Dead Rising 2 review

The first part of Dead Rising appeared during the first life cycle of Xbox 360, being one of the most acclaimed titles for that console at the time. Not in vain, at the time its sales ratio was approximately 6:1 (one game for every six consoles sold, a real outrage) and today it is considered a cult title by hundreds of players. For the same reason, the expectations raised by this second installment were very high and, fortunately, these have been fully met.

To bring Dead Rising 2 to life, Capcom commissioned the project from Blue Castle Games , a studio based in Vancouver, Canada. And the truth is that many of us were quite surprised by this decision given the -until then- modest trajectory of the Canadians, whose most relevant creation had been The Bigs , a baseball simulator. For the same reason, the work done by Blue Castle has even more merit, as they have managed to withstand all the pressure they had on their shoulders and have produced a second part of Dead Rising that surpasses the original adventure in all areas.

Struggling ex-motorist If you remember, the protagonist of the first Dead Rising was Frank West , a photographer who ended up getting into a lot of trouble inside the Willamette shopping center, where it was attacked by a horde of zombies. Well, the odyssey that good Frank lived is nothing compared to the one that has fallen on Chuck Greene , the new protagonist of this adventure.

Attracted by the game show Terror is Reality , which consists of killing the largest number of undead in a given time limit, Chuck finds his bones in City of Fortune , a city with a great resemblance to Las Vegas. The problem is that this city ends up being flooded by hundreds (or even thousands) of these monsters, leaving a few civilians trapped inside... including both Chuck and his daughter De he Katey .

Dead Rising 2 meets all expectations and becomes a magnificent action game with thousands of zombies as protagonists.

From here the problems begin for Chuck. One of them has to do precisely with his little Katey. After being attacked and bitten by her own mother, the little girl herself needs Zombrex daily, an expensive and hard-to-obtain experimental medicine that prevents the poor thing from turning into the undead. Finding and administering said medicine to Katey will be one of our main tasks to perform in Dead Rising 2. But it will not be the only one. The zombie invasion will be so brutal and rampant that the American government will be forced to take a drastic measure: destroy the area. Or what is the same, that Chuck and the rest of the survivors will be sacrificed in such extermination. The time limit is 72 hours (not real, of course), a period in which he must have given us time to escape with our daughter. Tick, tock, tick, tock…

In broad strokes, this is the main setting and plot of Dead Rising 2, but the game hides many more details. Throughout the adventure we will have contact with multiple secondary characters who, like Chuck, will have been "locked up" in City of Fortune. We are not going to reveal anything about them to avoid spoiling part of the plot, but accept a piece of advice: do not trust anyone, because many of them are true psychopaths, sociopaths or even both.

The sets are full of weapons that we can collect and some of them can be combined with others to create more powerful and original ones.

Design and kill Thus, Chuck has no choice but to enter the City of Fortune to look for the aforementioned Zombrex medicine and, incidentally, find an escape route. But his journey will not be easy. In Dead Rising 2 there are very few so-called "safe" areas, so the varied scenarios are packed with zombies. Dozens, hundreds of them swarm around aimlessly, at least until they locate another human being. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary to stock up on weapons, food and other items to try to ensure our survival. And that is what Dead Rising 2 is all about, surviving at all costs and whatever the cost. It is an adventure that is capable of constantly putting pressure on you, that reminds you over and over again that you have many vital things to do in a very short time and that, on top of that, you have little help.

One of the major innovations in Dead Rising 2 that is sorely needed is custom weapon crafting . Throughout our journey we find hundreds of weapons and objects of different kinds that we can use to get rid of the undead and, if we manage to combine two of them in special workshops that are scattered throughout the city, we will obtain new more powerful weapons and originals. Ok, with a simple baseball bat, rifle, pistol or hammer (to name just a few examples) we can "dispatch" a considerable number of rivals, but when the time comes to face the fights against the final bosses, things will change a lot. . Without a doubt, the weapons that we have created will come to us from fable.

The gameplay of Dead Rising 2 is open, so although you have to follow a main script, we enjoy great freedom of movement.

The possibilities that we find in this sense are very numerous. Bats with nails, wheelchairs with machine guns, water pistols adorned with gasoline cans, electric rakes... All these homemade weapons provide us with endless ways to kill our rivals, many of them truly bloody and brutal. And also, every time we make one, we also get experience points . As if it were a role-playing game, this experience allows Chuck to gradually improve some of his abilities, such as increasing his health, increasing the number of objects he can carry, etc. But for the record, weapon crafting isn't the only activity that gives Chuck experience!

