In the world of boardroom meetings, the topic of huge, sweaty men slamming into each other and grappling powerfully often comes up, but not since THQ has one company’s success so heavily depended on this practice. Nevertheless it has dogged the ascent of Capcom, swinging them aloft over its head and it will be there one day when they fall, to deliver the head-exploding final blow.
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Moving at the speed of the internet, a video leaked to youtube with a trailer for Dead Rising 2 has prompted Capcom to confirm that there is a second Dead Rising game in the works and that it will be on the XBox 360, PS3 and the PC! You can see the aforementioned video here

This time around it looks like the protagonist is clearly not Frank West, but some similarly strong chinned man that fancies matching his hair with his sporty bike jacket. The zombie infested mall sandbox has been given a theme swap and now puts the player in some sort of luxury resort casino called Fortune City.

Dead Rising was developed and distributed by Capcom, Dead Rising 2 will still be distributed by Capcom but developed by Blue Castle Games, a developer that until now has only made a few sports games. As with all fast breaking news, details are still scarce but when it’s considered that the first Dead Rising has established a fan base and Dead Rising 2 will be multi-platform there’s little reason, other than Blue Castle Games’ repertoire, that it won’t play or sell well.

Putting on Devil May Cry 4, I expected a lot of the familiar characteristics the series has brought in: over-the-top combat, bizarre weaponry, a badass main character, and hordes of demons waiting to tear you apart. Thankfully, the game has all of that, and more.

DMC4 introduces a new protagonist, Nero, a smart mouth kid who fights using a sword with an engine built in for powered up attacks, and a bizarre, demonic arm. This arm, called the Devil Bringer, is actually a focal point of most of his gameplay, as it can be used to not only grab enemies for heavy damage, but also pull far away targets in for further punishment. Each enemy also has a specific grab animation, where some make Nero perform devastating attacks that are also very cool to watch, and mixing these grabs in with other combos can give rewarding results. Even bosses can be grabbed where appropriate. Initiate a grab on the first boss, and you’ll see him lift it off the ground with ease, then deliver a powerful punch to send it flying!
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The upcoming Street Fighter movie may be set directly to rape all our childhoods (as well as make it its drug-addicted, amnesiac junkie of a crackwhore), but at least this latest trailer of the upcoming home version of Street Fighter IV isn’t. Farthest thing from it – it actually shows one of the best fights ever to happen in the Street Fighter storyline, and does it with as much style and as much finesse as only the series’ creators only could. Make no mistake about, this shit is legendary and will go down in history. It’s Gouken versus Akuma.

Created in the same stylized cel-shaded 3D animation with all the inkbrush strokes and splatters as in all the trailers, this excellent piece of eye candy depicts both Akuma and Gouken in a battle so fierce and violent that the earth literally breaks up around them, sending them into a fiery abyss. And even then they continue, trading world-quaking blows as if nothing had happened. Gouken seems to get the upper hand, but then Akuma reveals just how much of a magnificent bastard he is and does that move we all know and love.

Forget the Legend of Chun Li. If the studio could have just gone with CGI, maybe got some assistance from Capcom, then we’d have an awesome movie on our hands. It may not be more ‘Hollywood’, but at least you’d be doing the series the justice it deserves.

For those of us eager to see what awaits us this new year, well, here’s the feed right from Capcom’s PR department: their 2009 lineup of videogame gems just waiting to blow our socks off. Or mildly entertain us for a bit before we point our browsers to /v/ and rage at every little thing we don’t like about said games. But it’s all  good, right? Anyway, let’s get to them vidya gaems before I just copy-paste the entire damn PR press release.
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So if you haven’t heard of GoAnimate.com, it’s basically website with tools designed to easily create animations. The website includes theme packs to add characters and other works to your creations. One of those packs is Street Fighter, based on the popular video game franchise of the same name.

These packs are, of course, officially licensed, and Capcom itself hasn’t shied away from making use of the tools themselves.

The animations sure are impressive at the very least, and it’s nice to see Capcom continue to delve into the community, especially the American and European communities, which most Japanese developers tend to stay away from. Hopefully more developers and publishers will make similar attempts without jumping the shark.

Either way, Capcom continues to toy with my emotions.

Anyone who had the original Neo-Geo handheld probably at least heard of the original card themed SNK vs Capcom games. Recently SNK Playmore revived the series, and brought it to the DS, and it’s….. well…… blah.

