A zombie killers paradise!
The good: weapon/item variety, weapon creation, creepy bosses, a large sandbox area to explore(sandbox mode), plenty to do, killing zombies takes a long time to get old,photography is fun and helpful,leveling up perks are really helpful
The Bad: time limits are too restrictive in story mode, sandbox mode feels a bit lonely, bosses can be fraustrating,
Dead rising 2 OTR is undoubtebly a revamped version of dead rising 2 and while it is a decent improvement, it probably isnt worth buying if you still have DR2.
I had never played a dead rising game until i bought off the record after hearing that DR2 didnt have sandbox mode, not only was i very impressed with the game but i was also glad i bought off the record instead of DR2 and the reason for that leads me onto my main problem with the game.
The story mode in off the record features original hero frank west in fortune city trying to discover how the latest zombie outbreak took place, i wont spoil the plot but this mode revolves around main story missions, and side missions involving helping/saving and sometimes killing survivors depending on their level of remaining sanity. Most of these escapades involve simply going to a location,killing all zombies surrounding some survivors and then leading the survivors back to the safe house.Though this can vary to missions such as bringing clothes to a naked woman who refuses to let the zombies see her naked!
My problem is that each mission has a timer bar that slowly depletes and then dissapears if the mission is not done, but even though there are loads of side missions that require lots of traveling to get to, you never have time to do them, this is because if you fail one main story mission because you take to long then the game says "the truth has vanished" and you get game over and have to load a checkpoint or start the whole game again!
This can be bypassed my playing sandbox mode but in sandbox mode there are no missions to rescue or do tasks for survivors , the only things to do are challenges like drink as many alcoholic drinks as possible in 3 minutes or kill as many zombies as you can in 30 seconds or kill crazy survivors therefore sandbox lacks the sense of being part of a caring team that you get in story.
Despie this sandbox mode is still excellent fun and i personally spend more time in it than story mode, its also handy that your money and level (upgrades earned) transfer between sandbox and story.
For those who've never played a dead rising game, what makes them special is that pretty much every thing you see from playing cards to shotguns and vodka to dynamite can be picked up and used as a melee weapon as well as being fired or thrown.
The feature to play story mode or sanbox online co-op would be great if it wasnt for the fact that no one plays online and i have never succesfully got into a game so unless you have a friend who's got it then dont get your hopes up about online.
Taking photos and killing zombies in different ways erans frank PP (another form of XP) and eventually level up's , leveling up is very gratifiying in off the reocrd as it increases vital abilites of frank like object throwing distance,inventory size and throwing distance. In terms of the games difficulty, purely suriving lots of zombies is easy, escorting survivors and doing tasks for them is pleasantly challenging and bosses vary from normally very difficult,to very fraustrating,to occasionally quite easy. but in general the game is neither to hard or to easy
As well as sandbox mode and frank being the hero, the main thing off the record has over DR2 is the uranus theme park area which features deadly rides and fun minigames which also earn you pp (experience points XP)
so whether its duck-taping a machete to a broom and cutting down zombies in sandbox mode with no restrictions at all or desperately searching for zombrex while escorting a vomiting dancer through zombie filled shopping centres in story mode, Dead Rising 2: Off The Record is a fantastic game with ALOT of content and things to keep you busy
Graphics: 7.5/10
Gameplay: 7.5/10 yes the movement is a bit clunky but not as bad as the gamespot review makes out and it will rarely ever distract or fraustrate you
Sound: 8/10
Lasting appeal: 9/10
thanks for reading and
if anyone has any questions about the game then fell free to message them to me, please give this review thumbs up IF you agree with it having bought or played the game