If being a single-parent today is a difficult task, Chuck Greene has a doubly hard time ahead trying to survive the pitfalls of Zombieland with his young daughter Katey in-tow. Complicating matters further is a ticking clock requiring her to receive a dose of a wonder drug called Zombrex every twelve hours – else she would join the ranks of infected clogging the road to Las Vegas. Between her and that medication is that never ending sea of zombies as well as the military, and several more colorful characters stepping out of the horror film genre to make an appearance in Capcom’s alternative take on the zombie gaming genre.
It’s an admittedly crowded genre, which Capcom already holds a large share of but still finds niche space for the Dead Rising series with the slower pace of the Romero zombie, a creature eager for the work since largely falling out of cinema favor with a post 28 Days Later audience. And it’s a bit surprising just how well those relics can flourish in a post Left4Dead gaming space, where opportunities to crowd and overwhelm but also still sneak up on players offers new life.
As with the original, Case Zero is a bit of playing out the survivor fantasy first implanted as a thought by Dawn of the Dead, with a mix of horror brevity and cheese to round out the ride. Case Zero offers a prequel glimpse into the sequel, an introduction to Chuck’s ride toward an infected Vegas with a brief stop over that offers players a taste of items, characters, challenges, and of course the horde. What Case Zero really offers is a breath of relief with evidence that Dead Rising 2’s co-development between Capcom and Blue Castle Games is on track to succeed where other externally developed ventures have failed Capcom recently – so far so good.
