For those of you chomping at the bit for plenty of “chainsaw on paddle in zombie action”, the fine folks over at Ars Technica managed to play a little through the current build and they love it. While they enjoy the deadly seriousness of a zombie outbreak, they simply adore the ingrained absurdity of crafting your own zombie killing weapons while wearing a bikini.

Having seen some stills of the protagonist, cruising the streets in a wheelchair armed with miniguns, I gotta say, I’m laughing a little myself.

Stacie, from Tape it or Die (a site dedicated for crafting zombie killing weapons in Dead Rising 2), noticed my displeasure about the first game and sent me a laundry list of improvements from the second one. Here’s what she sent me:

• More zombies than any other videogame – Battle literally thousands of zombies on-screen at any given time
• Combine items with tape to create your own ingenious & twisted weapons
• Increase your kills with these powerful weapon upgrades
• 2 player co-op mode
• Numerous multiplayer challenges for 4 players based on Terror is Reality
• Improved vehicle system – Twice as many as before!
• More satisfying physics and mechanics
• New ability to add armor and weapons to vehicles
• New plot, characters, locations, enemies
• Fortune City, Terror Is Reality, Zombrex, CURE
• Continuation of the Dead Rising story
• New hero with more compelling motivations
• Branching plot
• “Ticking Clock” – Complete the game in 72 hours or die trying!
• 50% bigger world than Dead Rising 1
• 20x the zombies per level
• More psychopaths and weapons
• More customization options for player (clothing options etc)
• New save system
• CP level up system

While the new features sound pretty cool, the revised save system sounds worth the price of admission alone. There was nothing worse in the first game than having to take ten minutes to backtrack through the mall just to save the game. Especially when your significant other was staring at you, pointing at her watch.

With Case Zero coming out next week, I’m sure we’ll be reading a lot about this game.

Jewels + flashlight = lightsaber? The joys of Dead Rising 2 (arstechnica.com <- new window)