Halloween 2011: Dead Rising 2: Off the Record Review

Dead Rising 2: Off the Record $33.25

Oh, Alien Probe, where have you been all my life! The look on the poor zombies, be they fat, skinny, male, female, they all don't want it going you know where. It has electricity,but why? To be more painful, of course. The Alien Probe is a fun new item to kill the dead and it's not even a combo item. It's one of many in the brand new Dead Rising 2: Off the Record out now and just in time for Halloween.

 With zombies hungry for human meat, I'm glad Chuck Greene Frank West is there to help. Yeah, you see the premise is Chuck Greene is no longer the hero, but Frank West from the original game. With Frank comes new moves, new weapons, new weapons combos and of course a camera to take funny pictures of all the carnage. One of Frank's moves is grabbing a zombie for a quick picture, it captures the scene and let's you know that this game is fun.

Fun is in the form of the new Sandbox mode. No time limit, no missions, just laying the smack down to zombies. Fans have wanted this for so long and finally they have the power not to be bother to save a little girls life, but pop a zombie into a trash can that looks like a rocket, powered by a fire extinguisher, that careens around freezing the undead and then explodes. Yes, that really happens. Thanks Uranus Zone, the name alone telling you it's up for some bad jokes.

I had so much fun in the new are, the theme park fun land of the Uranus Zone, it's where I got my Alien probe, but where I also tricked zombies to be smashed and flung into meaty bits, by them not paying attention to safety guide lines and go into into rides.

This was all in Sandbox mode. Sandbox mode is a free for all of fun and punching brain munchers with gloves covered in nails. I promised myself to put down the controller in an hour after starting playing, but couldn't. I was having to much fun looking for new combo weapons to make or go to places unhindered having to find Zombrex. I built a hammer, not unlike Thor's and melted what was left of zombie's brains as I smashed it into the ground and their faces.

Sandbox mode has challenges to complete for fun, too. Games like how many undead you can kill or how much leveling up you can do, but they get stranger and they aren't forced. They are just around places as star icons, that are there only to enhance pleasure.

Frank West brings the insanity right away as he jumps out of a helicopter in this new mode, that makes this game more fun to me than the original. In the original you had a story mode, and you do once again. Now, not only is there Sandbox mode, but story mode with a new version of the events from the second game now starring Frank West. Frank West is just a sillier dude than Chuck and doesn't have to worry about a little girl getting Zombrex. No, you have to worry about yourself. I played story mode for a while and it's great Capcom made it for fans, but I wanted to go back to Sandbox mode just to beat up zombies with no rules. Your points and what your wearing are saved over to each mode, so you can keep on those rad Proto Man Boots you find in the toy store in any mode.

Story mode is fine, but takes slightly different turns, because Frank is know the star, you"ll know that right away with his wrestling match of utter nonsense with fire. The creator of the game, who also created Mega Man, must be a weird fellow. I don't know what he thinks an average conversation between to human beings should be. In fact from watching Japanese horror movies and comedies it seems like some part of Japanese culture is to make unrealistic dialogue for people.

For under $40 bucks as I write this, this game is a great deal and scary good to play. You"ll get lost in all you can do. There's even co-op. Oh man, I didn't even mention the laser eyes, I love laser eyes.  Setting a field of zombies on fire with your eyes never felt so good or so right!

If you haven't played Dead Rising 2 or love zombie movies pick this game up. It's has gross out dirty humor up... up where I stuck those alien probes.