Dead Rising 2 Multiplayer Hands-On Impressions

You're probably not alone in thinking how neat it would be to have some sort of gameshow where you could wail mercilessly on the undead for cash money. Well, your twisted dreams are about to become video game reality, with confirmation coming today that the upcoming Capcom zombie slasher Dead Rising 2 will feature four-person multiplayer set within a fictional television show.

The name of the show where all this competitive zombie hacking takes place is Terror in Reality, an arena-like spectacle where four players go head-to-head in a series of events. The show--hosted a by a character named Tyrone King (who looks like a pimp version of The Rock, only holding a mace)--is a mix of WWE pay-per-view and bloody death sports, with the competitors garbed in what looks like motorcyle leathers. We're told that while Terror in Reality is the fiction in which the multiplayer side of Dead Rising 2 is based, the show will make some sort of appearance in the single-player campaign, although we're not quite sure exactly how it will fit into main character Chuck's story or the overall world of Dead Rising 2.

What we saw at our hands-on session at the Tokyo Game Show was four game types linked together as one Terror in Reality "show," with the points earned in one match accumulating for the following rounds. Matches were four-player affairs, with all of the game types being gruesome, simple to pick up, and, most of all, fun to play. The first was called Ramsterball. The arena is a large playfield with curved walls and several crushing towers with bumpers around their base. Each player is located inside a giant, metal ball, which you can guide by pressing a direction on the controller's left stick (you can dash with a press of the X button). The object of the game is to score points by bumping into the towers, which then crush a zombie standing idly upon its platform. The twist is that only one player's Ramsterball has the "power" to turn on the towers, represented by a soft glow around the outside of the ball. If you touch or ram the "power" player, then the ability to activate the crushing towers swaps. Playing Ramsterball is hectic, since you have to frantically chase the power player, and then, after taking his ability, you have to avoid the other competitors. And there's even an extra element of risk-and-reward should you be skilled enough to avoid the other players--zombies populate the playing arena, with the number of ghouls you run over with the ball increasing your multiplier when you do finally hit a crusher tower.

The second game--Headache--is one of our favorites, if only because it's so deliciously gruesome. The playfield is once again an open arena populated by zombies. Each competitor is armed with special hats, and the object is to jam as many of your hats as possible on zombies. You can carry only three hats at a time (you can grab more from a central dispenser), and once you're ready, you're supposed to go to the end of the play arena and press an activation button, which turns the whirring blades inside the hats on, pulping the hapless zombies' heads in a shower of gooey redness. Players also have a stick of dynamite at their disposal, which you can use to blow off hats (your competitors' and your own, so be careful).

The third game type we played featured one of the wackier weapons you'll find in Dead Rising 2: a helmet with large moose horns strapped to each side. In Pounds of Flesh, the way to win points is to use the moose horns to flick zombies onto a central platform. The more zombie weight you put on, the higher your score. Flicking zombies onto the scales isn't as easy as it sounds, and the best method we found was to charge straight at a horde of zombies and flick up at the last minute to send them flying.

The fourth and final game is sure to be a favorite. If you thought killing zombies with moose horns was cool, then just wait until you drive a motorbike armed with chainsaws on either side of the handlebars. That's your weapon of mass destruction in Slicecycles, with the simple objective being to run over as many zombies as possible within a set time limit. This is where doing well in the earlier rounds pays off, because time penalties are doled out depending on your placings as you head into the final. Placing second, for example, gives you a two-second penalty, while the penalty is four seconds for third place. That doesn't necessarily result in an automatic win for whoever is first leading into the fourth round, though, because a bonus round occurrs after the first wave of zombies have all been sliced down. This time, certain zombies within the horde had pink balloons tied to their heads, representing special score multipliers which can help steal a win.

Developer duties are being handled by Blue Castle Games (probably best known for The Bigs), and a rep told us that final decisions were still being made on just how many different types of games would be included when the game ships. And while the Blue Castle rep did confirm that Dead Rising 2 would definitely be playable online, he wasn't quite as forthcoming when it came to the question of offline or network play. We'll have more on Dead Rising 2 real soon, so keep it tuned to GameSpot for more details.