By Chase Burgess

Dead Rising 2 is the follow up to Capcom’s 2006 zombie hack and slash Dead Rising. Although DR2 is much of the same as the original, that’s not a bad thing. Slashing your way through hordes of zombies with an endless supply of weapons feels gratifying.

You take the role of Chuck Green, a motocross racer who is in dire need of money to keep his daughter form turning into a zombie. You find yourself in a Las Vegas-esq city called Fortune City. You find yourself competing in a game show where you ride motorcycles, killing zombies for the entertainment of the crowd. Shortly after the completion of the show, an explosion rips a hole in a security fence allowing zombies to roam free; and the real game begins.

The game consists of you traveling the area around your bunker, searching for survivors who have held up in random stores and kiosks in the walkways. Every now and then a psychopath will appear and you have to kill the boss to unlock certain weapons and areas.

The actual story part of the game takes place over 72 in-game hours, roughly 8 real hours, where you balance saving survivors, killing hordes of zombies, and finding the medicine “Zombrex” to save your daughter who was bit by zombies and needs the drug once every 24 hours. You and the people you save must hold out until the military can arrive and help you escape the city. Depending on how you play the game, there are six possible ways the game can end.

Creativity is the name of the game in DR2, with customized weapons added from its predecessor. Throughout the game you unlock combo cards, which allows you to put two weapons together to create an even more powerful weapon. One card allows you to combine a box of nails with a propane tank to create a bomb that can take out over a dozen zombies at once. Another card allows you to combine a chainsaw with a canoe oar, creating a weapon that can half about four zombies at once. For the more classic zombie killing fans, another card allows you to combine a box of nails with a baseball bat. Guns are also available in the game, but crushing a zombies skull with a melee weapon feels more personal, especially if they just zombified your best friend.

The moan of the zombie hoards are never far from ear shot and make for an intense setting when trying to reach the other side of the map. Whenever you encounter a psychopath, the eerie ambiance does not disappoint. Oh, and having 7,000 plus zombies on screen at any one time can make for a terrifying, or exciting, fight.

Even with all of its high accomplishments, it is not without its low points. When guiding people around a group of zombies, the AI can be buggy and difficult to work with, glitches in missions and the clock can make it impossible to continue the story, and the multiplayer aspect of the game feels half hearted.

DR2 is a great game and a must have in any zombie fan’s collection of video games. DR2 is rated M for mature, and is available on both Xbox 360 and PS3 and can be picked up on Amazon.com for $15.28. Dead Rising 2 gets a 4/5.