The Dead Rising series is known for being slightly awkward and somewhat unapproachable because of it's uncompromising design. It's a sand box with a time limit, and because of the levelling system it's unlikely you'll be able to tackle everything successfully on your first, second or even third playthrough. Dead Rising 2 has ironed out a lot of the problems of the original but in copying the design of it's predecessor has inherited some features that people might take issue with. I have created this thread so that we can all share any tips we've picked up or read elsewhere. A comprehensive list of things that will help a player out no matter how simple. I think it's better than the inevitable 50+ threads asking for help with certain things.
 
Post your tip and if it's a good one I'll add it to my first post, with credit.
Last Updated:  October 17th 2010

Beginners Guide

Concepts

• Prestige Points: The name given to experience in dead rising. Once you have earned enough you level up gaining new abilities and combo cards, as well as improved stats.
• Money: In Dead Rising 2 you collect money to spend in the various pawn shops around Fortune City, as well as some vending machines. You can collect money from gambling machines as well as earn some through side quests.
• Zombrex: A drug that suppresses the zombie infection within a person preventing them from turning for 24 hours. You will have to give this to your daughter once every 24 hours, and 2 other optional characters. The drug can be purchased from each of the 4 pawn shops in fortune city. It becomes significantly more expensive the more times you buy it, even across playthroughs until you get an actual ending which causes the price to reset.
  
• Survivors: Most of the quests you receive that are not case mission will involve you finding a survivor and then returning them to the safe room. Sometimes you will have to meet a requirement such as having another survivor with you, a certain weapon or piece of clothing.
• Psychopaths: These are humans who have snapped due to the stress of the outbreak and you will have to kill in the form of a boss battle. There are a few unavoidable battles related to the story but most are optional side quests.
• Combo Cards: By combining 2 items with a wrench icon in a maintenance room you will make a 'combo weapon' and get a scratch card that shows you how you made it. This gives a small PP bonus per kill. By completing quests and levelling up you gain the full combo card which gives you more PP per kill and you unlock a heavy attack. Combo weapons often do much more damage than regular weapons.
• Clothing: Chuck can wear various items of clothing around the mall. These are purely cosmetic and are not accumulated so if you want to wear a different piece of clothing you have to go back to it's location. You can change Chuck back to unlocked clothes, DLC costumes or his default gear in the Safe Room's bathroom.
• Magazines: There are various books scattered around the game that give bonuses to various things such as PP, gambling, hand to hand damage and so on. They take up an inventory slot and must be carried at all time to receive the effects.
• Juice: By mixing various food and drink items in a blender you can make drinks with unique effects that also restore health. All Juice effects are temporary.
  

Resources

• Interactive Game Map
• Image Game Map
  
• Combo Card Guide
• Combo Card Image Guide
  
• Clothing Location Guide
• Magazine Location Guide
• Katey Gift Guide
• Psychopath Strategy Guide
• Survivor Location + Time Guide
• Juice Guide
  

General Tips

• To easily access doors connecting areas without being ravaged by Zombies use your dodge roll to roll towards the door. You can go through the door during any part of the animation so you don't have to wait for the animation to end.
• Keys obtained through the story or bought from pawnshops will carry over between playthroughs.
• Knife Gloves (Boxing Gloves + Bowie Knife) will make short work of almost every enemy in the game, and net you tons of PP in the process.  - by Mmmslash
• Eating/drinking something normal after consuming 2 alcoholic drinks, keeps you from throwing up, even if you consume in fast succession. - by Sessh
  
• Don't be afraid to jump over balcony/2nd floor railings. You will at most take 1 block of damage, sometimes none at all. It is much better and faster than finding the nearest stairs or escalator.
•  If you jump off a high ledge then if you elbow drop you'll take no damage and kill anything beneath you. But not when you hop a balcony, because you can't elbow drop after hopping over a rail. - by Sedasys
  
• The best way to open boxes is to jump on them. It is much quicker than picking it up and throwing it. - by Abyssfull
• Save as often as you can. Every time you do something significant like beat a Psychopath or save a survivor take the time to save, it's worth the time. - by Pokechapp
  
  

PP (Prestige Points)

• Using combo weapons that you own the combo card for is a quick way to level up. You get bonus PP for each kill, but how much varies greatly depending on the weapon.
• Alternatively you can rescue survivors. You get a good bonus of 10,000 PP initially whichescalates over the course of the game to over 60,000 per survivor. Magazine's can provide additional bonuses.
  
