Dead Rising 2

 PlayStation 3
User Score
6.8

Mixed or average reviews- based on 202 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 103 out of 202
  2. Mixed: 60 out of 202
  3. Negative: 39 out of 202
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  1. JoeVojita
    Apr 21, 2011
    4
    Let me put it simply. Cons: Load Times, Repetitive side missions, Weak enemies, Ridiculously difficult bosses, A timer on a free-roaming game, and a broken save system. Pros: Paddlesaws. I rest my case.
  2. heychrisfox
    Oct 26, 2012
    2
    I freely admit that I was less than amused after I got my hands on Dead Rising 2. Given that I don't have a 360, I missed out on the first Dead Rising game, and hadn't really bothered to do any research on the game. I had always heard good things, however, so I thought I'd give the game a shot now that it was released for the PS3. Let's start off with saying that there are two types ofI freely admit that I was less than amused after I got my hands on Dead Rising 2. Given that I don't have a 360, I missed out on the first Dead Rising game, and hadn't really bothered to do any research on the game. I had always heard good things, however, so I thought I'd give the game a shot now that it was released for the PS3. Let's start off with saying that there are two types of zombie games out there. There are the dark, gritty, lonely sort. That would be your old school Resident Evil sort. You're stuck in a situation, surrounded by the walking dead, essentially screwed for supplies. You make due with what you find around you, and you survive it out; that's why it's called "survival-horror," after all. Then you have your OTHER type of zombie game. The type that sets you out in the field with thousands of zombies descending upon your delicious little body. Fortunately for you, you average, ordinary citizen, you are equipped with every sort of heavy ordinance and violent abomination of a weaponry that could be fathomed, and you use said weapons to hack, slash, shoot, and chainsaw your way through countless rotting delinquents that you encounter, as you can manage, ripping through flesh as if it were butter. That'd be your Left 4 Dead, and invariably, your Dead Rising.

    I was hopeful that Dead Rising 2 wouldn't take that route; however, I shouldn't have set Capcom to such a high bar of expectation. Let's sum up Dead Rising 2: you play Chuck Greene, prototypical tough, single dad, who lost his love in a previous zombie outbreak. Armageddon has been overcome, and now the world has reset itself to the land of debauchery and sin as it once was; now, Greene is performing on some ridiculous gameshow, "Terror Is Reality," whereupon the players get out their zombie-rage and slaughter "pet" zombies... with CHAINSAWS ON MOTORCYCLES, in the true American spirit of things. Then, lo and behold, someone screws the pooch and sets all those zombies out - WOE IS ME, we have another outbreak on our hands.

    The plot is essentially the worst D-level screenplay out of a bad zombie movie that was never made, obviously not made for very good reasons. Nobody speaks with any sense, realism, or sense of realism; everyone somehow manages to take everything that happens in stride (woops, well this all happened before! guess we gotta clean up a lot of blood and guts again). There's also this things about activists fighting for zombie's rights? They're played off to be completely insane in their beliefs, yet they're also supposed to be seen as the correct stance to have? Your guess is as good as mine there.

