Review by: Jeff McAllister

Dead Rising is a franchise people have either a fondness for or a seething loathing of; there are not many people who are on the fence. There was the shoddy save system that would have you restarting the game if you accidently hit the wrong button, aggravating characters that would respawn after you managed to finally take them out, and the way everything happened in a certain time frame, where if you took too long, you were basically screwed.

The follow up to Dead Rising is out next month, but to whet your appetite for zombie destruction beforehand, Capcom has released this Downloadable XLBA title, a short but sweet prequel that takes place three years prior to the full sequel. You take the role of Chuck Greene, a motocross superstar, who stops in the town of Still Creek with his daughter Katey. While checking out the town, his truck gets stolen, along with his supply of Zombrex – the drug that keeps the zombie infection coursing through his daughter’s bloodstream at bay for 12 hours.

You quickly find a motor bike that needs to be fixed and thus begins the crux of what is Case Zero. Build the bike and escape the town before the military arrives. In a nutshell, Case Zero is Dead Rising. If you played the original, then you will know exactly what to expect. There aren’t many changes to the gameplay and even the save system that enraged so many players is still fully intact here. Chuck can use just about anything around him as weapon and can even create new weapons with the new feature of maintenance benches, which allows players to combine various items into more powerful weapons.

While the limited game only gives you a few options to create weapons from, some being more obvious than others, they are pretty inventive and take some persistence to figure out. The weapons you create also deal out more damage than regular weapons, giving you the incentive to become a MacGyver. One problem is that to combine items, you need to bring both to the bench at the same time. If you leave an item there and then leave to retrieve another, the item you left behind will disappear should you go through a load screen. Simple to work around, sure, but annoying nonetheless.

The town of Still Creek is more of a group of buildings than a town. There is basically two streets and a handful of buildings – not a large area at all, but thanks to Chuck’s running speed which is barely faster than the shambling of the zombies, it does take some time to complete all of the objectives, which not only involves finding the bike parts to escape, but to rescue numerous survivors around the town as well. One of which is Bob, who can be regarded as a replacement for Otis the handyman. However, instead of being called on the radio non-stop as in the original game, Bob shouts at you from a rooftop every once in a while when you run past him. It’s different, but essentially, it’s still the same.

Dead Rising 2: Case Zero will more than likely take a few run-throughs to complete fully, but that’s how Dead Rising is structured. Each time you restart the game, you will keep your stats, your money, your attributes, skills and so forth. The game is timed so you only have 12 in-game hours to save your daughter, but again, it will be necessary to play through multiple times to complete everything. Thankfully the game is entertaining enough with the sheer number of on-screen zombies and the numerous ways to dispose of them to keep you invested for those extra playthroughs.