Capcom felt "Dead Rising" was "too Japanese" and looks to give its sequel more Western appeal

Zombies seem to be everywhere these days. From smash hit movies like “Zombieland,” to the recent announcement of a show centering around survivors of a zombie apocalypse called “The Walking Dead” on AMC, zombies are a pop-culture phenomenon that is as persistent as the undead themselves. Unsurprisingly, zombie themed video games have seen a spike in frequency in recent years, popping up in such genres as third person action (“Resident Evil”), first person shooting (“Left 4 Dead”), and adventure (“Stubbs the Zombie”) titles to name a few.

For all its shortcomings, Capcom’s “Dead Rising” did what few games before it had – recreating the sensation of being one of a handful to survive in a town-encompassing zombie outbreak. Though it suffered from idiotic NPC A.I. (non-player character artificial intelligence), a painful shortage of save points and only a 72-hour (in-game) story mode (which is unfortunately returning in the sequel), not to mention the fact that often times, critical mission info was delivered only in text form, text that was only readable on an HDTV (which were not nearly as prevalent in 2006), I will always remember “Dead Rising” for all it could have been, and not necessarily what it delivered.

Capcom is looking to right all (well most) of the wrongs in the upcoming sequel “Dead Rising 2” for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC. In a recent interview, producer Shinsaku Ohara stated that Capcom felt the first “Dead Rising” was “too Japanese” and are taking steps to make the sequel bigger, badder and with all the over-the-top violence American fans expect from the “Dead Rising” series. The original’s main strength was allowing gamers to use nearly any item found in the game world as a weapon against the undead. “Dead Rising 2” plans on turning the bloodshed to 11 by not only expanding the amount of weapons available, but allowing various items to be combined to create outlandish weapons of mutilation. Nails can be added to propane tanks to create devastating nail bombs, knives can be added to boxing gloves for additional punching power and chainsaws can even be added to a dirt bike’s handlebars to cut bloody swathes through the ever advancing zombie crowds of “Dead Rising 2’s” new setting.

Though the first title limited your exploration to a single, admittedly gigantic, shopping mall, “Dead Rising 2” is set in a Las Vegas rip-off called Fortune City and follows former motocross champion Chuck Greene. It’s unclear why exactly Greene is in Fortune City to begin with, but his motivation for staying is obvious. Soon after arriving in Fortune City, Greene’s young daughter, Katey, is bitten and needs daily doses of a drug called Zombrex to keep the infection at bay. Though many details of the story are still under wraps, we do know that Greene will take part in a challenge-based reality TV show called “Terror is Reality” and features numerous zombie-mangling minigames that will also be the basis for the game’s multiplayer modes.

While on the topic of multiplayer, Capcom also recently announced that gamers will be able to use “in-game devices” to trigger an online co-operative play mode so you and a friend can help cure Fortune City’s zombie epidemic, one rotting corpse at a time. Though “Dead Rising 2’s” single-player mode will only be three days (72-hours) long, the addition of weapon creation and an online co-op mode, “Dead Rising 2” is a game for any zombie aficionado to keep their eyes on.