Dead Rising 2 is the sequel to the 2006 title, Dead Rising. This time around however, you're in the shoes of a different character, in a different setting. As Chuck Green, an ex motocross superstar, you quickly find yourself trapped in Fortune City, which has just recently become the home of some 100,000 of the undead. Making things worse, you're being framed for causing the outbreak. The military arrive in 72hours to clean things up, and if you don't clear your own name by that time - they'll be taking you down with the zombies. Oh and on top of that you're daughters suffering from a slight case of zombification... so you need to keep bringing her zombrex to hold back the virus.
Probably the most notable improvement over its predecessor, or really any other game for that matter is the number of AI on screen at any one time, the Dead have risen, and they're in their thousands. I haven't counted but I'd say there are often more than 100 zombies on screen at any one time. It's a pretty impressive feat. So how will you survive the legions of the undead? smash and grab literally anything in the mall is how. Searching the mall for new killing tools is great fun, they range from standard melee weapons like hammers, to the more wild and wacky like giant hamster balls you can roll around in.
On top of that, and an improvement from the last Dead Rising is the new weapon combo system. There are various maintenance rooms dotted around Fortune City, which allow you to combine individual items, to produce something new. These are generally the more wacky weapons, and you're greatly rewarded with XP for using them. Sadly the weapon creation system isn't particularly versatile, and instead of making your own crazy weapon combos you're given the tools and recipes to make specific ones. It doesn't take long before you'll have combined and tried pretty much every weapon in the game.
Aside what we've been through here... I'm a little saddened to say that Dead Rising 2, and Dead Rising 1 are the same game. It still has all the highs, and lows of its predecessor. You still gain xp, and level up... and frankly, killing one singular AI enemy over and over does, once again grow tiring far before the games story comes to a close.
The stories still on the same level of mediocrity, and the mission structure is still strung together in real-time. Escort missions are a little better this time around but there's only so much variation you can do between fetch quests, and escort missions, unfortunately the story and campaign missions don't make the game any more interesting, and can make it irritating as if you want to play the story missions - you're going to need to stick to the clock. It's more than possible to 'break' your save data by saving the game at a stage where it's impossible to complete the game due to the time you had remaining on a mission, so if you're unfortunate (or stupid enough) to do so, then you'd be forced to either reset maybe 10hours of campaign progress. It's a very restrictive system, and detracts from what the game intends itself to be about, locking you into a rather linear structure whilst at the same time claiming to promote player exploration and experimentation.
Not to say it's a bad game mind you. The gameplay is adequate, and as I mentioned prior, the weapons are fun to experiment with, hell even the zombies are fun to kill, it's just that statement gets less and less true as the game goes on. It doesn't help that you don't actually need to kill any zombies, they aren't a threat to you - the AI is incompetent enough that you can play the game up until boss sequences, one handed simply pushing past the zombie hordes.
Speaking of the boss sequences, when you're attacking zombies with your weapons it's all pretty fun, the gameplay does at least work relatively well. When you're attacking human enemies... they don't react the way zombies do, they don't fall down when hit with an axe, and so on. So the boss battles feel really clunky, and half assed, the same goes for the gunplay. The controls within the aimed mode are very slow, and you can't reload with ammunition, just pick up another weapon. This is fine but the games campaign missions start expecting you to use firearms after Chapter 4 as armed groups of enemies are introduced.
Furthermore, the game features a plethora of technical issues, or at least the PS3 version does. There are various bugs, ranging from weird visual glitches, weapons glitching and becoming unbreakable to some serious technical issues such as slowdown, and large amounts of screen tearing. Whilst the game can support alot of AI on screen, in the more packed areas the game... slows down, and slows down to a crawl. So much so both myself and my co-op partner could see objects 'ghosting' across the screen during more intense moments. It only seems like the outdoor areas suffer from this, though. Probably something to do with the larger draw distance, which the game obviously doesn't do a good job coping with, and tries to mask with a thick fog in the distance.
All is definitely not good with Dead Rising... something I haven't touched on yet though, which might even be the games saving grace is the new co-op and multiplayer modes. The multiplayer from what I saw is a flawless, and fun experience, you're pitted against 3 other opponents in a zombie game show, where you must complete various mini-games, for first place and cash prizes. Prizes which you can actually transfer over to your story mode, to purchase new weapons and items. The co-op is also a great, well integrated experience, it's easy to drop in and out of your buddies game, you keep your level and experience gained but we did notice that other stats (such as zombies killed) weren't being tracked for the co-op partner, which was a little disappointing, but overall playing the game with a buddy was really able to elevate the singleplayer experience into something much more fun than is alone.
In conclusion; Dead Rising 2 is at heart a game which has almost as many flaws as assets. You may enjoy Dead Rising 2, but whatever player you are theirs going to have to suffer the games flaws, weather it be the lackluster story, repetitive mechanics, or technical issues there's. If you're a fan of the first Dead Rising it's definitely an improvement, so there's no reason you wouldn't enjoy this title, and those seeking a co-op experience... Dead Rising isn't such a bad one. Although ideally Left for Dead, or Resident Evil are both much more capable, both co-operative and zombie experiences.
Verdict
If you liked Dead Rising, you'll enjoy its sequel. If you're looking for a 2 player co-op experience, you may want to consider dead Rising. If you're not already a fan of the series, or didn't enjoy the original title, it's hard to recommend this one at full price. There's fun to be had here, for the right crowd.
8/10
8/10
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