Wryviews: Dead Rising 2

I've heard a lot of people foolishly try to describe Dead Rising in one sentence. "You kill zombies with lots of stuff." I'm serious. That's all a lot of people have to say about it and it's so simple that I would call it false advertising. Beating thousands of zombies to death with everything you can get your hands on is only the beginning. When you first start playing this game you will be borderline helpless. You will not know anything about your surroundings even though all the tools are already there.

In essence you'll be clueless, but eventually you'll start to explore and memorize the countless resources available to you. It won't matter where you are because if you're playing the game right you will remember that there is something useful nearby; maybe you'll even know about a few secrets. Remember that help kiosk with the food on the counter? Somebody threw a bowie knife on the roof of that kiosk. That hidden knife can combine with the boxing gloves in a nearby store to create a new item. Your ability to recognize all the tools around you and create a plan will decide whether you're successful or not. You have objectives, obstacles, and what's more you have limitations. When you have survivors to rescue and protect, zombies to kill, and a crazy mall security guard with a sixshooter in the way you need to have a plan. You need to have a good plan too. Dead Rising 2's story moves in real time and thus you have deadlines.

Dead Rising isn't just about surviving a zombie outbreak, it's about how you survive it. Dead Rising is above and beyond anything else a game about being resourceful.



This Wryview is going to take a moment to discuss the controversy surrounding the Dead Rising series. When the first Dead Rising came out it was an extremely polarizing game. Many people couldn't play it for more than a couple hours before they were completely fed up. At the same time other people played it to the point of absolute exhaustion. Love it or hate it Dead Rising made a big name for itself, but the series also gained a negative reputation. The people who didn't like Dead Rising would often make an argument that the game was flawed. Dead Rising's single save file and its high difficulty level were often cited as the reasons. Because everything you did in the game was real time and you had deadlines: it was entirely possible to play the game in such a way that you backed yourself in a corner. I used to agree that the game was flawed, but after putting more thought into it I believe Dead Rising is just a series that does its own thing. I consider that an immensely positive thing.

In the first Dead Rising once you decided to save your game everything you'd done was set in stone. You only had one save file after all. The game really required you to take things seriously. If you managed to screw up badly enough you could even be forced to start over. As frustrating as that concept can be, can you really consider a game flawed just because you can LOSE? The game ran no longer than 8 maximum. By many peoples' standards that's a really short game anyway.

It's perfectly understandable if a player is frustrated with needing to start a game over. Many people do not find any enjoyment in having to repeat any segment of any game. Repetition can be argued as not being fun; but you can make many arguments for why any game isn't fun. That doesn't mean the idea is flawed or that there's anything inherently wrong with it. Dead Rising was an extremely unforgiving game, but as I've said it was all about using the tools around you. The way I see it Dead Rising is a series that's created an extremely unique identity for itself. Whether you like it or not it's unfair to call the games flawed just because it's different. The day someone comes with the perfect argument for what makes a game flawed is the day people stop having opinions.



Now I have one thing to say directed toward anyone who hated the original Dead Rising or never played it: Go download Dead Rising: Case 0. It's a 5 dollar prologue to Dead Rising 2. It's nowhere near as good as Dead Rising 2 and it's a bit on the buggy side, but for 5 dollars it's a great value and it will give you a basic idea of what to expect. Worst case you spent 5 dollars instead of 60 to find out you're one of the people who hates Dead Rising.

Even if you're already sold I still recommend you download Case 0. Though it pales in comparison to Dead Rising 2 it helps establish an emotional connection to the new protagonist Chuck Greene and his daughter Katey. Dead Rising 2 ditches previous main character Frank West in favor of Chuck Greene, an ex-Motocross champ who's been competing on zombie reality shows for money to buy his daughter medication. Right after getting your pay the zombies from the show are set free while you're framed for it. A new outbreak has occurred and nearly everyone in Fortune City is dead. Through the course of the story you fight to keep your daughter alive and clear your good name.

The actual experience of playing Dead Rising 2 is very similar to the original, though it's far more forgiving. A few people will dislike having multiple save slots because it takes away from the sense or urgency from the first game, but most will probably be happy. Still, all the elements of the original are still here. The item combination system is the one really unique feature the game has--everything else is borderline nostalgic. Guiding survivors to a safehouse, trying to find out the secret behind the outbreak, wearing funny clothes and killing tons of zombies There's even an underground driving segment, but like I said Dead Rising 2 has all the standard tweaks and improvements you expect from a sequel. When you couple that with the fresh setting, story and item combination system it all adds up nicely. I would never call this game a rehash. Dead Rising was a fairly original concept in the first place anyway.



