Sound: 8
Graphics: 9.5
Gameplay: 9.5
Replay: 7.5
Multiplayer: Yes (4)

It's back again, the game that crept into our evil little hearts and filled us with a passion to go out and blow zombies to tiny little pieces. Last year when the first game came out I had no clue how much I was going to love it. Many people have joined me in indulging in our darkest desires of hacking something to bits with the biggest weapons we can find. There are just so many ways to blow a head or arm off. And now we all get to do it again. But does it live up to the legacy of the original?
Let us return to Ashcroft, a city overrun by horrors of the night that none of thought existed. This time around we get to see new parts to Ashcroft, parts we never saw in the original. The streets look different this time. We also get to explore the forests around Ashcroft and a giant building owned by an evil Hunter that must be taken down. The new areas in the game are definately a nice change, but even nicer is that Vivendi has decided to add a few new characters for us to use as we continue the bloody mayhem.

The gameplay in this game is solid, just as its predecessor was. The game plays just like the original in every way. Newcomers can still pick it up and play it and have no problem mastering the controls in less than an hour (or die trying to do so). Veterans of the series will find nothing has changed and they can start the killing frenzy all over again. The zombies have returned, but they have brought back many friends this time around. Their big brothers have joined the fight, massive zombies who would seem harder to kill but they die just as fast. Along with them have come more werewolves (a lot more of them this time around) and mindless man zombies who carry around laser sighted guns. A shotgun blast in the gut kills them all just the same though.

The graphics have been improved quite a bit in the sequel. The environments have had slight touches but haven't been improved very much. The monsters and the characters both look touched up, a little more realistic. The game moves real smoothly, and hacking up monsters doesn't cause slowdown like in the original. In the first game sometimes there would be too much action going on and it would cause a little slowdown, but that has been cleared up. The edges (magic type attacks) look quite a bit better. The fires in the new one look substantially better over those in the first one. Overall, all these little improvements make the game look a lot better.

The sound is pretty much the same. The only reason I rated it lower is because not much has been added to the sound. The music is still there when your fighting, there are still zombies grunting and the occassional human screaming her brains out, but it just all sounds the same. The same voices were used, which is good because they all sound like the character they portray. But I guess I was just hoping for more. Like in Halo the way the grunts actually scream when they see you and when you throw a plasma on them they run around screaming (Get it off me!). Things like that really make a game fun, but nothing was added to this sequel in the sound department.

Multiplayer is the same. Except now you get a few more choices on who you want to use. There is a new hunter, Redeemer, and you can also play through as a zombie (but you have to unlock "character cards" in order to do so). The replayability has gone up a tad due to this. Now if someone really wants to unlock a zombie to play as them, they can. I was really disappointed to find out that they didn't include Xbox Live play though. It would have worked so well with this game. There will be downloadable content in the future, but it's just not the same.

If you have a lot of friends who like killing things like me, then this game is worth the buy. If you are having some friends stay over for a while and want something to do, at least rent it. It is definately one of those games that quenches that desire to kill something. Killing zombies and especially those damned guys with guns (which can get very annoying) has always been very satisfying with this game and its predecessor.