In 72 hours, Chuck Greene will be heroically flown out of the city. He will reveal the truth about the zombie outbreak and his name will go down in history. That is, if he can survive.
This serves as the central premise to the videogame world's latest zombie apocalypse simulator, Dead Rising 2.
The story follows Greene as he attempts to decipher the clues to explain the zombie outbreak. Before becoming caught up in the zombie killing business however, Greene was a motocross star renowned for his incredible feats.
With such great skills, Greene was soon picked up by the reality television show Terror is Reality where he would ride on a specialized chainsaw wielding bike designed to chop zombies in half.
The reasoning behind all of his motor induced escapades is his zombie-infected daughter. Terror is Reality proved to be the only way to make enough money to buy his daughter zombrex and keep her from walking amongst the dead.
Zombrex is not a definitive cure, but merely a preventative and therefore must be taken every day at almost the exact same time.
This proves to be more of an annoyance than a challenge as there are few doses of the drug to be found in Fortune City and getting back to the safe house at 7 a.m. with a group of limping survivors slows the player down to almost a dead halt.
The developers at Blue Castle Games and Capcom are two of the most courteous game makers in the industry. By giving the player a constantly updating ‘win' clock that counts down the 72 hours, the player only needs to do the bare minimum amount of work, show up to missions on time and those three days will fly by.
Since Greene can't fight the zombie horde with his bare hands and the weapons from the prequel have become rather drab and lackluster, new weapons were desperately needed.
In Dead Rising 2 duck tape and ingenuity collide as Greene takes ordinary items and turns them into zombie banes. This item creation feature definitely helps the game lose a lot of the monotonous feel possessed by its predecessor and ultimately makes the game a much more enjoyable experience.
The game is as perfectly balanced as it is difficult. Thankfully, not ‘throw the controller through the window' difficult though.
The game is divided into case missions including the mandatory plot line missions and optional side quests. In these extra quests, players can rescue civilians and kill psychopaths who have gone insane because of the immense stress of a zombie filled city.
Psychopaths, the sub-bosses in Dead Rising 2, provide the majority of the challenge in the game. With the psychopaths wielding some of the best weapons in the game, going up against them often proves to be a death sentence. Though if the player can get their hands on the right weapons the tables can be turned.
Dead Rising 2 also employs a leveling system similar to that of the original Dead Rising.
As Greene progresses through the story by saving civilians and killing thousands of undead he will gain levels. Benefits to leveling up include an increase in strength, health and weapon storage capacity, all of which being vital to making the game less challenging.
To say that the load times in the game are disruptive is putting it nicely. Up to a minute long each, these minuscule periods of nothingness add up into a large sum of wasted time. Installing the game is definitely recommended, as this will shorten the horrific time wasters.
Overall, Dead Rising 2 is an incredibly fun game with tons of shelf life as there are always more survivors to be found and psychopaths to be put down. Plus, players can team up online to fight through the campaign or go head to head in Truth is Reality, the brand new online competitive mode.
The game's largest fault is still how monotonous the gameplay can be. New weapons add content but lack the depth required to keep this game going into ‘Overtime mode.
This is, of course, a sequel, so for those who didn't like the original release, Dead Rising 2 might be one game you want to avoid. Although it is fun, it is essentially the same game with a different spin.
E-mail: arts@ubspectrum.com
