Dead Rising 2: Off the Record

Now, this is not my first rodeo into the Dead Rising franchise (my first being 3, which was dreadful), so I had pretty low expectations going into this.
Good thing I kept them low, as this game does pass the "quality" of Dead Rising 3, if you could even call it that, but it doesn't excel in most other things.

Most of the game felt like a walking simulator, going from point A to point B over, and over, and over again. Picking up generic survivors with no real differences other than their dialogue gimmick, and dropping them off at the safehouse got very boring really fast. However, choosing to not rescue most of the survivors kneecaps most of your run because of a lack of leveling.
There's nothing really special about this game, and nothing that kept me intrigued to play more besides the co-op feature.
The zombies are nothing more than obstacles rather than an actual threat for most of the game. Even when they DO get harder, it's not that much of a difference and they are still prone to the same cheesy options of counteracting them.
Speaking of cheese, I wasn't expecting much out of the story, but wow is it bland and cliche. The English voice acting is also horrendous for the most part, the only exception being Frank West himself (although his one liners and dialogue in general are far from good).
When it comes to bosses, I really came out of the game unimpressed. The Japanese usually EXCEED at creating meaningful bossfights, but this game's fights just felt overly same-y and cliche yet again.
In fact, the whole game feels like one big cliche (could be on purpose, don't really care).
Something tells me this franchise isn't as good as some say it is.

The things I CAN give a positive score for are the weapon variety, the music (only sometimes heard it because of bugs), and the lack of crashes overall compared to 3.

playing it coop with a friend is an absolute blast, more than most games. some bosses are fucking frustrating as hell to the point of arguing with eachother and getting snappy but i guess thats what a good game should do, challenge you and make you persevere. the controls and combat are fun, and the mall is exciting to explore

8/10

Look! It's Dead Rising 2 with a different playable character! Isn't that amazing?