By Alec Meer on September 25th, 2009 at 10:51 pm.
What follows is a video that simultaneously makes me want to cartwheel down the steet shouting “videogames! videogames! videogames!” and also curl up into a confused, future-shocked ball and wait for the end of the world. It’s Dead Rising 2′s multiplayer mode. It’s the Running Man with zombies. It’s Smash TV starring guys with three-foot, razor-sharp antlers strapped to their heads. It’s TERROR IS REALITY XVII, and you’ve probably never seen a video quite like this…
Admiration/adoration/absolute terror. I don’t know which. It’s probably all of them.
25/09/2009 at 22:57 Dominic White says:
I was rather worried when I heard that Dead Rising 2 was being outsourced to a third-party studio, but this seems to indicate that they’ve got that bizarro Capcom humor going on, which could well mean a great game.
Here’s hoping that they’re using the M.T. Framework engine again, which is an absolute beast and *fantastically* well optimized.
25/09/2009 at 22:57 Gutter says:
Confusing… I can’t wait to see where this will fit in Dead Rising.
And I’d buy that TIR as a stand alone game!
25/09/2009 at 22:58 Spoon says:
*Begins to run down street* videogames! videogames! videogames!
25/09/2009 at 23:02 anotherman7 says:
Chainsaw motorcycle? I think I'm in love.
25/09/2009 at 23:10 Dominic White says:
On a Capcom multiplayer tangent, I’m more excited about Lost Planet 2. There was a demo if it released recently on the 360, and it’s fantastic. A 4-player cooperative boss battle against a huuuuuge beastie. Have one player draw its attention with a mech, another use a rocket launcher to cripple its legs, a third climbing around on its back to knock its ‘core’ down into its body… and then a brave fourth player climbs inside its mouth to attack the lowered core from within.
And apparently, it’s not nearly the biggest fight in the game.
25/09/2009 at 23:12 Noc says:
EVERYTHING IS AMBIVALENT FOREVER.
25/09/2009 at 23:13 Okami says:
I need that helmet. Badly.
25/09/2009 at 23:39 Joseph says:
What. The. Fuck.
“Admiration/adoration/absolute terror. I don’t know which. It’s probably all of them.”
Definitely all of them. Holy shit.
25/09/2009 at 23:47 Dominic White says:
Oh, and before anyone plays the ‘Oh, Japan!’ card – DR2 is by a Canadian studio, who have only previously done two baseball sims, and a baseball management game.
Quite a step up for them, eh?
25/09/2009 at 23:49 Joseph says:
Is it? Are baseball sims/management games easier to make or something? I wouldn’t know, not a developer myself.
Wasn’t going to say anything about Japan, either.
25/09/2009 at 23:55 DeliriumWartner says:
*plays his “Oh, Canada!” card*
26/09/2009 at 00:00 Dominic White says:
Well, I’d imagine that baseball sims are somewhat less ambitious in scope than open-world zombie games, especially ones that seem to be quite creative and have insane multiplayer modes attached.
26/09/2009 at 00:08 Dominic White says:
Oh, and as for the Japan comment, I just remember elsewhere some people getting quite upset about Dead Rising portraying Americans as trigger-happy psychos and America in general as a capitalistic madhouse. Apparently this was due to the everpresent Japanese hatred of all things western, and a desire to pervert and corrupt them… And not, y’know, a direct homage to classic Romero-style zombie movies.
Sure, they were very stupid people with no sense of humor, but they’re out there.
26/09/2009 at 03:18 Spoon says:
You got that right Dominic… They’re the same people making the record ammo shortage in the US. Crazies stocking up thinking Obama is going to take their guns from them.
26/09/2009 at 03:33 Psychopomp says:
OH CANADA
OH CANADA
OUR HOME AND SOMETHING SOMETHING
26/09/2009 at 10:21 Springy says:
A mix of Gladiators and World Wrestling with zombies? Doesn’t sound like a Japanese idea to me.
28/09/2009 at 03:20 Sky Jack says:
If you’re looking for a change from “portraying Americans as trigger-happy psychos and America in general as a capitalistic madhouse,” Canada might not be the best choice.
26/09/2009 at 00:00 Dan says:
Shark == jumped
26/09/2009 at 00:01 Dominic White says:
So long as I get to jump that shark (ideally a zombie shark) riding a motorbike with side-chainsaws, it is a good jump.
26/09/2009 at 00:10 invisiblejesus says:
Wow… I don’t care who’s developing it, I must have this. That trailer is so stupid awesome I could cry.
26/09/2009 at 00:13 lumpi says:
WTF?
Looks like a mixture between Carmageddon and L4D. Or… wait, what
26/09/2009 at 00:23 Martin K says:
Must have. Will buy. Cannot be bad. Simple as that, people.
