Dead Rising 2: Case West is a story expansion DLC developed by the now defunct Blue Castle Games aka Capcom Vancouver as the last piece of content for Dead Rising 2 (along with Dead Rising 2: Case Zero) and released exclusively for the Xbox Live Marketplace. According to the Dead Rising wiki, the DLC was announced at Capcom’s Tokyo Game Show 2010 Press Conference along with the announcement that Blue Castle Games was purchased and turned into Capcom Vancouver. The main reasons that the development of the DLC occurred was due to both the sales of Dead Rising 2: Case Zero (around 500,000 sales apparently) as well as the fact that since they had a prologue that they might as well have an epilogue. In attempting to find and cite the actual sources for this, I ran into dead links to articles that don’t exist anymore so I can’t really say much in the way of how much is true for what.

What I can say is that I’ve always been a huge Dead Rising fan, having played the first three games NUMEROUS times both solo and with a buddy. However, I don’t remember having played the DLCs much; with Case Zero probably being the title that I’ve played the least in the main series. However, I’ve played Case West around three times or so, all of them with a buddy of mine named BFD Survivor (shoutout to Brandon, youse a big pimp yoooo). Once was probably around 2017/18, once in Summer 2022 for Brandon’s youtube channel and once literally last Friday 1/5/2024 as a re-recording for his youtube channel. As someone who's played through most of the Dead Rising games, I figured I might as well write down my thoughts on the DLC in general with the hopes that by the end of the year my review journey with the Dead Rising series will come to a close. Here are the thoughts on Case West, or at least the limited thoughts that I have in scope with the game’s size.

The plot to Dead Rising 2: Case West starts off where Ending A of Dead Rising 2 ends, with Chuck Greene and the zombified remains of Tyrone “TK” King grappling in the elevator as Katey and Stacey are flown out of Fortune City presumably. About to be eaten alive, Chuck is saved in the nick (no DR3 pun intended) of time by none other than world famous journalist Frank “I’ve Covered Wars You Know” West. Having shown up in the tail end of the game, he doesn’t know that Chuck was framed for the Fortune City outbreak and as such there’s a bit of a back and forth on that before the death of Rebecca Chang is relayed. Frank is shocked but tells Chuck that he was planning on investigating a nearby Phenotrans site with Rebecca, and extends an offer for Chuck to tag along to help him find proof that would clear his name from wrongdoing before injecting himself with some Zombrex. Having proceeded to fly out to this pharmaceutical base, they manage to find an air duct with binoculars and climb through. However, they proceed to bicker at each other before clumsily falling through the air ducts and straight into a pen where zombies are being held. They proceed to escape the shipping container and sneak their way into a shipping office nearby, and then do some dumb shit and announce their presence to two security guards with assault rifles. Intelligence inside, the dynamic duo kill the guards before a strange event occurs: the zombies are released from their pens, causing an outbreak within the facility. Frank’s source then contacts the two from a nearby computer with a trade: if they input security access codes and do what the source asks of them, then the source will give them any information they need including security footage and facility designs. Chuck thinks it’s all a big setup but Frank’s gut tells him otherwise and the two set out to give Frank’s source what it wants.

The two proceed to travel to different locations in the facility to put in the access codes before heading back to the shipping office, where the source promises to download the information that’ll help both Frank and Chuck. From here you can goof off and save survivors and the like but once you get back, the source will tell them that they need to break into the Director’s office in order to find the evidence that’ll clear Chuck’s name. They find the lab keycard which’ll help them and proceed to the office where they find names of prisoners, missing persons reports and blueprints of Fortune City’s Underground. Frank is a bit more on the naive side as he believes that the queens were made synthetically from a lab. He gets mad and throws his Zombrex (later picked up by Chuck), which ends up hitting a security laser and dudes show up to rock their shit. Taking down the security unit chasing them, Frank takes one of the dead guys' radios and impersonates them to get the two out of the lockdown. The two get back to the shipping office, where the source tells them that they have the evidence but being trapped in a secure lab, the source needs time to bust out. This gives them more time to fuck about and do whatever side quests they want to do before everything continues.

They wait in the office and get on each other’s nerves some more but the source is still stuck in the lab. Chuck comes up with the idea to cut the power and they proceed to find a detonator and some C4 before blowing up the entire power grid sky high. They then travel to the secure lab and this is where the revelations hit: the source is Isabela Keyes, the sister of Carlito Keyes and an accomplice during the events of Dead Rising 1. Explaining she was coerced to help Phenotrans or go to jail, she accuses Phenotrans of stealing her work on creating a cure as well as synthetics. The wheelchair lady (aka Marion) won’t allow it however and sends security to get the drop as Isabela escapes. One bad guy speech later and Isabela shoots the guards before an even bigger guard with a turban knocks her the hell out. Of course she does the dumbest fucking thing and slides the USB across the ground while yelling “TAKE THE EVIDENCE, THE WORLD HAS TO KNOW”, which promptly gets stomped on by the turban guy (aka Harjit Singh). Beating the shit out of him together, he is stunned before walking into a container full of the queens which sting him to death and kill him. The two proceed to go back and forth between Marion, who taunts them about the existence of a created cure (which either isn’t true YET or was retconned to Dead Rising 3) as well as another outbreak before walking off with the unconscious Isabela. Frank and Chuck argue between staying and finding this supposed “cure” and leaving before the facility explodes and the two end up outside of the facility with barely anything to show for their troubles. Frank takes some pictures while Chuck gets sad about the state of the potential cure. Chuck gives Frank his Zombrex back and tells him that “the world needs Frank West” as they overlook the destruction and it cuts to credits.

