Hands on with Dead Rising 2

Then there’s the finale, which really shows off the engine’s ability – thousands of zombies on screen at once. And you, tearing through them at high speeds with a chainsaw. It’s messy and intense, and it’s brilliant and absurd. It’s the perfect balance of skill, luck, and injustice that makes games like Buzz and Mario Kart so compulsive.

Playing Terror Is Reality is a reward in its own right, but you also win money that you can take back into the single-player game and spend on weapons in the converted pawn shops. Once you’ve boosted your inventory slots and played a few rounds of Terror Is Reality, you need never be without a flamethrower and a chainsaw paddle again.

Dead Rising 2 also addresses some of the complaints levelled at the first game. Although Blue Castle will defend the decision to give you only one save slot in the first game – and it did force you into a survivalist way of thinking – they’ve acknowledged that it was a mostly unpopular decision. So, now you have an option of three save slots (the final number is still under discussion at the time of writing).

They’re also aware of how annoying the constant walkie-talkie calls from Otis were. How it wasn’t funny that he calls you during a boss battle. If you picked it up, you couldn’t use your gun. And if you ignored it – or heaven forbid, hang up before the text thinks you’ve had a chance to read it – he called back.

As part of Capcom’s continuing mission to Westernise the appeal of their games, Blue Castle have proved to be a fantastic choice. They get what made the first game special, they’ve sensitively changed what made it annoying, and they’ve multiplied the result by 50. They say the guiding philosophy can be summarised with the word “MORE”.

And they’re not kidding. This could actually be the game Dead Rising might have been, if it even realised this was possible.

Apr 28, 2010