    Fighting is hardly a challenge, as a zombie can generally be taken down in a few swings, less with one of the aforementioned customed weapons. You can get overwhelmed now and then by the sheer number of zombies, but as long as you can down a cup of coffee or some orange juice, you may as well be the Incredible Hulk. The missions of the game play out over a 72-hour timeframe, in which you're free to roam around and do whatever you want sandbox-style, so long as you meet certain story objectives at specified times. There are oodles of side-quests in the zombie-infested world, along with more escort quests with old ladies who are just begging to get devoured than you'll ever want to complete. Any enemy still living amongst the undead will be vastly overpowered and much more difficult to kill, not to mention while you're still surrounded my numerous badies (don't get me started about the bit involving a live tiger). But most of your missions are either overtly sarcastic and intended for humour/time-killing's sake, or they're a story-mission, meaning they're so poorly written and over-acted that you'd probably prefer letting the zombies chew you up. And not to be a gripe, but whatever happened to autosave? I realize its invention has made the concept of manual saving almost mythical, but when it's quite easy to be killed by the infinite hordes of the    … Expand
  3. PS3Reviewer
    Nov 27, 2010
    2
    Dead Rising 2 is the only game I have ever returned. It is that bad. Primitive graphics, awkward and buggy controls, lousy camera movement, silly weapons, frequent and long load times, too few save points, uninteresting story, and repetitive game play make this one of the worst games I have played.
  4. kennedyx8
    Oct 12, 2011
    4
    I never quite understood how anyone could get through DR2 and say that its an excellent game. For every category it excels in, there are 2 or 3 that it just completely drops the ball in. I gave up on this game several times, but kept coming back because it was "supposed" to be good. The potential was there, this is nothing but one big timed excort mission with wonky controls, minimalI never quite understood how anyone could get through DR2 and say that its an excellent game. For every category it excels in, there are 2 or 3 that it just completely drops the ball in. I gave up on this game several times, but kept coming back because it was "supposed" to be good. The potential was there, this is nothing but one big timed excort mission with wonky controls, minimal checkpoints, and ancient save system. The game could have been truly great, because it has charm and gameplay to spare, but the design choices are far as saving, mission structure, boss fights and story progression are baffling indeed. Having to go out of my way to find a restroom to save in before a big boss fight led to many moments of frustration and annoyance and really killed the fun for me.… Expand
  5. Chaziltasm
    Dec 2, 2010
    3
    I must say i do love a good zombie thrasher but this game is truly mleh! Thats the only way to describe it. the storyline is a bit crap really, and gets so reppetitive and boring after a while. You swing away killing zombies pointlessly with no goal. this game is dull boring and reppetitive. And for a capcom game im dissapointed. Resident evil 5 is way better than this.
  6. UndeadReviewer
    Sep 29, 2010
    1
    There is an old saying at Capcom headquarters. "If it is broke, leave it alone and release a sequel!" Dead Rising 1 was a repetitive, timed escort mission. Back when it was released it got by because it featured tons of zombies and looked great on the brand new XBOX360. Now in 2010 all the things that were endearing about DR1 have become old hat. The graphics have no improved, loadThere is an old saying at Capcom headquarters. "If it is broke, leave it alone and release a sequel!" Dead Rising 1 was a repetitive, timed escort mission. Back when it was released it got by because it featured tons of zombies and looked great on the brand new XBOX360. Now in 2010 all the things that were endearing about DR1 have become old hat. The graphics have no improved, load times are worse than before, there is still a timer, and you are leading hapless AI imbeciles on escort missions to safety. If you must play this game just wait a few weeks and pick it up in the bargain bin where it belongs.… Expand
  7. Sideburn_Slayer
    Oct 15, 2010
    1
    GAME SUCKS, zombies zombies zomibies and zombies. Boring, useless piece of crap. ZERO INNOVATION. If you like zombies play WAW or RED DEAD, anything but this. What a waste of my money!
  8. GrumpyReviewer
    Apr 20, 2011
    1
    BROKEN, BROKEN, BROKEN. I love, LOVE zombie games and I expected so much more of Dead Rising 2. It starts in an interesting way. Before you know it, you are bashing zombie limbs all over the place. The idea of being trapped in a mall is also very cool. But what is up with the countdown? Why create such interesting environments and characters and make us rush through everything?? And, also,BROKEN, BROKEN, BROKEN. I love, LOVE zombie games and I expected so much more of Dead Rising 2. It starts in an interesting way. Before you know it, you are bashing zombie limbs all over the place. The idea of being trapped in a mall is also very cool. But what is up with the countdown? Why create such interesting environments and characters and make us rush through everything?? And, also, why rush if this means not being able to deal with the difficulty that just gets higher and higher? I lost count of how many times I restarted it (carrying my stats over) to see if the game would get any better. One day I simply said IT IS JUST NOT WORTH IT. There are so many interesting games out there; why bother with this? The concept is great, but Capcom made it into work. ZERO FUN, BROKEN GAME, HUGE DISAPOINTMENT.… Expand
  9. Braddles92
    Sep 10, 2011
    4
    I was pretty disappointed in this game. I'm not a huge fan of zombie games but I really liked the look of this one (I DO like zombie shooters like Left 4 Dead and Resident Evil) and so I picked it up cheaply. After seeing the loading screen appear after every single cinematic (and then waiting around 30 seconds for it to load, around 10 times) I was thrown into the game. I thought it to beI was pretty disappointed in this game. I'm not a huge fan of zombie games but I really liked the look of this one (I DO like zombie shooters like Left 4 Dead and Resident Evil) and so I picked it up cheaply. After seeing the loading screen appear after every single cinematic (and then waiting around 30 seconds for it to load, around 10 times) I was thrown into the game. I thought it to be insanely repetitive, aside from the huge range of things you can use as weapons. One really big downer for me was when I neared the end of the first level... I died. I then had to choose to either load from when I last saved or restart the mission, well I had saved before I even started the mission... and the mission took 40 minutes for me to do. That one thing compelled me to put it back in the case and I haven't touched it since.… Expand
  10. MikefromAngus
    Jun 5, 2012
    4
    Some parts were good in dead rising 2, but overall the game seemed like a big joke.Just running around and killing zombies left and dright. There was no fear, the atmosphere just wasnt there.
  11. Cmcolin
    Dec 15, 2013
    3
    I wanted to love this game. I really did. "Dead Rising 2" is probably the most disappointing game I've ever played. While the general gameplay is fun and the crafting of weapons is cool, everything else in the game just faceplants. A respawn rate that will make your head spin. Impossibly difficult bosses. An IDIOTIC save function. Really, the list of broken elements in this thing isI wanted to love this game. I really did. "Dead Rising 2" is probably the most disappointing game I've ever played. While the general gameplay is fun and the crafting of weapons is cool, everything else in the game just faceplants. A respawn rate that will make your head spin. Impossibly difficult bosses. An IDIOTIC save function. Really, the list of broken elements in this thing is almost endless.

