Off the Record drops Frank West back into Fortune City with a sandbox mode, photography and fresh psychos to mash. A tasty fan-facing remix, looser and clearly funnier than Chuck's official adventure.
Your verdict
Category
Action Adventure1 player18+
Description
Alternate Dead Rising 2 version by Capcom Vancouver and Capcom, October 2011. Frank West, the first episode's hero, returns to Fortune City for his own version of Dead Rising 2 events. Frank-exclusive new missions, modified story events and endings and photographic evidence collection. Humorous alternate version offering a new perspective on Dead Rising 2.
Dead Rising 2 - Off the Record review
4/5
Art direction
★★★★★
"Striking"
4/5
Music
★★★★★
"Excellent"
4/5
Story
★★★★★
"Captivating"
This retelling adds an amusement park to the casino: a Ferris wheel, roller coasters, shooting galleries and costumed mascots, a funfair setting that makes the hordes even more incongruous. Frank West's return also brings the camera back on screen, with its frame, its settings and its filed shots, an interface absent from the game it rewrites.
The park brings its own public address: carousel organs, stall jingles, parade music looping over deserted lanes, a register even more childlike than the gaming floors'. The psychopath fights keep their sung tracks, but the contrast sharpens, since the funfair itself never stops playing.
The game openly presents itself as a hypothesis: what if the journalist from the first episode had been there instead of the father. Frank West therefore replays the same days with his own motivations, a reputation to rebuild and a taste for reporting, and the endings change accordingly. A rare example of a follow-up that owns contradicting the story it extends.
Gameplay
"Excellent"
Fun
"From the very first minutes"
Addictiveness
"Captivating"
Difficulty
"Balanced"
Lifespan
"Long"
Technical info
💾6,4 GB📅11/10/2011
Published by Capcom
Dead Rising 2 - Off the Record (Xbox 360) price, value & rarity
Is Dead Rising 2 - Off the Record still worth playing in 2026?
A reimagining of Dead Rising 2 by Capcom, Off the Record rewrites the adventure by replacing Chuck with photojournalist Frank West, hero of the first entry, with his photo system, a new amusement park area and a sandbox mode without time pressure. This freer, more generous retelling, peppered with humour, makes it the best gateway to creative zombie carnage. The repetition remains. An excellent game for fans of carefree slaughter, dark humour and creative mayhem on Xbox 360.
