Dead Rising 2 is good. Very good, in fact. I felt like I needed to get that out right away. See, a few weeks ago I previewed the first two days of the game, and I found a title that was chugging in spots, suffering from really long loads, and generally not performing like a game that was about to come out. I reported that Capcom said it was aware of the issues and working to fix them, but even I rolled my eyes at the idea of the company getting everything in line for launch day. Well, it's not perfect and it is rough around the edges here and there, but Dead Rising 2 is definitely a winner.
Our Video Review Could Wake the Dead Dead Rising 2, the sequel to 2006's breakout Xbox 360 hit, puts you in the leather jacket of one Chuck Greene. Once a motocross superstar, Chuck's now a dude whose wife was gobbled up by zombies years ago. His daughter is infected from the same incident, but a daily dose of Zombrex keeps the virus at bay. To makes ends meet, Chuck is a contestant on Terror is Reality, a TV show where players knock off the undead for bucks. Well, after a show, there's a mini-zombie uprising, Chuck's framed for it, and a bunch of survivors hole-up in the Fortune City safe house to await rescue in three days. Chuck needs to clear his name, get his daughter meds, save survivors from the area and slay psychopaths before the military rolls in to clean up the mess.
If it sounds familiar, it's probably because you played the original Dead Rising. If you were a fan of Frank West's exploits on the 360, you really shouldn't miss a beat transitioning into this game. You leave the safe house via an air duct, pop out in the mall, and a woman in the security room radios missions to you. You have a set amount of time before these missions expire, and as you polish off these quests and wail on zombies with the items you find around the mall/casino/hotel hybrid, you earn experience points. Leveling up means more health, more inventory slots and more moves.
Still, the biggest addition is the ability to create combo weapons. Dead Rising has always been about picking up whatever you could #x2013; an umbrella, a sword, a sandwich board l#x2013; and using it to beat the undead back to death. That's still here, but now you'll collect combo card by leveling up and keeping your eyes peeled for posters. In turn, these cards will show you how to take two items (a fire extinguisher and a watergun, for example) and combine them at a maintenance work bench to make a super weapon (a gun that freezes zombies solid). Aside from being rad, these weapons take longer to break -- as every weapon eventually does -- and earn you lots of experience points.
