We’re probably just about this close to getting our fill with zombie games. I mean, don’t get us wrong, if something is presented properly and we have an effective way to kill the undead, we’re all for it, but between the Left 4 Dead games, Call of Duty’s zombie modes and the countless other games that have included the undead in one form or another, it’s overkill – not to steal a pun there. And no one knows “overkill” better than Capcom, whose fourth – yep, FOURTH – Dead Rising 2 game rolls out this week with Off the Record. Following up on the original, the Case Zero and Case West downloads, this fourth game focuses primarily on Frank West, who’s still recovering from the incidents in the original game and the downfall that has followed. He’s found success with killing off the horde in the original, but it’s gone to his head, leading him down the primrose path to scandal and sending him on a downward spiral. And as luck would have it, a zombie horde kicks up in Fortune City, and as an alternative event to the previous games, you have to direct Frank through it all, as he hopes to regain the success he once lost. Granted, it’s a trickier process this time around, as he needs some Zombrex to stay alive.
When we played Case Zero and Case West, they were good at the time, not only because they offered some diversity in their campaigns, but they were also dirt cheap, compared to the full retail price. Off the Record, though offered at 40 bucks, feels like it’s running mostly through familiar territory. The same areas need to be explored here, and there’s not much new in the way of weapons, save for some interesting props that are lying around the new Uranus Park amusement center and a couple of other spots. That means less imagination when it comes to forging them together, especially if you’ve already thought of every combination thinkable for the original game. Fortunately, the raw zombie-killing power of the first game remains intact. You can do a lot of damage with Frank provided you have the right weapon, such as a fence that lets you knock down multiple enemies at once or a double-ended chainsaw that really gets the bloodshed flowing. But it’s hardly anything new over the first game, so if you’ve killed hundreds there, don’t go expecting a change of pace here.
The only real change comes with photo taking, similar to the first Dead Rising. Frank is able to earn XP (labeled PP here) for getting some really good shots, but you’d be a fool to try and pull a camera on a zombie that’s charging towards you – unless you’re a really quick-drawing fool, that is. The system is all right, and can lead to some helpful upgrades, but you’ll probably care more for the slaughter than you will the style. Along with the main story mode (which will take you several hours, like the first game), Dead Rising 2: Off the Record also includes a new sandbox mode, where you can simply run around and get right to zombie killing, without worrying about goals or story of any kind. This is a decent relief, and a great stress-relieving mode at that. What’s more, you can invite a friend along in Xbox Live, in up to 30 co-op driven challenge missions. But once you realize you’re doing the same thing over and over (like last year and the two DLC’s after that), the appeal wears off.
Also, for that matter, Capcom, why didn’t you redo the inventory screen? It’s still a pain in the neck to maneuver through and way too easy to accidentally drop an item – and when you have the undead on your ass, the last thing you want to do is waste time picking up something you discarded. This should’ve been fixed. As far as technical presentation, the only major improvement that Off the Record really excels is loading time. They aren’t nearly as excessive this time around, which is a plus. The rest of the engine, though, is similar to last year’s game. The animation barely sparks to life, save for when you’re really using an awesome weapon. The gore effects are nice and bloody, but the frame rate can stutter if you hit someone towards the screen. And while the zombie count is still well within the 20’s and above on-screen at once, sometimes it’s hard to determine what’s what, especially when Frank’s in the middle of a flood.
The dialogue is pretty bad, too. The characters still sound as if they came from a much calmer universe than one flooded with the zombie apocalypse, and Frank sounds more annoyed with what’s happening, rather than driven. The music is okay, and there are times a doozy of a schlocky piece of dialogue stands out, but other than that, there’s nothing here to really distinguish this as an improvement in audio over the last games. We can’t help but wonder why Capcom didn’t really offer this as DLC to the original game. Most of the content is the same here. Just a thought, Capcom. It’s hard to dismiss Dead Rising 2: Off the Record, mainly because it’s just as salvageable – and in some respects, fun – as the first game, and at a fraction of the price. But there’s so much more that could’ve been done here. More areas for Frank to conquer. More co-op support for the main story mode. More story twists. More something along those lines. Fans should enjoy it, but, for us, it just covers too much of the same territory we plowed through before. Give us Dead Rising 3 already…and not Dead Rising 2.5 or 2.7.
