be sorry to hear is that there is no Mega Buster, no special overpowered weapon at all. There is the secret combo-weapon but it can only be used once and isn’t all that good. Why couldn’t Capcom have at least allowed us to transfer our special equipment from the first game over to the sequel? If they can do this for other games why not for this one? Maybe they will consider this next time…
One thing that Dead Rising has over other games is that it doesn’t look the same as any other. Now this game is not famous for its amazing graphics, and believe me it’s not perfect, but I have to say the look of this game was still very impressive. Chuck and all the other main characters look really detailed especially in cutscenes, though most of the secondary characters look fairly generic. You go down the street and you will see a normal guy, a little further down will be someone who looks just like the other only fatter. Still there is quite a few characters in the game so I wouldn’t be surprised if some did look alike. The Zombies steal the entire scene, though, and a good thing too because that is mainly what you’ll be looking at. The game though constantly has thousands of Zombies on one screen so I couldn’t imagine Capcom making a thousand different looking Zombies…
- “I’m having a blast, how about you?”
The voice acting in the game was very OK without being anything special, however I don’t like how all the sub characters don’t really have a voice – sure they can scream and say normal stuff like “okay” and “sure”, but they just seem so hollow at times. Also some of the voices did seem a little over the top but this game is supposed to be a bit funny, if it was too serious it would lose some of its flare. I also loved the music, it really is catchy and there were some songs I’d love to listen to again and again.
Unfortunately, at the end of the day, whilst I had so many problems with the first Dead Rising (at points it made me want to smash my Xbox!!), I’m sorry to say that in the end it surpasses Dead Rising 2. Not that this sequel is bad though, I would still recommended this game to any Dead Rising or Zombie fan, but I just think you would have more fun with the prequel. A good game, but unfortunately not enough polish or uniqueness to make it stand out from the crowd.