• On the Silver Strip there is a peepshow place called the Peep Hole, it has 3 doors for 3 different peep shows (you don't actually get to see anything) each peep show cost $1 000 and get you 1,000 PP and after you do all 3 you get a bonus 10,000PP.  - by Uri555
• You can give Katie various gifts from around the mall for PP bonuses and 2 achievements/trophies. Check above for a list.
• There's a gym in Palisades Mall called Flexin' where if you run the treadmills and use all of the bikes then you get bonus PP. - by RelentlessKnight
• In the Yucatan Casino (can't remember exactly where within it) there is a large fire burning as a part of the scenery. You can continually throw increasing amounts of money into for a lot of PP. - by Dragnet
• At the centre of the Palisades Mall there is a bar with a pool. Climb the water stairs to the top and ride the slide down for a 10,000 PP bonus.
• There's a giant novelty craps table with two big red dice in the middle of Royal Flush Plaza, if you pick up the dice and roll a seven, you get 10,000 PP. Both dice are at six, so all you would need to do is pick up one and roll a one. - by Angerpanda
• There's a store in Royal Flush Plaza called A Man's Sport where you can punch three Slam Man dummies apart for 1,000 PP each . - by Angerpanda
  
• In that same store there is strength test, the kind you see at circuses, where you pound a hammer as hard as you can to make a bell ring for 5,000 PP. - by Angerpanda
• Combat books give additional 10% PP each for kills that give PP (combo weapons and special moves). Horror books gives 50% bonus PP on zombie killing milestones (for every 50 killed and every 1000 killed).
  

Money

• Big Money: Obtain all 3 Gambling books then go to the big slot machine at the back of the Slot Ranch Casino and place $1,000 bets continuously. You might not win that often but you can get over a million in 20 minutes or less using this method. Repeat as needed.
• Play Terror is Reality online a few times to earn yourself some money for your single player campaign. - by creamypies
• Not all slot machines are winners. You can tell which slot machines you can win money on by looking to see if they have money already dropped in front of them. You can't win on the others.
• After winning on a slot machine several times you will stop winning, but you can smash it open to get a final boost of cash. - by Pokechapp
  
• Using the Hacker (Flashlight + Computer Case) on ATMs causes them to spit out $10,000 instead of the usual $2,500. - by Pokechapp
  

Zombrex

• There are a limited number of free Zombrex for you to find around Fortune City:
  Royal Flush Plaza: This will be the first mission in the game and the first and only obvious free one you encounter.
  Americana Casino: Go to the second floor of the BBQ restaurant and navigate along the ceiling lights until you see a stuffed bunny in the distance. Navigate towards it to find a big pile of money and one free Zombrex.
  Underground: Another free Zombrex can be found in the maintenance tunnel after the first "fight" with TK on the train. Take a buggy and take a right on the tunnel sticking to the left hand wall. It should be on the next small ramp. - by dudeglove
  Slot Ranch Casino: Climb up on the stage to the north west and run behind the curtains, climb up the boxes along the back wall and you should find a Zombrex sitting on top. - by MysteriousFawks
  Yucatan Casino: Go to the centre and there should be a large structure. Climb to the top and there is a Zombrex on top next to an LMG. - by Sedasys
  
  
• There are also several opportunities to get Zombrex during optional missions:
  Code Blue - Escort the paramedic back to the safe room to get some Zombrex.
  Demand And Supply - If you choose to rescue the paramedic he will have an optional sidequest on day 3 inside the cafeteria to gain another free Zombrex.
  Hunger Pains - Escort the survivor back to the safe room to get some Zombrex.
  Mail Order Zombrex - Defeat the mail man psychopath to get some Zombrex.
  

Survivors

• Survivors cannot be given combo weapons. Always bring an ordinary weapon if you want to give it to them.
• Returning survivors to the safe room will make the weapon they were carrying disappear. Recover any important weapons before returning them.
• Survivors need to be near you when you transition between an area. As a green door icon appears above their head you can go through without leaving them behind.
• You can put survivors in cars and wheelchairs, speeding up the process of getting them back to the safe room. Especially if they are injured.
• Do not stick around and fight. The survivors can fight back but as long as they are running they will almost never take damage so just keep running and you'll have no problem getting them to safety.
• Give survivors guns. They are more effective with them. wont rush forward to attack zombies and have unlimited ammo. - by Pokechapp
• If you pick up the 3 gambling mags and play Ante Up or that poker escort mission you will get face cards 90% of the time, thus making both missions do-able in a quicker time. - by Hoghad
• The 'Leadership' magazine improves the state of injured survivors so that you do not need to carry them, they run at normal speed.
  

