This review contains spoilers
Dead Rising 2: Off the Record is an open-world zombie sandbox game developed by the defunct Capcom Vancouver as a sort of expansion pack/game remix of the original Dead Rising 2. What does this mean? It’s largely the same game as Dead Rising 2 but with more content (new combo weapons, a new area in Fortune City, two new psychopaths, etc) and a returning protagonist: Frank West from the first game. To sum up: it’s just more Dead Rising 2 except for certain changes (as it is considered a non canon spin-off) so I need to write up a review for the previous game here soon. But what I can tell you is that this is my second favorite Dead Rising game next to the original. It took me a while to pick this up but I finally did when a friend bought me the game (shoutout to Whodunit) a while back and I haven’t been able to try it until I played it coop with a buddy. Here’s my experience with the PC port of the game:
The gameplay remains mostly unchanged from Dead Rising 2; you’ll still be able to kill zombies in the strange ways, create combo weapons out of parts to annihilate the undead in unrealistic ways, rescue survivors and fight psychopaths who’ve gone insane from the outbreak in Fortune City while following cases and figuring out who/what is behind the current outbreak, often against a time limit. However a lot of stuff is again remixed, with certain survivors showing up in different areas than before with new requests before joining, or not showing up at all and replaced with all new survivors. Psychopaths are maneuvered around too with two new ones added and the new area is named Uranus Zone, an amusement park with an alien theme that adds a lot of new flavor, from being able to activate rides to kill zombies, driving a clown car (can hold 8 survivors), new weapons, etc. Any Zombrex you need to get as part of a timer you also thankfully don’t have to bring back to your daughter in the safe house and instead can be used to inject yourself on the go as Frank got infected after the first game. Of course Frank’s most noted feature, taking pictures, is back as well as the numerous ways you can get PP points by taking really good photos. To me this is Dead Rising 2, but way better; though there are caveats to this. Play the console ports and compare it with the PC port, it’s a bit of a fucking mess. Capcom is beloved for its quality, yes, and I understand that a now defunct studio developed this game, but the port was released in a mixed state. It’s playable front to back but my experience has been marred with glitches ranging from harmless (zombies merging into solid background elements such as casino tables), to rage levels of frustration. Some of these moments include random disconnects from online coop, with one point where me and my coop partner couldn’t connect at all and had to reload from a previous save that was thirty minutes before, losing progress. Other times my partner would reload a save and it would remove me, but still say that he was in my game and running towards a wall or standing still, requiring another invite to get back into his game. Other things I loathed were the facts that Capcom couldn’t even be arsed to make the DLC costumes in the store functioning, so they just decided to remove the ability to buy them from the store entirely while the console versions worked fine (which is sad, just fix your damn DLC or pay someone to do it). Speaking of the consoles, I’m sorry but if you have a game that was on consoles first then do me a favor, add decent (or any) controller support. Dead Rising 1 and 3 had it so I’m not sure why they skipped 2 and Off the Record. What I had to use was Controller Companion, a dope app that I used to fix up the controls for Curse: The Eye of Isis and will continue to use for other games that either won’t have them at all or will barely work.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/367670/Controller_Companion/
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=493967497&searchtext=Dead+Rising (Downloads for the companion workshop, if it doesn’t work I’ll add in my own link later)
Because of this, there were numerous times where I got pissed off, which makes me sad because this game is great. Besides the point though, I’m also easy to annoy with tech stuff so if you don’t mind all that it works fine otherwise. I also don’t remember this game being more difficult than the second one but I haven’t played since the 360 days so I’m probably just a scrub. Also to finish the gameplay section off, they have a Sandbox Mode that has progress transfers into the story mode so you can grind levels and get money to use in the campaign, and it’s basically an infinite free mode as well as an improvement from what they offered in the first Dead Rising. Not being able to have a sandbox mode and instead a masochist 7 Day mode where your health is always falling isn’t fun so I’m glad they just added sandbox, with all the time in the world.
