Dead Rising 2

We’re all very aware of how much zombies and the like have invaded our video games these last few years.  Most of these are simple add-ons, or DLC to give that ‘zombie mode’ to a title you wouldn’t normally think to have or need it.  Then there are games that revolve around the zombie genre.  Resident Evil, Left 4 Dead, and Dead Rising are some of the best well known franchises among these, and that brings us to Dead Rising 2, the sequel to the Xbox 360 exclusive from 2006.

Given the fact that I have not played much of the first one, it seems very clear that there are a lot of similarities between the original and this one.  To some, it may be perfectly fine, ‘More of the same is sometimes ok’ as I hear quite often, and a lot is indeed the same in Dead Rising 2.  Still in a mall type setting, still severely outnumbered by hundreds of zombies, and still doing escort missions that make me want to watch paint dry.  There is also the time limit element in this game, which really hinders my desire to play it from the get-go.  This game was designed as a big giant sandbox for you to explore, to find weapons or survivors, and of course kill tons of zombies.  Sadly, this is plagued by the fact that your daughter (who was bitten at some point prior to the game’s story) requires a dose of Zombrex (a drug to stave off the virus) every 24 hours.  The Zombrex mission is also running alongside any other mission you may have going, which created a lot of time management issues for me.  Once I got some Zombrex, I simply waited right next to my daughter until it was time to give it to her.  In turn however, this caused me to eat up a lot of time in my main mission as well as any other mini missions I had.  One occurence resulted in a GAME OVER for me, which really built up my frustration.

While you’re out and about, you may come across someone defending themselves against a group of zombies.  Upon talking to these people, you can talk them into coming with you back to your hideout.  This may seem very straightforward, but it’s not as simple as just running back to camp with them.  They may have a spouse or friend you might need to find as well, or you’re running out of time on your active mission, time that will get eaten up with you running back and forth saving folks.  Because this is a huge amount of PP (discussed later), you’ll want to get these people back to safety to acquire that extra level.  Luckily, these people you’re escorting are pretty good about taking care of themselves as you’re leading them back.  Most times, I was able to just run back to the safe house without having to go back to help them very often.  Overall though, this was a very boring element, and a lot of times, I’d just walk past these people if I saw them, unless time happened to permit my saving them.

If there’s one thing that would cause me to play this to the end, it would probably be the RPG elements in this title.  Now, don’t go running and screaming thinking this is a full-fledged RPG, quite the opposite really.  The player earns Prestige Points (just like in the first one) in order to level up their abilities.  This can range from more health, more inventory slots, and more moves to fight off the horde around you.  Someone at Capcom must be a fan of wrestling because a lot of the moves you learn are suplexes, backflips, and what not.  These moves are interesting, but having to shake my mouse back and forth each time can dull the effect quickly.  I’m not asking for a quicktime event or anything like that, but a simple button press would’ve worked just as well.  Most of your PP will come from the escort missions, and killing zombies.  If you kill the zombies with your crafted weapons, they will give you a PP bonus.

The weapon creation system is fun as well.  You are able to take ordinary weapons, and put them together to make cooler, more powerful weapons.  For example, the first weapon they have you make combines a box of nails with a standard wooden baseball bat to create…. a spiked bat.  Now that may not have sounded very imaginative, but they make up for it with others.  Others such as a bucket with a drill to make a helmet of death, or a stick of dynamite with a piece of meat.  The only catch is you can’t combine anything with everything.  Only certain items will go together.  That same box of nails won’t combine with an aluminum bat, etc…  You get a card each time you make a custom weapon in case you forget your ingredients.  Most of them you are to figure out on your own, but you do get some weapon cards as rewards for leveling up, or helping others.  For most people though, you’ll probably just pull up a list online to see what you haven’t made yet, and hunt down those items.

There are other things I didn’t really try out like the co-op, or dress-up.  This game to me doesn’t really make me say, “Boy, I wish this had multiplayer”.  I see it solely as a single-player experience, with online co-op only clogging and interfering with that.  Not to mention, your communication device will ring off the hook as someone is trying to enter your game.  It’s like a phone call that won’t go away.  As for the dress-up, I did change my outfit once, and it didn’t do anything for me.  Maybe there are some people that would get a kick watching Chuck kill in a tutu, but I am not one of them.  I would have found changing clothes to be more interesting if you got a bonus for wearing certain items.  Again, I will say, I did not play a ton of this game, so maybe something like that comes into play later.  If that’s the case, then they should have implemented it earlier.

So, how does Dead Rising 2 fare?  To be honest, I really didn’t care for it.  It was a struggle to even bring myself to play it.  This game like it’s predecessor suffers from a lack of auto-saving, which to me should just be a standard these days.  A ‘GAME OVER’ can happen often in DR2, and with your only options afterward to start the game over (while keeping your level and stats, which is nice), or loading your last save, which could have been a while ago.  Starting over with your stats is great, but what makes you think I want to go through all those cutscenes and tutorials again?  I understand that killing zombies is a lot of fun, but your game cannot make that the only thing worth buying this for.  My recommendation would be to pick up Case Zero on the XBLA for $5.  It gives you the same experience in a slightly different setting for a much lower price.  In addition, pick up either of the aforementioned titles like Resident Evil or Left 4 Dead.  They’re much more suspenseful and fun, 2 things DR2 lacked badly for me.