Dead Rising 2 - Multiplayer Breakdown

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This year's Tokyo Game Show may have been a bit light in the excitement stakes, particularly in the wake of the glitzy E3 and Gamescom extravaganzas, so it was a good thing that Capcom decided to reveal a far more interesting game show of its own at an off-site hands-on event in downtown Tokyo.

Terror is Reality is the slightly clunky name for the multiplayer component of Dead Rising 2, the sequel to the undead-shredding survival horror game from 2006.

It's essentially an apocalyptic television game show that plays out like an episode of Gladiators - the difference being that the mindless zombies are actual participants rather than just being the viewers at home (think the game show teased at the end of Shaun of the Dead).

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However, you don't actually compete against the zombies - they're merely the meatsacks you must mutilate in order to rack up points - instead you face-off against three other human contestants dressed in Power Ranger-esque garb. In the finished game there will be a lengthy list of events to choose from, but we were treated to just a handful during our hands-on.

The first event we got to play was Ramsterball. The four of you line up in human-sized hamster balls, with one randomly tagged as being "it". Whoever is "it" must pinball their way off the column-like bumpers stationed around the arena to trigger hydraulic zombie crushers situated above the bumpers.

The more zombies you mince, the more points you get, and it's up to the other three players to ram into you and steal the ability to score points of their own.

Another event was Headache, which involved placing electric blender-like helmets on as many zombies as possible, before rushing over to a button to "bank" your points and activate the helmets - causing fountains of blood to erupt out the top.

Headache is based around risk versus reward, as the more helmets you place before banking, the more chances you're giving your opponents to either remove them or destroy them with sticks of dynamite.

After the preliminary rounds, the points are tallied and whoever's in first place gets a head-start in the final event where winner takes all. Slicecycles is an ultraviolent demolition derby aboard motorcycles with chainsaws for handlebars.

By holding both triggers, you can perform powerslides to sharpen your turning circle, and the latter half of the round sees the addition of special zombies with balloons attached that are worth even more points. With so many groaning brainmunchers on-screen, the framerate noticeably chugged during this event, but overall the multiplayer mode was uniquely entertaining.

Apparently, main character Chuck Greene will be able to enter Terror is Reality during the single-player game. How and more importantly why Capcom isn't saying. We're not sure how you'd build a game show in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, but then we wouldn't have thought you could build one around a series of boxes you can't open so we're probably just not visionary enough.

Poke a face
Speaking of which, Capcom also let us loose on a casino floor taken from an area in the campaign mode. Of course, in this casino the only "dice" involved is the act of rearranging zombie body parts with a broadsword.
In keeping with the framework laid out by the original game, almost everything in your surrounding area can be used to make mulch out of the zombie hordes.

We began caving in skulls with the pointy side of a roulette wheel, before raking their faces off with a croupier stick taken from a nearby craps table. At one point we even lifted a stuffed swordfish off the wall, took aim, and skewered a row of enemies through their eye sockets. There were also the usual pistols and machine guns, along with an exciting evolution of the chainsaw.

The casino area also played host to a couple of mini-games, one a mechanical bull that involved Simon Says button-pressing in order to stay in the saddle, and the other a "grab for cash" booth that essentially amounted to hammering the A button to fill a meter at the side of the screen.

Success in both provided boosts to your Prestige Points tally - handy given you can no longer employ Frank West's photography ability from the first game.

Revered Capcom producer Keiji Inafune had earlier taken one look at what was on offer at this year's Tokyo Game Show and effectively declared that Japanese game development was dead - except for Capcom's upcoming games of course. Which is a bit odd, given that DR2 is actually being developed by Canadian studio Blue Castle Games.

Still, regardless of who's making it, DR2 is shaping up to be a messier follow-up to the much-loved original, with the added variety of an interesting multiplayer mode.

OXM Staff