Obvious things about William Vitka: he loves zombies and he loves video games. Combining the two is sure to make him smile.
The first Dead Rising has a permanent home on my hard drive. I will never get rid of it. Ever. Yeah, Frank West — the first game’s protagonist — was sort of a putz (HE’S COVERED WARS, Y’KNOW), but that game has a special place in my necrotized heart.
Now, Dead Rising 2 is getting the same privilege from me. I will never get rid of it, and I will always love it for its often silly, always violent zombie-dispatching, weapon-building, psycho-murdering, survivor-saving ways.
The story: Five years after Dead Rising, humanity has sort of learned to cope with the zombie menace. We can’t cure it yet, but we can keep the infection at bay with Zombrex. Enter Chuck Greene — motocross star, badass, angry dad. His daughter has been bitten. He has to partake in the psychotic reality competition Terror is Reality (where contestants slaughter zombies and compete in front of crowds, and currently taking place in the faux-Vegas Fortune City) to make sure he gets enough money/Zombrex to keep his daughter amongst the living.
One night after a competition, someone sabotages the zombie containment cages, setting them loose. Before you know it, everyone around you is dying or dead or undead. You get your daughter to the safe house, where there is a smattering of other survivors. But then, during a TV news report, you see video of someone pretending to be Chuck Greene planting explosives. You’ve been framed.
Now you’ve got to keep your daughter safe and clear your name.
The visuals:Dead Rising didn’t pride itself so much on having great graphics, but rather on having an astounding number of zombies on the screen at once. Dead Rising 2 is no different. Your jaw won’t drop at any thrilling vistas or anything, but you will be impressed by how many flesh eaters fill Fortune CIty’s streets. It’s a colorful game, albeit one that won’t be winning any awards for graphic prowess. The developers obviously put their efforts into numbers (which really, really is impressive), not so much how those numbers look.
The gameplay: Again, Dead Rising 2 isn’t reinventing the wheel here. The clock is still your enemy. You can still use most of the environment as a weapon. You can still run into clothing stores and don silly outfits.
…You’ll still be stuck with a loading screen between cutscenes and areas of Fortune City.
Chuck is a bit more capable when it comes to climbing, and of course there are motor bikes to ride, but otherwise his controls are exactly the same as Frank West’s (sans the camera controls).
What DR2 does add is the ability to create custom weapons. Axe + sledgehammer? The defiler. Nails + bat? Spiked bat. There are some obvious ones, and then there are some that you’d never ever have thought of. On the plus side, all of them are awesome.And you’ll get a good laugh out of many. For me, the combo weapons more than make up for the lack of photography.
My only real complaint is the aforementioned load screens. There do seem to be an awful lot of them, and Frankly, it’s annoying.
The audio: I wasn’t blown away by the voice acting, but neither was I angry. Chuck Greene is voiced well, as is the angry security guard Sullivan. Tyrone King is essentially a racial stereotype and Stacey Forsythe is fine as the leader of Citizens for Undead Rights and Equality (CURE). Otherwise, the game sounds like what it is: a tongue-in-cheek take on B-movies from the 70s & 80s.
Complete with social critiques.
The multiplayer: This is the other big thing DR2 has done. Multiplayer comes in two main flavors: Terror Is Reality, where everyone competes against everyone else in various minigames for cash Chuck can use in the story mode, and cooperative play where two friends try to survive the story mode.
Both modes are awesome, but co-op has one major issue: You can drop into someone’s game, but you can’t save your progress unless you’re host or wait until the host drops you and save then. It’s really, really annoying.
On the other hand, I’ve had nothing but fun during my co-op adventures.
Final thoughts:Dead Rising 2 does almost everything right. It is an expanded and improved version of the universe we were introduced to with Frank West, and it is what every game strives for: an absolutely amazing (and humorously disgusting) good time.
Final grade: A
Dead Rising 2 is rated M for Mature and is available for the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.