There’s just really so much more that could have been done with this game, as it’s just riddled with things that make it appear like the people that made the game just did a rush job.

For starters, the Story mode is about the equivalent of one of those half-assed Sunday morning cartoons that they show and hope 6 year old kids can get into, since they don’t know crap when they see it anyway. It’s basically the same scenes repeated fifty million times, and they consist of “OH NOES YOU’VE BEEN BRAINWASHED I DO CARD BATTLE TO WAKE YOU!” then follows with “ZOMG YOU SNAP OUT OF IT LETS BATTLE SOMETIMES LAWLZ!”

Okay, so it’s not exactly like that, but it’s pretty damn close. This is repeated god-knows-how-many times as you progress through the game. Hell, even the NPCs you run into are the same damn kind repeated over and over, only with different color swaps. Seriously, did they think anyone that wasn’t a chimp with down syndrome wouldn’t notice? The AI isn’t exactly the most challenging thing on the planet either, and you’ll find yourself losing more to just bad luck with drawing the right cards instead of actually being beaten by the computer. Sometimes they’ll just sit there when you’re health is in the red and let you rebuild your defenses, or allow you ample time to plow through their own. Thankfully the game has an option for online battles, which lets you go against, you know, humans that are (hopefully) smarter than a Preschooler.

To make things worse, the in-game text is a scrambled mess. It’s not bad enough that the dialog has to be a grammar Nazi’s worst nightmare, and the script the equivalent of an English report done by a 6 year old. The card descriptions, thanks in part to terrible translation work, will leave you scratching your head in confusion, as some of them are incredibly vague in telling you what the damn-hell-crap the card you’re looking at does. You’ll find yourself getting frustrated when you find that a card that you think is supposed to deal 500 damage to all character cards ends up doing 500 damage spread out.

Really, the only saving grace for this game is the card battle system itself, which actually works fairly well. It’s actually rather addicting too, you know, once you get past the horrible grammar, decide to ignore the storyline, and just try to enjoy the whole mess. It’s like finding that one Avril Lavigne song that doesn’t make you want to smash your face against a brick wall.

It’s really hard to recommend this game for any reason because of all the problems that infest it, despite the good battle system. It would be nice though that if SNK decides to do another part of this series, that they actually put some effort into making it instead of this half-assed thingy.

Graphics: 3.5
Sound: 2.5
Gameplay. 3.5
Entertainment: 2.0
Overall: 2.5
Analysis: Not exactly a Yu-Gi-Oh! killer.

Note: Earlier this year, SNK Playmore ended their recall of copies of the game that had a severe glitch that stopped progression on the second playthrough. Bug-free copies of the game should be available at stores, though whether you want to deal with it is your call.

Some people have been having trouble getting the hang of the basics of the game. Seeing as the game’s documentation is entirely in Japanese, I can’t blame them. It seems, however that a fellow, not myself, has made a video documenting said basics. It’s fairly thorough and worth a watch.

Pretty nice. Personally, I use the Classic controller and set ‘R’ to AC to make supers a little easier without occasionally accidentally dashing. I also set ‘L’ to ABCP, for some crashin’ good times.

If you’re curious about the menus, it goes:

• Arcade
• Versus (Grayed out if you don’t have another controller on)
• Survival
• Time Attack
• Training
• Rankings
• Options
• Store
• Extras
• Minigames

Sometimes you can hear the characters say what the modes are in Engrish, so just give a listen.

Now, I’d like to talk about the boss, however this could be a major spoiler for some. If you don’t want to know, don’t read on.

- SPOILERS -

Here’s a nice video of the final boss. It’s a cakewalk until you get to the final form, then it’s all rape and grab, all the time.

It sure is nice to see Okami getting a fair nod despite the fact that Clover’s dissolved. With the inclusion of Batsu, Viewtiful Joe, and Megaman Volnutt, this will definitely breathe new life into my long-dead Nintendo Wii, if it’s ever released here.

In the end, I still can’t help but feel Capcom’s slapping me in the face with the inclusion of these Clover characters. That slap is a weighted strike emphasized by Yami’s inclusion as the boss character. They acknowledge those games were fantastic, and in spite of the poor sales, include those wonderful characters anyway, as if to say, “Look what you missed! Now it’s gone you dumb bastard!”

