Easily one of the funniest, goriest and entertaining zombie games of 2010.
With all the hype around the Weapon-Combination system - the hype was real when trying the game on the day it released. Combining weapon was something that was exclusive to this game which made Frank West little obsolete with his Photography abilities. Photography will be missed by some people due to the fact that i was fun taking photos of zombies and funny survivors. But that doesn't matter too much since Capcom are releasing Dead Rising 2 Case West for that.
You take control of a desperate father called Chuck who is trying to cure as much for his daughter Katie with a medicine called Zombrex. Zombrex only last for 24-hours so you would have to have plentiful for the 3 days including the infected survivors you will come across.
The gameplay mechanics has improved massively compared to the original. The game display much more gore and blood - you can also chop zombies limbs off depending where you hurt them which add's much more gruesome and grimness. Weapons like chainsaw can be combined with other weapons like a paddle stick to create a paddle saw (two chainsaws on each side of the paddle stick) to make the ultimate zombie killing weapon.
The animations feels much more smoother however sometimes it feels a bit chunky when walking and attacking with weapons but this can be fixed easily with a patch for a minor note. Zombies on this game feel more realistic this time around, they won't just run around in circles like loonics much but they will attack instantly which makes this game much harder.
Lots of problems from the originals has been addressed -
Save System:
There used to be only one save slot on Dead Rising 1 but now there 3 so you are not limited as much anymore.
Text Size:
The text size on the original was very small and hard to read even on large screens but this has been addressed completely in DR2.
A.I:
The artificial intelligence in the original was not so good, survivors act like mindless zombies themself and they are pretty dumb, the only good a.i is probably is the psychopaths. In Dead Rising 2 this has been fixed in many ways, survivors will act more sensible when trying to follow you.
Transmittion:
In Dead Rising 1 - one of the most annoying parts was Otis trying to contact you every 5 seconds even if you are exploring a place but now you have the ability to turn off the sound or change the ringtone and also the missions are now been sorted into messages so you wont be disturbed as much now.
The downside to the game is probably the loading times but you can shorten them down by 45% if you install the game onto the HDD.
There is an online component to the game - Co-Op (You can co-op the whole game including story together with a friend but only via xbox live which is a shame for local players) and Arena 4-players which is bunched with mini-games that you play and you can use the money you earn from that in the single player mode.
There is so much more to say about the game but it is for you to experience for yourself. Buy or Rent? this game is easily addictive depending how much you like slaying zombies to their grave, you would most likely play the game through various of playthroughs and secrets - there is a leveling system with some RPG elements and unlockables.
The sound and music is just spot-on and so is the storyline. With it's great potential of being a great game, this game defiantly deserves at least a 9/10 which all its improvements and features including the co-op despite a few problems which can easily be addressed by a patch and some that just are natural to games these days.