The plot is largely the same as well but remixed; this time you return to the series as Frank West for the first time since the original Dead Rising and the DLC for the second, Case West. Since the first game, Frank has become a star for his deeds in exposing the outbreak in Willamette and after a couple of years he’s become washed up and in need of some extra cash to get by. In comes TK, host of game show Terror Is Reality and you get paid to kill zombies on camera. You’ll go through a tutorial where you photograph Brandon, the optional CURE psycho in the DR2, take money from TK to plant a bomb near a zombie cage and start the outbreak. You’ll still meet up with Rebecca to find leads, and follow the trail to find out TK was behind the outbreak, learning that Phenotrans (a pharmaceutical co.) was behind the incident because they needed to collect more queens for their zombie drug, Zombrex, what you’ve been needing to take to survive. However things have changed, arguably for the better. The mole is now Stacey, the head of CURE who helped Chuck and now Frank, as a Phenotrans double agent instead of Sullivan, who is just some security guard in the second game. You also get to fight her in a kind of difficult boss fight at the end of the game…piloting a giant mech crab. After you beat her much is the same, except you rescue Rebecca Chang from TK during overtime if you follow all the main story cases. To me it makes more sense for the double agent to be Stacey due to her position in CURE as the leader and the company’s need to set CURE up to be framed to be a patsy, it just fits. I also loved Frank West as the protagonist in the first DR, so having more Frank with all the dad jokes just makes me love it even more (which is made even better due to Frank now being allowed to speak certain dialogue in game, instead of just text). To finish new changes, they replaced Leon (the motorcycle psycho) from DR2 with Chuck in a homage that makes a lot of sense in the new context (with it being even more weird if you have a coop player, because they’re playing as Chuck with all of his moves, essentially fighting himself which a reference is made via in game dialogue) as well as a psycho with Evan, a smaller clown on stilts who coincidentally turns out to be the brother of one of the most infamous bosses in Dead Rising, Adam the Clown. Knowing who you are, he doesn’t like you and will try to stomp with his goofy stilts. Overall, the game’s plot feels better than the second one; mainly due to the twists making more sense and a protagonist who doesn’t feel boring.
So finally the answer to the question: is it worth buying? Yes, but with caveats. A lot of it is the same game as Dead Rising 2, so it’ll be repetitive and for the most part unchanged from the base game; so my advice: either get this on sale or just get this instead of Dead Rising 2. It’s not an overhaul, just a slightly improved version of the second game but for what it is honestly I can’t complain.
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
The gameplay remains mostly unchanged from Dead Rising 2; you’ll still be able to kill zombies in the strange ways, create combo weapons out of parts to annihilate the undead in unrealistic ways, rescue survivors and fight psychopaths who’ve gone insane from the outbreak in Fortune City while following cases and figuring out who/what is behind the current outbreak, often against a time limit. However a lot of stuff is again remixed, with certain survivors showing up in different areas than before with new requests before joining, or not showing up at all and replaced with all new survivors. Psychopaths are maneuvered around too with two new ones added and the new area is named Uranus Zone, an amusement park with an alien theme that adds a lot of new flavor, from being able to activate rides to kill zombies, driving a clown car (can hold 8 survivors), new weapons, etc. Any Zombrex you need to get as part of a timer you also thankfully don’t have to bring back to your daughter in the safe house and instead can be used to inject yourself on the go as Frank got infected after the first game. Of course Frank’s most noted feature, taking pictures, is back as well as the numerous ways you can get PP points by taking really good photos. To me this is Dead Rising 2, but way better; though there are caveats to this. Play the console ports and compare it with the PC port, it’s a bit of a fucking mess. Capcom is beloved for its quality, yes, and I understand that a now defunct studio developed this game, but the port was released in a mixed state. It’s playable front to back but my experience has been marred with glitches ranging from harmless (zombies merging into solid background elements such as casino tables), to rage levels of frustration. Some of these moments include random disconnects from online coop, with one point where me and my coop partner couldn’t connect at all and had to reload from a previous save that was thirty minutes before, losing progress. Other times my partner would reload a