Case:Zero was a wonderful re-introduction to the world of Dead Rising. Set well into the zombie apocalypse unleashed in Dead Rising, the lead character, star BMX rider Chuck Greene is stranded in a small town. Faced with an in-game 24 hour ticking clock, a daughter that needs a regular dose of Zombrex to keep her from chomping on people, a bike that needs repairing and several hundred walking dead to fight through, Case:Zero was self-contained and satisfying. It retained all of the extraordinarily annoying traits of the original Dead Rising (Bathroom save points) but reduced the pain by adding a wonderful weapon creation system. Rescuing survivors ensured a need for replay in order to get all of the achievements, an impossible task in one play-through, and there is a single insane boss battle.
Finished in a few hours, it was a deceptively enjoyable piece of DLC and entirely misrepresentative of the actual game Dead Rising 2. Everything that was charming and fun in a limited setting becomes aggravating in the larger game as the world is very large, the difficult bosses plentiful, and the zombies overwhelming.
Case:West has the difficult challenge of washing away the negative connotation left from the main game, while retaining the bite-sized charm of Case:Zero.
Showcasing the return of Frank West, the hero of Dead Rising, and pairing him in co-op with Chuck Greene, Case:West picks up right at the end of DR 2. It quickly moves the pair out of the city and into a remote research facility, where West has a contact with information about the source of the anti-Zombie drug Zombrex. Self-contained but in a much larger environment, West and Greene follow the formula of Case:Zero, killing zombies, combining weapons and rescuing survivors. Unlike the more intimate personal macguffin of Case:Zero where the main driving plot is getting Chuck's daughter zombrex, Case:West is essentially a game of chase the clock as the plot points click by. Neither character is particularily charming or memorable and the prize is the generic "get evidence to clear my name" kind.
New and creative weapons lead to spectacularly gory zombie deaths, but the emotional impetus is missing with the entire absence of Chuck's daughter. Some old characters make surprise returns and new villains laugh manically from the shadows but Case:West is essentially an empty exercise in busywork.
No comments:
Post a Comment