Dead Rising 2 Preview

There will be blood

With Dan's demo over, questions are fielded, and it's no surprise to find that most focus on the actual mechanics of the game, given that Capcom has revealed so little. Multiplayer is “one thing that we have the best intentions of getting in to the game”, according to Inafune, as is weapon breaking. It'll have a 72-hour survival mechanic, too, like the first game, and the reason for it “relates directly to the story”.

Speaking of the story, there's very little info, but what we do know, from the official blurb, is that the game is set several years since the Wilamette incident, in the Vegas-style Fortune City. While Frank stopped the zombie apocalypse, he couldn't prevent outbreaks from happening throughout the US. Replacing Frank is “handyman” Chuck Greene, a former national Motocross champion. Before he hit the big time with a team and sponsorship behind him, Chuck was forced to repair his own bikes, leaving him incredibly resourceful. He's a single father, too, and dotes on his daughter Katey. Oh, and according to Inafune,“you can expect there to be a system in the game that is based on his profession, his ability,” in the same way that Frank took pictures in Dead Rising.

Remember the Drill Bucket? Of course you do. Doesn't sound like something someone would have absent-mindedly left on the street in the middle of a zombie invasion, does it? No, of course not. Someone must have made it. “Unfortunately at this event we don't want to delve into any depth for any of the in-game systems,” Inafune says, “but we can say that if you look at the demo and the trailer there are a lot of nice juicy hints about how the gameplay is going to be carried out. It's awfully strange to have a bucket with three drills already shoved into the bucket! That's probably a hint in of itself!” With Chuck being “a real handyman”, expect some kind of weapon crafting feature.

One of the biggest complaints players had with the first game was the punishing save system. So, all eyes are on the save system this time around. “I don't know if everybody didn't like it,” counters Dan. “I don't know if that's true. I think it's polarising, though. If you look at the forums and actually read what the fans of the game said, for every one person who hated it there was probably one person who actually liked the idea – it created a sense of dread for the character. Rest assured we're going to fix the problems that were there. Literally it was a problem where you could save the game and not finish the game. For want of a better way of putting it, that was crap. Now we are fixing it, for sure, but we're actually trying to come up with some devices that help preserve the sense of dread at the same time, while making sure it's not as frustrating as Dead Rising 1. We're trying to come up with a hybrid system that's an awful lot more flexible and won't annoy the users.”

Dead Rising 2 looks fantastic - we can't wait for E3.

Dan's demo has certainly left its mark – it's hard not to be impressed by the sheer technical prowess on display, as well as the complete and utter madness. But, as Inafune repeatedly insists during the presentation, it's not enough to simply up the zombie count and expect that to do all the work for you. It's about how Blue Castle uses its undeniable technical proficiency to create killer gameplay.

“When we made the announcement trailer for the original Dead Rising,” Inafune says, “it showed Frank standing on top of a car surrounded by almost a sea of zombies. But if you played the original game there was no situation where you were surrounded by that many zombies because of technical limitations we had at the time. However, with Dead Rising 2 we are more than capable of generating a scene like that in the game, and probably even more than what you saw in that video, probably double that number.

“When you think about it, it's not that increasing the number of zombies is instantly going to make the game that much more fun, but it does open up a lot of possibilities with game design and what you can do. Watching Chuck on the motorcycle with double chainsaws zipping through what is comparable to a Japanese train packed full of people, and just cutting them down one by one, it really, really feels great. And it's only possible thanks to the sheer number of zombies they've been able to put on screen at one time.”

This is the crux. The game will live or die not by the zombie count, but by how Blue Castle utilises it. While the developer and Capcom are keeping their cards close to their chests - expect more from E3 – the potential is clear for all to see. For now though, enjoy the thought of mowing down 7,000 zombies with a Chainsaw Bike. That's enough to keep any Dead Rising fan going.

Dead Rising 2 is in development for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC. No release date has been announced.