To give some background on Dead Rising 2, Capcom and Blue Castle Games has been working on an XBLA prologue for their upcoming sequel to the popular zombie sandbox game. Dead Rising 2: Case Zero offers a quick look into what you should expect from Dead Rising 2 as you get to explore a remote desert town that is infested with zombies, which is a good proof of concept and is well worth the $5 for this XBLA game.

Case Zero is more of a way to set-up the story of Dead Rising 2 than to close the story of the original. You learn of the zombie outbreak in Las Vegas that has prompted a military response to quarantine a 50 mile radius around ground zero, which includes the town of Still Creek as Chuck Greene and his infected daughter Katey pull into the town to get some gas. Their truck is stolen when they have their backs turned, so they need to find some Zombrex to keep Katey’s infection at bay, a way to get out of town, and they have only until 9 PM to escape before its too late.

Dead Rising 2: Case Zero offers a taste of all of the aspects of Dead Rising’s feature set with a few new tricks up its sleeve. The new additions here are centered on the new weapon combination system, which allows you to combine items into special new weapons at the few workshops in Still Creek. Why you would make these combo weapons is to get double experience if you have the Combo Card, which also offers a second move for most of them. The combo cards appear to be tied to leveling up Chuck and any combos you create before then just offer Scratch Cards that are just a record of that combo with no bonuses.

The other big new change that Case Zero shows off is the revamped save system. You still can’t save whenever and where ever you want, but you do get the option to save whenever you complete parts of a case and you have three save slots to use however you wish. Anytime you want to save manually, just find one of the few bathrooms in Still Creek to relieve yourself and save your progress.

Outside of those two changes, Case Zero offers most of the things you associate with Dead Rising. That includes the cases, escort missions for survivors, fetch quests, a boss fight, and plenty of zombies to maim and kill. There are plenty of buildings that you can raid for food, weapons, and supplies, though a few of them are locked and require you to find an alternate path inside to unlock them.

The main story of Case Zero only takes about 90 minutes to complete, though you probably won’t even get close to the max level or the true ending without playing through the game a few times. You can carry your experience and unlocks to new playthroughs for maximum enjoyment and when you’re finished with the game, your save can be transferred to Dead Rising 2 so you start out at level five with the unlocks, cash, and skills that you’ve earned. Add in the achievements and we’ve put about nine hours into the game over the weekend to max out the game with all of the achievements, as well.

Visually, Case Zero is one of the best-looking games on XBLA, though it’s not without its faults. Textures pop-in on objects as you get closer to them, the framerate takes a hit when a ton of zombies are on screen, and there isn’t a great draw distance that would be useful for guns. Load times are also fairly lengthy as they range from 10 to 20 seconds. The cutscenes are mostly real-time, so you find the most ridiculous outfits and hats or hairstyles to mess up any of the emotional elements of the story that carries over between playthroughs. There isn’t any voice acting outside of the cutscenes and music tends to only be noticeable in the boss fight and the credits, so there isn’t much to the audio outside of the moans of the undead.

Dead Rising 2: Case Zero is a very fun taste of what you can expect from Dead Rising 2 with a unique setting and scenario for 400 Microsoft Points ($5 in real money). The cheap cost for a lot of replayability, achievements, and the ability to get a head start on Dead Rising 2 with your save is worth the price. If you’re the kind of person that calls this a paid demo, you can just play the trial for your free demo since is just an XBLA game.

Final Score: 8 | Recommendation: Buy It

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3. Review: Zombie Apocalypse (PS3, Xbox 360)