video game reviews

November 1, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

‘DEAD RISING 2’

Grade: B

Details: Published by Capcom for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC; $59.99 ($39.99 for PC); rated M

In “Dead Rising 2,” people have dealt with the zombie apocalypse of “Dead Rising” by turning it into televised entertainment.

Chuck Greene’s young daughter was bitten by a zombie years ago and needs daily injections of the expensive and rare Zombrex medication to keep from changing into one herself.

So Chuck heads to Fortune City, Nev., to appear on “Terror Is Reality,” a game show in which contestants compete to kill zombies for cash prizes. After his first match, the city is suddenly overrun by zombie hordes, and it’s not long before someone is trying to pin the blame on Chuck with a doctored video sent to a TV news reporter in town.

With his daughter’s health at risk and 72 hours to go before the military arrives to evacuate survivors, Chuck has his work cut out for him to clear his name.

As in the first game, the main adventure is broken up into several multipart missions that start at specific times during those 72 hours. There are also numerous secondary missions he can undertake, as well as survivors he can rescue and escort back to the safe house he and others are staying in. Some people have lost their minds and may be dealt with as well.

To do all this, Chuck will have to get past a lot of zombies. These are the slow-moving, shuffling sort of undead, so they can be outrun or even dashed past if Chuck avoids being swarmed, but eventually he’s going to have to bust some undead heads.

He can pick up pretty much anything sharp or heavy and use it as a weapon. But he also can combine items together to create new offensive options — nails and a bat become a spiked bat, a stick of dynamite and a fire extinguisher become a freeze bomb, a drill and a bucket become a grisly hat to plop onto a zombie’s head; and so on.

The variety of items that can be combined is immense, though figuring out valid combos is tricky. The game allows a second player to join for online cooperative play.

—Justin Hoeger, Sacramento Bee