Capcom gets zombies. Dead Rising 2: CASE ZERO is proof of that. They truly understand the fan base of the zombie genre. They understand that zombies shamble, zombies bleed, zombies are dumb, but most of all they understand that zombies are a backdrop for human characters. Which, in this case (zero) means that story is important too.

The original Dead Rising was an early title for Xbox 360 and it effectively showcased the reason why consoles needed more powerful hardware. Thousands of unique zombies filled the ruins of the Willamette Mall in Colorado waiting to be beaten, pummeled, shot, or maimed in any desirable fashion. At the time, it was quite impressive to see that many characters on screen at once, with that much detail, without completely crashing down. It simply looked incredible for its time and now Dead Rising 2: CASE ZERO ups the ante by providing more zombies, more detail, and more creative kills to deliver the prettiest zombie genocide simulator ever. Seeing the screen bursting with zombie juice never gets old and perfectly poignant animations make murdering the undead an essential life experience for everyone.

Where the former game relied on cheesy voice acting and HEAVY doses of "camp" to achieve an almost cult-like status, Dead Rising 2: CASE ZERO dials back the campiness of the story and attempts to play it straight with main character Chuck Greene. Chuck's voice actor plays it seriously enough to be convincing, yet loose enough to be tongue-in-cheek when you force Chuck to prance around in a waitress outfit while throwing poker chips at a zombie playing slot machines. The self-aware attitude is what benefits Dead Rising 2: CASE ZERO the most. From the gratuitous sound effects of the zombie splatter to the gnashing of teeth against flesh, it all really helps to make the universe of Dead Rising feel alive (well, undead.)

So Dead Rising 2: CASE ZERO is a prequel to Dead Rising 2, but a sequel to Dead Rising, taking place years before the former and a relatively small time after the latter. Chuck Greene is the star this time around (instead of war-time journalist Frank West) as he fights to survive the zombie apocalypse with his daughter Katey. Katey was bitten after her mother was turned into a zombie herself and now Chuck must stave off Katey's infection if he wants to find a cure for his only daughter. After traveling for a long time, Chuck is finally stranded in a small town outside of what was once Las Vegas and has to escape the town before the military wipes it out during the quarantine.

That gives Chuck about 12 hours to find a dose of zombie suppressant, Zombrex, for Katey, construct an escape vehicle, and survive the night before it is Game Over. In game time, that is about three hours to complete all the main missions and side quests before you get AN ending. Out of the six or so possible endings, the good ending, Ending A, leads right into the set-up of Dead Rising 2, whereas all the additional endings are based on what goals you did or did not meet during your visit. It should be worth mentioning that no matter how much you level up or how many weapons you carry, it is almost impossible to clear out all the side missions during the initial playthrough.

Initial playthrough implies that you play through it more than once. For me, the final tally was actually five times. Though, I only played it through to completion twice. See, the main gameplay feature in Dead Rising 2: CASE ZERO is the enforcement of mortality. You will die, a lot. You are supposed to. The gameplay is structured in such a way where dying doesn't necessarily mean the end of the line and forced reloads. If you die in Dead Rising, you can either restart from a save point (located in bathrooms, so save often!) or start the entire game over, keeping all the money and experience you earned and breezing through the early chapters while earning more Prestige Points (PP). PP are used to level up Chuck's natural abilities, which grant him special attack moves or increased health and earning PP is as easy as completing missions, saving fellow survivors, or using the new combo weapons system. The level limit is capped at Level 5, but all of your progress is promised to transfer seamlessly into your Dead Rising 2 save file.

Combo weapons are new to Dead Rising 2: CASE ZERO and replace the photography mini-game of the original Dead Rising in order to gain PP. Combo weapons are as simple as they sound, combining any two weapons together with duct tape (lots and lots of duct tape) at work benches scattered around town to make one super-weapon. Like a baseball bat plus nails equals a nail bat that kills much more quickly. You can find and earn combo cards which will show a new combination of weapons, as well as the super effective attack that goes along with it. If you discover an item combo before you earn a card, you get a scratch card that records the item combination, but limits the access to the special attack.

I really don't think I can state enough how much you will die. While the first Dead Rising was very divisive in the way it dealt with difficulty, Dead Rising 2: CASE ZERO makes the whole experience more approachable, while still maintaining sickening levels of difficulty at the right times. As a study of game philosophy, I find the difficulty curve of the entire Dead Rising franchise to be brilliant. Once you stop to think about the surroundings and environment, you realize that answers literally lie all around you at any given time. Dead Rising 2: CASE ZERO is a game designed to be exploited, and thought over to achieve maximum efficiency.

For example, in Dead Rising 2: CASE ZERO, there is a final boss fight with a surviving psychopath that wants to kill Chuck's daughter because the psycho has never "killed a young'un before." During this fight, I was having a very hard time maintaining my health while still being offensive. I tried bringing multiple single-use healing items with me, like fruit and beer, but the problem is that each healing item takes up one slot in the inventory, which meant less weapons that I could use against the boss. So by combining a worker's helmet with beer, I got a beer helmet that I could wear which only used a single inventory slot and granted me multiple healing uses in a hurry. So the boss fight became much more manageable. It's things like this that are peppered throughout all of Dead Rising 2: CASE ZERO that make it such a joy to invent new ways of dealing with the dead, while being economical with your surroundings.

For fans of the franchise, Dead Rising 2: CASE ZERO also improves the aiming system, firearms, combos, navigation, and the much maligned save system. I already mentioned that save points were still limited to restrooms, but the improvement is that you are allowed three save slots throughout the story. So, at any given time, you can have three different branching story paths simultaneously in case you want to try something new, but don't necessarily think it will work out in the long run. It's also very important to understand that there is a time to reload and a time to restart. If you weren't prepared or didn't leave enough time on the clock to complete a mission, maybe starting over and powering through the beginning is the best way to go for you.

Now considering all that Dead Rising 2: CASE ZERO offers to newcomers and fans alike, I have yet to mention THE most important part. The entire package only costs 5 dollars (or 400 Microsoft Points.) While this may be a shorter experience than the major retail release, CASE ZERO still offers plenty of replayability and value for anyone that just wants to test the waters of the Dead Rising universe. While some may argue that the standards and conventions that are unique to Dead Rising are outdated or not user friendly, I would argue that those decisions were intentional and that's what makes it so memorable. Dead Rising 2: CASE ZERO plays by its own rules and you have to be willing to adapt in order to survive.

Dead Rising 2: CASE ZERO proves that when a developer wants to deliver an amazing experience to please fans, no one does it better than Capcom. The story is perfectly paced and the amount of value is extremely impressive for a 5 dollar download. Killing zombies never gets old, and even after several playthroughs of CASE ZERO, I still want more. While it may not be totally perfect, I find it hard to fault Dead Rising 2: CASE ZERO over small gripes since it already delivers so much content for such a little price. This is the perfect primer for Dead Rising 2 and I cannot wait to slaughter more zombies in the coming weeks.