FIRST IMPRESSIONS: Dead Rising 2

Released: September 28th, 2010

Developer: Blue Castle, Capcom

Platforms: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC

Rated: M for Mature

Dead Rising 2 is the sequel to Capcom’s surprising success Dead Rising that was released in 2006. This time around you play as a motocross superstar, Chuck Greene, who makes ends meet as a contestant on the pay-per-view TV show, Terror is Reality. When not duking it out with the undead, he cares for his daughter Katey who was infected in an outbreak that killed his wife years ago in Las Vegas. Katey’s “condition” is kept in check with a daily dose of a medication called Zombrex. After an episode of Terror is Reality, another outbreak begins.Our manly hero escapes to a safe house with his daughter and a handful of other survivors, finds out he’s being framed for the start of the outbreak and needsto clear his name within the 3 day time limit before rescue arrives. Oh, and he also has to hunt down Zombrex to give to Katey every 24 hours. And save survivors. And slay psychopaths.

Yep.

It’s not what one would consider to be a direct sequel to Dead Rising, but it is very reminiscent of it in many aspects so far. You go in and out of your safe haven using an air duct, find yourself lead into a mall, and your missions are relayed to you via radio. Ring a bell? It’s lack of change is forgivable in most ways.. except for the controls. The controls still leave a bit to be desired. The best word I can use to describe them is “clunky”. Not so irritating that I wanted to tear out my hair, but irritating enough for me to curse words you can’t say in front of children now and again. Dealing with clunky controls while being forced to face hundreds of the undead just doesn’t fly so well.

Luckily, the sometimes annoying controls don’t take away from the copious amounts of fun I’m having with this game. I’ve only sunk a couple hours into it and it’s got me hooked. There’s a certain void in my heart that only hitting zombie with an electric guitar can fill. I can't say too much considering I haven't played it through, but I will say that it's looking good.

Stay tuned, guys (and gals) because you’ll be sure to see my full review of Dead Rising 2 within the week.

Happy hunting!

-Decode (Shayla H.)

NEWS: PC’s All Points Bulletin Shuts It’s Doors. Yes. Already.

Realtime Worlds and Electronic Art’s MMO based on the basic concept of Cops and Robbers has shut down. And only 3 months after its launch. Upon release the game received very mix reviews and it was heavily criticized for the payment scheme (customers had to pay based on how many hours they wished to play for). It wasn’t long after the game came out that things started to go sour. Realtime Worlds had to lay off a large chunk of their staff, and they admitted that they were looking to find a buyer (for Realtime Worlds) in hopes to keep their company afloat. I’m going to assume that that didn’t quiiitteeee go as planned.

Ben Bateman posted this on the game’s official website:

“APB has been a fantastic journey, but unfortunately that journey has come to a premature end. Today we are sad to announce that despite everyone’s best efforts to keep the service running; APB is coming to a close. It’s been a pleasure working on APB and with all its players. Together we were building an absolutely amazing game, and for that, we thank you. You guys are awesome!”

There’s something awfully sad about a game that took years to develop crashing and burning in mere months. And here I thought Tabula Rasa was bad.

-Decode (Shayla H.)

INTERVIEW: Edmonton’s Top-Notch Blazblue Competitor

During Shiro420’s Blazblue (Battle at the Base) tournament (Sept 26th, 2010) I got the chance to catch an impressive player, A Stupid Crayon, between a match to answer a few questions for us here at EdmontonGamers.com

EG: How about you tell us a bit about yourself?

ASC: I’ve been playing Blazblue ever since Calamity Trigger came out. I’ve pretty well stuck with Lambda-11 and V-13 as characters since the game came out and I started to come to the Blazblue tournaments about 3 months ago.

EG: So tell us a little bit about your career in gaming tournaments.

ASC: I’ve been playing tourneys for other games like Halo, Super Smash Bros. and various others and Blazblue is my most recent one. I think they’re a lot of fun.

EG: Is Blazblue your preferred fighting game?

ASC: Yeah, it’s my fave fighting game, for sure. I really like how the game plays out, it feels different than other games and I think my main character is a lot of fun.

EG: Alright, which is your favourite character and why?

ASC: I like Lambda 11 because she’s a “zoning” character. She stands at the other side of the stage and throws projectiles and I like that because I don’t like running up close and risking too much damage

EG: Fair enough! Now Shiro420 considers you one of the best players in Edmonton for Blazblue. What do you think is a quality of yours that makes you a good player- besides something like “skill”?

ASC: I think it’s the lack of match-up knowledge from other players. I’ve played the game for a long time and opponents tend not to know how to fight against my character as well as I know how to play against theirs , so it really helps a lot.

EG: Any specific advice you’d want to give to anyone just starting out with Blazblue?

ASC: Just keep at it. Practice online a lot. Definitely learn combos because it can get ugly if you go in with no knowledge at all and just button mash. Oh! And watch videos; they really help.

EG: Is there any particular strategies you go for with your character?

ASC: Not really. I just play.. but I guess it does depend on the match-up. Like the match I just finished against Iron Tager. it really helps to stand on the other side of the screen because he’s a grappler and gets in your face.

EG: Do you play arcade stick or controller?

