So it’s been four years since the zombies took over the Willamette Mall in the fictional town of Willamette, Colorado, and the outbreak has only gotten worse.
Dead Rising 2, a sequel to Dead Rising, puts players into the shoes of Chuck Greene, a former motocross superstar and apparently super dad. Taking place in fictional city Fortune City a number of years after the first game, we start with Greene participating in the twisted reality show, Terror Is Reality, where he is trying to win money to pay for Zombrex, a 24-hour suppressor for people who have been bitten by zombie, for his daughter who has been previously infected. Following the show, an outbreak of zombies occurs and a group of survivors are forced to take refuge in a safe house located in the small city. Unfortunately for Chuck, he has been framed for the outbreak, his daughter needs Zombrex, and rescue isn’t coming for three days…fuck.
I remember playing the first game and being shocked at how amazing the game play was. You are essentially in a giant sandbox world, and there can be anywhere from 30 to as many as 1000 zombies on screen at any given time. Players of the first game are aware that the entire city is your playing field and weapons and health can and must be procured from various areas.
The first thing DR2 adds that it’s predecessor lacked was the ability to combine weapons. The great thing about this is you can make some of the most ludicrous things available and reap the amazing rewards of watching zombies just mauled in the more goretastic ways. My personal favorite being a combination of a Sub-Machine Gun and a giant stuffed bear; this creates Freedom Bear, a giant stuffed bear sentry with a Rambo style headband and a proximity sensor that tells it to shoot.
While this about covers the major game play differences in the game, there have been a number of tweaks that were problematic in the first game. The first and most notable is the survivor AI. In both Dead Rising’s it is necessary to save stranded survivors throughout the world. The first game was notorious for having the worst survivor AI, so much so that they would run blindly into a hoard of zombies. Not only has this problem been fixed, but also I actually find myself rescuing multiple survivors because I’m not concerned that the one’s I’ve just rescued are going to go off and get themselves killed.
The story in this game is nothing that hasn’t been done before, however the game manages to put it’s own little twist on the story. I really like some of the death scenes in this game for some of the boss characters. One that particularly sticks out is a stabilized body extraction that ends up with the boss being ripped in half by the airplane recovering him.
The graphics are also a notable improvement over the first game. While the first game didn’t suffer from bad graphics, it’s still an improvement over the first game. This is a major feat considering how much more graphical power is needed to put more zombies on screen at one time.
The controls still feel a bit clunky. It’s not overly complicated, however cycling through weapons, especially in later levels when you have a much bigger inventory, can be a bit tedious and annoying.
Voice acting was done very well, however you can tell the lines were recorded in a booth. I think this is where videogames need to start taking hints from games like Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, who utilize motion capture with the actors providing the voices, so they can all act out the scene together and express the right emotions.
So overall, I’d say this game is definitely worth the buy. It has enough things to do to keep you busy for a while. If you are a fan of movies like Dawn Of The Dead, which these games are homage’s to, you will really enjoy it. Check it out.
My Opinion: 8.5/10
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