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Over Comic-Con, I was able to get into a panel for Capcom's upcoming Dead Rising 2. Among the things they showed was a brief new trailer for the game that was made in the vein of a tourism advertisement for the city locale in question, Fortune City. For those of you who don’t know, the story of Dead Rising 2 happens five years after the events of the original game. You play as Chuck Greene (the motorcycle jacket wearing badass who sort of looks like Travis Pastrana) on a quest for Zombrex, a drug that keeps the effects of zombism (and Restless Leg Syndrome) at bay, for his bitten daughter.

Keiji Inafune, producer of the game and authentic Japanese guy, went on to talk about the gameplay dynamics of the free roam, and more tantalizingly, the ability to combine weapons to make new gut wrenching disemboweling superweapons.

He then went on to talk about his directorial debut in Dead Rising Sun, a Japanese zombie movie set in the world of the game. He talked about how he was inspired by 70s and 80s monster and horror movies, and paid homage to them in this movie. He also relayed a funny incident during production of the original Dead Rising. They aired a commercial in Japan directed by the godfather of the undead, George A. Romero, and in it the American extras were apparently much more adept at behaving like zombies than the Japanese extras. He went on to say that many of them did not understand the difference between zombies and ghosts with hilarious results.

Finally, the Capcom team discusses release of a Dead Rising downloadable game, solely for XBLA, that takes place between the first and second game. On top of giving players a taste of zombie mutalation when it releases in late August, all points and gear earned throughout it will transfer over to Dead Rising 2. Sadly this will not be available for PC or PS3.

Other than discussing his new movie and talking about a few new game play elements, not much was really said about the game that wasn’t already known. However, I was able to make my way down to the Capcom booth and get my hands on the game. All I have to say is that it's totally awesome.

Elaborating on that, basically it's an open world game where you can use absolutely anything (and I mean anything) as a weapon to battle through hordes and hordes of zombies. Anything from a baseball bat to a water cooler to a giant teddy bear can be picked up and wielded at your disposal. After a large amount of use these items eventually deteriorate and break, forcing you to constantly hunt for new forms of defense, which make the game more engaging.

Built on top of this concept is the ability to combine weapons at a workbench a la Fallout 3. Some examples I was able to play with were a combination rowing paddle double chainsaw… thing, a pitchfork shotgun that impaled enemies before blowing them away, a drill motor powered spear that is taped to your hand, and the old favorite, a bat with nails sticking out of the end. No doubt there are many, many more combination you can enjoy, but it is truly awesome how many different insane weapons the creators thought to combine to allow the player a unique killing experience.

This will definitely be one game I will immediately be buying when it comes out on September 28th, and a must have for any zombie fan.