Game Review – Dead Rising 2

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Ooooo…. It’s Occcccctober, the month of the year that belongs to the supernatural.

Forget those glittery vampires, supermodel werewolves, and whatever Fred is, today I’m talkin about Zombies – err again.

About a month ago I reviewed the DLG, Dead Rising 2: Case 0, a prequel to a sequel that I’m reviewing today.

I deemed Case 0 good – so will the full sequel follow suit, or turn out as disappointing as a certain ‘Halo’ game that will be forever out of ‘Reach’?

*old 80’s previously theme plays*

Previously on the Chuck Greene show, starting Chuck Greene, Chuck Greene and his small, cute as a button daughter Katey Greene escapes the zombie outbreak of Still Creek and made it to Fortune City. Here, Chuck Greene, will compete in the zombie killing PPV reality show ‘Terror is Reality’ XVIII to earn enough money for Katey’s Zombrex medicine. Without those day-to-day shots, poor Katey will suffer a fate worse than death – undeath!

 

Chuck Greene won’t let that happen!

However during his awesome, awesomeness at the show – disaster strikes! And Fortune City too is overrun by zombies! Through the power of righteous skills, Chuck Greene and Katey make it to safety but are trapped for 72 hours within the lost city. Now, Chuck Greene, must survive for three days til the military comes all the while making sure Katey gets her Zombrex every day, finding out who unleashed zombie apocalypse on the city, and clearing his name in the process.

* theme ends climatically*

Chuck Greene is motocross, extreme sport’s pro which means he can get creative when taking out zombies. Sure smacking them around with a folding chair is great fun, and reducing them to a fine mist with a shotgun is always a classic. However it takes a real man to duct tape two chainsaws together (but only one’s required in game) with a large double ended paddle and go Skorge on a bunch of dead heads. Of course killing zombies is thirty works; fortunately Greene is also an expert mixologist. Taking one of any drink and blending it (with a blender of course) with another will not only heal him of damage once ingested but give him a special ability depending on the mixture. He’s a scholar too, by keeping any useful reading material in his inventory it will enhance his certain skills over all. Finally as a man of action anytime Greene kills zombies, does something cool, or kills zombies doing something cool, he gets bonus experience which will help him level faster. Making him stronger, hold more items, and b-slap the necro right out of zombafied booties; in short a good thing.

So go out all and be as awesome as Chuck Greene.

Now these ain’t the fast zombies of the Left 4 Dead series; they are the slow, plodding, barely coordinated threat we all know and love. Don’t understate them, what they lack in speed, they most than make up for in number – they’re everywhere.

Once they see you they’ll very slowly pursue to eat your face.

Still not threatened? Realize this. Your weapons will eventually break, you guns will run out of bullets (and no reloading – sorry), and to make matters worst they become almost feral at night making evening sorties suicide. Still they’re chicken feed compared to the psychopaths. Psychopaths aren’t zombies; they’re humans who for one reason or another lost their humanity – becoming killing machines to friend or foe alike. They armed, armored, and completely out of their minds; the ones you face will push your survival skills you their limit.

DR2 is like in the first game, players will fight zombies while getting from point A to point B and back again. However progression always on mission timers; meaning the players only have a set limit to any mission including get Katey her Zombrex. Waste too much time racking up the kills and you might fail a mission or lose the game entirely. Which brings up one more thing, Greene and his daughter aren’t the only ones trying to survive. There are others trying to out run the rotting teeth of zombies as well and could very well help or hurt Chuck’s goals. So you can either help them and may get a reward (and sometimes goodness is its own reward) or go a little psycho yourself and err… drop the dead weight.

The Goods:

Zombie Playground: A true sandbox title and I’m not kidding here people there is way too much to do here. Ignore missions, ignore survivors, heck even ignore Katey (if you can sleep at night afterward) and you can spend hours just:

• Putting on different clothes (no gender limits)
• Eating
• Drinking (and vomiting)
• Gambling
• Robbing ATM’s (and cash registers)
• Joyriding
• Bull riding (mechanical only)
• Strip clubbing
• Lawn darts (with or without TNT strapped to it)
• Playing with toys
• Masques
• Celebrate the 4^th (No matter where you are)
• Photography (Psyche)
• Freestyle Parkour
• Football (with or without grenade strapped to it)
• Baseball
• Basketball
• Golf
• Volleyball
• Free-weight training
• Testing your strength
• Money Booth Money Machine (Grab that dough)
• Etc. (I hope you get the point here)

Combo Weapons: Not to make light of the picture taking mechanic of the first game; but wiring a goblin (clearly Blanka) mask with a car battery, put it on a zombie, and watch it plus all its friends close by fry like chicken-steak – is a much better way of earning more points (fun too).

