It's fun if you're a fan of melee combat, but if you're expecting big changes in the series, you're in for some disappointment.
This is probably the best part of Riptide, being able to lay out your strategies and then watch your results, and yet still being able to act in case something goes monstrously wrong, with machete in hand. In fact, the gruesome combat as a whole remains on the same visceral level of the original, with plenty of first-person hijinks and some occasional strategy for handling more of the class-level zombies that come your way. The Wrestler isn't going to go down by himself, you know. (And, like before, you can build better weapons to be more effective in combat.)
Also, if you've played the first, you'll be able to continue with your character – and their class – in Riptide, which is a huge plus. If you do start from scratch, you're not entirely lost, but it helps that you've got some experience with killing a few zombies. Of course, fans probably got an idea of how well that works.
However, while some ideas are a nice touch (like the strategy-based stages), the game as a whole drags because of the behavior of the AI. Some of the zombies are spot-on, while others act so bad that you can't help but wonder if they're faking it. Then you have your non-playable buddies, who act so stupid that you can't help but wonder when zombies are going to eat them. This could've easily been tweaked.
