Dead Rising 2 - Review
(for Playstation 3)
Co-reviewed by Sam Jeffery




Meet our Dead Rising 2 hero, Rogue Justice.

Rogue Justice is a man of the people. He goes out of his way to help his fellow man, but won't hesitate to do what's necessary if things go awry (which means leaving your sorry ass behind if you can't keep up). He goes all in on every hand of strip poker he plays. (In fact, he went all in on your mother last night.) He smirks when he's satisfied. He smirks when he's dissatisfied. There's generally a lot of smirking when Rogue Justice is around. He gets crazy with duct tape. He's not afraid to ride a tricycle with pink streamers in public. He tends to eat by smushing food back and forth across his face until it disappears.

But most importantly, Rogue Justice doesn't take your shit.

And all this might sound too silly, but you know what? The Dead Rising games are silly. They're games about a mass zombie outbreak. They're very exaggerated works of fiction. They're arcade-style, in your face, and they might feel broken but everyone in the world of the game plays by the same rules. If a psycho with a pair of flamethrowers is decimating you any time you fight him and you beat him by waiting for him to get stuck behind a garbage can and shooting him there, then it'll feel glitchy. But it's not to say that you can't find other tools or combo weapons in the game world to take him on with that will end up making the job a piece of cake. Despite having such a realized story, Dead Rising games aren't really about the story, they're about you struggling for your life in a zombie-filled sandbox with other normal people, and some other not-so-normal people too. It doesn't concern itself with being serious or realistic. It's a game about damn zombies and it makes sure to make it as over-the-top and surreal as it can to keep it fun, while still staying serious in the context of its characters to keep it grounded and make you care.

So it might be jarring to be stabbed through the gut 4 times with a machete then blown back with a shotgun blast to the head, survive, then down an entire liter of orange juice and be completely healed. Sure. But it's HILARIOUS.

The game still relies on a tight three-day schedule, with important events you have to be at on time for, or risk losing the game's story. This never proves to be such a challenge, as you're given plenty of advance warning at times like this. However, you also have plenty of side-missions that you can check out, which involve the aforementioned psychos to fight, survivors to rescue, and weapons/shortcuts to open up. None of these are mandatory, and the game starts out by killing off a whole host of supporting characters, immediately letting you know that it's okay to let these missions go. You're only one man, and you can't rescue everybody. You'll have to make sacrifices in order to keep you and your own safe, and that's what any person would do in that situation. Despite all the corniness and surreal stuff, this also helps keep the game somewhat grounded in logic and reason.

A lot of things have been tightened up from the first game, including managing survivors (and the survivor's AI), allowing you more chances to save, and keep your levels, experience and money if you ever want or need to start another playthrough. It feels like a much more satisfying blend of unforgiving/challenging mechanics and assistance during your stay in zombieville. I can't quite give it my highest score, though, because there are too many instances where we just got frustrated with some enemy, or the sightly wonky controls, or when we were getting clobbered by a psycho we hadn't figured out. Despite that, it's still a great new Dead Rising game.