*
To start off tonight's blog, here are the winners of the PAX swagpacks…. many, many thanks to everyone who entered, but unfortunately, not everyone could win. After putting all of the names in a hat and having my wife draw randomly, the lucky people are:
Pack #1 –
Agent.
Pack #2 –
Adam.
Pack #3 –
FinalMacStorm.
Congratulations to all three of you! Please e-mail me where you'd like these packages sent, and they will be on their way in tomorrow's mail!
*
Speaking of contests, I also have a code for
Dead Rising 2: Case Zero to give away. If you have a 360 that’s hooked up to the Internet and you're itching to see what kind of trouble Chuck Greene is getting himself into, all you have to do is leave an answer to the following question:
Where would be the absolute worst place to be trapped by zombies, and why?
Interpret the question however you wish, and post your response here. I'll pick a winner later this week!
*
Games: Tons of news came flooding out of the
Tokyo Game Show today. While TGS has been fairly sedate in recent years, it seems jam-packed with all kinds of interesting stuff this time… the highlights:
>A revamp of
Devil May Cry, powered by
Ninja Theory. There's already been tremendous amounts of talk on the subject, but here's my personal take –
DMC3 (the SE version) was the high point of the series, and although Dante & Co. still rock a fairly high cool factor, the series is definitely due for a top-to-bottom shakeup. That said, Ninja Theory remains an unknown quantity in my mind. Their first effort (the PS3’s
Heavenly Sword) was uneven and wildly overrated. Their soon-to-be-released
Enslaved looks great in screenshots and videos, but its true nature won't be known until controller is in hand. Is Ninja Theory the right studio for
DMC? The trailer looks quite intriguing, but time will tell...
>
Shadow of the Damned. A demon-hunting game coming from
Shinji Mikami (
Resident Evil)
Akira Yamaoka (
Silent Hill) and
Suda 51 (
Killer 7). While there's no doubt that these three are some of the most notable names in the business, I have to admit that the trailer didn't really do a lot for me. It's hard to put my finger on it, but the word ‘kitsch’ kept coming to mind while watching it, and you can almost point to individual elements that were shown and call them out from other games. It's way too early to tell, but my spider sense was tingling a little bit on this one.
>
Ico and
Shadow of the Colossus remakes confirmed. I'm not a big believer in re-buying software that I already own, but when first playing through both of these classics, I have to admit that I felt as though both of them would have been better served by more powerful hardware. There's not a lot of info right now, but I'm hoping that the games will get a deep retooling rather than a quick and dirty polish-up. Either way, it's always good news to see quality games like these be made available to people who missed them the first time around.
>
Dead Rising 2: Case West. If you ask me, Capcom really hit home run with
Case Zero… creating a bite-sized ‘prequel’ experience that was complete in and of itself was a brilliant alternative to crafting the kind of standard demo that generally fails to impress, and now they’ve announced another piece of similar DLC.
Case West will serve as an epilogue to
Dead Rising 2, and will star both current hero Chuck Greene as well as the original DR protagonist, photojournalist Frank West. Although Frank has made appearances in a number of games since starring in
DR, players have never really received the kind of closure that they've craved. Anyone who saw the “real” ending to
Dead Rising was no doubt wondering what happened next… hopefully this DLC will give us the answer.
>
Radiant Silvergun coming to XBLA. More than anything else so far, this is the news that really blew my mind. I've never been much of an importer and only had the chance to play it once years ago, but what I saw was extremely impressive. Besides that, everyone who's played it has had nothing but raves. I've never understood why Treasure never brought this Saturn shooter to the states, and would have bought it immediately if it had ever been available in any domestic format whatsoever. Unfortunately, since new Japanese copies regularly go for between $200-$300 (or more) on eBay, I could never really justify the cost. The thought of having this
holy grail of gaming available as a download puts an extremely big smile on my face. Finally, after all these years… I guess dreams really do come true.
Posts
Why do you say that Ico and Shadow of the Colossus would have benefited from more powerful hardware?
I played Ico - 4-5 yrs after its release and thought that graphically/artistically it was fantastic.
They are both very minimalistic and that makes them quite time enduring (is there such an expression?)in my eyes.
I have two answers for the worst place to be trapped by zombies, using different interpretations of the question:
1. In a holding cell at the local police station. You can't get out, but it probably isn't too hard for the zombies to find the keys and get to you.
2. In a banquet hall with everything set, except for the food. For the zombies, that would be you.
Dead Rising question
1. On an Aeroplane maybe?
I think the absolute worst place to be trapped by zombies would be a porta-potty; the type you see on construction sites.
The reasons for this are many:
- Bad ambience: You're surrounded by rotting organic forms, plus there are zombies outside!
- No food, except that lint-covered breath mint in your front pocket.
- No water, except for... AAAACK!! ...No water.
- Your sole means of determining what is going on outside are the thin louver slits on one side of your confines, and any sound that manages to waft down the plastic ventilation pipe.
- The best weapon you can muster is a half soggy roll of toilet paper.
- Nothing to barricade the door with.
- No room to pace while brainstorming escape plans.
- The risk of the structure being overturned by zombies attempting ingress is high. Consequences of this, while not deadly, are not pleasant.
- The chances of being rescued are low, unless one of the uninfected deems it necessary to use a porta-potty instead of a bush or tree during the zombie apocolypse.
I really want Enslaved to be good. I got some hands-on time with it a couple of weeks back and was as impressed as I was concerned, but there are certainly the makings and elements of something grand in that game. We will see...
Where would be the absolute worst place to be trapped by zombies, and why?
The absolute worse place? Probably a locked closet during some girl's sleepover, where they dare you to do 7 Minutes In Heaven, and your partner's Case Zero. Man, no matter how much you'd scream, those girls outside are just going to laugh and go "Hahaha, we can't hear you all the way up in HEAVEN!"
Dead Rising question:
Anywhere.
No. Really.
When zombies are involved, and you're trapped, there is no "best" or "worst" there is only "oh crap, I am going to die."
Despite the bulk of information online we often fail to get the specific information which is needed this post is good & contains relevant information that I was in quest of .I appreciate your efforts in preparing this post.