Nukezilla Review: Dead Rising 2: Case West (XBLA)

If you’ve been keeping track, this will be the third Dead Rising 2 title released in only a handful of months, however I’m not complaining. Unlike most folks out there on the Internet, I can’t seem to get enough of Dead Rising. I even bought, with high hopes, Dead Rising: Mobile last month (spoiler: I want my money back).

Case West functions as a co-op epilogue to the main storyline, but this time true to form Capcom have wisely listened to their rabid fan base and brought back Frank West as Chuck’s partner rather than a unmentioned and ignored Chuck doppelganger.

The story in Case West is Woodward and Bernstein meets Shawn of the Dead crossed with Lethal Weapon; or more specifically a testosterone fueled buddy flick featuring two unlikely dudes killing zombies and taking down the man at the same time. Some critics (Ryan Davis and Jeff Gerstmann of Giant Bomb) screamed about Chuck Greene’s Canadian voice over from DR:2, but I didn’t notice it until he’s placed alongside Frank West’s all-American Dan Aykroyd…ness; go figure. The paper thin story takes a back seat to the frequent banter between protagonists. While it’s not as sharp as say, Uncharted 2, the humorous gab is definitely a selling point.

Another welcome addition to the game are the new weapon combinations on offer. My personal favorite involves combining a stun rod with a floor polisher which becomes a whirling electric machine of undead doom. Some of the combos are only available when you’re playing with a co-op partner, which helps to reinforce the main strengths of the title. Wreaking havoc in Dead Rising is made exponentially more fun when playing with a friend. Any frustration and difficulties melt away to reveal an absurd playground where the plot and objectives serve as a quiet backdrop for your experimentation and expression of humor through violence.

This is easily the most feature rich and streamlined Dead Rising experience yet, as the designers have removed some of the community and critic’s most frequent bugaboos. There are no more survivor escort missions. Once you locate a survivor and meet their criteria (one researcher wants you to bring her a fresh liver and heart specimen) they leave the facility on their own accord without any hand holding scripted nonsense. There’s plenty of useful weapons and health items everywhere. No longer do you have to stock up on healing items just to progress from one side of the map to the other. You start the game at level 40, which means you have lots of inventory slots and can dole out lots of combat maneuvers and do a reasonable amount of damage to zombies and the human security forces alike.

While there are no more psychos to contend with, there are still a few moments of serious challenge here. The difficulty of the final boss seems to be balanced for co-op play. When you play the game solo you can only play as Chuck. Frank doesn’t pick up any health items or weapons when he’s CPU controlled. In co-op, you or your partner can be revived by receiving a health item (even a cup of coffee will do it) and stocking up on the more powerful weapons and health is still necessary for the final encounter.

It would be inconceivable for Capcom to require you to play the game in co-op mode, but it’s the best way to get the most out of this stand alone exclusive to XBLA game. In terms of value, this is only priced at 800 MSP, which is a 100% increase compared to Case Zero, but there you were limited to playing the game solo and there wasn’t nearly as much to do.

If I only played the game in single player mode, I would have probably knocked down an entire star off of the score, but thankfully there are enough folks out there with the game that finding a partner on LIVE is a piece of delicious gory cake. Go grab a fork and let’s dig in!