When is a demo not a demo?… Dead Rising 2: Case Zero Impressions

1 Sep, 2010

The Xbox Live Arcade has really come into its own in recent months. I remember the halcyon days when UNO and Bejewelled were the best you could hope for – the words ‘beginnings’ and ‘humble’ spring to mind.

However, lately we’ve been seeing meatier titles added to an ever-growing roster of genuinely impressive downloadable games, such as Playdead’s deliciously sick little platformer Limbo and even Lady Lara’s latest outing The Guardian of Light. With Dead Rising 2: Case Zero, Capcom are the first to utilize the Arcade as a springboard for their upcoming Romero-inspired zombie apocalypse sequel. Rather than a simple demo, Case Zero is in fact a prequel chapter in its own right. Set three years before Dead Rising 2, it looks the same, plays the same and stars the same main protagonist, motocross superstar Chuck Greene.

Two years on from the events of Dead Rising, the orphans infected by Carlito Keyes have turned into the flesh-eating undead and the world is in the throes of a zombie pandemic. Fleeing Las Vegas with his young daughter Katey in tow, Chuck stops for gas in the quiet little desert town of Still Creek. Shortly afterward Chuck’s truck is stolen and with it the life-saving Zombrex medication that will prevent his little girl from turning into a zombie. Chuck now has twelve hours to find and administer another dose or lose his daughter to the parasitic virus. To make matters worse, the outbreak has already spread to Still Creek and the townspeople have been transformed into a legion of walking corpses.

Gameplay-wise not much has changed since Frank West’s heyday. It’s still you versus thousands upon thousands of zombies, grabbing anything you can lay hands on to slice them, dice them and goodness knows what else. Weapons in Case Zero range from your faithful baseball bats and chainsaws to slightly wackier alternatives such as the potted cactus, to less effective arms like street cones and handbags. A ridiculous amount of items in the field can be picked up and swung or thrown in some way. However, new to Case Zero and Dead Rising 2, certain bits and pieces can be combined to make even crazier items like the Paddlesaw, a rowing oar with chainsaws strapped to either end, or my personal favourite, the Boomstick, an exceptionally nasty pitchfork-shotgun mix. Chuck levels up in exactly the same way Frank did, and as an added bonus any prestige points, upgraded stats and abilities obtained in Case Zero will carry over to Dead Rising 2.

Even the structure of the game itself is largely unchanged. Events still play out in real-time and survivors can still be found and rescued from the clutches of the evil dead, while failing to complete objectives in the often-strict time limits will generally mean curtains for someone. The much-maligned save system from the first game has undergone very subtle improvements, namely an auto-save on the completion of each main story mission, though these points aren’t consistent and a lot of progress can still be lost without trekking to a restroom to manually save your game every now and again. Luckily, there are considerably more save points than before. Like Frank, Chuck can deck himself out in all manner of weird and wonderful outfits, hats and haircuts. During my game I opted for a blonde mohican coupled with a plaid suit so garish Cher would’ve wept for it, though other options include a lovely waitress uniform, a cowboy hat or a gigantic moose head that conveniently doubles as an offensive weapon.

As a character, Chuck is infinitely more likeable than Frank West. He’s not a selfish man, rather a genuinely decent, loving father doing everything he can to keep his little girl safe, though strangely he’s also a total badass. Dead Rising 2: Case Zero is simply a very funny game, but its genius lies in that it never tries to be funny. Cut scenes are purely action-based – no cliched one-liners or lame attempts at humour here – but the sight of a middle-aged man beating a zombie to death with a stick pony will be sure to make you chuckle. Clocking in at two to three hours of gameplay with its very own set of twelve achievements, Case Zero is fantastic value for money and a wonderful introduction to what might just be my game of the year.

Dead Rising 2: Case Zero is an Xbox-exclusive download and is available now for 400 Microsoft Points. Dead Rising 2 is released on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in Europe on September 24th, with a PC version following on the 28th.