I didn’t get much done it Dead Rising 2. I played it for a good while, longer than most other games on the show floor, but I couldn’t be bothered to meet a goal when I was having so much damn fun screwing around. Every game has that fresh new car smell that you exploit before eventually growing bored, but Dead Rising 2 failed to hit that infamous mark during my considerable time with the game.
I blame the work bench, which is one of the most savegly genius mechanics of any game on the show floor. The original Dead Rising’s broad appeal was founded in the premise of decimating hoards of zombies with ridiculous weapons, and the sequel looks to delightfully exploit that much loved feature. The work bench allows you to combine preset combinations of the items littered about Fortune City. The Freedom Bear was a giant oversized stuffed animal with a huge gun, which I considered absurd until I constructed a beer dispensing helmet to replenish some health (and then threw up a bit later). Other items I wasted time creating included the spiked bat (nails + bat), electric rake (battery + rake), extinguishinator (vacuum cleaner + …propane tank? Can’t remember), and a drill bucket (obvious).
All of that afforded me the opportunity to humiliate every zombie I could find in Fortune City. Killing and/or maiming is one thing, but doing it in ridiculous fashion is a completely different animal. After I literally ran out of things make I tried to proceed on with what appeared to be an escort mission, but time was not on my side and I had to depart. Despite only taking in a small chunk of Dead Rising 2, I had a fantastically awesome time plowing Chuck through Fortune City. Currently goal is to go back and actually play the game tomorrow, check back then for another update!