    This SHOULD have been the ultimate zombie carnage game. Instead, it is an exercise in constant frustration. Pass on it.    … Expand
  12. Makorov
    Oct 31, 2012
    2
    Cant get much worse, the entire game is repetitive and I traded it in the day after I bought it. It drives me brain dead the same again and again. Don't touch it! Go to hell chuck
  13. Willzilla
    Dec 16, 2014
    4
    When I saw this game in the "Price Reduced" Section of GameStop.com, I decided that it would be a good addition to my ever expanding collection of games. So I payed $14 and waited 8 days for it to be delivered. As soon as I bought it, i dropped it into my PS3 and booted it up. After about an hour of gameplay I realized how much of a disappointment that this game really is. You canWhen I saw this game in the "Price Reduced" Section of GameStop.com, I decided that it would be a good addition to my ever expanding collection of games. So I payed $14 and waited 8 days for it to be delivered. As soon as I bought it, i dropped it into my PS3 and booted it up. After about an hour of gameplay I realized how much of a disappointment that this game really is. You can seriously finish the game just by purchasing Zombrex every 24 hours and then waiting for the military to arrive. The rest of the game is just escort missions. For everything that this game does great, it ruins the experience in another aspect. They give you mindless killing of thousands of zombies and then give you an atrocious health system. They make nearly everything in the game into a weapon but you can't run at a decent pace until you level up enough times. They let you create combo weapons that blow your mind. Paddlesaws, Baseball bats with nails, football grenades, etc are all completely awesome. Then they give you save locations which are terrible. Either utilize autosave or allow the player to save at anytime they choose. The bright and colorful atmosphere is a nice change of pace from the usual doom and gloom of an apocalyptic world and the option to utilize the "Terror is Reality" to boost your in-game money is nice, But that's all the game has to it. I would strongly recommend not buying this game unless you either like games that sacrifice crucial game-enhancing features for tons of zombies or you are a PS3 trophy-hunter. 4/10 Would not recommend… Expand

Awards & Rankings

50
#50 Best PS3 Game of 2010
24
#24 Most Discussed PS3 Game of 2010
31
#31 Most Shared PS3 Game of 2010

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
80

Generally favorable reviews - based on 54 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 44 out of 54
  2. Mixed: 10 out of 54
  3. Negative: 0 out of 54
  1. Gamereactor Denmark
    Jan 13, 2011
    80
    Dead Rising 2 is everything the first game should have been. Even though the zombie motif may be overworn, the game hits a perfect blend of horror, gore, mystery and morbid humor – the essence of everything great about the zombie genre. Annoying and bad boss fights bring the final score down, but other than that, Dead Rising 2 gets almost everything right.
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  2. Gaming Target
    Jan 11, 2011
    76
    Dead Rising fans - you know who you are - are going to love this game. If you still bust out your copy of the 2006 original, do yourself a favor and pick this up.
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  3. GamingExcellence
    Jan 11, 2011
    85
    The thing about the Dead Rising series is that it's pretty unique. Killing hordes of zombies with a huge variety of improvised weaponry isn't a genre present anywhere else. It's a great game to just mess around in, picking up random clothing, smashing zombie heads in and fighting away psychopaths.
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