Gamasutra has an interesting and revealing interview with Dead Rising 2 co-producer Shin Ohara in which he talks about what it’s like to create video games tailored to Western audiences. From the interview:

Gamasutra: Dead Rising is definitely a Western-oriented game, but it still has a lot of Japanese qualities, like interesting non-realistic things that really help it feel like a game rather than an attempt at making a movie. Did you have to work with Blue Castle to get them to keep that?

Ohara-san: Blue Castle really studied the inside and outside of the game, and they really understand what Dead Rising is about. Like you said, it’s not a realistic game. The themes are realistic to some extent, but what you can do with the weapons might not be. For example, say you pick up a knife or chainsaw, all you can do with that is slice, and you probably know how that’s going to happen.

So, we introduced a combo weapon system that allows two different items to be combined together to create this ridiculous weapon that you can use against zombies to get different reactions. So, it’s very fictional, in that respect.

Check out the full story here !