Dead Rising 2 (Xbox 360/PS3)

[Synthesthesia]

What a nightmare, having to keep track of every weapon in the game is frantic. I almost lost all hope when I had used all the Novelty items and didn't get S - Laughter, but when I found out that holding X on some items does an alternative kill/move (which I thought only worked on combo weapons, go figure), I went back and used a toy rabbit using the slam move and it popped up. Phew!.

I've just gone through all the S - Laughter ones last night and didn't get anything How do you do a 'slam' with the toy rabbit?

[Taka]

I've just gone through all the S - Laughter ones last night and didn't get anything How do you do a 'slam' with the toy rabbit?

Holding down X with some weapons gives you an alternative attack, with pressing X whilst jumping giving yet another alternative attack.

[buster_broon]

How long did it take to kill all 1000 using that method? Killing 72,000 was pretty tedious so I might give myself some time before I jump back into the driving seat so to speak.

it wasnt that long at all and i got the feeling that things carry over from saves

like i decided to go for the wearing 10 items of clothing and the achievement clicked in after the 5th item i think, so it definately remembers from previous saves

the 1000 gas zombies was less than half an hour because in the underground tunnels there are plenty of them

[Kaosu]

Alternatively, you can use the motorbike with chainsaws attached which moves faster. Also a good way to get 'Wrong King Of Chopper' if you have yet to.

Those 72,000 kills were rediculous. There's little time for messing around as I only had three hours in-game time left until the deadline when I finished.

Only got TIR events left now... eugh.

[Sketcz]

Finished this yesterday, having never experienced the first DR.

Very disappointed. Something I've not read in any reviews or commentary is that DR is basically 90% escort missions and 10% fetch quests. The two worst possible design elements every conceived of in games.

The developers behind Rogue Squadron even once said: "Everyone hates escort missions, that's why we got we this one out of the way in mission 2 and made it easy."

DR2 is very easy and I never had trouble even when using only a single save file. Anyone who complains about the psychos must be new to games - htye have the complexity of a NES game boss. The patterns are there, obvious, and quite manageable even at a fairly low level. The only one I had trouble with was the chef, due to recharging health. It's actually a lot like a really boring scrolling fighter, except with apparently 7000 enemies ons screen, and the need to play any given level in reverse as you traipse back to the start. You mash one attack button while walking, eat food found in unsavoury places, fight a boss, repeat.


My problem with this game, and why I now hate it, is I was expecting something entirely different. I'd seen colleagues playing the first DR for review, but never paid much attention. In my mind, I then built up a mental image of a tense survival horror where you needed to ration items and avoid the hordes of zombies. Something akin to the first Resident Evil, where I'd sit in a save room, muttering to myself: "I have 5 shotgun shells left, and there's 10 zombies between me and the next save... Can I make it?"

DR2 is less about survival and more about arcade-style silliness. Weapons regenerate. Healing items regenerate. Glass barricades, vehicles, pretty much everything is transient and regenerating - there is no continuity between the world and your actions. So DR degenerates into leaving the safe house, making the knife gloves from the nearby sports store, then doing an infuriatingly boring escort mission.

By the time I reached level 30 or so I really couldn't be ****ed any more, so proceeded to kill most survivors I came across. What's that? You want me to fetch you a drink? Find your mother? Bring food? Change clothes? Pay you money? **** you and your asshole behaviour, it's time for KNIFE DENTISTRY.

People say DR2 is exactly like DR1, in which case the DR series is like some kind of ****ed up joke, which utterly wastes the potential of its scenario - who ever thought escort missions and fetch quests are anything other than redundant garbage design ideas needs firing from the industry. This is precisely the same reason I hated ICO. I am not anyone's baby sitter.

I suppose part of the reason I dislike it is the reason I dislike Resident Evil 4. I want survival horror in my zombie games, not Governor Arnie style macho heroics with all guns blazing and pecks flexing. I want limited ammo, limited resources, limited supplies, limited time, limited space, and an ever encroaching threat of zombies which means no place is ever safe and you can never rest or breath easy. This is why I liked the original Resi games. I like having a limited number of save ribbons and not enough ammo. Fighting zombies should be a war of attrition, with you on the losing side, grossly outnumbered and without the needed resources.