Secrets

• Feeding Snowflake 3 steaks will allow you to tame her and return her to the safe room.
• During the 'Wilted Flower' mission the survivor will unlock a shortcut from Brand New U on the second floor of Palisades Mall to the bathroom of Royal Flush Plaza. - by dudeglove
• There is a secret combo card called 'Wingman' which you get by combining a Queen Bee and a Nectar Juice. This also unlocks an achievement/trophy.
• Glitch: You can combine the Assault Rifle with the Electric Chair to make a Blitzkrieg even though it's meant to be a merc assault rifle, and the regular Assault Rifle isn't even a combinable item.
• By using the fortune teller in the Silver Strip you can gain several PP bonuses as well as the burning skull combo card as the final reward. To get the combo card just keep using it but be warned; the price goes up each time and in total costs about $1.2million. - by Vorbis
• Right in the middle of the underground area is a hamster ball. Use it wisely, it is very fragile but treated as a vehicle so no health status.
• If you play the mini-game in the Hamsterball in Fortune Park a few times you can unlock that one and roll around that whole outdoor area.  - by daftdethmonkey
  

Achievements

• The game contains 50 achievements including 1 secret achievement and 51 trophies.
  Click here for a list of the Xbox360 Achievements
  Click here for a list of the PS3 Trophies
  Click here for a guide for getting all achievements/trophies
  

Play Terror is Reality online a few times to earn yourself some money for your single player campaign. Helps out alot when you are in desperate need of some Zombrex.

The interactive map doesn't work for me. :(

" The interactive map doesn't work for me. :( "

Also, feel free to post saying whether or not something worked or you found a tip useful. It's always good to give some validity to these rather than a list compiled by a mad man.
 
@creamypies said:

" Play Terror is Reality online a few times to earn yourself some money for your single player campaign. Helps out alot when you are in desperate need of some Zombrex. "

Boxing Gloves + Bowie Knife will make short work of almost every enemy in the game, and net you tons of PP in the process.

" Boxing Gloves + Bowie Knife will make short work of almost every enemy in the game, and net you tons of PP in the process. "

Corrected a mistake I made about the free Zombrex, it was the Americana Casino.
 
@Sessh said:

" For the "special" zombies that appear later on, just go with a sword or another weapon that cut's zombies into pieces with one hit, they mostly don't go down with one hit otherwise, not even with combo weapons.  Also if you are getting low on health, be sure to always keep one food item of whatever quality around, so you can eat/drink it in between drinking alcohol, that seems to always be lying around everywhere, especially in psycho/boss battles. Eating/drinking something normal after comsuming 2 alcoholic drinks, keeps you from throwing up, even if you consume in fast succession. "

Ok, I added some new sections, moved some stuff around, added more stuff from dudeglove and put in some more bits that I found while playing last night. Thanks for the sticky. :)
The interactive map was working when I used it just now but the site seems to be running so incredibly well. Not sure what is going on but it definitely works.

Great help, thanks :)

Theres 1 more free zombrex, located in the Slot Ranch Casino. Climb up on the stage to the north west and run behind the curtains, climb up the boxes along the back wall and you should find a zombrex sitting on top.

The double leg drop kick can be really useful when you fight a certain boss near the end of the game.

" Theres 1 more free zombrex, located in the Slot Ranch Casino. Climb up on the stage to the north west and run behind the curtains, climb up the boxes along the back wall and you should find a zombrex sitting on top. "

" The double leg drop kick can be really useful when you fight a certain boss near the end of the game. "

 You know those Knife gloves everyone love but hate running around for the items? Well to the left of the saferoom double door exit is the mansport store for the boxing gloves and right outside of it, on top of the yesterday today and tomorrow new stand is a respawning bowie knife. 
 
Those things are amazing and I'm stocked to the brim with them ever since I found that bowie knife respawn. 
 
The end boss knocks every held melee weapon out of your hands except the tenderizers and the knife gloves. He's pretty much wrecked with the knife gloves on. 
 
Save the guy from bitten once and give him zombrex. You have to give him zombrex but you get the survivor join and rescue bonus and later on you could give him another zombrex to get a 75,000 pp bonus so hes worth the trouble. 
 
Do you hate chuck being low level and being slow as heck? Well If you go into the americana casino, In the middle is a circular bar area. Theres a blender there and some infinite alcohol spawnpoints. The most important one is the wine rack, combine two of those and it'll give you a quickstep that'll last a minute but with the juice magazine its two minutes. With a quickstep it takes me just about two minutes from one end of the silver strip to the other at max speed. These things are freaking awesome and they work while you're holding hurt survivors too. Plus all juices heal full health so they're double awesome!

