Who's a Good Boy?
Zombies have been a popular antagonist for decades. From old classic movies, to successful TV shows like the Walking Dead, and a slew of beloved video games, they function well as a mindless group of enemies to dismember or the way their heads explode with a well-aimed bullet. Take that appeal into VR, as you manually line up said shot and you have a winning formula that is almost always going to feel incredibly satisfying. While that remains true with Arizona Sunshine 2, a slew of technical and control annoyances can certainly put a damper on a game filled with blood, gore, and a surprising amount of heart.
Arizona Sunshine 2 has you back in the VR hands of the previous protagonist as he once again attempts to survive the current zombie climate while piling on bad jokes one after another. The aptly named Vertigo Games are back to improve upon the original and they largely pull it off, especially in one key area that I honestly was not expecting. Sure, the game looks and controls better than the 2016 original and while it doesn't take full advantage of much of what the PSVR2 is actually capable of, likely due to its parity with the Meta Quest version, it is the story between this unnamed zombie killer and a dog he calls Buddy that has largely sold me on what the team has pulled off here.
In the early moments of Arizona Sunshine 2, you'll encounter the very good boy, Buddy. You can pet him, tell him to sit, play fetch, and even give him a few scritches behind the ears. Buddy can also be commanded to completely gut a zombie at will, or fetch keys or items that are out of reach. But, what Buddy does best is contributing to a compelling narrative, one that tells a solid companion story between these two survivors. I'll also note that while you can't damage Buddy in friendly fire, the game does feature some gory moments that dog lovers may find a bit off-putting or horrific, but I'll leave it there to avoid direct spoilers.
The central plot for Arizona Sunshine 2 is you and Buddy attempting to track down patient zero, the catalyst to the zombie plague in hopes that in doing so you'll be rescued and taken away from this desolate zombie paradise. There are certainly some twists and turns that satisfy, but the heart of this story is what ends up being its most memorable component. And by the time the credits rolled, I was largely pleased with this adventure, even if the last act can be a tad frustrating due to the limiting weapons you'll find littered about to deal with some massive swarms of zombies, or Fred's as they call them here.
Arizona Sunshine 2 should last you around 10-12 hours should you explore every nook and cranny. From masks to wear that really lack any real purpose, to additional ammo and guns, even if some chapters frustratingly take them all away at their start, there is still a decent reason to explore. The story places you in positions where you'll really just be moving from encounter to encounter with a few moments of variety to change it up, swapping out your need for gunning down the undead horde to climb up a cliffside or the side of a moving train, complete with the ability to shoot zombies through the window as you hang on for dear life. Hell, they even partially recreate the train climbing sequence from Uncharted 2, at least as close as we will get in VR. These moments are pretty interesting as the climbing works well, but the initial few moments of this did make me a tad nauseous, largely since even though I play via teleport instead of free movement, the climbing cannot be bypassed in the same manner. So if you do get sick moving around in VR, this might be a deal breaker for you.
Movement generally works fine with teleporting but I did find that the thumbsticks on the PSVR2 controllers to be a tad too sensitive and resulted in several moments where I had intended on slightly moving to the side to turn me around completely, leaving me extremely vulnerable for a few seconds. As for how you carry your guns, they will automatically drop to your belt when you let go of the hold button.
I do wish there was a setting to possibly double tap the hold button to belt your guns, allowing you to keep a weapon in your hand without having to hold a button to keep it there. By constantly having to hold the button to keep the gun in your hand, especially melee weapons without them falling to the ground, my finger often cramped up, causing me to constsntly readjust and either drop the melee weapon I was holding or having to reach for my gun repeatedly. While you can adjust the belt’s height and width to better suit your playstyle, the game is a few tweaks away from being as convenient as I'd like.
While you'll store a pair of small firearms on each side of your belt, as well as all the ammo you'll find, you can also store additional items in your wrists. From a piece of pizza to refill some health to mines and grenades, having this “space” really comes in handy, pun intended. Many of these items are found as you explore, but you'll also gather materials to craft them, even if the combination of said items clearly wouldn't make grenades, moltov cocktails, mines, and everything else you can fashion from metal scraps and glue.
