Dead Rising 2 (Gameplay #2) - Ticket to Ride
1Despite its third-person action game trappings, Dead Rising 2 is at its core a heavily stats-driven "roguelike". Acquired XP and character progress carries over from one attempted playthrough to another, meaning that the difficulty becomes lower the more times you play it. Further reinforcing the Groundhog Day mentality is that everything in the game is timed; meaning that you'll often find completing main quests and side quests to be mutually exclusive tasks. The game's emphasis is clearly on meticulous exploration and clever risk management as well as constant crafting of new weapons (another of DR2's fairly advanced RPG mechanics) in order to make combat easier and more rewarding in terms of XP bonuses. Last but not least, the comically bloody and visceral combat is as fun as it is over the top, constantly encouraging experimentation and challenging the player to come up with new gruesome ways to defeat his or her enemies.
Even though it doesn't stray very far from what Capcom did with the original game (which I never played), DR2 is a fascinating and addictive experience and also an unusual game in that the PC port of this otherwise clearly console-focused title also happens to be the best version available (primarily due to significantly shorter load times than on 360/PS3, but also because of full 3D Vision support).