A funny thing happened to Resident Evil 5 on its way to release, it became the center of a growing race debate in video games. Of course, this is not shocking really. Not only is one of the few titles to feature a large group of black characters, but they also happen to be the villains who are savagely trying to tear your character apart. But wait, that’s a bit too simplistic of a description.
The fifth Resident Evil title leaves behind the Pacific northwest of the United States and dreary Spanish villages for the sun soaked continent of Africa. In the process, obviously, there’s going to be a significant increase in black characters. You could perhaps set a title in parts of Africa with a mostly white cast, but certainly that would be more than a little disingenuous.
Bionic Commando is shaping up to be a very impressive remake. Now, finally, Capcom is starting to drop some details on it. The verdict? This is no quick cash grab of a remake.
First off, Bionic Commando will be priced at $10 across the PSN, Xbox Live and PC. Not a bad price at all for a completely rebuilt game. Consider that much lesser ports and casual titles have sold for $10 on Xbox Live Arcade. Capcom credits the fans for picking this price point, though one can imagine most fans suggested $5 or free. (more…)
Sure, there are prettier and more realistic fighters out there. Still, Street Fighter II HD is a thing to marvel. It’s like the first time you saw Super Mario Bros. as part of Super Mario All-Stars and it felt like an entirely new game. Capcom has managed to take a classic and breathe into not just a burst of new life, but an intoxicating addictive aroma. Any gamer who remembers playing Street Fighter II the first time around in an arcade or pizza parlor will again be hooked. This is the way all remakes should be. Click on the image for a full sized version.
When it was first announced that an original Resident Evil title would be coming to the Wii there was much excitement among Nintendo fans. That tapered off considerably when it was announced it would an on-rails shooter subtitled Umbrella Chronicles. Then it rose again when gamers actually saw the game in action, and even more so once they played it. Now, Capcom is announcing they have shipped over one million copies of the title worldwide.
That may not sound like a lot in some ways, but you have to place it in perspective. First, it was released within the first year of a console’s lifespan. Second, it’s a mature title on a system overrun with family and party games. One million shipped is doing pretty good, and even better, it bodes well for the idea of more original Resident Evil titles on the Wii. Capcom has already announced a port of Resident Evil 0 to the console. (more…)
Balrog, the boxer with a suspicious resemblance to a distorted Mike Tyson (and yes, he was the original M. Bison), has been revealed in a new Street Fighter IV gameplay video. Even more interesting is the level he’s fighting on, which looks like it might be a raft or boat at sea.
Erik chimes in with his views on the recent rash of Street Fighter IV videos, “Capcom gave its fans a little taste of what Street Fighter IV looks like. Fans of the popular series should be impressed with the footage. The 3D animation is smooth and everything flows together. Looks like this time around Capcom will be avoiding the lumpy 3D-ness of Street Fighter EX.”
You can’t keep a good zombie down. Or zombie game, for that matter. Capcom was quite successful last year with their port of Resident Evil 4 to the Wii, and they’ve decided to try it again this time with Resident Evil Zero. If you’re unfamiliar with the title, it was the first Resident Evil title developed exclusively for the GameCube (assuming you don’t count the remake of part one). Folks, it’s the Street Fighter II syndrome all over again.
Capcom is one of the most notorious companies for cashing in on its titles, and no incident is more famous than Street Fighter II. After the runaway success of Street Fighter II in the arcades, Capcom issued update after update in the form of new arcade games, and eventually home console ports. It became a running gag that Capcom couldn’t count to three, except with the Mega Man series, which was seeing about ten new releases a year at the time. (more…)
While many await news from Capcom of a Mega Man X17: Zero Battle Nexus, the rest of the gaming world will have to make due with the company’s newest legal entanglement. Seems someone finally realized that Capcom’s Dead Rising was a blatant rip-off of George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, and its less socially conscience remake. Capcom has preemptively filed a claim that “humans battling zombies in a shopping mall” is a “wholly unprotectible idea” by copyright standards.
They may be right. Really, almost any film premise can be translated into game form, and short of using character names and direct situations, be considered fair use. For example, someone could make a game of the last man on earth battling zombies and being held up in his apartment. Would the producers of I Am Legend like to sue? Sure, and they’d probably have a legitimate case in one regard. Still, how does that come off any more a rip off than many low budget films that attempt to capitalize off new theatrical releases? (more…)
Capcom has announced that as of Saturday, Feb. 9th, one million Xbox Live gold members have downloaded the DMC4 demo since it’s release on January 24th. That’s over 25,000 downloads per day, undoubtly impressing Capcom as they reported it on their official blog. Microsoft has informed Capcom that this is the first demo of 2008 to hit a million downloads, as well as one of the fastest demos to hit the million mark in the history of Xbox Live.
This is quite the feat, but all that matters right now is how many of these million plus demo players actually bought or will buy the game for the Xbox 360? It seems the demo may have had an impression on some UK players as DMC4 is the top selling game there. The Xbox 360 version accounted for 61% of total sales. However, Japanese sales figures are quite different as first day sales indicate that the PS3 version of DMC4 outsold the Xbox 360 version 5-1; with the PS3 version selling 140,000 and the Xbox 360 version selling 30,000. Not bad sales for Microsoft in Japan, but PS3 sale numbers are very good there and will continue to rise. Here in the United States, we don’t release weekly sales figures, only monthly, so we will have to wait until March to get February sales figures. (more…)
When it was first announced that an original 
You can’t keep a good zombie down. Or zombie game, for that matter. 
While many await news from 
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