Co-Op: What’s better that one Chuck Greene fighting zombies, putting down psychos, and creating lightsabers out of jewels and a flashlight? Its two Chuck Greene’s riding little girl bikes, abusing survivors, and putting various items in inappropriate places. Besides being absolutely fun the game is just way easier with two people playing, especially with the psychos. One, for example, took me ten minutes by myself (I’m guessing); while helping a player online with the same one took, at least, 30 seconds to put down.

Terror is Reality XVIII: Also known as Dead Rising 2’s multiplayer. Capcom gets extra points for this one because instead of going the: ‘Deathmatch/Team Deathmatch and the rest’ spiel they came up with fun, zombie based, mini games played by one of the other contestants (Red, Blue, Green, and Yellow) in the ‘Terror is Reality’ game show. From zombie pinball to grinding them into juice and shooting it into the clowns mouth – it’s fun for the whole family (except for the zombies). However the true genius to this isn’t just playing for pride or bragging rights (that’s a bonus); it played for money, money, money! The better you play, the higher your score, the larger your cash prize is – money which you can reinvest into your single player for more magnificence mayhem. Greed is good people, greed is good.

The Bad:

Timed Missions: The only thing that makes a fun game like DR2 a real chore is the timed missions. I know this sort of thing is all part of the zombie experience or I could just ignore the missions all together, but being a straight up goodie good like I am I can’t just ignore a cry for help – especially when every second matters. That doesn’t mean I want it to rob me of my fun time (see Zombie playground); I’ll help people when I’m good and ready – right now I’m putting my 5^th servebot head on a zombie.

Psychos: They are the de-facto bosses of a world full of zombies; creative, funny, and somewhat creepy, they bring the pain for players and I wouldn’t see it any other way. However some are cheap, really cheap, and OMFG cheap. I won’t say ‘how’ they’re cheap (some things should be learned on your own), but remember to bring at least two blended drinks and you should be fine.

This is the game I was looking for – fun, exciting, challenging, online, inventive, and worth my $60 plus tax I’d paid to get this game. Timed missions and cheap psycho’s aside, this game is perfect for me, but not perfect enough for triple platinum unfortunately. Still Dead Rising 2 is the best game to release for the fall so far. So stop playing Halo Reach for goodness sakes; I know some of you are still doing it (why???). This game has all the goods and then some; if anything you’ll play it into submission, do everything, buy everything, wipe the zombie menace from the face of Fortune City – and players won’t regret a single moment of it – that’s an Omnigamer guarantee.

Ranking: Platinum

Mini Game Review – Angry Birds

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Smart phones and media players can do it all these days.

They can take pictures, play music, surf the web, make tweets, Google earth, watch movies, so on and so forth.

However I don’t buy they’ll ever be a threat to the handheld gaming market (maybe PSP but I digress).

That being said, some of what they do have can kill time just as good as any handheld game – Angry Birds is a fine example.

Now how best can I tell the tale of strife, loss, and vengeance just as the immortal bard would tell it? I think it is beyond even me to translate accurately, so this video will have to do:

A picture is worth a thousand words, while a YouTube trailer is worth a million laughs – now you see why they’re called Angry Birds.

Now the birds don’t fly, but they do have other abilities to teach those green pigs a very serious lesson about poaching. The reds are general ‘soldiers’ they’re not too light or too heavy and can be used in many ways. Blues are very light and weak but once tapped (played this game on an iPod touch) they split into three’s causing wide spread damage. Yellows are the aggressive ones, tap them and they’ll make a b-line to where ever he’s pointed at. The tough black birds are the only ones that can bust through stone with ease, but they always bring more bang to the battlefield – a tap will cause them to explode. Finally the old codger white birds actually give the pigs all the eggs they want – the catch? They explode. Yes these birds aren’t messing around, if birds like these were real – well let’s just say I’d welcome our feathery overlords.

The game Angry Birds is simple to learn but tough to master; like I said the bird don’t fly but they do get shot out of a slingshot via pulling back on your finger and letting go – your goal, wiping out all the green pigs on the screen. Simple you say? Not really. The pigs don’t always stay out in the open, sometimes they’re holed in odd (yet familiar) structures made from glass, wood, stone, or a combination of the three materials. In order to get pass these obstacles players must use the birds they’re given, have a sense of timing, an eye for distance, and a great deal of luck. If you have all that, then all the those piggies will cry ‘we-we-we!’ all the way home with one bird (mileage may vary). If not, don’t feel bad, the first hour is always the hardest.

In summary when I heard this was cnet’s best cheap app to have for the iPhone that also turns out to be a pretty fun and challenging game – I was skeptical. Well one dollar and many weeks later not only am I a believer of the Angry Birds phenomenon but I also converted almost all the Armada staff into it as well. What left to say? I know the economy is bad but if you want a simple, but addicting game for your idevice for a dollar Angry Birds is your only choice. It’s colorful pig on poultry violence at its finest.

Ranking: