As sure as the sun will rise in the east, nothing is certain except death and taxes. But what happens when that no longer holds true and the dead rise up a second time in search of their next feast? Arizona Sunshine 2 brings players back to the sunny Americana a mere two years after the events of the previous title with players once again stepping into the virtual boots of the perpetually sardonic main character. My hands-on session was set up on a Meta Quest 2 tethered to a nearby laptop via Quest Link.
For my preview, I was dropped right into an early mission with no weapons and no idea of what was going on, other than the main character’s new canine companion waiting outside to go play fetch with a ball, zombie arm, or whatever else I could get my hands on. It didn’t take long for the action to kick in and procured weapons popping up all over the place to defend myself with, from a couple of varieties of pistols and various melee weapons that seemed to be even more effective, especially with the VR motion transferring 1:1 to attacks in the game. A well-placed shot or knife swing below the knees could render a zombie temporarily immobile and forced to crawl towards you in search of a tasty brain. Decapitating a Fred works even better as that ensures they won’t get back up another time. There’s no shortage of weapons to protect yourself, from melee weapons, various pistols, all the way up to grenade launchers that capped off the end of my playable session by blasting away a horde of some twenty-some shamblers from the safety of a nearby highway bridge. Being that Arizona Sunshine 2 is a zombie/Fred survival game at heart, ammo can be a scarce commodity. Even melee weapons won't last you forever and a trusty fire axe might only be good for a small group before it shatters from zero remaining durability.
True to the original, Arizona Sunshine 2 doesn’t shy away from unleashing campy amounts of blood and gore in front of the player’s face. Freds can often burst like swollen grapes with a shower of blood while shots land their mark. It’s taken to an almost comical level when a forearm can be shot off by the elbow, picked up, and thrown like a chew toy to play fetch with your new animal companion.
Your new dog companion, Buddy, might be the single best addition to Arizona Sunshine II by far. The dog’s loyal enough to listen to the player’s basic commands, from sitting to waiting patiently, or can be directed in various ways. If you can’t fend off a shambling horde by yourself, the buddy can be given a simple ‘sic’ command to both defend the player and actively take out the undead. In one particular puzzle instance, the dog can be guided into a locked room through the window to snag a key for the player. If you come across a gun that you want to save for a later encounter, Buddy's willing to carry a couple of weapons at a time on his protective vest that can be picked up at any time.
Comfort remains the largest barrier of entry for my own personal enjoyment of VR experiences. Truth be told, I found it difficult to enjoy the first Arizona Sunshine on PlayStation VR due to some of the locomotion and animations not being comfortable to experience firsthand. I’m eager to say that Vertigo Games has put in a lot of care into the comfort of Arizona Sunshine 2 and it should be more readily accessible to VR novices that want to try out the zombie shooter. I primarily played with the typical teleport-to-move movement option for most of the demo but switched to more traditional locomotion and walking, although the pie-segment turning was left in for my own comfort. With either mode, I walked away relatively unscathed and ready to enjoy a five-hour plane ride back home following the intimate preview event.
Self-deprecating humor intact, Arizona Sunshine 2 is a fantastic evolution of Vertigo Games’ work begun with the original title and there’s plenty more to look forward to when the title launches later this year across Meta Quest, SteamVR, and PlayStation VR2. And you can give the dog a hat to wear, just saying.
