To further increase not only my posts for the month of October, but to further talk about Halloween related things, I thought I would write a review for Dead Rising 2 released by Capcom late last month. Dead Rising 2 places you in the role of Chuck Greene, a single father whose daughter, Katy, was bitten by her zombified mother and became infected. In order to keep her from turning, he must continually give her a shot of Zombrex every twenty four hours at the same time everyday. To earn the money he needs to afford the Zombrex, Chuck participates in a zombie killing related game show called Terror is Reality. Shortly after you take part in one of these games, the zombies break out and the zombie plague starts all over again. Chuck and various others lock themselves in the boiling room underneath a large casino/mall area in Fortune City and must wait three days for help to arrive. Shortly after, Chuck sees a new report pinning him as the scapegoat for allowing the zombie outbreak to occur.The gameplay resolves around this time frame during which Chuck must try to clear his name, find survivors, obtain Zombrex for Katy, and, most importantly, kill lots and lots of zombies.
The gameplay is pretty much the same as the original Dead Rising released in 2006, however, there have been several adjustments and changes to improve and make Dead Rising 2 more enjoyable. In Dead Rising there were two major complaints: the first was that the save system was terrible and the second was the way it was formatted. The latter of the two issues I'll address first, seeing as how it wasn't the biggest issue, it was more of an issue for me. Dead Rising was formatted strictly for an HDTV. Nowadays, that wouldn't be a problem for me, but when I originally played the game, I was using a tube TV. The way it was formatted was like watching a movie in widescreen on a standard definition television. What this resulted in was all the in game text being incredibly blurry and small. Most of the time this wouldn't be a problem, but, save for cut scenes, every character talks through text in the story. That wasn't a problem for most people, but was a huge inconvenience for me. On to the bigger issue, the save system. Save points were few and far between, not to mention the enemies were in the hundreds between every area. Save points, while still some what inconveniently placed, are much greater in number in the second game.
Various other improvements make the game more enjoyable, such as the combat and weapon customization. The combat is smoother and less glitch ridden than in the first, making sure that you actually hit the zombie you're trying to hit. The weapon customization is by far the greatest improvement, allowing you to find various "Combo Cards" throughout the game and use them to make unique weapons. These weapons can range from a canoe paddle with chain saws on each end to a spiked baseball bat or from a light saber to an electrified wheel chair. The benefit of making and using these weapons is two fold: first off they do more damage and secondly they earn you more points for every zombie you kill. This is helpful because the more points you earn the quicker you will level up. As you level up, Chuck's skills increase and every-so-often you're rewarded with a new combo card.
Another improvement on the game is the multitude of bosses. While there isn't much variance among them in terms of fighting style, they provide another enemy to prove more difficult than the endless horde of zombies. The bosses are called psychos and are surviving humans who have lost their minds and decided to torture any other survivors they come across. The psychos range from a former contestant of Terror is Reality, a peace protester, a nut job chef, and a child's toy mascot. Unfortunately, the bosses prove to be relatively difficult; unless you know what you're doing in the game, have the right weapons and the right foods/drinks, and have saved recently, the psychos can be incredibly, almost unnecessarily difficult. If you get killed during the fight, you have to start over from when you last saved, another inconvenience if you hadn't planned on fighting a psycho. Fortunately, to avoid this problem, the player can stock up on various weapons and food/drink to prepare themselves. A problem that was more annoying, but gradually got better as time progressed, was the loading times. Every time you go into a new major area (outside, to a new casino, the safe house, etc.) and whenever a cut scene starts or ends, there is an unreasonably long loading time. This is particularly annoying when you first start playing, but eventually you get used to it. However, the loading times that occur both before and after the cut scenes are annoying throughout the entire game.
Overall, Dead Rising 2 really manages to improve on the problems of the original Dead Rising and tosses in a few extras to make it even more fun. The game is exciting as well as comical (you can dress Chuck in anything from an Elvis outfit to his underwear or, my personal favorite, a tuxedo and a coon skin hat), and is sure to provide for hours of fun. On top of that, a second play through is almost a must. To follow the story on the first play through would be difficult and what many have recommended is to spend one play through just killing zombies and saving survivors and then play a second time through actually following the story line. This isn't what I did in particular, but it would make the story play through a lot easier. The multi-player also adds a fun element, allowing you to either compete against other players in Terror is Reality competitions and earn money for your in game character, or play through the campaign in co-op. While certain aspects of the game are annoying, such as the load times and the save system, and it isn't the most enticing game, it is a lot of fun to run around and kill zombies in the most creative way possible. I would recommend maybe renting or playing this at a friend's place before buying it to see if you like it, but I can definitely say that once I was done, I had put in almost fifteen hours of play time, a lot more than I had anticipated. If you've played it (or when you do), let me know what you think of it in the comments. Thanks for reading and have a Happy Halloween!