It should really go without saying that Dead Rising 2 is more polished than the original. The controls are tighter and the graphics are better. I don't think anybody is going to be surprised by that, so let's not dwell on the subject considering it doesn't really change all that. What really makes a difference in Dead Rising 2 is the size of Fortune City. The first game took place inside the decent sized Willamette Shopping Mall, but Fortune City is basically a huge network of interconnected shopping malls, casinos, and tourist spots. Even when you include the huge empty areas from Willamette, Fortune City is way bigger.

Again, you're always operating on a time limit. It's possible to make free time for yourself to explore this huge area, but it's going to cost you the lives of some of the survivors. If you don't care about saving every innocent person's life and beating every boss exploration won't be quite as stressful. If you plan to be the hero you're going to be spending a lot of time planning out routes around Fortune City so that you can move quickly and keep yourself stocked up on supplies along the way. There's no one way to play this game. The only thing that you are required to do is complete the story missions on time.

Dead Rising 2 does have a few kinks, though. When you strip away the elements of time management, exploration, and zombie slaughter Dead Rising 2 is very much so a fetch quest and escort mission. You can figure out efficient routes and shortcuts all you want, but outside of the story segments a large portion of the game can be summarized as leaving the safehouse, finding a group of survivors, then coming back to the safehouse with them. You earn rewards for doing so in more ways than one and fortunately survivors are capable of fending for themselves, but described like this the game can sound very boring.

People who don't like backtracking can simply not save any survivors to get around this, but again--the game runs in real time. The game was designed so that you will have enough time to save every single person and do every single quest so long as you manage your time well. That's the challenge that's been presented to you. If you don't intend to do any of the quests that the game intends for you to do, I really hope you like killing zombies while you wait around for the story to advance. It's perfectly possible to play Dead Rising 2 more than one way like I said, but Capcom intends for you to at the very least attempt to complete missions. It's all part of the experience after all. Ultimately the survivors and the psychopaths trying to harm those survivors give you a reason to explore, and the act of exploring Fortune City is what keeps everything interesting. Escort missions aside, Fortune City is still a zombie slaughter playground. The zombies will literally never stop coming and your items wear out pretty quick if you try to kill every zombie you see. You'll be constantly finding new items to fight with and it's actually pretty easy to waste a lot of time just killing zombies once you find the weapons you have the most fun with.



Dead Rising 2's item combination system adds a lot to this sequel. More than any one gameplay mechanic should. Just like it sounds the item combination system lets you take two items that you find in Fortune City and combine them into a new one. It's so much better than it sounds, though. Dead Rising always had this unusual sense of humor to it. There was a certain charm to your ability to beat zombies with something silly like a park bench, make your way into a clothing store and put on a stupid outfit. The item combination system enhances all of that.

Chuck is able to build impossibly unrealistic weapons. Electrically charged wheelchairs, firecracker bazookas and even light sabers are possible thanks to Chuck's magic ability to use a screwdriver and duct tape. This is videogame logic at its finest. It really takes the lighthearted sense of fun from the first game to a whole new level. The game tosses a lot of hints at you as to what kind of special items you can make but there's still a high degree of guesswork involved in making combination items. It stacks another layer on top of a game that already rewarded you for resoucefulness and exploration.

It's really hard to describe Dead Rising 2. For some people it really is just a zombie slaughter simulator, but at its heart it's an open world adventure game. There aren't any traditional puzzles, but critical thinking is still key. The game is geared in such a way that you're not explicitly forced to find every secret, beat every boss, and save every survivor. All you're forced to do is advance the storyline. Still the game does everything it can to encourage you to do absolutely everything possible within the time limits. There's tons to do and explore and the game is fairly challenging, if not just because of the boss battles. Traditional methods rarely work against them. The bosses are simply stronger than you. Preparation is key. Dead Rising 2 isn't necessarily a game created for replay value, it's just that you're really unlikely to see everything on your first playthrough and curiosity can easily get the better of you.