Dead Rising 2

Dead Rising 2 Review

What is it with gamers and zombies? There seems to be something incredibly satisfying about slaughtering hordes of the undead that we just can’t get enough of. Dead Rising 2 is the sequel to the original and the follow up to the Case Zero game that was released on the XBLA. Dead Rising 2 makes some big changes to the original (both good and bad) and ultimately delivers more of the same wacky and silly antics as the previous games.

Dead Rising 2 is set in Fortune City; a Las Vegas esque location filled with casinos and all your typical Dead Rising shopping locations. You play as Chuck Greene, a former motor cross star who is trying to escape the crisis while constantly hunting for zombrex for this daughter (the drug that stops the zombification process) just like in real life. Like the original, the game is filled with over the top characters with a certain slap stick element to the whole experience that gives you plenty of guilty laughs. The core setup remains very much the same as the first game, which for the most part holds up quite well. However, I was disappointed that there still isn’t any way to store items for future use, seeing as this is under the Capcom name, is it really too much to ask to see the item box from Resident Evil here?  I mean come on, what an awesome Easter egg that would be... anyway.

Gameplay wise there isn’t a whole lot different here, you still chop, club and (spoiler alert) light sabre your way through hordes of zombies while solving cases and rescuing survivors. The final part of that statement has been vastly improved, these survivors are much, much better at navigating through zombies than before and will not get stuck into walls or corners. This makes rescuing them extremely easy, it’s not really a case of you “saving” them as it is a case of you going “hey, dumbass, there is a place that isn’t full of zombies, follow me”. Having said that, because of how crucial rescuing survivors is on a first playthrough to level up, this is (undeniably) an improvement.

The biggest addition with DR2 is the ability to create your own weapons, this system is well designed for the most part but ultimately feels a little limited. Sure you can attach a machete onto a broom, but that’s it. There is no room for real customisation beyond what you’re allowed to create. The actual usefulness of the weapons is also something that dampens the effect of them too, once you create the defiler (axe and sledgehammer) you just don’t need anything else... the light sabre is pretty amazing though. The save system is also a lot more forgiving this time around, there are still no checkpoints, but you have 3 save slots this time, which is a much needed upgrade. Due to the pace of the game, the complete lack of checkpoints is a big mistake, it just seems a little lazy.

Seeing how I’ve left my review of this quite late, I can comment on the (seemingly) biggest problem other people seem to be having with it. The issue that a first play through isn’t possible unless you restart at certain points to level up. I can say that is false because I did complete it without restarting once. However, I can fully understand where this complaint comes from. The psychopaths in the game act as bosses and they are just plain cheap to fight, if it wasn’t for me being stubborn as hell I would’ve restarted. There’s some form of a strategy to all of them once you play it enough but on a first run not many people are going to have the patience. So with that in mind, here’s some great psycho killing weapons :)

-           Light sabre = gems + torch

-           Driller = power drill + spear

-           Defiler = axe + sledgehammer

I must be honest, I can’t help but be a bit biased towards this game, mainly because I loved the original so much (I quite like killing zombies too), however, this game simply hasn’t got the originality the first game did. For that reason, most of what you see isn’t as impressive and the returning problems are just plain unacceptable. Also, some things that were removed just don’t seem to make much sense, gone are the insane hand-to-hand combat kills that were in the first game. Gone is the ability to get three books to give you insane buffs with health and weapon durability, considering some of the weapons that are in the game it comes across as plain lazy that they didn’t include this stuff.

Never the less, I enjoyed Dead Rising 2; it doesn’t completely reinvent the Dead Rising wheel but it does make some improvements over the original. While there are still things that can be improved and some of the stuff that has been removed seems very odd, the core experience is still extremely fun if you can look past (or overcome might be a more appropriate way to say it) the games flaws. It’s not perfect, but if more Dead Rising if what you’re after, this game offers more than enough ways to kill zombies and pretend they’re people you hate in real life.