Moose On The Loose: Don a horned helmet in the Pounds of Flesh multi- player challenge.
“Our main focus was to stay true
to the franchise but create a more ex- pansive world for our fans to play in,” says Dead Rising 2 producer Shin- saku Ohara. “In Dead Rising 2, you have the wide open City of Sin – ‘For- tune City’ – as your playground. Al- though the idea of taking regular items and utilizing them as super zombie-killing weapons is the same as in the first game, we have taken it to a new level by introducing combo weapons. “Combo weapons make mas-
sacring zombies even more enjoy- able,” he continues, “as two items and a roll of duct tape can create the ultimate undead killing machine. For instance, let’s take two pretty stan- dard items: a garden rake and a car battery. On their own, pretty ineffec- tive, but once combined you have an electrified zombie prod.” If you think this sort of creative car-
nage could only be borne from a genre buff, you’d be right. The Japan- ese creator of Dead Rising, Keiji Ina- fune (who is an executive producer at Capcom and head of global R&D) is a huge horror film fan. And one who re- cently delved into moviemaking him- self when he directed Zombrex: Dead Rising Sun, a stand-alone narrative set in the Dead Rising universe. It fol- lows two brothers who attempt to find safe haven during a zombie out- break, but ultimately discover that some humans pose as big of a threat to their survival as the undead do.
(The webisodes can be viewed at deadris-
ingsun.com and on Xbox Live). While Zombrex: Dead Rising Sun helps
expand the overall universe of the franchise, there’s also a playable prologue available called Dead Rising 2: Case Zero (see sidebar review) that bridges a portion of the gap be- tween the original game and the sequel, and also introduces gamers to the series’ new protagonist, Chuck Greene, and his daugh- ter Katey. Dead Rising 2 takes place five years after
the incident depicted in the original and two years after Case Zero. Players take on the role of ex-motocross star Greene, who has come to Las Vegas to compete in a humans vs. zombies live game show called Terror is Reality. He needs to win the big cash prize so he can pur- chase the Zombrex that his daughter re- quires everyday, or else she’ll suc- cumb to the in- fection. During the competi- tion, how- e v e r ,
there’s another outbreak and Chuck is framed for unleashing thousands of flesh- eaters onto the streets of Fortune City. When gameplay begins, he has 72 hours to save both his daughter and his reputation. “The mission-style, or as we like to call it
‘case-style’ gameplay, will still be preserved since there are time limits set for each mis- sion, but the wide open environment of For- tune City also allows you to have some fun sandbox play time,” explains Ohara. “Mis- sions include finding Zombrex for Katey, saving other survivors along the way and fighting a new slew of psychos as you try to clear your name and learn the truth [behind] the outbreak. The out- rageous backdrop of Sin City will have
you running through brightly lit and randomly themed casinos, the Fortune City strip and the battlefield of Terror is Reality.” As with the scope of
the game, Dead Rising 2 also expands upon the original’s gameplay me- chanics in two partic- ularly notable ways. The first being the addition of online co-op play, which allows friends to casually p o p
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