26/09/2009 at 00:25 Tom says:
Sold
26/09/2009 at 00:36 Mungrul says:
It’s like the original, except turned up to eleven.
I sooooo hope that the rumoured gaffa tape allows you to custom build things of death.
26/09/2009 at 00:36 noom says:
Put me down for eight copies plz.
26/09/2009 at 00:40 orta says:
day 1
26/09/2009 at 00:50 Meatloaf says:
DAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA YES.
I’m excited to see a game that’s not scared to be preposterously stupid.
26/09/2009 at 00:51 Pags says:
Running Man was a good’un. On a sort-of-videogame-related note, I’m pretty sure Gamer basically copied Running Man. Speaking of Gamer, there’s another modern media example of people trying to illustrate gamers as slightly pathetic sadists. Neato! And now, at the risk of living up to that stereotype, this looks awesome.
26/09/2009 at 01:01 Al says:
I’d say it’s got a fairly unhealthy dose of WWE stirred in with a soupçon of Gladiators (the giant hamster balls in particular). But mainly, that’s 174% insanoawesome.
26/09/2009 at 01:43 Zed says:
American Gladiators. This is soaking in American Gladiators. And it is GLORIOUS.
(And those are moose antlers).
26/09/2009 at 02:04 Lord_Mordja says:
There’s a bunch of gameplay vids up on GT. It looks absolutely mental.
One-One of the vehicles is an electric wheelchair with a bunch of guns strapped onto it and the voice of Stephen Hawking.
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/tgs-09-dead-rising/56719
26/09/2009 at 02:19 DarkNoghri says:
Interest. Piqued.
Did the first Dead Rising ever get a PC port? I can’t recall. This, however, looks insane.
26/09/2009 at 02:43 Adam T says:
DON’T BELIEVE THEM, AHNOLD! IF YOU WIN THEY KILL YOU ANYWAY!!!
26/09/2009 at 04:03 Vinraith says:
Is it me or are zombies becoming the new WW2 in games?
26/09/2009 at 04:24 JKjoker says:
Halo did well, lets make everything a fps, hey Gears of War went out of stock, everything should be a 3rd shooter now!, Resident Evil 4 sold like pancakes, horror must become a third person gears of war clone!, everyone is talking about coop, gameplay be damned lets cram coop into everything!, and so on, publishers like their bandwagons, the “everything is better with zombies” trend will probably continue for most of 2010, maybe theyll go for cyborg ninja smurfs next
26/09/2009 at 07:39 Spoon says:
Agreed. They even put zombies in more than one WW2 game this year.
Up next on the overused game setting list – fallout/mad max type wastelands.
26/09/2009 at 04:21 Thermal Ions says:
I must be missing something. In all the DR2 videos I've watched the zombies seem to be ambling almost to the point of standing still even when 2 feet away from the player, and they appear virtually harmless. Sure there might be some initial fun in trying out the variety of weapons / ways to kill them, but where is the actually game play that will inspire me to load it up the second time.
26/09/2009 at 04:44 Psychopomp says:
Dead Rising was about getting *through* the horde of zombies.
There’s lots of them, the last thing you want is runners.
26/09/2009 at 09:29 Dominic White says:
For anyone wondering just how Dead Rising worked, having not played the 360 version, here is a wonderfully concise and accurate review of it by scholar, poet and possible saint, Rab Florence:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWPgSUQKTP0&fmt=18
26/09/2009 at 04:24 Redd says:
I felt nothing.
26/09/2009 at 04:44 TeeJay says:
Doesn’t do anything for me either
26/09/2009 at 07:37 toro says:
DOA.
26/09/2009 at 09:06 The Fanciest of Pants says:
FUCK….
…YES
26/09/2009 at 10:22 Thermal Ions says:
Now that would be awesome :D
26/09/2009 at 10:24 JB says:
Played a little Dead Rising on my nephew's 360, enjoyed it a lot.
Loved Running Man back in the day.
I'm now praying that I'll be able to play DR2, looks ludicrously awesome.
26/09/2009 at 10:55 Schwerpunk says:
*swoon*
26/09/2009 at 10:55 Lars Westergren says:
I don’t see the appeal actually, why spend so much effort to put so much ugliness on the screen? Oh, because people love it, it seems. I feel a bit sad, both for games as art, and for humanity.
26/09/2009 at 11:17 Ecko says:
SHUSH. Zombies are here to stay ok. And Lars, I think the alarm bells about humanity should have been ringing a while ago if you look at the continuous level of bilge produced by the games industry.
26/09/2009 at 11:19 Guy says:
Crotch Thrust! Antlers! Chainsaw Bike!
The world is awesome again.
