For people who own an XBox, this week was a pretty good one since we saw the release of Dead Rising 2: Case Zero. This small game acts as a prelude before Dead Rising 2, giving us a little backstory to our main character while doing its best to wet our appetite for good old fashioned zombie killing. The story follows Chuck, a man who looks eerily like President Bush, who does his best to save his little girl from a zombie infection. Evidently, a shot of the rare drug Zombex keeps the infection at bay for twelve hours after which, another shot is required. Needless to say, our hero stops at a deserted gas station whereupon his truck is stolen along with his stockpile of the serum. With only twelve hours to save his daughter in a town packed full of zombies, hilarity ensues.

Fellow zombie website Hot Zombie Action did a nice write up of the game, covering all the bases for the five dollar download. I won’t spoil the surprise of their conclusion, but I will say that they had quite a few positive things to say about it. Here’s what they had to say about the most hyped feature of the game – the weapon combo system:

Combo Cards are easily the biggest improvement in this sequel. As one of my XBL friends commented, Chuck Greene “uses both sides of his brain,” allowing him not only the ability to use a litany of commonplace items as weapons of mass undead destruction, but the ingenuity to combine these items in ways that would make MacGuyver proud. Combo cards are the recipes for these combination weapons. Some are gained by simply combining two items and creating a new weapon. Sometimes, however, simple experimentation nets you only a “Scratch Card,” which is a slightly weaker version of the weapon. I found that leveling up upgrades these Scratch Cards into Combo Cards. In addition to adding a staggering amount of variety to the available zombie killing apparati, these combo weapons also net the player additional PP per kill, thereby making them a must. Besides, most of these weapons are so damn cool/hilarious that you won’t need much incentive to make them once you’re able.

Voracious D wasn’t too happy with the revised save system. I feel your pain, brother. Not having to walk ten minutes through a zombie infested mall just so you can shut off you XBox is a slight improvement. Still, it’s one big pain in the behind to break open a map for directions then fend off the unquenchable horde on your way through town just to get out of the game. Maybe one of these days, CapCom will discover the old “press start” then “select save game” mechanic that’s been in video games since the early eighties. Maybe that will be Dead Rising 3.

In any case, I’ve enjoyed the game so far. It’s quicker than I would have liked but the story is decent. Instead of slowly building up to a horde of flesh eaters, the mass of zombies come at you right out of the gate. Unfortunately, there’s a little slowdown when too many appear. And the game feels really short. I’ve played less than an hour and I’m almost done. In any case, so far, so good. If you own an XBox you should at least give the demo a spin.

Zombie Video Games: Dead Rising 2 – Case Zero Review (hotzombieaction.com <- new window)