Dead Rising 2 hands-on: One hell of a mess

You’ll definitely want to venture, though, and not just to save lippy caricatures from the zombie banqueting table, or put down the odd unhinged survivor turned pattern-boss. It’s hard to nail an exact ratio just yet, but Fortune City is definitely a hell of a lot bigger than Willamette Parkview Mall, and a hell of a lot richer.

There are familiar sights – food courts, shopfronts and manicured lawns – but there’s also a full-blown gladiator arena for players with a taste for the dramatic, plus by-the-by activities like a giant novelty crapshooting board and a trailer where Chuck can pimp his own stunt bike. Underground maintenance roads provide something in the way of an as-the-crow-flies route between plazas, though don’t expect an uneventful trip – the depths swarm with skin-jobs, and it can be a long way between toilet breaks.

Co-op promises to amuse.

Restrooms are once again your save points, and while Capcom has loosened the screws somewhat by chopping the original’s single slot in three, the more cautious will doubtless still bridle at the absence of an inexhaustible ‘save anywhere’ feature. As before, the bitter pill is sweetened by a persistent experience system redolent of Ratchet & Clank: succumb to the hordes or let a primary mission deadline slip your grasp, and you’ll have the option of restarting from scratch with all unlocked abilities, stat hikes and Combo Cards intact.

Not all Dead Rising 2′s archaisms are questions of taste. Given that 99.99% of the AI cast has urgent designs on your jugular, the last thing this game needs is an elderly, over-extended dialogue system. To get another survivor to join your party, you’ll need to hustle up against them and hit B to catch their attention, then either mash Y to flip through single-sentence speech boxes or brawl within shouting distance till the game decides, at length, that the feckless sod might just be better off in Chuck’s custody.

This process grows more aggravating still if the feckless sod in question is surrounded by objects, as the ‘speak’ button is also the ‘pick up’ button, and immeasurably aggravating if the feckless sod is armed, as these stylised Las Vegans aren’t very particular about where they strike or shoot. During one early mission we attempted (several times, if you must know), Chuck spent an action-packed five minutes bouncing between the shotgun muzzles of two allegedly friendly hicks.

Several combinations are possible using the same item. How about a jewel-blower next, Chuck?

A touch of rough-edged implementation is, however, forgiveable in a game for which rough-and-readiness is both a survival methodology and a visceral reward. Playing Dead Rising 2 is like ordering a pizza with all the optional toppings and eating it astride a Buckin’ Bronco, or tossing a bunch of dosed-up fighting cocks into a tumble dryer (come to think of it, those analogies suit the better lit, better textured, incomparably lurid visuals too).

A more elegant means of handling NPC natter would have been nice, but the game’s inelegance on this front is, at least, in keeping with the overall vibe. Besides, you can always chainsaw your irritating comrades in half. Or power-drill them through the ribcage.

These are sights and sounds that crave to be shared, naturally, so it’s just as well there are now four-player competitive and two-player co-op modes (online only, and untested as yet) to balance, to some degree, the baffling and criminal absence of the original’s camera mechanic – a crucial facet of its kleptomaniac charm, and one that might have been reintroduced alongside an online photo album feature, or even fattened out into a cinema mode a la Halo 3.

Edwin's determined to try this one in reality. Been nice knowing you all.

It’s hard to whinge too hard about unexploited Kodak moments, though, when you’ve been handed the beating heart of Las Vegas on a platter and invited to stick pencils through it. From what we’ve played of our feature-complete Xbox 360 build, Dead Rising 2 is nothing more nor less than an already winning formula writ extra, extra large. It has all the self-restraint and subtlety of an exploding abattoir, and for that we suspect we’re going to love it very much indeed.

Game’s out for Xbox 360 and PS3 in Europe on 24th September; the North American and PC versions follow on 28th September. Japan gets it on the 30th.