I want a zombie game with an insanely high difficult and based around a feeling of desperation and hopelessness, like a Romero film. Where every action is remembered, so 6 hours later, the fact you left a door open, or broke a glass window to steal some guns, will come back to haunt you. I want one where avoidance is better than confrontation.

The best bit of the game is when I realised I could traverse a long section of the Silver Strip via rooftop - not that I needed to. Early zombies are so slow and harmless.


Still, I suppose DR2 was fun for a few hours, in a kind of mindless, casual way.

[buster_broon]

*snip*

So 8.5/10 then I guess

[Sketcz]

More like a 5 for me. I'd say any magazine which rated it higher than 7 is crazy.

Another problem is the weapon building. Like Yahtzee said online, the weapon combinations are ridiculous and arbitrary in their restrictions, like puzzles in old PC adventures. A broom and machete are fine, but a broom and bowie knife/chef's knife/sword/etc won't work. The whole system is so arbitrary that I couldn't stand even thinking about it.

And I was excited about it at first, since I invented a whole bunch of awesome weapons in my mind, none of which existed in-game. The whole game is so simple. There's no better word for it, it's just a very simple game. Like a game made for small children. Ooh, look Billy, the square block goes in the square hole, and the triangle in the triangle hole.

I stuck with knife gloves and ignored the rest - if the system is based around intellectual simplification, rather any kind of intelligent creativity, why bother with it? I was insulted by how restrictive it was.

Aww man, the more I think about his game the more I dislike it - and not for any reason anyone else says. For me it's too easy, too shallow, too casual, too simple, too basic, and without enough complexity or continuity to your actions. I want to see a Russian developer make DR3, and obfuscate it with so many layers of esoteric mechanical bull****, only a select band of diehard gamers will even be able to understand it, let alone play it.

4/10

[buster_broon]

Maybe I dont expect too much from games like combining every single thing in the world j to a game

Guess it's like saying every time you crashed a car in grand theft auto you could wait for the pick up truck to collect it and wait for insurance assessors to arrive and inspect the scene

I did have some difficulty on a few of the early psychos when I was sub level 10, but now they are all pretty simple

I've not even tried to do much combo card action onany of the playthroughs that ive done

I like how it's never the same and with most games if you play them through multiple times it's all very similar

[Dogg Thang]

I agree with you on the combinations, Sketcz. I think it's a great idea and love some of the weapons but the number of combinations is quite low compared with the amount of items that have the wrench. So most of my combining has been me trying objects that don't work and getting frustrated by it. And, as you say, some remarkably similar combinations don't work.

I do really like the idea though and love some of the end results. I just think there should be way more of them really so that failure to success ration shifts dramatically.

[Sketcz]

I do really like the idea though and love some of the end results. I just think there should be way more of them really so that failure to success ration shifts dramatically.

I love the idea too - and I too would have liked to see a more versatile system. For example all blades of a certain size are categorised as "blades", and therefore any can be combined to the broom.

It would have been great if they'd gone to town with it, and you could combine any wrench item to another, even if it resulted in a useless piece of garbage.

Alone in the Dark had a great combination system, where anything pretty much could be joined to another, even if it made something useless. Like an empty plastic bottle with a hole in it, a hanky stuffed in the top, and a glow stick stuck on the side.

AitD was closer to what I was expecting this to be. One of the best games this generation (PS3 version, I hear the 360 one isn't very good).

[Atticus]

I really enjoyed playing Case 0, it reminted me how much fun I had with the original Dead Rising ... but for some reason I just can't seem to get motivated with Dead Rising 2. The setting doesn't seem to draw me in like the Mall did in the first game. It feels too big and bland whereas the mall was just big enough to feel like home after a few trips round it.