Reloading your weapons has slightly changed from the previous game here to accommodate how a few other VR shooters have tackled it in the past few years. Here, you'll press a button to eject a clip, then manually insert the new clip, and depending on the gun, you'll pull back a handle or load the gun based on its type. Thankfully, the parts you need to adjust, as well as an empty clip, will be highlighted in orange, making it very clear of what is required of you. This system certainly makes it more intense during very crowded rooms, but it also makes me wish that there was a way to holster a melee weapon to slash away at close range enemies while you are trying to reload your gun. Without this, if you are swarmed, you are as good as dead. Again, it's a very immersive element to reload your own gun, and it does feel great, I just wish you had better defensive capability while being swarmed when doing so.
If I had to make one major complaint towards Arizona Sunshine 2, it is that while headshots are incredibly satisfying, the reticle can often disappear, making lining up a shot to be a tad trickier than it should be. It's a shame there are no cursor settings to increase or decrease the size of the reticule or change it to different shapes and sizes. While you can readjust to have it appear, I couldn't always land a shot intentionally as often as I could when the reticule was present. That said, the feeling and maneuverability of shooting almost always felt good regardless of the weapon, allowing for some really fantastic kill shots, should you be able to line them up.
From pistols to shotguns, grenades, and tommy guns, to holding a massive mini-gun with both hands, there is a decent variety of weaponry to take with you or use in controlled moments. You can equip two small weapons with a third strapped to your back by reaching behind you as well as strapping two small firearms on Buddy's vest for future use. I still wish you could holster a melee weapon, but as they are very breakable, I can understand why. Still, even having an infinite-use baton or something, even if it was weak to use, would have been great to have as a constant backup, especially as there are scenarios where you can run out of ammo. Regardless, you do have a lot of guns to choose from with a pretty simplified ammo system.
While the zombie assortment is fine, from generic shamblers to armored threats, the level variety suffers a lot, however. The amount of sewers you'll traverse through becomes a problem, and many of the outdoor locations start to look like the same neighborhood used over and over again. Some of the later levels, and especially the train, do succeed in breaking that monotonous repetition, but it's a shame in how often the game returns to a previous aesthetic with no real change or reason for it.
Arizona Sunshine 2 allows its whole campaign to be played in co-op, even if the story makes that a bit of a confusing narrative, given your protagonist states he hasn't seen another living person for a while. Still, co-op works well, you just have to ignore the animations for your co-op partner as they can be a bit stiff and disappointing, especially when you watch them climb and their legs are hovering in the air at a weird angle. Regardless, co-op, especially in the included horde mode, is definitely the way to enjoy this game as you'll have a second gunman alongside you, helping to control swarms when you are frantically trying to reload.
Visually, Arizona Sunshine 2 is certainly a step up from the previous game, although if you look too closely at its building blocks and design, you'll see a game that hasn't been built with the full power of what the PSVR2 can do, easily held back by the Meta Quest 2 and 3 versions. There are also overlooked transitions to scenes such as the grocery store. You'll leave an empty parking lot and once inside the grocery store, the windows will show hordes of zombies outside conveyed through shadows attacking the building. Step out again and there is nothing there. It's bizarre and an act that is repeated later on. The effect is cool, but it's all just window dressing, literally.
I also had a lot of technical issues, fairly reliable crashes, and more through my roughly 11 hours. Doors would pop off their hinges if a horde of zombies were on the other side. And no, the door wouldn't drop to the ground and let its hosts spill out, no, it would wiggle as if it was caught in the door frame or possessed. I also had several moments of zombies getting caught in the level, a few that just stood there taking headshots, to a few moments where the framerate just chugged along.
Arizona Sunshine 2 is certainly a better version of what we had previously with numerous improvements to every core system. While the immersive reloading can be rather enjoyable, the lack of any real defensive capabilities made that system more of an annoyance when attempting to deal with sudden swarms of enemies. All that said, the story of the protagonist and Buddy is the heart and soul of this game that takes what could have been a pretty throwaway narrative like the previous game and gives you a compelling reason to see this journey through. Like its shooting, Arizona Sunshine 2 doesn't always hit the mark, but when it does, it's bloody good fun.
Developer - Vertigo Games. Publisher - Vertigo Games. Released - December 7th, 2023. Available On - PSVR2, Meta Quest, Windows. Rated - (M) Intense Violence, Blood and Gore, Drug Reference, Strong Language.
Platform Reviewed - PSVR2, PS5. Review Access - A review code for the game was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.
Jeff is the original founder of Analog Stick Gaming. His favorite games include The Witcher III, the Mass Effect Trilogy, Hi-Fi Rush, Hellbade: Senua’s Sacrifice, and the Legend of Heroes series, especially Trails of Cold Steel III & IV.