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Ninety-Nine Nights II is a darker variation on a familiar theme

Ninety-Nine Nights II ** Microsoft Xbox 360 Price: $59.99 Age rating: MatureNinety-Nine Nights II has a darker tone and aesthetic but otherwise doesn't stray far from the four-year-old original.

    by By Justin Hoeger, McClatchy Newspapers, Inquirer
    Published 

Ninety-Nine Nights II

**

Microsoft Xbox 360

Price: $59.99

Age rating: MatureNinety-Nine Nights II has a darker tone and aesthetic but otherwise doesn't stray far from the four-year-old original.

Players control several characters (starting out as one called Galen) in battles against the seemingly endless armies of the Lord of the Night.

Like the first game and others of this style (the Dynasty Warriors series, for example), Ninety-Nine Nights II is focused entirely on fighting. Each character has his or her own weapons, a special ability, and skills built around taking out huge hordes of foes. Skills, weapons, and attributes can all be leveled up between missions.

Occasional bosses and strong regular enemies pose a challenge, but common soldiers are swept aside by the heroes' attacks. The game is extremely repetitive, with a few kinds of attacks and maneuvers strung into combos to mow down foes.

Dead Rising 2: CASE 0

***

Microsoft Xbox 360 (Xbox Live download)

Price: $5 (400 Microsoft Points)

Age rating: Mature

A bite-size prequel chapter to Dead Rising 2, Case 0 is set a few years before the new game as its main character and his daughter try to escape a town overrun by zombies.

Chuck Greene is trying to find the drug Zombrex for his daughter to hold off her transformation into a zombie, and must gather motorcycle parts to fix a broken bike and drive off with her.

He's working under two deadlines: His girl must have her medicine by a certain time, and they must be out of town before a contingent of soldiers arrives and quarantines the area.

The game shows off some of the sequel's new aspects, chiefly Chuck's skill at combining various items to make new weapons for zombie killing - a gas tank and some nails become an IED, a shotgun and a pitchfork become a "boomstick," and so on. Killing zombies with combo weapons grants extra prestige points to Chuck.