I don't know ... i just don't love it like I did the first.

Might stick with it, see if it gets any better. Hope it gets better.

[kernow]

[Dogg Thang]

Well I finished this earlier this evening. Overall, I enjoyed it but felt the whole way through that they were shooting for a C grade. They didn't stretch themselves in any way and didn't take any chances whatsoever.

Nevertheless, I reckon they achieved that C grade with ease. A nice shiny C for Dead Rising 2.

It kept me playing, keeping me interested enough to go through once without bothering with the cases and then going through it again to play through the story. So that's a good sign - I'm far more inclined to drop games these days, if they don't hold my interest. It looked pretty good. Mechanics worked about as well as I expected, coming from the first. And there were tons and tons of zombies and a whole lot of ways to kill them.

I find myself without a huge amount to say about it though. Except to say I very much hope that, if they try again, they try a hell of a lot harder. Is it me or does Capcom have a history of playing it too safe with sequels? How many REs did we have to go through before they mixed it up even slightly? Mansion, secret lab, wait for countdown and rocket launcher. They played it too safe here too.

[buster_broon]

I'm more or less finished with it, the only trophies left are eating everything, wearing everything and using all weapons

I can't do the online stuff either but achieved everything else including zombie genocide master 2 which was easier than I thought

Most fun I had was duct tape ftw because some of the weapon mixtures are just awesome and fun especially the pitchfork and drill motor using heavy attack

Managed to see the S, A, D & F endings

[FelixofMars]

I do agree with Sketcz, part of the reason I rented this one. That said I don't agree on some things. They have done some massive improvements to the game to make it more enjoyable but ultimately it feels more tame than the last game to me. I wouldn't say casual however just too basic considering how big it feels. I think it is very shallow and doesn't seem like they want to bother moulding it into something great.

I kind of knew after the first game and how they loved the cutscence and those bloody psychos we where not going to get along. I did purchace the Case Zero arcade game and rinse that and I think that's the problem as a tiny arcade game it kind works and feel really nice to play.

However as a full release it feels kind of that its dragging out a very simple story with these bloody useless cretins who insist to get stuck in a sea of zombies. To be honest I like the survivors but I get frustrated by the fact you can visit the areas before the magic clock decided they are there and no one, come back a few minutes later and they have built themselves an army barracks to defend themselves from zombies.

Personally I think both Sketcz and I will never get the game we want, I think he wants something more hardcore but ultimately more about pure survival using your wit to make traps and amazing weapons. I do like this idea as well but I don't think I really want it as hardcore.

I really liked all the silly stuff you can do, I miss not being able to take photos as well (maybe I haven't got that far) but I would be happy if they ripped all the terrible storyline/cut sense/psycho bull****e out and went with something much more about customising your gear and just having fun outwitting zombies.

Also the psycho BS got on my wick again after my rant about the first game. I did up to about chapter 3 rescued a few survivors and was going to all the map markers seeing what I could do in the area in terms of what I thought was another rescue.

But nope it was some double hard (at my level) psycho who killed some of my survivors in about one or two hits then wailed on me. I hate it, its complete crap, there is no way to back out of it most of them have long cutscenes that if the you play the way Capcom intended you end up watching again and again, iif not your in store for bloody load times regardless.

They could have marked it somehow to say no don't go in here this room contains someone who will annoy you. But no no such warning from Capcom.

Also why are there looters running around who seem oblivious to the Zombies and just want to loot everything and call you gramps. Its annoying and unbelievable when everyone else is trying to fight for their lives even people with shotguns these idiots are running around with torches only.

Blargh, makes my blood boil its a turd sandwich of a game. It looks okay on the outside they you get down to the filling and find its all poo. The shame is I really think they could 'rescue' it but at the cost of losing all their fans that like a broken badly designed game.

I am compelled to play it out of liking the idea at least, even though its a rough diamond. almost a coal :P

At the point I feel like wrenching the disc out and using it as a Frisbee to scare my cats I will know its time to return it to the rental place.