Dead Rising 2

The player takes control over Chuck Greene, a former national motocross champion fleeing to Fortune City, rebuilt from the remains of old Las Vegas and yet untouched by the zombie disease, along with his daughter Katey. Katey was bitten by her zombified mother and thus needs a shot of Zombrex every 24 hours to avoid zombification. In order to get his hands on more Zombrex - or at least the money to buy some - Chuck is desperate enough to enter a game show called "Terror Is Reality" where he has to slay the undead for entertainment. Right after the show some of his "victims" break loose into the city, causing a wide-scale infection. Chuck learns from a news report that he is accused of causing the outbreak and that the military will come to capture him and to purge the city in three days.

Gameplay takes place in a sandbox-like environment. The player can freely move around in zombie-infested Fortune City and choose how they want the game to progress by either taking on missions or ignoring them. The player can ignore the main story altogether, letting all survivors die, and just fight the undead roaming the streets or go exploring. This will not result in a "game over" screen, but in a different ending. If the player fails to get Katey a shot of Zombrex every 24 hours, the game won't end.

Zombrex can be found on various occasions around the city or bought off traders looking to make a fortune off the zombie outbreak. For rescuing survivors, defeating psychopaths and chopping zombies, Chuck earns experience points used to level up and gaining more strength, a larger inventory or new abilities in the process.

The player may just mess around to find out how to build certain custom weapons by using stuff he finds in places throughout the city. The work bench is introduced as a new combat element: Chuck can build his own custom weapons by using materials found in the city. Custom weapons inflict much more damage than regular ones and Chuck gains more experience out of every killed enemy.