Dead Rising 2

Date Acquired: 11.13.2010

Date Completed: 11.25.2010

Thoughts: This game wasn't on my radar too much. I played the original, and to be honest, my brain didn't know what to do with it. I see that now. It didn't follow many of the conventions I have come to expect from a video game. For starters, you're not supposed to beat the game. Not right away anyway. You're supposed to play through a little bit, level up your character, get overwhelmed and die, then you can start a new game with that same leveled up character to make getting through the game easier. The Time limit really frustrated me at first. I like taking my time and doing everything I want to do in the game I paid for, but that isn't allowed here. There's plenty of time to finish the game, but it's very difficult to finish the game 100%- ie rescuing every civilian and killing every psycho. I definitely didn't realize in my play through the first game that the psychos and civilian rescues are all optional. You can do them for more points to level up faster, but no big deal if you don't, just do the main story stuff.

As I said, this game wasn't on my radar, I wasn't going to buy it. So what changed my mind? An ingenious marketing tool called Dead Rising: Case Zero. In lieu of releasing a DR2 demo, Capcom released Case Zero- a $5 prequel chapter to the events of DR2. Now before you complain that I am praising Capcom for tricking me into buying a demo, there WAS a demo for Case Zero, and the gameplay is the same in both games, it really is just a missing chapter from DR2. Anyway I DL'd the demo, played it, decided it was worth my $5 and finished the prequel 100%- got all 200 achievement points. I really enjoyed it and got addicted to it, so I knew I would need to get DR2.

Pros: Well, to start off, there's Case Zero. It was handled very well, and I liked the fact that I could import my leveled up character from Case Zero into DR2 proper. Sadly CZ caps you out at level 5, but it was better than nothing. In the original Dead Rising, the gameplay is supplemented with possibly the most annoying gameplay mechanic ever- taking pictures. You could take pictures of different events and characters to earn more experience points and level up faster. That's gone in this game, new character Chuck Green is a mechanic, not a photographer, so you get extra experience points by taking the existing weapons and combining them into new weapons. Have a boat oar and a chainsaw? Duct tape them together to create the mighty paddlesaw. A Bucket and some drills combine into a drill helmet you can put on the heads of zombies, and by far the most used weapon is a handfull of nails and a wooden baseball bat that become the spiked bat. My personal favorite though, was a pair of boxing gloves and some knives could be combined into knife gloves where you could embrace your inner wolverine and tear shit up.

The game just feels so much more polished than the original Dead Rising. I can read the text on the screens now. The survivors are generally good at not running into shit and getting stuck on the environment. The characters were done well also. The voice acting was very good, and the psychos....man some of them were very creepy and disturbed. These fights were usually pretty hard, but they are optional and you can save them for a later playthrough when you've leveled up more and can take them on. The game is still saved in bathrooms you have to find throughout the malls, but now you get 3 save slots, so you aren't stuck with a bad decision. (Also good for going back to an earlier period for achievements) The achievements in this game are handled pretty well also. There are only 2 story-related achievements. Everything else is optional (though a few would be tough to beat the game without winning) Every Achievement is worth exactly the same: 20 points.

The option of Co-op is nice also. A new player can play with an experienced player, and learn the layout of the land, and level himself up quickly, then import that character into his new game.

Cons: While the idea of Co-op is nice, it's not handled in the best way. Whenever I save the game, as the host, it kicks the guy I'm playing with out and i have to re-invite him. Considering there are achievements for beating the whole game on co-op, I don't see how this is possible because it seems to mean you would have to beat the whole game in one sitting without ever saving, which would be very difficult and not a lot of fun.

While I get the idea behind the time limit, I'm still not crazy about it, and I don't understand why I can't unlock a new mode after finishing the game that turns off the timer? This seems like a nice compromise and would give me incentive to play through the game a 2nd time and kill every psycho and rescue every hostage.

To Do: Not right away, but eventually will have to replay some of the game on co-op to go hunting for a few achievements I don't have yet like killing all the psychos, probably a lot easier on c0-op.

Conclusion: This game was a very pleasant surprise. It went from being a game I expected to buy in a year or two after a heavy discount to legitimately one of my favorite games of the year.