YMMV / Dead Rising 2: Off the Record

• Awesome Music: Several, including "Halfway Dead", "Firewater", and "His Name's Frank".
• Breather Boss: Just like the originals listed above, Evan can be a breeze compared to the Twins, whose mission is available at the same time. Though it's divided into two phases and Evan's a Fragile Speedster on foot, he's not too difficult since standard psychopath tactics work just as well on him.
• Broken Base: Over which protagonist's version of the story fans prefer, Chuck's or Frank's?
• Complete Monster: Tyrone "TK" King manages to be even worse than in the original game. Actively supplying the bomb to ensure the zombie outbreak, TK also manipulates Brandon Whittaker into releasing the zombies, convincing him that it will make everyone equal. When Frank West stops his mercenaries from robbing the casinos, TK kidnaps Rebecca; after demanding a $1,000,000 ransom, TK has the twins attack him even after he brings it. Should Frank save him from his zombie infection, TK repays him by kidnapping a mortally wounded Rebecca, intending to have her replace the twins as his personal sexpot while blackmailing Frank into retrieving items for him. When Frank retrieves the items, TK backstabs him yet again, throwing him in a zombie pit with no weapons to fight for his life while he watches with a smile.
• Continuity Lockout: Chuck's appearance in this game won't make any sense unless you've played the original version.
• Creepy Awesome: This version of Chuck Greene is a Psychopath who's a broken drunk, carrying around a doll he seems to think is Katey after he failed to save the real Katey. And while he may have the same battle as Leon, he is still just as much of a badass as he is in the main game.
• Fourth Wall Myopia: The boss fight against Evan is played for laughs because players of the first game know that Adam the Clown's death wasn't Frank's fault. Adam attacked first and slumped over on to his own chainsaws while they were still active. In the context of the story though, Evan met his brother's killer (who had just expressed no remorse for killing him and had also callously insulted his family) and wanted to avenge his fallen brother.
• Game-Breaker: All the stuff that broke the game in the original version is back for this one, along with:
  • Sandbox mode. All a player has to do is make a save, play this mode for a couple of hours to get money and PP, and they shouldn't have any worry in the world.
  • Frank's Camera is also one this time around, since it doesn't have to constantly get new batteries anymore. Meaning one can get tons of easy PP by taking pictures.
  • There's a DLC pack called "The Gamebreaker Pack", which is filled of all kinds of Capcom-endorsed cheats, including God Mode, infinite ammo/durability, and the ability to change the time limits.
• Goddamned Bats: The sleeper zombies lying on the floor or staring at walls, who teleport into a grapple accompanied by a Scare Chord. The floor ones are easy to avoid, jump over, or preemptively attack, but the wall ones spawn behind blind corners and closed doors and inside safe areas like Maintenance Rooms and bathrooms. They're infrequent enough to lull the player into complacency and a Jump Scare. On the bright side, if you shake them off fast enough, they do little to no damage at all.
• Player Punch:
  • Arguably the fact that Katey dies in Off The Record. Made worse by the fact that her daddy's gone Psycho and is now a boss fight.
  • Even worse, going into Chuck's room during the outbreak Frank will remark loudly that it's not a place for a kid. Looking around you find a certain backpack with blood around it and a small handprint in blood on a nearby mirror.
• Scrappy Mechanic: Mainly averted, as Off the Record removes many of the annoying issues that players had with Dead Rising 2. Frank can inject Zombrex anywhere, and doesn't need to return to the Safe House each time (since there's no Katey waiting there for it). Stacey's messages are now fully voiced and broadcast over a wireless earpiece, so you can listen to them without interrupting combat. Finally, and probably most significantly, they actually added a checkpoint system that saves every time you change locations, so you don't end up losing an hour or so of gameplay if you get killed. The only one that's new in Off the Record is the Artificial Stupidity in the survivors, though it's not as bad as in the previous game.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: "Firewater", Chuck Greene's boss theme, sounds very much like "Sad But True" by Metallica.
• That One Achievement:
  • Alpha vs Omega. To get it you have to have Denyce, the very first survivor you encounter, attack and damage Sgt Boykin, one of the last psychopaths in the game. It basically turns the entire playthrough into one long god-awful Escort Mission that forces you to reload every time she dies. This can lead to HOURS of lost storyline progress because you weren't able to get to a bathroom or wasted your last healing item on her. Of course, this being Dead Rising, even if you do manage this incredibly frustrating feat all you get is a measly 20 point achievement. Hope the agony of putting up with her for all that time was worth it, though you can at least watch Boykin rip her apart once the achievement pops up. And if you think the Gamebreaker Pack will make this easy, think again. Using it disables achievements and prevents you from saving.
  • What makes this even worse, you may ask? Unlike other psychopaths you fight throughout the game proper, Boykin is a 'plot-relevant psychopath'; as in you have to progress the plot of the game. So, in addition to the regular game, you must somehow find a way to make sure Denyce doesn't go into safe zones as well and you must complete the plot of the game while dragging her along. This also means you have to ensure she survives against Gas Zombies and the other psychos, such as the aforementioned Twins.
  • The absolute worst part, however, and a part that is not often thought about, is the fact that the boss fight against TK’s Helicopter, another plot relevant fight, takes place on a rooftop that passes through a loading screen. After the fight, Frank (and anyone with him) is teleported to the Safe House. This means not only that Denyse can’t come up to the fight with you, putting you on an even stricter time limit, but once the fight is over, Frank has to race back to the Hotel to pick her back up before she dies from time.
• That One Boss:The bosses all got a power up for this one, but god DAMN the Redneck Snipers take the cake (especially Big Earl).
• That One Side Quest: Getting the Protoman suit requires you to earn at least a bronze medal in every challenge in Sandbox mode. Sounds simple enough. However to unlock all the challenges you have to kill at least 10,000 zombies. And if you're playing on Steam you better pray the game doesn't glitch out. Because if it does; all of those hours you spent killing zombies and doing challenges? Wasted.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Chuck's boss battle is largely a re-skinned version of Leon's battle. Chuck will occasionally throw a molotov at Frank, but despite this, he doesn't use any other combo weapons. It would have been more interesting to fight Chuck if he was armed with his signature combo weapons.
• The Un-Twist: Instead of Chuck being framed for the outbreak, a member of CURE is shown starting the outbreak. Stacey proclaims CURE is innocent the entire game and Frank must clear their name. But, no. CURE is a tool used by Phenotrans to get misguided activists to start outbreaks. Stacey herself is a Phenotrans plant who organizes them to do this. They were fully as guilty as they appeared to be. Your Mileage May Vary in if this makes more sense than the original game's plot or not.

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