" Boxing Gloves + Bowie Knife will make short work of almost every enemy in the game, and net you tons of PP in the process. "

Completed the game last night, and added some pieces. Still lots more that could be added.
 
We need descriptions of what each of the juices does as well as what you do in the mission Demand and Supply for the Zombrex. I know I did it but I cant remember what the mission is. Any help will be good.
 
Also, on a personal note I would like to know whether any magazines can be used to extend the life of Knife Gloves. If any I would think it's either sports or domestic.

Man, this is so damn useful. After dicking around a few sessions, you need to resort to FAQs like in the first game. Thanks, guys

You can get a combo card from the Fortune Teller machine outside the building you save the Paramedic Sven in (One Little Duck Bingo on the Strip), it will cost about $1M but you gain a ton of PP and tips from doing so.

" You can get a combo card from the Fortune Teller machine outside the building you save the Paramedic Sven in (One Little Duck Bingo on the Strip), it will cost about $1M but you gain a ton of PP and tips from doing so. "

You missed the Zombrex in Yucantan Casino. In around the center there's a platform by some slot machines which kind of look like stairs. If you jump around up there, there's another platform which is slightly more tricky to get to, but it has some Zombrex and a light machine gun. Of course if you enter Yucantan for the first time, you'll be attacked by Ted and Snowflake. 

THESE GAMBLING BOOKS SHALL BE MINE.

One tip I always use when escorting survivors is I give them a firearm. It seems they have unlimited ammo on firearms and are less likely to go out of their way to defend themselves. Also when escorting keep in mind that when you attack a zombie to get it out of the way the survivor will attack the closest zombie. That becomes an issue when you are simply trying to make a quick run so I hit triangle (or Y) immediately after knocking a zombie away to avoid the issue. 
 
For weapon strategies I have to say the spiked bat is effective as well as the electric wheelchair. Of course everyone loves the knife gloves (as bongos said they are easily made) all you really need to worry about finding are the gloves, so many zombies are walking around with the bowie knives (strikes me kinda weird).  
 
I want to know if there are any items like the MegaMan blaster from DR1 that you can actually start the game with. I loved starting the 72 hours over and just walking into the break room and grabbing the blaster. It seems there are a lot of empty rooms down in the storage space of the safe house. Lots of places to put stuff I want readily available. Also I think there should be a beginners section in this guide to show some tips that make starting off much easier. It would branch into all of the other sections but solely for beginners. Must have weapons, story elements that benefit you the most, that kind of thing.  
 
EDIT: Also one thing I learnt was they like to place combinable objects outside of the maintenance rooms. Also you can usually find weird odds and ends that are needed for combo weapons in cardboard boxes and trash bags (such as nails or saw blades).

 Ok, I'm not sure if this resets every new play-through but, on the Silver Strip there is a peepshow place called the Peep Hole, it has 3 doors for 3 different peep shows (you don't actually get to see anything) each peep show cost $1 000 and get you 1 000 PP and after you do all 3 you get a bonus 10 000PP.

Not all that vital but just incase anywhoo; to open up the boxes in the safehouse you just need to jump on them. Helps when the food stops spawning in the cafeteria as there's usually vodka in most of them.

"  Ok, I'm not sure if this resets every new play-through but, on the Silver Strip there is a peepshow place called the Peep Hole, it has 3 doors for 3 different peep shows (you don't actually get to see anything) each peep show cost $1 000 and get you 1 000 PP and after you do all 3 you get a bonus 10 000PP. "

" Not all that vital but just incase anywhoo; to open up the boxes in the safehouse you just need to jump on them. Helps when the food stops spawning in the cafeteria as there's usually vodka in most of them. "

" It turns out the full suit of knight armor doubles your health bonus. Also, although I didn't bother doing it at the time, the only survivor I faced off against in the poker was the dude with the helmet, who is the fat son-in-law you save from the knife shop in the arena. No one else took part in the game. One on one hold'em is so fucking dull, though, even with real people. "

So here is something interesting, on the night of Day 2 (I'm not sure what time exactly, it happened for me at about 5 AM) you can find three Survivors in the glassed off area with the television cameras in the Atlantica Casino near the entrance to the Palisades Mall. 
   
To get them to come back with you you have to beat each of them in a high roller poker game which obviously translates to take all their god damn money. You are required to put down $100,000 to play, this includes them, so you should come out of it all with about $300,000 more in your pocket. It may have been because I had the three gambling books and the Sports Fan outfit on, but I somehow came out of it about $800,000 richer. 
 
