Dead Rising 2 Hands On

Capcom’s sequel to 2006’s madcap mall-based zombie romper Dead Rising is no less violent than its predecessor, in fact it’s more so. But the levels of comedy, inventiveness and creative killing have all been taken up a considerable notch.

The storyline is a little different to that of the first game; our protagonist isn’t a photographer this time round, he’s Chuck Greene, an ex-motocross rider who lost his wife in the Willamette incident and very nearly lost his daughter. She’s been mauled by the undead and needs a constant supply of Zombrex, a drug that prevents humans from turning when administered regularly enough. We’re not in Willamette anymore either, in fact we’re in a town modeled vaguely on Las Vegas named Fortune City.

Play starts off as our character enters Terror is Reality, a crass and ridiculous game show that pits players against each other in a series of extremely silly games. All of them involve killing zombies in various over-the-top bloody contests. Chuck’s not taking part in the show for glory and an excuse to kill alone though; the prize money will help him buy the Zombrex his daughter so badly needs.

Terror is Reality doubles as a platform for multiplayer matches, something we detailed an early build of in our multiplayer preview last year [link]. There are a whole load more games than the four we saw though so it’s a much more worthy affair. As well as battling Xbox Live buddies on the TV show, it is also possible to play with friends through the main campaign in an online drop-in co-op mode.

Without wanting to get into spoilers, Chuck leaves the game show and things have gone bad. Somehow or another the zombies from the show have been set free. It’s time to let rip. Once again we’re tasked with the ever-difficult challenge of trying to keep the helpless survivors scattered around the level alive.

We’ve got that always-ticking clock counting down from 72 hours once again and every few minutes an unattended-to survivor will drop dead in order to reinforce your inadequacy. That’s if you’re bothered anyway as the game’s open-world environment allows for a lot of fun in the form of mindless rampaging.

DR2 is a slightly more forgiving game than its predecessor in that you’re given three save slots, though there’s still no autosave function, which makes the mad dash to the lavatories of saving bliss as frantic as ever. Once again it’s possible to start the game again with your previously unlocked abilities, prestige level and Combo Cards (more on them later). This mechanic makes playthroughs without rescuing anyone still feel productive as you can always go back and attempt to rescue everyone later at your higher rank.

Rescuing survivors is a similar affair to last time, with each of them staying in one location until either you save them or they come to their untimely death. Our protagonist is informed of their whereabouts via his pager and saves them by carrying them out through the hoards.

While there have been a number of new changes to the game, the most drastic is probably that of the new weapon options. Once again, almost everything is a weapon; if you see it then you can probably pick it up and swing it at a zombie. If it propels something, then you can probably use it to propel stuff at a zombie, if you can sit on it, then you can probably ride it into and over a zombie, if you can…you get the idea.

Expect to kill zombies with giant stuffed rabbits, boxes of nails, cacti, mannequins, moose heads, pitchforks, computer cases, vases, lamps and amplifiers, everything basically. This time round though, we’ve been given the oh-so wonderful thing that is duct tape, and with it we can strap items to each other in order to make new and exciting instruments of wanton death and destruction.

Dotted around the map are maintenance rooms equipped with workbenches handy for creating a plethora of item combinations. You see them nails there? And that baseball bat? Yup, whack nails in hammer, make self bashy thing. Excellent. See that bucket? Them drills? Buckety-drilly hat-thing, yay…whiiirrrrrrr! Loads of blood and headless zombies.

Using modified weapons gains you more PP than standard zombie-bashing, though it’s better earned when you’re not just experimenting and instead make use of the handy Combo Cards either provided with a level up or via the observation of one of the handy instructional posters dotted around.

Prestige Points are earned for killings and will level up our resourceful hero, awarding him various bonuses. With every level he’ll gain a random perk, bonuses will include Combo Cards, more life, better attack strength, an extra inventory space, a new skill, increased throwing distance or an increase in running speed.

Dead Rising 2 looks like it’ll more than pull its weight as a sequel by providing players with a ton of new weapons and really has some great potential with its combo system. Can’t wait.