ASC: Controller.

EG: I find a lot of the players are using the arcade stick. Why do you prefer controller?

ASC: Because Blazeblue isn’t the only game that I play lots. I like to play Halo and Call of Duty, so if I buy a fight stick it’s a lot of money invested into one game. So I like to stick with controller.

EG: I see that your matches can get pretty intense, like the one against Iron Tager you just finished up. How do you deal with the stress while you play?

ASC: Well, I’ve played a lot of tournaments so I’m already used to all the stress involved with it. It’s really not so bad. I just concentrate hard.

EG: Oh, before I finish this up, I gotta ask.. is there any significance behind your gamer handle?

ASC: *laughs* My gamer tag a long time ago was “Jin Kisaragi” and that was my old Blazblue name and I just needed a change so I picked something as random as I could and got “A Stupid Crayon”.

EG: That’s about all we got for you today. Tthank you for your time!

ASC: No prob’, thank you.

Thanks again to Kyle (A Stupid Crayon) for taking the time to chat with me and for being my very first interviewee. Here’s hoping we continue to see him at the Blazblue gatherings!

REVIEW: Resident Evil: Afterlife 3D

Video game roots and director’s adaptation find a… decent balance.

Written And Directed By: Paul W. S. Anderson

Starring: Milla Jovovich, Ali Larter, Shawn Roberts, Wentworth Miller

Running Time: 97 minutes

Rated: 18A for language and gore

I’m gonna have to start this by admitting that I hold a deep grudge against the Resident Evil films that preceded this one. Being one of my favourite game series growing up I suppose it might have been destiny that I hated them (especially considering the terrible reputation video game to movie adaptations have earned ). Although this installment doesn’t have me singing an entirely different tune, it didn’t fuel my hatred further and I’ll tell you why.

First of all, the movie was gorgeous. If anything was drastically improved over Paul W.S. Anderson’s 8 years of raping and pillaging Capcom’s survival horror franchise it was the cinematography. I’m not a big fan of the whole 3D extravaganza the movie industry is going through (it gives me a huge headache), but I will admit that it helped RE: Afterlife a great deal. It was a visually stunning and fun movie, and it was made clear from the get-go that the eye-popping 3D sceneswere its main gimmick to “advance their story”.

And there’s where we have some issues. Anyone who’s gotten familiar with the movie series will know that it’s always lacked in good narrative. The storyline continues a year and some odd months after the last installment left off where our heroine, Alice, is in search of the alleged safe haven known as “Arcadia” to find her fellow survivors. Aside from that plot device and trying to put that darn Albert Wesker to a stop… the movie doesn’t offer much else and doesn’t have a heck of a lot more to tell us. It was disappointing how little substance was put into an hour and a half long movie. I feel as if the movie would have been about a half an hour shorter if they left out the ridiculous amounts of slow motion fighting and bullet time strewn about the film.

What I enjoyed the most is that after 3 previous attempts to adapt Resident Evil properly into a movie, the 4th installment does somewhat succeed. They tossed in half-assed elements and characters from the games in the previous movies and never managed to win me over. As much as Albert Wesker’s character annoys me to no end I can say that his casting and the writing for his character were nearly spot on in this movie. RE:After life finally turned pieces plucked from the games and made them recognizable and even a few key elements of the movie tie directly into the most recent game, Resident Evil 5. I can’t say much without spoiling it (for those who don’t already know) so make sure you don’t get up as soon as the credits roll. There’s a surprise in store for you.

I did walk into this movie expecting to hate it, and I will grudgingly admit that it did exceed my expectations. You can’t walk into this movie expecting a masterpiece, but even as a shadow of Resident Evil’s as a game the movie was enjoyable enough. It was a visually awesome movie, with great over-the-top action sequences and a good enough storyline to pull it all together. It won't be winning any Oscars, though.

I give it a 6 /10

PREVIEW: Devil May Cry To Be Rebooted By Capcom

It’s official. Despite the strong performance of 2008’s Devil May Cry 4, the button mashing, combo building, often pizza endorsing series is getting a fresh start from Capcom and Ninja Theory (the company probably best known for Heavenly Sword) under the title “DmC”. The game was first revealed at the Tokyo Game Show 2010 which confirmed the rumor of the reboot that had been floating about since May.


We were graced with a trailer and although they’ve seemed to have kept Dante’s fighting style, our hero is sporting a different look and (dare I say?) a darker feel to his character. Dante is now a young offender under psycho evaluation, and we’re left to wonder exactly what direction Capcom/Ninja Theory are taking the series. Is Dante the same Demon spawn the previous games created or will he wind up just a misguided nut-job in a crazy twist of the storyline? I hope M. Night Shyamalan had no dabbling in the writing.. I guess we’ll have to see.


I, myself, am not a fan of Dante’s makeover but I do have some faith that Ninja Theory won’t botch this. I was never much of a fan of button masher games, but DMC will always hold a special little place in my heart ( possibly due to the fact that it has a very thin relation to my all-time favorite series, Resident Evil/Biohazard ). There’s no tentative release date, yet, but I do know it’ll be available on both the PlayStation 3 and the XBOX 360. I’ll keep you posted.


Check out the trailer and decide what you think!