In any event, it is a lot quicker than the slot machine trick provided you understand the rules of poker, and if you have the secret tunnel from Palisades to Royal Flush then it's an easy three survivors in the bank who are worth, combined, almost 100,000 PP. 
 
If anyone could find out specific times for this event that would be neat.

" So here is something interesting, on the night of Day 2 (I'm not sure what time exactly, it happened for me at about 5 AM) you can find three Survivors in the glassed off area with the television cameras in the Atlantica Casino near the entrance to the Palisades Mall.    To get them to come back with you you have to beat each of them in a high roller poker game which obviously translates to take all their god damn money. You are required to put down $100,000 to play, this includes them, so you should come out of it all with about $300,000 more in your pocket. It may have been because I had the three gambling books and the Sports Fan outfit on, but I somehow came out of it about $800,000 richer.  In any event, it is a lot quicker than the slot machine trick provided you understand the rules of poker, and if you have the secret tunnel from Palisades to Royal Flush then it's an easy three survivors in the bank who are worth, combined, almost 100,000 PP.  If anyone could find out specific times for this event that would be neat. "

OK guys, I have changed the layout of the guide, moved things around. Hopefully it is much easier to navigate and less cluttered. I don't think I will need to support it for much longer. If anyone posts good tips I will update it for the time being but after that I think small tips should be shared via discussion in the thread. I sold my copy of the game this morning and I am getting the PC version very soon so I will start playing it again and come up with even more tips.
 
Hope you guys have found this stuff useful and let me know what you think of the guide, and which tips are useful or not useful. Also a big thanks to contributors.

Those 3 poker players your talking about - Jacob Skinner, Nevada Slim and Jessica Howe - appear after Day 3 Case 4 around 1:00 am (you don't get a call about them), and you get $1mil for beating all of them. Use the save point in the middle of the strip before you attempt this, that way you can just keep going all in if you don't want to waste too much time.

I also just added a bunch more guides.

To get more PP, there's a gym in Palisades Mall (just like the first DR) where if you run the treadmills and use all of the bikes then you get bonus pps

" To get more PP, there's a gym in Palisades Mall (just like the first DR) where if you run the treadmills and use all of the bikes then you get bonus pps "

" @RelentlessKnight said:

" To get more PP, there's a gym in Palisades Mall (just like the first DR) where if you run the treadmills and use all of the bikes then you get bonus pps "

Yep. If anyone could give me the name of the gym that would be great. "

In the Yucatan Casino (can't remember exactly where within it) there is a large fire burning as a part of the scenery. You can continually throw increasing amounts of money into for a lot of PP, i leveled up almost twice by doing this!

Remember that you can get a massive amount of cash through TIR. I got $50,000 in one losing game. Stack up on Zombrex so you don't have to worry about it. Also, in co-op (at least for me) you friend will be booted after every save. Bring a buddy with patience! Co-Op makes the game a lot more fun and easy.

" In the Yucatan Casino (can't remember exactly where within it) there is a large fire burning as a part of the scenery. You can continually throw increasing amounts of money into for a lot of PP, i leveled up almost twice by doing this! "

Loving the new look. A few questions for a few of the tips.  
Does Zombrex carry over from one playthrough to another? (could probably text this myself but I am sure someone knows) 
The shortcut from Wilted Flower, does that carry over? 
 
Some tips on money: 
After exhausting the few winning plays on a lucky slot machine, you can hit them with a strong melee weapon and generally 2 out of 4 (give or take) will spit out extra cash. 
 
Using a Hacker (flashlight + computer case) with the combo card on an ATM will make the machine spit out $10,000. Might work without the combo card but not tested by me. It generally takes about 15% of the batter power in one use to get the money. If you don't have a hacker using a melee weapon to break the machine will give you $2,500. 
 
Beginner tip: 
SAVE. Save often. Kill a boss? save. Kill a psycho? save. Level up a few times? save. Save whenever you can. It doesn't hurt you and will only save you from having to start back from a previous save point. Nothing hurts more than killing bosses multiple times over and not gaining anything.

i have a tip on how to boost levels. i don't know if this is  a good idea or not for some people.  me and my friend found this.  we were getting 8 people to save for the trophy. 
 
walk around save people from psychos snowflake the cat. save somewhere with a new save block. bring them back to the safe house. me and my friend did this not knowing that we would get so much. we leveled 3 levels by doing it. i'm now 15. after saving the people have the friend disconnect and reload the save. it boost the player that is joining.