Dead Rising 2
Started playing Dead Rising 2. Pretty much the same game as the first one, same 72 hour clock. I have given this sequel more of a chance than the first game but I came to the same conclusion once I was able to start driving a motorcycle around the mall mowing down zombies. The idea of it is fun, but the controls are so finnicky. In the sense the animation sequences always need to finish and timing, hit recognition becomes a thing of distance with melee weapons. I’ve got other complaints, while strangely enough everytime I boot the game up I can’t stop playing in an odd addiction manner, this game is still to me, truly boring. All weekend I tried to setup a coop playthrough with my cousin but he wasn’t available. How a 14 year old kid does not have time to play online video games is beyond me! Lol.
Anyway, there was a lot of screen tearing going on in the beginning and the camera doesn’t work well in confined places, it’s not very smooth. Graphics are subpar in general but the game looks nicer than the first one. There are multiple endings all of which are underwhelming, yes I watched them on YouTube. The game is purely objective based but the objectives initiate at specific times in the 72 hour clock. From which you always have a time limit to accomplish said mission or get to the checkpoint at said time. I like the concept of the 72 hour clock, it makes the game feel like you need to accomplish tasks fast, why you have tasks to do is based on the story. I will say, you will never ever be able to do everything in the first playthrough and here in lies my dilemma. This game is designed for multiple playthroughs, they want you to play it more than once, they want you to amass millions of dollars to buy unique items. However, I have no willingness whatsoever to subjugate myself to playing this game again or let alone right now. It feels as though I have to choose through playing through the game once in order to beat it, then play it again to do all the stuff I want to do.
The point of your own character is to save your daughter who was once bitten by a zombie but now relies on a cure called Zombrex which you have to give her every 24 hours. The game supposedly only lasts 3 days, I’ve got a walkthrough guide showing where all the “free” Zombrex hidden throughout the city, otherwise I have to hit up a pawn store and fork over $25,000. Earning money is no problem really, I’ve already got $30,000. It’s an odd complaint, but the ATM machines in the Casinos respawn and I just have to keep reloading the area and destroy the ATM machines and I score $5,000. There are easier ways to win money though, and that’s through the online multiplayer games I believe or other in-game events with the arena where you kill hordes of zombies, gameshow style. Coop playing allows you to RPG your own character and bring back your loot to your storyline game. Only the host advances the story and coop can be drop in/out by anyone on the network. You can set your playing to public or private, whereby then inviting friends into your storyline playthrough at any point in the game.
One of the added problems is scenarios where I wouldn’t mind just leveling up and searching throughout the city for weapons, clothing, food, etc. However I’m always limited by the time I’m given based on the 72 hour clock. A 8 hour span in the game lasts maybe 2-3 hours in real time… I think. I just remember going around the city to explore for the first time thinking I had a real 5 hours, as I needed to find and give my daughter Zombrex by 800am. Thinking I had a lot of time to play and scour the city for things I look at the clock only to realize I have no time left. I literally almost killed my daughter by not giving her Zombrex in time. I made it with 2 min to spare which in real world time was probably like 5-10 seconds left on the clock.
OH, the load times in this game are murder. EVERY section is loaded, when it’s cutscene time you get a loading sequence, then when the cutscene is over, you wait again with another loading screen, then finally you’re able to move around, but then you need to access another area and you load again, then you open up another area and you load again. All you do is load, it breaks the speed of the game and instead of riding a high of thrill/suspense like say Left 4 Dead. It’s like a slow dull pace with monotony of going around zombie hordes. It becomes a chore.
I’m going to spoil bits of the game here, as basically you’re a dad, ex-motocross biker who lost his wife in a zombie attack previously. You take up a job doing a gameshow which is killing zombies in a dome with your motorcycle equiped with chainsaws. This is how the game opens up. You’ve got a daughter who is basically your life and you’re trying to make ends meet. After the gameshow you journey through the building to go meet your daughter when suddenly there is an explosion in the building and naturally the zombies are let loose. Of course spreading the epidemic and chaos ensues. The zombies were originally in confined areas used specifically for gameshow entertainment. So now you escape to a shelter and your underlying goal is to save your daughter by finding Zombrex as she needs it every 24 hrs. So naturally there are looters looting and you have to fight them as well as hordes of zombies from area to area. There are also crazy people and rednecks with sniper guns. The usual mayhem from humanity gone nuts during a zombie invasion. Strangely you don’t see this in Resident Evil or Left 4 Dead, it’s just people trying to get the hell out and survive. It gets unbelievably repetitive and the weapons you spend so much time building or finding only last so long, they essentially all have life. You level up along the way, I’m at level 4 or 5 at the moment. I think you can go as high as 50+, not really sure. Anyway the storyline then becomes this, you are framed when a news report shows a video of you supposedly placing a bomb on the cages of the zombies which explode, letting them out. So within the 72 hours you need to clear your name and save your daughter. Essentially since the entire game is based on a countdown, everything happens at sequence and you accomplish these case events, complete them all, you get the storyline and clear your name.
At the end of 72 hours and literally, once the clock hits said time, the game ends and you get whatever ending you acquired through your playthrough. There are 7 endings total, 1 of which is the true ending which is a result of specific events in the game which initiates overtime mode. The 72 hours is because that is the normal amount of time allotted before the military comes in and does it’s thing. Crucial battles with bosses are based strictly on your preparation which is to be expected. You’re trying to survive. You need to however unlock combinations of items found throughout the city by leveling up. Once you unlock combos you then scour and find the item bring them back to a maintenance room and create your new weapon. It’s fun once you get your weapon but again it only lasts so long. Boss fights you can leave at any point if you’re getting your ass kicked and just come back. From everything I’ve read, the survivors are useless anymore as you can actually give them weapons now. Directing them around is still a pain in the ass, I even had an instance where one survivor did not make it through the area with me after I recruited her. I had to go back to the area, let things load, direct her to the door and then load again and come back to the area I wanted to be in. Saving survivors earns you more EXP basically, killing zombies nets you EXP, killing with combo weapons earns you more, survivor saving earns you a ton however. All of which goes towards leveling up your guy.
This in a nutshell is Dead Rising 2. I imagine coop to be relatively fun, as ‘bosses’ in the game are easier to deal with by recruiting survivors and even more so with a friend. Or just having a zombie massacre fest by going around with your buddy and killing zombies. However a game like Left 4 Dead felt more goal oriented, rather than task driven. I think there is a real question of which game feels more realistic too. It’s a curious observation.