Overall, I liked the plot of the DLC. It’s a short one of course, but it’s nice bringing back Isabela and it set up the stakes for the future of the franchise with a new antagonist, the existence of the cure, and all the while bringing back two legacy characters with Frank and Chuck. I like the “grit their teeth” teamwork aspect the two heroes have to do as well, they get on each other's nerves to high hell but they work together as a team pretty well despite the personality differences. If I were to give a criticism, the whole thing with Isabela throwing the USB and shouting out the intentions behind it were REALLY stupid and it probably would’ve been better to have given the villains more agency with them perhaps pocketing the USB and stomping it themselves as if they knew Isabela was trying to escape. Overall, I can’t really complain and I enjoy this as a short epilogue of sorts to the Dead Rising 2 saga.

The gameplay for the most part is the same as Dead Rising 2, you’ll roam through a small building as you find and rescue survivors, kill zombies in creative ways and uncover the truth behind the Phenotrans facility and clear Chuck’s name. I’ll start with the survivors aspect, as it’s actually very simple and the easiest it’ll get until probably Dead Rising 4. Literally for the most part you end up finding survivors around the facility and you can do whatever quests they give which will unlock new areas as well as new combo weapons. Best part about them though is that literally you don’t have to escort them ANYWHERE, as they literally just walk off by themselves (presumably because they all work there and so they know what they’re doing for the most part). For killing zombies in creative ways of course you’ll still pick stuff out from the environment and you’ll be able to create a couple of new combo weapons such as a Laser Gun (with a laser sword and a lightning gun), a “Reaper” (katana and a sickle) and a sterilizer (a syringe gun with chemicals) amongst a couple of other new toys and a few old familiar ones you’ll find (like the Plate Launcher, the Hail Mary, the aforementioned Laser Sword and Dynameat amongst others). The new weapons are pretty cool and for the most part a couple of them moved over to Dead Rising 3 though it sadly seems (if I remember correctly) that some of them didn’t which sucks. You’ll also start the DLC from Level 40 or so, and slowly build your way up to Level 50 throughout playing through the content and farting around and as long as you keep it within the same save or so then you’ll basically reach Level 50 in no time.


Unlike Fortune City, there are no real vehicles other than short segway looking things so you’ll have to traverse the Phenotrans Facility on foot as both Frank and Chuck. Chuck plays exactly like he does in Dead Rising 2 and as such if you played Dead Rising 2 then generally you’ll know his moves and how he rolls. What’s different though is that no matter if it’s single player or online cooperative, you’ll always have Frank West as a coop partner. If you’re playing in Single Player, you can even order Frank around like other survivors (holding aim and pressing Y) to go places or even put on clothes which is pretty cool! If you end up playing as the co-op player to someone else in game (as I’ve done in pretty much every playthrough), then you’ll get to play as Frank West himself. For the most part, Frank West has most of his moves from the first game and even a lot of the animations (like using the broom for example) and just watching all of his old animations compared to Chuck’s is just pure fan service that I love as well as differentiating how the character plays compared to each other and it’s great. There’s even a couple of new sets of clothes that really stand everything out. The main two examples that come off the top of my head are Frank’s OG outfit from Dead Rising 1 (which I ALWAYS wear and wonder why it wasn’t in Off the Record) as well as an apparent Dr. Wily MegaMan outfit that I only knew existed because of the Dead Rising wiki (mainly because you have to get all the parts from different locations).

Another thing that’s cool is that photography, which returns from Dead Rising 1. I don’t really remember much of it persay, I know playing as Frank that there were PP stickers that you could find and that collecting them all would get you an achievement but there weren’t any PP bonuses as far as I could remember and that’s a damn shame because taking goofy photos was a lot of fun in the original game. For achievements you can also take down around 45 or so security cameras but other than Prestige Points and the aforementioned achievement nothing really popped up. The final thing I want to add here is something small and honestly kind of insignificant really: the final boss has three different health bars. The way they do it with the three stars signifying the three health bars, I’m surprised they didn’t bring this back for the future as every boss had around one health bar and that’s about it. I don’t know, it’s a small thing though and nothing really notable to write home about. Other than that, the gameplay again for the most part is really solid and aside from a few tiny things I can’t complain as it’s more Dead Rising and that feels great.