save and it would remove me, but still say that he was in my game and running towards a wall or standing still, requiring another invite to get back into his game. Other things I loathed were the facts that Capcom couldn’t even be arsed to make the DLC costumes in the store functioning, so they just decided to remove the ability to buy them from the store entirely while the console versions worked fine (which is sad, just fix your damn DLC or pay someone to do it). Speaking of the consoles, I’m sorry but if you have a game that was on consoles first then do me a favor, add decent (or any) controller support. Dead Rising 1 and 3 had it so I’m not sure why they skipped 2 and Off the Record. What I had to use was Controller Companion, a dope app that I used to fix up the controls for Curse: The Eye of Isis and will continue to use for other games that either won’t have them at all or will barely work.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/367670/Controller_Companion/
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=493967497&searchtext=Dead+Rising (Downloads for the companion workshop, if it doesn’t work I’ll add in my own link later)
Because of this, there were numerous times where I got pissed off, which makes me sad because this game is great. Besides the point though, I’m also easy to annoy with tech stuff so if you don’t mind all that it works fine otherwise. I also don’t remember this game being more difficult than the second one but I haven’t played since the 360 days so I’m probably just a scrub. Also to finish the gameplay section off, they have a Sandbox Mode that has progress transfers into the story mode so you can grind levels and get money to use in the campaign, and it’s basically an infinite free mode as well as an improvement from what they offered in the first Dead Rising. Not being able to have a sandbox mode and instead a masochist 7 Day mode where your health is always falling isn’t fun so I’m glad they just added sandbox, with all the time in the world.
The plot is largely the same as well but remixed; this time you return to the series as Frank West for the first time since the original Dead Rising and the DLC for the second, Case West. Since the first game, Frank has become a star for his deeds in exposing the outbreak in Willamette and after a couple of years he’s become washed up and in need of some extra cash to get by. In comes TK, host of game show Terror Is Reality and you get paid to kill zombies on camera. You’ll go through a tutorial where you photograph Brandon, the optional CURE psycho in the DR2, take money from TK to plant a bomb near a zombie cage and start the outbreak. You’ll still meet up with Rebecca to find leads, and follow the trail to find out TK was behind the outbreak, learning that Phenotrans (a pharmaceutical co.) was behind the incident because they needed to collect more queens for their zombie drug, Zombrex, what you’ve been needing to take to survive. However things have changed, arguably for the better. The mole is now Stacey, the head of CURE who helped Chuck and now Frank, as a Phenotrans double agent instead of Sullivan, who is just some security guard in the second game. You also get to fight her in a kind of difficult boss fight at the end of the game…piloting a giant mech crab. After you beat her much is the same, except you rescue Rebecca Chang from TK during overtime if you follow all the main story cases. To me it makes more sense for the double agent to be Stacey due to her position in CURE as the leader and the company’s need to set CURE up to be framed to be a patsy, it just fits. I also loved Frank West as the protagonist in the first DR, so having more Frank with all the dad jokes just makes me love it even more (which is made even better due to Frank now being allowed to speak certain dialogue in game, instead of just text). To finish new changes, they replaced Leon (the motorcycle psycho) from DR2 with Chuck in a homage that makes a lot of sense in the new context (with it being even more weird if you have a coop player, because they’re playing as Chuck with all of his moves, essentially fighting himself which a reference is made via in game dialogue) as well as a psycho with Evan, a smaller clown on stilts who coincidentally turns out to be the brother of one of the most infamous bosses in Dead Rising, Adam the Clown. Knowing who you are, he doesn’t like you and will try to stomp with his goofy stilts. Overall, the game’s plot feels better than the second one; mainly due to the twists making more sense and a protagonist who doesn’t feel boring.
So finally the answer to the question: is it worth buying? Yes, but with caveats. A lot of it is the same game as Dead Rising 2, so it’ll be repetitive and for the most part unchanged from the base game; so my advice: either get this on sale or just get this instead of Dead Rising 2. It’s not an overhaul, just a slightly improved version of the second game but for what it is honestly I can’t complain.
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/