Brains Over Brawn

Brains Over Brawn
Location	South Plaza
Start time	3:30pm, Sept. 25th
Expires	2am, Sept. 26th
Survivor(s)	Brian Scherbey Curtis Ellenton John Boog Kevin Meyers
PP	6,000 (Join, Each) 12,000 (Escort, Each)

Dead Rising 2
Cases and Missions • Characters • Weapons • Stores • Endings

Brains Over Brawn is a mission in Dead Rising 2 and Dead Rising 2: Off the Record.

Four nerds are found playing a role playing game in an empty store in the South Plaza.

Summary

Chuck finds four strangely-dressed survivors (Brian Scherbey, Curtis Ellenton, John Boog and Kevin Meyers) barricaded inside the unfinished Ultimate Playhouse store in the South Plaza, engrossed in a roleplaying game.

Chuck manages to convince the four of them to abandon their game and follow him back to the safehouse after a lengthy conversation with John. If Chuck has a female with him, the boys will join immediately.

Mission Dialogue

Dialogue of the mission in the Off the Record game files. All text may not be actually used in the final game.

Conversation

Yes! That's a +27 critical attack! Take THAT, foul knave! Don't forget to check his pouches for treasure. *snort* Indeed, you have a 95% chance of getting an item, and a 24.7% chance of getting a rare weapon. Uh, I think it's against the rules for the Game Overlord to give percentages like that... Look, I'm the Game Overlord, I get to make the rules. Your Exploding Fire spell went off prematurely. You now have 3rd degree burns on your hands. By the Hammer of Voltainus, I SMITE THEE! *snort* If only my charisma were this high in real life... Gosh, sir. You scared the beejesus outta me. *snort* I'm Curtis. Curtis Ellenton. What are you guys doing in here? When the zombies came out, we built ourselves a fort to stay safe. You must be strong to have gotten this far. Voltainus must shine his light upon you. *snort* So, who built the barricade? I am the master foreman! You may call me Brian. I call this place the Freedom Spire! You guys have been here since the zombies got loose? Well, that isn't entirely accurate. We came to meet girls, but none of us can talk to any... So you guys have been hiding here this entire time? Yes, this is the only refuge for our kind. We get ridiculed for our sense of fashion, but with our combined mental strength, we will soon rule all! 01101000 01101001 That's "hi" in binary. Uh... Hi. There was a 21.862% chance that someone would find us before the military came. We decided to take our chances and wait here. We came here because we thought it would be easy to meet girls, but we all froze up. That's rough. I know! All the ads about this place were such a lie. Since we've been here, we haven't seen a single girl go wild! Look, girl troubles aside, you can't stay here. It isn't safe. We've been safe so far. We'll stay here. Just come along with me to the Safe House. Maybe one of the girls can help you with... There are girls there? Inside a high security Safe House with no escape? What are we waiting for? Take us to live girls, good sir! Wow! +5 scale mail! You call that an attack? That couldn't hit a wood nymph! You'll never get the booty coming from that direction. No offense, but your skills need some serious work. And I'm not just talking about your character. SHOOT THE DARKNESS!! SHOOT IT! Oh man, now I get to make out with an Elf Maiden. Do you think there might be girls alive out there still? Hey, can I roll again? My character bio page says I don't have very good social skills for some reason... I'm a monster! *ROAR* My +10 vorpal sword should be able to handle this, no problem. Another critical hit! How did you get past our fortifications? You must be some kind of ninja! What are you guys doing here? We're playing Dragons of Snake Castle... duh. Stop distracting me! I'm in mortal battle with the Great Archdemon, Niwnskel. He is a nasty piece of work. So you guys are playing a game?! With that going on? I estimated that we would have an 87.326% chance of turning on each other in this situation if we weren't pre-occupied. ? I would explain things further, but judging by your whimsical facial expressions, you would only have a 16.2% chance of understanding. But more importantly, it's my turn now. How did you guys get here? Gosh, sir! When the zombies came, we ran like HECK! *snort* We snuck in here and made a fort to stay safe. It's been terrible without my inhaler. *snort* Sorry, but you'll have to excuse me, *snort* I need to cast the Magical Fire Sphere. Hang on, I'm still casting. *snort* So you guys just want to stay here playing games? Yeah, we came to meet girls, but we've had no luck meeting any. Wait... That's a girl with you!! Oh, man! Guys, look up! This guy has a real girl with him! He must be really cool. Please, teach us how to be a stud like you? We couldn't meet any girls back home. We couldn't meet any girls on vacation. You know, maybe it's time to give up. All this rejection! I just can't take it anymore! I don't need girls. From now on, I'm sticking to Action Figures. Action Figures? Yeah, they never reject me. They always look perfect, and they do whatever I want!

Trivia

• If Chuck or Frank have a female survivor with him when he talks to John, all four survivors will join instantly. This mission combines well with Chuck the Role Model: both occur at nearly the same time and in the same general area, and Chuck will have Vikki Taylor with him.
  • This is programmed per character, and thus not all female survivors will count towards this. Specifically, the survivors that activate this condition are LaShawndra Dawkins, Doris Elchart, Brittany Beck, Kristin Harris, Esther Alwin, Trixie-Lynn Horton, Vikki Taylor, Cinda Smith, and Rebecca Chang (Rebecca, however, is on her own path, and is unlikely to ever come within range).
  • There is also code for Europa Westinghouse, Jeanna Slick, Terri Glass, and Willa Harris to activate this condition, despite them spawning well after this mission has ended.
  • Oddly, there is no code allowing Denyce Calloway to fulfill these conditions, despite her being able to meet these survivors.
• All four of the gamers are mobile and combat-capable, but none are carrying weapons. It is recommended that Chuck arm them before leading them to safety, since they have to go a considerable distance. The South Plaza is full of sledgehammers, crowbars, and other suitable items.
• To unlock this mission, it is essential that Chuck or Frank tackle the missions leading up to it with all possible speed. These include Workers Compensation, Barn Burner, and Lush-ious Lady. If Chuck or Frank wait too long before doing these missions, the eight-survivor limit will prevent the gamers from appearing at all.
• The boys have a Photo Op while playing their board game in Off the Record. Photographing them will reward Frank with Outtake points. 
• Gretchen Peregrine stumbled upon the Brains over Brawn group and posted her negative impressions on the Tape It or Die blog.
• In the PC game missions.txt file, the situation where the nerds will follow if Chuck has a girl is called "IsThereaGirl".
• Similar to most missions, there are additional items during this mission listed in missions.txt. But this mission has a extremely large amount of additional items:
  • Bench, Particle_Board, Pallet, CardboardCutout, TwoByFour (4), Bucket, SledgeHammer, Pizza, Snack (2), Cookies (2), LargeSoda (4), BoardGame, Mannequin_Female (2), ServbotMask (4), Bench, Shampoo, RCHelicopter, WaterGun, GoblinMask.

The message screen for this mission states:

GOAL: Investigate the Nerds DESTINATION: South Plaza A group of young men are playing board games in a store in South Plaza.

Gallery