For the most part, I don’t have much to say about the sound design soundtrack wise. There isn’t really much of anything that’s particularly memorable with tracks except when they break out the Indian Music around the time that the Commander final boss shows up and in the credits sequence when they play it over some dancing zombie goof stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2cGMgEowJs&ab_channel=Samantha

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYky26YcBNM&ab_channel=TheMediaCows

As for the voice actors and actresses, as always I’m going to give TJ Rotolo a star on the video game walk of fame because he always knocks it out of the park as Frank for his massive dad energy level. Peter Flemming comes back as Chuck too of course and honestly there’s something about Frank’s presence that really boosts each other’s chemistry up significantly (especially the “Covered Wars Y’Know” meme which oh god if you’re gonna make me cum that’s it). I’ll also give Jacqueline Samuda a leg up as Marion because compared to Dead Rising 3, here she sounds threatening and ominous as a villain and just hams it up in the limited amount of time she has. Venus Terzo plays Isabela Keyes here as opposed to Kim Mai Guest in Dead Rising 1 or Veronica Milagros in the third game and while the performance is pretty solid, I never understood why the voice actresses constantly changed up. Otherwise, the sound design is pretty decent and basically sounds the same straight from Dead Rising 2 so I’m not sure what else I could bring up persay other than I like the fact that both Frank and Chuck have actual dialogue that isn’t just in cutscenes or when pressing the Y button to command people.

Graphically I think that the game looks fine, however considering it was released as an Xbox Live Marketplace exclusive and wasn’t released on PC at all, I’ll say that compared to the PC version of Dead Rising 2? The game looks a little less good. I played it via backwards compatibility on my Xbox One, so there was a bit of a blurry vaseline look that I wasn’t really a fan of persay. Other than that, there’s no real complaints on my end about the graphics because it still has that Dead Rising 2 style. As for the atmosphere and art design of the game, what I’ll say is that I understand that a Phenotrans Facility isn’t going to always be a unique and multilayered interesting place to explore. You’ll see a lot of science equipment, metal walkways, a whole lot of all of it in fact so I’m going to cut it a bit of slack for that. What I can say is that for the most part it does try to have SOME variation, even if it’s not a whole lot though it’s mostly in the living quarter areas of the facility. You can raid each of the individual rooms to find the former rooms of people who clearly had distinct personalities ranging from bougie fucker to redneck with a love of whiskey; and you can even find a Tiki Bar I believe on the top of one of living quarters to add a little bit of distinct flavor.

As for character models, again they all look fine and you’ll mostly see a lot of science personnel or military looking types though if I have to give credit, Frank looks FAAAAAAAAAANTASTIC in the new DLC, especially when you throw on the old outfit from the first game (which I always have and always will). Isabela looks pretty solid and Marion looks fucked up and evil (a lot moreso than she did in Dead Rising 3 to be honest, she actually looks like a villainous pharmaceutical company CEO with a giant ass gash on her face from the presumed zombie bite). However, I think the most distinct vibe for the entire DLC probably goes to the final boss of the game: Harjit Singh. Goddamn that dude is a vibe, being the Indian version of the hulk with the massive build and giant impact hammers. While he’s very much one note and doesn’t have a personality, his look in itself to me is the most iconic part of the expansion other than the return of Frank West itself.

Dead Rising 2: Case West is a more than fitting ending to the Dead Rising 2 saga, ending with a bit of a bang and a future that for the most part was wrapped up satisfactorily with Dead Rising 3. Frank West’s appearance in the DLC also gives the expansion a boost and probably provides the most exciting conclusion that would happen for a good while. As such, the reviews for the DLC were pretty solid and the sales for the title I’d like to say were pretty solid for the most part too. I remember personally being super excited to play it myself, mostly for the fact that I could play as one of my favorite fictional characters of all time: Frank West. Whilst for the most part I’ll admit the DLC didn’t really impact me as much as I would’ve liked for it to have persay, I still enjoyed my time with it and plan on giving it a spin at some point in the future again so I can get all the achievements.

From here, the history of what would happen with the Dead Rising series was simple: they went onto create Dead Rising 3. That game of course went through a whole lot of development hell from poor performance on the Playstation 3, and attempts to create new IP and branch out would result in a lot of shit from their superiors at Capcom Japan. This DLC was kind of the last shining moment, the one bright light before eventually the studio would struggle and fall out with their parent company over the next many years before eventually shutting down in 2018. This sucks a lot of dick as with the previous DLC, Case Zero and the Xbox Smartglass content from Dead Rising 3 it seems that the game will be forever lost to the sands of time without an Xbox Account and it fucking blows because all of this content should be made available for everyone who wants to play it. Of course though why would Capcom give a shit, mainly because the Dead Rising 2/Off the Record ports are kind of notorious for being thrown onto Steam and abandoned. If it means all the content is brought back into place, I would love to see a remaster of some kind here at some point because this franchise deserves love. I’m going to give the rest of the Dead Rising series a spin here I think during the year, which to be honest only includes Case Zero, a replay of the original, the Wii port to the original and the dreaded 4th one but we’ll get to that piece of shit when we get to it.

Links:

https://www.eurogamer.net/capcom-shows-dead-rising-case-west

https://gamerant.com/dead-rising-2-case-west-announced/

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/DeadRising2

https://deadrising.fandom.com/wiki/Dead_Rising_2:_Case_West