The city at your feet Regarding the development of the game itself, it remains quite faithful to the one we live in the original, although it has been enhanced. Therefore, and although it is necessary to follow a very marked plot line and go beyond certain main objectives, we enjoy complete freedom to move as we please and whenever we feel like it. And of course, if we wish, we can participate in a good number of secondary missions that will bring us interesting rewards such as new weapons, extra experience or Combo Cards . These collectible cards come to be a kind of instruction manual for the creation of new weapons, so the value of some of them is frankly high.

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One of the main innovations of the game is its cooperative mode. So it is possible to liquidate undead in company.

The main component of Dead Rising 2 is without a doubt the action and the fighting . As we told you lines earlier, it is possible to finish off rivals in very different ways. Apart from the "typical" ones in these cases, such as shooting or hitting ad nauseam, there are other more "creative" and bestial ones, such as dismemberment, burns, run over, electrification, explosions, perforations... The list is almost endless.

But there is much more to Dead Rising 2 than fights and blood. Apart from the aforementioned RPG touch that we have already told you about, exploration also takes a strong role. And it is that Ciudad de la Fortuna is very large and hides many places of interest. For example, in clothing and accessories stores we can radically change the appearance of our character. Do we feel like turning Chuck into a rock star? Well, we dressed him in a leather jacket and pants plus some sunglasses, and that's it. Do we prefer to ridicule him a little? Well, nothing, we put a pink skirt and matching shoes and run. But, as we told you before, the number of shops and venues in the city is incredible, so it is well worth investigating it thoroughly. Same thing with a fantastic gun shop...

The technical section is outstanding. The highlight is undoubtedly the number of characters (almost all of them zombies) that can appear simultaneously on the screen. Is awesome!

Two are better than one Another of the most outstanding novelties of Dead Rising 2 is the online cooperative mode . In it two players can face the main adventure, readjusting in this case the difficulty to balance it. However, it must be said that this mode is not as "pure" as those that can be found in other titles. And we explain. Dead Rising 2 does not offer us a single challenge or situation in which the collaboration between two characters is necessary to advance. Therefore, it may be the case that two players play totally on their own, separately, although the actions of each one directly affect the development of both.

However, if both players decide to cooperate, there are many ways to do so. Thus, the duo can agree to carry out very different and complementary tasks. In this way, while one is in charge of collecting and making weapons, the other can be in charge of looking for Zombrex, for example. Obviously, this modality not only brings fun, but also adds a little strategic touch.

And to round off the adventure, the title also includes a fun (and full of dark humor) multiplayer mode for up to four participants, Terror is Reality . In it we must enter nine mini-games as curious and fun as they are brutal in which, basically, we must kill as many zombies as possible in the most original and macabre ways. It's worth a try.

As we progress through the adventure, Chuck will progressively improve his abilities. This RPG touch suits the adventure wonderfully.

Brilliance and quality The technical finish that the title presents is outstanding, that blunt. And it is for several reasons. The first is found in the variety and size of the scenarios. The extension of Ciudad de la Fortuna is incredible and, what is more important, it is made up of clearly differentiated places such as shops of a thousand different kinds, workshops, garages, halls, common and rest areas, casinos... These rooms are recreated in detail and, in addition, they have an infinity of objects with which to interact: there are literally hundreds, thousands of them, and each one has a different use.

But the undisputed "stars" of Dead Rising 2 are undoubtedly the zombies . They are everywhere, in industrial quantities, and thanks to a random generation system, their appearance and variety is more than remarkable. Believe us when we tell you that it is rare not to find at least more than a hundred of them in each of the scenarios, monsters that also have a rather terrifying appearance in general. It is true that its artificial intelligence is low, but that is understandable and that it is also done on purpose. Otherwise, that is, if they were moderately intelligent, we assure you that it would be impossible to overcome the adventure. The final bosses deserve a special mention, since to kill most of them it is necessary to have enough supplies, powerful weapons and study their patterns well.

A good number of secondary characters are involved in the plot, many of them true psychopaths.

The price to pay for this level of quality is the abrupt appearance of certain objects and elements of the scenarios, but this defect does not affect the gameplay at all, nor is it something especially noticeable or annoying. It is simply something that is there.

The sound is also at a good level. The music suitably adapts to each moment of the game, changing from a leisurely rhythm to more powerful themes in the blink of an eye. And the effects, especially those produced by the weapons and, more specifically, those that have to do with their “ fatal actions ”, are also of quality and varied. The dialogues have a specific weight and, given the great magnitude of the title, we think that these should have been dubbed into our language, with only subtitles in Spanish. Still, they reach the remarkable.

In Ciudad de la Fortuna we find multiple clothing stores, ideal places to change the appearance of the protagonist.

All in all, Dead Rising 2 is a highly recommendable action adventure, capable of keeping you on edge throughout the game. Its development is varied and attractive, technically it is at a very good level and it is full of surprises. Its biggest drawback may be its duration, somewhat short, but it is also true that it is one of those 100% replayable titles.