26/09/2009 at 11:43 Hmm says:
That looks so ridiculously over the top it might be a lot of fun.
I’m hoping the PC version will be as good as PC editions of SF4 and RE5 are. Capcom is slowly becoming a really good PC developer and I can’t help but reward them by buying their games.
26/09/2009 at 12:07 Monkeybreadman says:
Looks shit
26/09/2009 at 12:26 Sinnerman says:
Where is the serious social message about how the desire for cheap meat and consumer goods in the west is ruining the lives of people in the rest of the world? Where are the game mechanics that contrast the annoyance and tedium of saving whiny fat Americans vs the freedom of destruction and indulging your own desires.
Oh, I give in. Dead Rising was always about dressing up in an a coat made of chain saws and a hat with sharpened steel antlers and running head first into a crowd of zombies who are too slow and stupid to get out of your way.
26/09/2009 at 12:41 Dominic White says:
None of the stuff you’re rambling about showed up in any of the trailers for the original Dead Rising either. Also, this is a video for the MULTIPLAYER MODE. You’re not going to find any deep social messages in a four-player cage rumble.
26/09/2009 at 13:24 Sinnerman says:
Dead Rising actually had a marketing message about Frank being a photo journalist finding out what is going on as well as the Zombie mutilating stuff.
Dead Rising 2 has gone in a different direction and almost seems to be more about Capcom shouting out to the rest of the industry about how violent and western their games are compared to other Japanese publishers. This looks well realised for a tacked on multiplayer mode but I don’t think that there is anything so sacrosanct about the tacked on mutliplayer mode that it deserves to be typed out in shouty all caps. I would think that a serious multiplayer gamer would be looking for context and depth to their multiplayer games more than anyone.
26/09/2009 at 13:29 Dominic White says:
Most ‘serious multiplayer gamers’ I know still play Quake 3, which has all the narrative depth of a five-year-olds doodlings on a restaurant napkin. Seriously, are you expecting a plot in a multiplayer mode tacked onto a semi-comedy game about zombies?
26/09/2009 at 13:39 Sinnerman says:
So, are you saying that the multiplayer mode in Dead Rising 2 is going to be as good as Quake 3 based on this trailer?
When I say depth and context I don’t necessarily mean story but some sort of thing that gives me a reason to care and some hint that the game has more going on that watching the kill animations play. Just a hint that something is going on under the surface at some level would be a start.
26/09/2009 at 13:51 Dominic White says:
Given that in this trailer we see about four seconds of actual gameplay, I’m saying that it’s a fun-looking concept for a multiplayer mode but we have no goddamn idea how it plays, and judging it based on this, other than on an aesthetic level, is just silly.
I am however hoping for a big Gladiators-style obstacle course, but with added zombies and plenty of opportunities to shove the competition into the waiting arms of a dozen undead bastards.
26/09/2009 at 15:20 Frye says:
American Gladiator meets Deer Hunter! How cool are those antlers?
26/09/2009 at 15:37 Vandelay says:
So, no one else is really turned off by the rather boring wrestling overtones of the trailer?
The antlers and chainsaw mounted on a motorbike were cool, but everything was meh. I don't think I would interested in playing the multiplayer if it was presented in that style.
26/09/2009 at 16:37 Blast Hardcheese says:
You’re all reading too much into the ridiculous trailer. The game itself has you in Las Vegas, not in some sort of bizzaro-thunderdome.
“One man and one thousand zombies enter! One of those things will leave!”
Also, since Dead Rising 2 will have over one thousand zombies on screen, runners would be inappropriate considering Dead Rising gave plenty of OTHER enemies to deal with.
And finally, this appears to be the exact level of stupid dumb fun carnage I wanted out of Wolfenstein. F*** YEAH TESTOSTERONE!
26/09/2009 at 20:01 Fumarole says:
Oh my, do want.
26/09/2009 at 22:07 Perry Bothron says:
They should release it as a stand alone product. I’d buy it.
Terror Is Reality XVIII: Now with more Antlers!
27/09/2009 at 07:08 Spacewalk says:
This game could only be set in Vegas.
27/09/2009 at 08:52 AsubstanceD says:
This video for me brings up a very important point, why in all zombie media as no one ever thought that a steel ball cage wouldn’t be the greatest method to stop zombies eating you and still being able to get around. Think about it top zombie scientists!
27/09/2009 at 09:19 Player2 says:
Cmon now, you have to love this. Mindless slaughter of zombies, and with a best buddy to tag along and spew puns in time with your own.
“Watch out for that TREE!”
“He looks a little PAIL after that one!”
“I should AXE him how he’s feeling!”
“Your methods of analyzation are KATANASHING!”
I live for senseless violence and gameplay chock full of lousy puns! Bring it on I say!