Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Where are the Craigs and Johns and Alecs and Adams and Jims? Capcom wants you to get to know the people that’ll be stalking the streets in their Left 4 Dead-ish multiplayer shooter, Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City. Their first defence against the undead: they’re too busy laughing at their names to bite them.

“Lupo”, “Vector”, “Bertha”, “Spectre”, “Four Eyes” and “Beltway” are being hunted by “Dee-Ay”, “Willow”, “Harley”, Party Girl”, “Shona”, and “Tweed” through the streets of Raccoon City, as both teams have to contend with the years of psychological torture their names brought them at school. And zombies I guess.

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Shh? SHH! Hear that? It sounds like… ? No it can’t be. It must be a baby giraffe or – no, there it is again. It’s definitely the sound of someone embedding a Youtube link of the Resident Evil 6. Run! Save yourselves!
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Capcom’s blog has mentioned that the PC version of Super Streetfighter IV Arcade Edition is getting multiple updates: “Our development team has been cracking the whip on this project, and are aiming to have the 2012 update ready for you all by the end of February. We will have additional updates in these upcoming weeks. so keep an eye on this space for more info.” The patch was a big rebalance of various characters, which were deemed out of whack, so to speak, on the console versions for a patch in December.

This feels like an inundation of Resident Evil footage but the trailer that is but two days old didn’t contain any actual gameplay, and Capcom have decided to release a video today that is entirely made up of just such action, making it infinitely more interesting. Hectic monster-shooting, defending and escorting is on the cards. In fact, it looks far more hectic than just about anything else I’ve seen today, although, as always, I’ve been playing turn-based strategy games since I woke up so may not be the best gauge for hecticosity. Judge with your own eyes and mind.

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The first thing I like to do on a Tuesday morning is expose my ignorance to as many people as possible. Here’s today’s effort – I didn’t know Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City (ReOrc) involved people killing other people as well as people killing zombies and mutants. Perhaps you didn’t either. A new trailer shows that the mean nasties of the Umbrella Security Services will be using all kinds of fancy technowizardry to clean up the bio-contagion errors of their employers while a US Spec Ops team will be trying to expose the company’s nefarious doings. The results of those nefarious doings, running the gamut from zombies to tyrants, will be making everyone’s life miserable. Also, things explode a lot. Observe.

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Electronic Arts’ digital storefront is expanding next month, with the news that Warner Bros., THQ and Capcom will begin offering some of their releases through Origin. Batman: Arkham City and Saints Row: The Third are the only games mentioned by name but more will be available and “additional titles” are promised in the coming months. Both of those games will still be available elsewhere so this is a case of choice rather than exclusivity. Maybe it will lead to discount wars, maybe it’ll lead to people shrugging and continuing to purchase games from their preferred distributor, but it does feel like a significant step for Origin. The future looks increasingly competitive. EA-speak below.

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My choice of feckless, work-dodging pursuit while a student (due to being too poor to afford a PC at the time) was PlayStation man-thumper Tekken, specifically 2 and 3 in the series. While I haven’t explored its strange lands of fighting bears and suicidal undead samaurai for many years, a certain nostalgia tickles at my childlike soul upon news that Namco’s longstanding brawler is to make its first foray onto PC.

In a manner of speaking, at least – the upcoming console licence mash-up Street Fighter x Tekken had its Windows version confirmed by Capcom over the weekend. No details yet, simply that the PC edition “just began development.” Rather surprising, to be honest, but it’s always heartening to see the platform tyrannies of the past slowly dissipate. It rather suggests the PC versions of Street Fighter IV’s assorted flavours did quite well, too.

Dead Rising 2: Off The Record is out October 11th, revisiting the sequel’s crazed casino-mall through the eyes and lens of the original game’s swaggering photojournalist Frank West. Both the protagonist and the trailer are delightful because they appear to take themselves far too seriously but swiftly degenerate into surreal, nonsensical madcappery. It all looks rather bleak and ill-judged, with the tale of a once great man fallen on hard times. And then the theme tune kicks in and it’s suddenly more Saints Row: The Third than George Romero. Just remember…his name’s Frank.

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The return of Frank West in Dead Rising 2 standalone spin-off Off The Record offers a reinvention of the splendid Dead Rising 2, but from another perspective. And also offers Capcom a chance to put out more of their extremely weird, and rather brilliant, trailers for the game. This one’s a guide to photography! Of sorts. You can see it below.

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I do believe that is the longest abbreviation I have ever put in a headline. But still not as long as the one Lewie used in the original story about this issue. The news should be clear, however: Capcom have announced some substantial changes to their original DRM plan for the PC version of Super Streetfighter IV’s Arcade Edition. Christian Svensson writes:

Shortly after launch (it might even be at launch, but we’ll see how submission timing and approval goes) we will roll out a small title update that will completely remove the character limitations for offline mode. That is to say, once you’ve updated, you will be able to use all 39 characters when not connected to the Internet to practice your combo timings, have some fun with a friend on a laptop, or whatever while offline.

So that’s different. It’s not too surprising either, given Svensson’s apparent attention to PC as a format.