December's Character of the Month 2011: Chuck Greene

IT'S THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OOOOF THE YEEEEEEAR. And with December, we spend time with our families and get lots of presents. Hopefully, your Christmas will we better than this character's as we study the life and adventures of...

Chuck Greene




History-
Chuck Greene was a Motocross Racer, starting by repairing his bike all by himself, mostly with duck tape and the magic of video games. Somehow, this skill nets him a wife, a child, and a Motocross Championship, but hey it's a good success story. While staying in Las Vegas for a Motocross event, the city is attacked....by Zombies! They proceed to take up all the low-income jobs and kill everybody, making them a stress on both the economy as well as the population. Chuck's wife turns into one of the undead vermin and bites their daughter, Katey. Giving mainstream Zombie knowledge this causes her to be infected. Whoops. Good news is that there is a drug called Zombrex that can treat the zombiefication for a while, but must be administered twice a day (It becomes 1 a day in Dead Rising 2).

Chuck and Katey escape to Still Creek, where some douche steals his truck and supply of Zombrex, leaving him to complete a short pre-game to get it back. He also fights a crazy mechanic, but who cares! Eventually Chuck reaches Fortune City and takes part in "Terror is Reality" ran by Tyrone King and his twin assistants because hey he needs money to pay for his Zombrex, and dress wearing. The competition is all about zombie killing, so yeah you can see how this will end up. Oh, and because you know this would happen, we have Citizens for Undead Rights and Equality or CURE, protesting the event. Yeah. Chuck wins and while he leaves zombies escape and infect Fortune City. SURPRISED?

Chuck takes Katey to a shelter, where an old curmudgeon named Sullivan doesn't very much like Katey around being all infectey, possibly giving him Zombie Cooties. Ultimately, he decides to let her stay as long as she is given Zombrex daily, which means Chuck must learn the many ways of grinding a certain enemy for the Zombrex Drop (note: Enemies do not drop Zombrex.) Chuck also finds CURE leader Stacey Forsythe, who is totally not a fleshed-out character in any way. Nope. Things only get worse as the Channel 6 News reveals that the one who released the zombies was CHUCK GREENE! Wait, no it's actually a fake and Chuck must clear his name before the military comes in to clean up in 3 days. Did I mention the time frame? No? Well too bad, there is one. Chuck searches for and eventually finds Rebecca Chang, the reporter that covered the EEEEVIL Chuck Greene. At first she doesn't want to give up her source (Because Freedom of the Press is important, even during a Zombie Apocalypse). But she eventually takes him to the central security room, where the guards were "heroically killed by robbers" and got all the evidence that Rebecca had destroyed. Seriously though, something is up, and it's up to CHUCK GREENE to find it! However, he only gets to the safe house to find that Sullivan sees the news and wants Chuck and Katey out. Chuck asks that he be allowed to prove (or fake) his innocence or he'll turn himself in to the police once the three days are up. In turn, Sullivan asks that he brings Survivors to the Shelter whenever he can, and Chuck takes part in 1 million escort missions (It's not nearly as painful as you think).

After a while, Stacey tells Chuck to go underground a while and get barrels thrown at him from a Train while riding a motorcycle. After getting on the train, Tyrone appears and Chuck accuses him of being the master of mischief/framing him. He does indeed state that he did and gets away by disconnecting the front train. Chuck just goes "Golly Gee" and goes back to where he was. Eventually they figure that Tyrone is getting his goons to rob the safes all over Fortune City like in Die Hard, using a terrifying cover to just take money. Yeah. Chuck manages to stop that by smashing and killing. Since Rebecca trusts people that kill goons and smash drills, she takes him to her source, Tyrone's Twin Assistants! Oh, wait that's not good because now you have to fight them. They die and TK is all like "WHAT STRENGTH, BUT DON'T FORGET THERE ARE-" Then he flies away in his helicopter. However, Chuck attaches a cable to it and destroys the blades, bringing it down. yaaaaaaaaaaaay. They bring him back to the safe house, where Chuck learns that Tyrone was under orders from someone else, but he won't say anything about it.

Eventually, three days pass and the military comes in to clean up. However, the zombie start taking green smoke and turn into "Gas Zombies" killing all of the military everywhere ever (except the one guy you face in a boss fight. :/) In response, the government plans to firebomb the place, believing there are no survivors. Suddenly, Zombies rush into the safe house and infect Tyrone (who apparently tried to escape), and Chuck pushes them out. Tyrone is given Zombrex as well, because his importance to the plot isn't done yet. Going underground to find the source of the gas, Chuck finds a bunch of guys farming for Queen Bees from the zombies, and Scientists giving out the quests. Chuck goes "heh. nubs." and kills all of them. Taking evidence back to the safe house, they find that the scientists were from Phenotrans, the makers of Zombrex, who need the Queens from the infected. Rebecca tries to call it in, but is quickly killed by Sullivan, who is a jerk and works for Phenotrans. Sullivan takes the evidence and tries to kill Chuck, but he gets his ass kicked by Stacey and leaves. Chuck follows him to a rooftop, where Sullivan reveals that the outbreak was caused to keep up with the demand for Zombrex. They also caused the Las Vegas outbreak, kick puppies, and flush pies down the toilet. Tyrone's robbery attempt, was obviously not their order, cause they don't need money. They fight and Sullivan is cut in half. He uses the evidence to call Rebecca's News Station and tells them to pick him up as he has the truth. Chuck gets his chopper and swings over to the safe house to pick up Katey and Stacey, but THEY'RE GONE. Tyrone appears on a monitor and tells Chuck "Perform for me a Fetch Quest, or I kill your daughter and friend. Also, you smell". He does this and gets to the Arena where the NPCs are held. Tyrone proceeds to knock him out and tie him up too. However, Chuck knows how to untie himself and proceeds to fight Tyrone. This ends with Tyrone being thrown to the arena floor. Chuck, Katey and Stacey walk off into the sunset, and the game ends.

Opinion-
Chuck is kind of an opposite to Frank West from the first game. He doesn't want to be there, he had a kid, he has NOT covered wars (you know), but he is a mechanic, able to piece together new weapons for survival. Other than that, he is a man looking for revenge and to clear his name. That being said, he really has a strange ability to deal with all the bloodshed going on. It may come from the amount of death he's seen at the hands of zombies. It is a sort of character trait that builds his character to be more believable. As a whole, it makes his character sympathetic but not a ruthless ass like other characters.

Rating:

Originality- *****
Personality- ****
Character Arc- ***
Consistency- *****
Real- ****

Final Rating: 4.2

As a character, he doesn't really grow. He has things happen to him, but he never needs to learn a lesson or anything. It doesn't subtract from the experience, but it is enough to take points off. Other than that, Chuck is a good enough protagonist to make it in Fortune City. He may not be as memorable as Frank West, but he doesn't need to be. He's a character that people can identify with and can look cool doing it, and it this kind of game, that can be very important.