Capcom Game Studio Vancouver - the team behind Dead Rising 2, 3 and 4 - is no more. Confirmed in a statement to Kotaku, the Canadian outfit formerly known as Blue Castle Games is closing their doors today after a series of cancellations. While "a skeleton crew" will remain at the company until January, a total of 158 will lose their jobs.
The writing has been on the wall for a while now. Back in February, Capcom Vancouver shed a third of its staff, along with cancelling a yet-unannounced project in production, but it seemed like Capcom still had plans for the studio. Apparently not, and I wish everyone at the shuttered studio the best of luck.
]]>You may survive a zombie bite, sometimes, if you hack off the bodypart they nibbled - you've got to beat the infection to your heart. Games have a little more time. Dead Rising 2 and its reimagine-o-follow-up Off the Record were born riddled with Games for Windows - Live, Microsoft's nasty abandoned attempt to make PC games Xbox Live-y, but now they're free.
As promised, Capcom have cut out GFWL and grafted on Steamworks in its place, though not without complications. To celebrate the switch, they're holding a Dead Rising Steam sale too.
]]>Splintered bones pierce greyed rotting skin. It shambles on, oblivious. It doesn't notice organs falling out, skin sloughing. We may never fully understand what keeps it alive, if you can call that living. Poor old Games for Windows - Live. [The old switcheroo, we call that one -ed.] Capcom are planning to scrape the withered glands of GFWL out another three of their games, they announced yesterday. Dead Rising 2, its expandalone Dead Rising 2: Off the Record, and Resident Evil 5 are on the waiting list to have new Steamworks organs transplanted in place of GFWL "early next year".
]]>Protest as we might, PC versions of big-name console games arriving later than their disc-bound cousins increasingly seems to be a fact of gaming life. We've heard all manner of excuses in the past, from polish to piracy, but Capcom have just offered their own reasoning for why we see the likes of Resi and Street Fighter amble onto PC weeks later than their console kin.
]]>This year has been unusually rich in the kind of game that I most enjoy: those that are open-ended, or provide a sandbox world for me to mess about in. We usually get a couple of these every year, but in 2011 we seem to have run into a minor bounty of the open stuff, which is good news for explorers and meanderers alike. I've gone into a bit more detail about why this pleases me below.
]]>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.
]]>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.
]]>Still furious at Dead Rising 2 standalone episodes Case Zero and Case West not seeing a PC release? Nevermind. Not sure what they are? OK.
Forget all that, because Capcom's announced something much more significant that will be seeing a PC release. Dead Rising 2: Off The Record is Dead Rising 2 re-imagined with photojournalist Frank West, the protagonist from the first Dead Rising, replacing motocross star Chuck Greene. Sound like a cheap cash-in? You'd be wrong, sir. DEAD wrong. Full features list and debut trailer after the jump.
]]>Capcom's zombie-bothering sequel Dead Rising 2 arrived on plastic discs earlier this week, and on Steam today. I've been making a right old mess of its enormous, infested mall for the last week or so, which leaves me in a position to bother you with a whole bunch of thoughts about it.
I never expected a game about firing water-pistols at zombies whilst wearing a child's t-shirt and a Blanka hat to be so serious.
]]>I spent this weekend playing mentalcakes zombie apocalypse simulator Dead Rising 2 on my console-toy, since it's not out on PC until Friday. Guess what? It's great! I have yet to stop laughing at the use of highly ineffectual weapons (rolled-up newspapers, bottles of orange juice) against zombies to no effect. It's better than the first game, too.
Are you excited? If not, there's a new developer walkthrough trailer you can see right after the jump. It's a kind of whistle-stop 4 minute tour of some of the game's features, climaxing with a neat trick involving a propane tank, some fireworks, a box of nails and a lizard mask.
]]>Dead Rising 2 is out in but six days (on PC - the consoles get it in two), and in the run up appears a deeply peculiar Japanese trailer for the game. It seems to be a sort of American daytime magazine show, dubbed in mad-shouted Japanese, with on-screen nonsense and the occasional clips of the game. And most importantly, two people (well, one person and one zombie) taping a chainsaw to a paddle. There's also a couple of "outtake" videos, which appear to show only how little fun was had while recording.
]]>"What makes it fun is playing it." This is the rather excellent reply from a Blue Castle developer talking about Dead Rising 2. In the trailer below you can see an awful lot of footage of the game, but also find out the story behind it all. The story of ex-motocross champion Chuck Greene, and his desperate fight against a zombie outbreak in Fortune City, motivated by attempting to find the drug Zombrex to keep his young daughter alive.
]]>It's always good to see some more Dead Rising 2 trailers appear, since each appears to be more peculiar than the last. Two more have appeared for Comic Con, advertising the rather lovely looking resort of Fortune City, Nevada. The first is, well, literally an advert for the city. The second - it goes into more specific details about what more lively events could take place there.
]]>Captivate (Capcom's festival of gaming gubbins, which I stake the claim for having named - I can prove it with IM records) has revealed a new trailer for Dead Rising 2, which lest you need reminding is confirmed for PC. Unlike the first one. Capcom, we love you best when you release games on PC too. You can watch it with any of your remaining eyes below.
]]>There are some games you play, there are some games you watch. For some reason I only ever watched Dead Rising, as my former housemate - Xbox supremo Jon Hicks - slaughtered thousands upon thousands of zombies for my viewing pleasure. The sequel, cleverly called Dead Rising 2, is coming to PC too, and so it is that we may delight in the process. The new trailer, below, is a strangely crappy job. It has official Capcom logos on the front, and then looks like it was cobbled together by a seven year old who didn't remember the music. Anyway, it importantly demonstrates that the sequel won't be deviating from its purpose: killing zombies in ludicrous ways. I think the highlight below is not the double-ended chainsaw pole, but the moose head.
]]>We're peering through the futurescope at the games we can expect to see in the coming year. There's plenty to work through, so let's get on with a look at some of the notable games of Spring and Summer 2010. (You can read part one here.)
]]>What follows is a video that simultaneously makes me want to cartwheel down the steet shouting "videogames! videogames! videogames!" and also curl up into a confused, future-shocked ball and wait for the end of the world. It's Dead Rising 2's multiplayer mode. It's the Running Man with zombies. It's Smash TV starring guys with three-foot, razor-sharp antlers strapped to their heads. It's TERROR IS REALITY XVII, and you've probably never seen a video quite like this...
]]>Given the entire internet is busy spaffing about this today, we might as well join the fray - if only cos it's always funny when someone accuses us of trying to be like Kotaku because we've posted something pop.
While Capcom's first tongue-in-cheek free-roaming zombie-smasher was strictly for the Xbox Three-Hundred-And-Sixty Machine, the 2010-due sequel will also arrive on our glorious personal computer boxes. Joy! Footage below, which despite being pretty crass includes at least two ultra-lol moments.
]]>Capcom have been busy promoting their games on PC, and that continues with the confirmation of the sequel to their ultra-popular comedy zombie-bashing game, Dead Rising. The new game, which does not have a release date, continues the general theme of defeating the shambling hordes. Capcom explain: "Dead Rising 2 is set several years after the infamous zombie invasion of Willamette. Unfortunately, the zombie virus was not contained at the conclusion of Dead Rising, spreading unchecked throughout the United States and Dead Rising 2 depicts a country where zombie outbreaks continue to strike." And that inevitably means more running around with a frying pan, braining the undead. The first shots seem to show horror fun in Vegas, which seems appropriate. Trailer after the hop.
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