Dead Rising 2: Case Zero Review

Dead Rising 2: Case Zero DLC
Xbox 360
Capcom

Case Zero is the prequel to the upcoming zombie smasher ‘Dead Rising 2’ from our crazy friends in Capcom. In this DLC you get to take control of Chuck Greene, a man with a past in motor cross who has a big dilemma. His Daughter Kathy has been bitten by a dead meat sack while escaping Las Vegas, to make things worse Chuck decides to stop for a pee or whatever in a little shitville town gas station. Things soon go tits up when the truck with all the precious, pricy ‘zombrex’, a drug that holds off the zombie infection, gets stolen and he gets stranded in this small town of ‘Still Creek’. Here’s where the fun starts, commence Zombie dismemberment!
The overall objective of the game is to build a motorbike so you and your daughter can ride off into the sunset before the military arrive to cleanse the town. This involves searching around for bike parts, fighting your way through hordes of the undead, meeting some helpless survivors and of course a run in with the local fucked up, shit crazy redneck boss. During all this you will have the opportunity to see the new physics and weapon combos in action, along with much improved survivor AI...Thank Christ!! Because the last lot were as dumb as a bunch of retarded rocks!

The clock is always ticking in case zero, the timelines given to get things sorted are tight and like the original are quite punishing if you make a mess of things and leave yourself short of time, frustrating is one way to describe this and ‘Aww Fuck It!’ is another. You will also notice a big difference in the overall feel of the controls, it is much improved over ‘Dead Rising’ and far less annoying.
There is also plenty of zombie killing antics to keep you happy with a wide variety of weapons that help you paint the town red, literally. Take a chainsaw, take another chainsaw, get a paddle, and what have you got? Canoeing… Jason Voorhees style! Chuck also gets to use shotguns, machine guns, broadswords, moose heads, handbags, etc. Nearly anything that’s not nailed down can be used as a weapon to chop, crush, blind, skew, run over or splat the drooling meat heads and this is where the true fun and guts of the game lie.

Following on in the blood splattered footsteps of the original ‘Dead Rising’ there are the silly costumes for you to change into, although smashing heads in the maids dress is just wrong, it’s funny and sickly pleasing… but wrong! The blender makes a welcome return and allows you to mix all sorts of food types together for those special smoothes that keep you alive or boost your abilities. For the Alco’s among us you can mix the booze together, one bottle of bourbon not enough, hell mix two. But remember drinking too much alcohol will make you sick… but the zombies do love a pile of puke to lick or slip on... yum! The level up books also make a reappearance but only some of the abilities you learn from them are permanent while others last for a short time. The whole experience is all very familiar, yet all quite new in a strange way.

Yes there are a few flaws in the game, loading times, graphics glitches and the lack of audible speech when dealing with survivors... all of which I’m hoping will be addressed in the full game, because if the loading times are that bad in ‘Dead Rising 2’ that will really suck zombie balls. Having said that, this is just a ‘demo’, all be it for 400msp, it’s a great mini game at that price and the ability to carry across your character points from ‘case zero’ into the main game is cool… up to a max of level 5, which will no doubt come in handy for Chucks next adventure.

At the end of the day this game is designed to give you a taste of the blood and guts that waits on a much grander scale and to basically get you started on the zombie paved road to Vegas, and boy does it deliver with every squishy footstep. It is a riot from start to finish, and I found myself playing it again and again. So if you’re a Zombie fan, flash the cash and get it! Trust me - there’s some serious blood and guts fun to be had with a bucket load of zombie bashing in ‘Dead Rising 2: Case Zero’.

Buy it, Play it, Love it!