Dead Rising 2: Off The Record is a hard game to judge. Dead Rising 2 was a good game, the problem with Dead Rising 2 is that it's the same game. By that, I don't mean "Oh they reused the assets" or "They used the same map". Both of those are acceptable. No Dead Rising 2: Off the Record, literally did a character swap and changed less than a third of the story.
To be honest, this should not have been its own game. This is almost DLC masquerading as a full release. There are some other changes (a few more survivors, a few changes to survivors, I think a few new psychopaths) but if you've played Dead Rising 2 right before this game, this is going to be like a second playthrough of Dead Rising.
As for the story, there's really two major changes that I noticed. Instead of Chuck being blamed for releasing zombies, another person is blamed. (A character that appears in the original game). And the ending. The final boss, (literally the final scene) is different, with a significant change to the ending.
There is one new (and rather large) area that is added to the game, that is a nice addition, but it's just that, an addition, not a whole new world.
Other than that, the game, majority of psychopaths and majority of the mall is the same. You're seeing similar people doing similar things, and fighting similar enemies.
So there's really three ways to look at it.
If you played Dead Rising 1 and want to play Dead Rising 2, I would recommend Off The Record, over Dead Rising 2.
If you played Dead Rising 2, you likely will not want to play Off The Record.
If you played Dead Rising 2 but the whole time thought "I want to play as Frank West" Then Dead Rising 2 Off the Record is for you.
It's not a BAD game, it's fully functional, vastly improves on Dead Rising 2 (You don't have to stand still to talk to Otis, who is not in this version, you get a really functional earpiece as well). The achievements are better as well, the game works well, and you don't have to constantly return to the hideout to give Zombrex to Katie (what an awful gameplay element that was).
If you don't have Dead Rising 2, this is the better version. If you do... I find it hard to recommend this version as you already have a working game. It's not bad, and I can't not recommend Dead Rising 2: Off the Record because it does nothing wrong. But it is quite a bit of a cash grab for Capcom, and honestly, they could have told an all-new story. A shame, because this is a rather fun series.
Still, I had a blast replaying Dead Rising 2 as I played it when it first came out, and for that. Off the Record delivered exactly what it promised. A retelling of Dead Rising 2 with a new main character.
4.0