Sunday 16 October 2011

Dead rising 2

Gamespot score:8.0(Great)

my score:8.9

(+)Pros:-Great environmental open world with superb locations,-killing masses and masses of zombies at one go is exciting, satisfactory and fun,-tons of innovative combo weapons,-relatively challenging to keep players interested,-phsyco battles are great,-time mechanic creates a good sense urgency between missions.

(-)Cons:-Choppy framerate and glitchy graphics,-long load times.

Gameplay time:50 hours+



Behold the awesomeness that is dead rising 2, the sequel to the 1st dead rising. First off I apologize for the late post, I have been one busy asshole these past few days. Now then, dead rising is a franchise I have heard of, but I never played the 1st game, I started off straight with this. I'll be frank, I had a superb time, this game is indeed a gem, it needs more love. Dead rising 2 is an improvement from the original dead rising in almost every way, and if you love killing zombies and free roaming an open world, dead rising 2 will satisfy your craving for a long long time. It was my 1st time playing something of this genre and I easily invested 70+ hours into this. Now, enter fortune city and kill some zombies!




Dead rising 2's story stars chuck greene as the main character, an old man in his middle ages. Chuck is a motorcross star and he is now part of a reality show that involves killing zombies. After his game one day, an outbreak takes place, and zombies suddenly overrun the entire stadium and city. Chuck grabs his daughter katey and runs to the town shelter. Soon after he realizes that he has been framed, and over the news, he sees footage of someone in his showsuit freeing the zombies. Chuck knows it isnt him, but he has to clear his name. So now, he has 3 orders of business. One, to clear his name. Two, to find zombrex for his infected daugther katey, so she doesnt turn. And finally, to keep rescueing survivors to the shelter to actually PROVE that he means business. Things are indeed looking grim for chuck.


Kill waves of zombies using unique and funny weapons.

Dead rising 2's game concept is a simple one. You roam fortune city, killing zombies and fufilling missions you receive over the transceiver. You receive a distress signal? Accept it, and go to the location to help the guy out. Most of the time there will be a survivor there, and you can add him to your team. You have to bring survivors back to the safe house, so this is basically key, the more survivors you rescue, the better. Some of these survivors wont come easy though, some need special requirements, like giving them drinks, food, money...you name it. Some even want you to carry them or play them a game of poker before they come with you. These people sure are weird, doing stuff like these when zombies are running around. You will be receiving LOTS of these distress calls, but there are main story missions that you have to do at certain times, and distress calls eventually die out, meaning that there will eventually be a lot of distress calls being missed out.

Story missions include finding zombrex for katey, which has to be done daily during the course of the game, or clearing your name by following leads of others. Since you have to do so much in so little time, you have to conserve time and think ahead. Like if you rescued a survivor and there is another distress nearby, save them first and have them follow you. You can have up to 8 survivors follow you at a time, and it benifits you greatly to go back with a full party, so you can save time on return trips. This generates a great sense of urgency, as you rush to get as many survivors saved as you can, while trying to make time for main story missions...its an awesome mechanic.



You may be the king of cuisine pal, but you might wanna clean
 those blood stains off, you'll scare the customers.

Dead rising 2 also has many great ways for you to kill zombies. While the game manages to be challenging by giving chuck little health and zombies rather painful attacks, it gives you a lot of freedom to create weapons. Through the course of the game you will unlock a key to maintenence rooms, and when you do, the fun begins. In these rooms, you can combine everyday items to make zombie killing appliances. Combine a fire axe and sledge hammer to make the deadly defiler, or a spear and a drill to make the spear drill. These weapons may come as ridiculous and stupid looking, but they sure pack a punch. You can tape a battery to a wheelchair to make an electric chair, then push it around a shopping mall with tons of zombies and electricute them like no tommorow. You can tape knives of a boxing glove, and make yourself a pair of portable wolverine gloves. Awesome. There are shitloads of items in the game, and a number of them can be combined....imagine the possibilites!

Killing a shitload of zombies with a single swing of the paddle saw or spinning your way through a zombie mod with the defiler can feel very satisfying, and speaking of which, such badass weapons arent meant to kill just zombies. Meet the physco paths, the game's bosses. Sometimes when you reach a distress signal to find a zombie, you may sometimes be unlucky enough to run into a physco path, regular people who have gone insane due to the zombie apocalypse. They sure pack a punch, most of them are tough, and its exciting to see what physco path you will run into next.



Multiplayer pits you in the shoes of two chuck greenes.
Now for the game's flaws. The game is superb, but it is held back by minor flaws that can be annoying. First off, the graphics are glitchy and the frame rate can be quite choppy when a bunch of zombies clot together. Glitchy graphics mean hands glitching into walls, having your binoculars stick to the mouth of your servbot helmet (that scene made me laugh, hard), and many more. The load times are also unforgiving. Not sure about the 360 version, but the PS3 had long loading times that happened everytime you go to a new area, and it can get annoying during times where you have to go from one place to another real quick, or when a bunch of short cutscenes take place together.

Dead rising 2 is an example of superb open world game. I loathed the GTA franchise (no offense), but dead rising 2 brought me to the genre of open world free roaming exploration, I loved it. Im not getting off the record though, I heard its just dead rising 2 with a new amusement park area and new protagonist. As for dead rising 2 itself, I recommend it to anyone who loves a good zombie beatdown, or just want a laugh. No reason for anyone to pass on such a great game, really.



Happy gaming!