Review by: Jason McMaster

Dead Rising 2 covered the story of Chuck Green, a hard working single dad trying to save his daughter from a zombie apocalypse. He’s a pretty good guy. Then there’s Frank West. If we were casting for a movie about the Dead Rising games, Chuck Green might be played by Robert Downey while Frank West is more of the Morton Downey variety of junior. That’s what makes Frank awesome. After breaking the big story of Willamette, Frank became a media darling. He had his own successful show and all the money and fame a guy could want. Then he threw it all away with excess and scandal. When you start Dead Rising 2: Off the Record, Frank is a contestant on Terror is Reality, a zombie killing game show. Shortly after the show, all hell breaks loose and the game begins in earnest.

For fans of Dead Rising 2, Off the Record is an update. Aside from a mostly new storyline, which crosses over the original’s here and there, the new sandbox mode adds quite a bit of replay value. When you start a sandbox game, which shares the same save file as your story mode game, you are dropped in via helicopter and left to your own devices. Entirely to your own devices, that is, as all of the survivors are crazy and trying to kill you. If you see someone running over to you, they aren’t there to say hi.

Other than just killing piles of zombies, there are challenges to keep you in the game. The challenges have three levels of victory – bronze, silver and gold – and provide a variety of things to do ranging from time-limited massacres to killing zombies in specific ways. All the money you earn in sandbox mode stays with the character that’s on that same save, taking the place of the “Terror is Reality” game show that shipped with the original Dead Rising 2.

The one thing that made Dead Rising’s sandbox mode less than enjoyable was the gradual depletion of health as the game progressed - Off the Record does away with this, opting for challenges to provide a catalyst for play. This leads to a more enjoyable experience that allows for freedom of character movement and play without the necessity of hunting for food to postpone an untimely death.

Dead Rising 2: Off the Record is in the weird limbo land between update and full release. There’s plenty of content here, but most of it isn’t new. Granted, Frank West is simply more fun to play than Chuck Green and if you missed this one the first time around, the $40 price tag and the new sandbox mode, as well as an improved story and the epic return of Frank make this worth the purchase.