Excuse me for saying it, but Fuck You, Capcom. I capitalize those letters because you so boldly chose to close the studio and gripped so tightly to the franchise holdings and benefits. I bought those games–with money–and loved them, and you spat in my stricken face, twisted by your decisions. I know it’s a recession, and I know Clover seemed like it wasn’t a monetary asset, but ruination is a justified end when dignity and inventiveness is returned to our beloved medium. Where’s the honor?

I damn myself, for I enjoy TvC furtively. It is a very good game–a guilty pleasure.

I apologize.

It’s a-wafting….It’s called HYPE. Have you ever bought a game just because IGN said it was 9.8 “Best Game Ever?”

Ever notice those games usually run full price and almost never hit the “Greatest Hits” section of your retailer?

I’m sick of it. I’m looking to tell you, fair reader, that you don’t have to be a millionare to play good games.

I’m also saying that you don’t have to delve into ebay, craigslist, or shady yard sales with questionable goods (sorry, not all yard sales are bad.) to have a good multimedia experience.

My column, starting today, will be based on the fact that not everybody has the cash to keep up with the new and shiny games of last week. You still deserve to have fun, o ye of light wallet!

Also, I don’t give number ratings, thumbs, little happy faces, or anything else superficial like that. It degrades what a game really has to offer and makes people look at it rather than the game for what they should spend their hard earned money on. It also forces people to READ A REVIEW. THE HORROR, THE HORROR.

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Today, I start with a series that has been overlooked, surpassed, and left to the ages. It’s a series with top-notch CG animation, great action, customization, and thoughtful puzzles. Heath Ledger was also set to play a role in the live action movie, which has sadly stopped production because of his unfortunate death. The entire series of PS2 games (all 4) can be picked up at Gamestop for about 40 bucks.

This series is Capcom’s Onimusha.

Onimusha: Warlords was the first game in the series, released on the PS2 in 2001 and later ported to the XBOX in 2002. It features a samurai warrior named Samanosuke Akechi vs. an army of demons (oni / ogres depending on the region…) headed by Nobunaga Oda.

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Ah, back in the 90s Capcom owned the licenses to a lot of awesome things, such as Disney and Marvel Comics and created some memorable and kickass games. They also owned the license to Jojo`s Bizarre Adventure and made one of the best overlooked 2D fighting games ever. This game is based off the popular in Japan manga series Jojo`s Bizarre Adventure, specificly Part 3, ”Stardust Crusaders”. The game is also known as Jojo`s Venture in some places.

Now, what is the most important thing in fighting games? Gameplay. The series`s unique form of superpowers called ”Stands” lend them self greatly to the gameplay of the game. The game uses 5 attack buttons instead of the Capcom standard 6, and the 6th button is used to activate the character`s Stand, a ghostly spirit that stands by the character and becomes the primary offense. This can be used in many different ways such as trapping your opponent between yourself and your stand or summoning your stand to attack as your character retreats. But some characters still use the stand button as a regular attack button due to their stands being perma-on. Stands also provide a slightly different, usually stronger moveset. If you take damage when your Stand is on, the Stand bar goes down, when it`s empty, your Stand shatters and you cannot guard for a few seconds. The Stand mechanic provides an interesting twist on fighting game character types like a trap setter or a charg character.

Aside from good gameplay, the game also provides other good things. The game combines Hirohiko Araki`s unique character designs with the standard Capcom anime-style sprites to create some interesting visuals. Sure it might not seem much if you look at the screen shots, but to a fan it brings joy. The game also has a interesting story mode which is somewhat deep for a fighting game. It tells you the tale of Jotaro Kujo and his friends as they venture to Egypt to defeat the vampire Dio, thus preventing Jotaro`s mother`s stand from slowly killing her. The story mode is composed largely of fights but also includes a lot of mini-games. The minigames in this game aren`t too bad, some of them being enjoyable, my favorite being the beat `em up segment where you fight zombies. The only problem some might have is that story mode forces to use a specific character in a specific plot point instead of letting you chose your own character, but this also lets you re-create scenes from the manga, which the story mode closely follows.

This game also has some internet fame due to Dio Brando`s super combo where he stops time, drops a road roller on his opponent, throws knives at his opponent, beats the road roller to an explosion and lets time resume.

This game has been released on the PS1 and a updated version on the Dreamcast. I reviewed the PS1 version.

I love this game. It provides hours of enjoyment.

8/10