(Hilarity tip: gather up as many survivors as possible and equip them all with dildos. That a brick to the face is so utterly fatal, or a big green dildo so effective at keeping the hordes at bay, is joyfully unexpected. It's sickly entertaining, but it's not surprising. It's the surprise element: clearly a couple of chainsaws strapped to a stick are going to chop everything and anything into something too gruesome to even feed to the dog. Discovering that something ostensibly innocuous - a toy helicopter, for instance - proves a more arresting and even effective tool than something clearly fatal, like a enormous mallet. We've posted a bunch of trailers over the months depicting the most ludicrous engines of DIY death, but in practice it's the slightly more subdued tools that make the fight. The root of this is, of course, in the weapons. The allotted time to travel hither and thither, twatting growing hordes of zombies with whatever comes to hand, is always in short supply enough to add an atmosphere of desperate survival, but rarely so tight that you can't take a good few moments to soak up the cartoon savagery. The dialogue and performance isn't quite enough to make any lower lips quiver, but it's certainly enough to put a true framework around the brutal dicking about. Bitten by a deadhead before the game begins, she requires oh-so-rare Zombrex between 7 and 8 am every day or she'll turn, and Chuck's reason to fight is gone. It's in the deadlines, too - a constant backdrop of clearing Chuck's name of a horrific crime before the law arrives to clear out the infestation and him with it, and to ensure daily supplies of anti-zombification drug Zombrex for his daughter. They're present and solid yet also vulnerable enough to ensure the game feels like an exercise in genuine survival, not a series of chores. They'll also get caught in your crossfire and catch you in theirs, which can lead to bloody betrayal. They fight surprising well, they follow well, and they'll take the weapons and food (health) you offer them. Rescuing them is not an aggravating exercise in shepherding, but a co-operative battle to safety through the infinite horde. Not because they're especially likeable - a great many are thin, obnoxious, in fact- but simply because they're human, and they're in peril. It feels focused - there's a base-level concern for both your character, washed-up and widowed motocross star Chuck Greene, and for the survivors who litter the shopping centre. The first game (which didn't see PC appearance), did risk that - partially by dint of its gimmick-centric nature, and partially due to shallow and/or frustrating longer-term tasks.ĭead Rising 2 is another zombie-outbreak game set in a sprawling mall, but while superficially an entirely similar prospect, it's tightened its systems in meaningful ways. It could have been a briefly thrilling but ultimately throwaway playground, akin to strange, hollow PS2 slaughtering title State of Emergency. That's what the game's built on, and that's why people want to buy it. I never expected a game about firing water-pistols at zombies whilst wearing a child's t-shirt and a Blanka hat to be so serious.ĭead Rising 2 is very much taking zombie gaming as far as it can go in pure, raw, dumb action terms: the option to unleash untold varieties of sickening, hilarious and sickeningly hilarious violence onto things that look like people but, crucially, don't behave like them. I've been making a right old mess of its enormous, infested mall for the last week or so, which leaves me in a position to bother you with a whole bunch of thoughts about it. Capcom's zombie-bothering sequel Dead Rising 2 arrived on plastic discs earlier this week, and on Steam today.
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