resident-evil posts

Canonically, Leon Kennedy survived the Raccoon City outbreak in Resident Evil 2 and went on to be a bodyguard working alongside the President of the United States. What if Umbrella snuffed out his life before he had a chance to rescue Ashley, though? That's what this trailer for Operation Raccoon City depicts, and it shows the various abilities and attitudes of the Umbrella soldiers present during the conflict. It's slick, shows off some impressive looking cinematics alongside in-game combat, and results in the death of Leon Kennedy. Maybe.

Download the Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City trailer
Check out all Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City downloads

Another week is about to end. What will the next week bring us? Lots of stuff about owls, we suspect ... or maybe not:

• The man who helped to create the first versions of Madden NFL for the Apple II, Commodore 64 and MS DOS now claims Electronic Arts owes him a lot of money.
• The newest edition of the official Bethesda Softworks podcast celebrates the 5th anniversary of The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion.
• Will the next Resident Evil movie actually be a prequel to the last four flicks?
• Check out a preview of the Rage comic book series.

Capcom has been putting out plenty of stylish, multiplayer games lately. Lost Planet 2 and Marvel vs Capcom 3 both ooze style and encourage people to play together, either with or against each other. The latest entry in the Resident Evil series, Operation Raccoon City, seems to be a continuation of this. By this trailer alone, it looks like a fun zombie-killing co-op game, although there seem to be the occasional graphical glitch here and there. There's also an appearance by everybody's favorite Resident Evil 4 protagonist!

Download Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City Teaser Trailer
Check out all Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City downloads

Capcom's Resident Evil series enters the compeitive multiplayer shooter genre with today's official announcement of Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City. This title from developer Slant 6 Games was also officially confirmed today as coming to the PC platform in addition to the Xbox 360 and PS3 consoles.

Described in today's press release as a "reinterpretation of the events depicted in Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3" Operation Raccoon City will be a team-based third person shooter where players will see the story events of those two classic games from the "Umbrella Security Service". Players will go up against the series's iconic zombies and other enemies. The game will also have multiplayer combat with "Umbrella Security Service, US Special Ops and threat of zombies and B.O.W's" going after each other. Look for the game tto be out sometime this winter.

The Resident Evil movies have never been huge box office hits but the modest budgets of the films based on Capcom's zombie action games have always made the movies profitable. Now Box Office Mojo has posted word that Sony's genre film label Screen Gems has already announced that the fifth Resident Evil movie will be heading to theaters on September 14, 2012.

Last year's release of the fourth film, Resident Evil Afterlife, did just OK here in the US with about $60 million generated at the box office. However the movie, the first to be shot and shown in 3D, did extremely well overseas with over $236 million in box office returns. It's currently unknown if the star of the first four Resident Evil movies, the always armed Milla Jovovich, will return for the fifth installment.

ZeniMax Media is continuing its acquisition activities. Today the parent company of publisher Bethesda Softworks announced that it has bought Tango Gameworks, the Japan-based game developer founded by Shinji Mikami, the famed creator of Capcom's Resident Evil series. He supervised the making of the first four games in the series.

The studio will naturally be making new game titles for Bethesda to publish but details of the games have yet to be announced. In addition to its in-house Bethesda Game Studios (makers of the Elder Scrolls series) and ZeniMax Online Studios (currently making an unannounced MMO game) ZeniMax Media acquired id Software in 2009 and earlier this year purchased Arkane Studios.

Capcom has lucky in seeing a number of movies made based on their games. There's been three Resident Evil live action films and a CGI movie was released in the US this December on DVD. In February a new Street Fighter film heads to theaters.

But Capcom isn't stopping there. In a new (English) interview on the company's web site, itts Head of Character Content Business, Toshihiro Tokumaru, chatted about future movie plans. One of them is the previously announced adaptation of Lost Planet which Warner Bros. is producing. Tokumaru states that the movie "will cost somewhere between 150 and 200 million dollars to make." That budget is certainly in the high end of sci-fi action films but at the moment there's no word on when production will actually begin.

Halloween may be just a recent memory but that isn't stopping Valve from launching their long awaited zombie shooter Left 4 Dead later this month. A free demo of the co-op shooter is already available for pre-orders via Steam (it will be made available for everyone on Nov. 11) before the full game is made available on Nov. 18.

Valve's Left 4 Dead is only the latest PC game to feature some kind of undead corpse that's ready to make you its next meal. We decided to take a look back at some memorable zombies in PC games, including some familiar favorites, some you may not be aware of and at least one game where you actually are a zombie. Them's good eatin'.

Click on the image above to continue reading Beyond Left 4 Dead: Zombies in PC Games

DC's Wildstorm imprint has already claimed the comic book rights for games like Mirror's Edge, Prototype and Gear of War. Now IGN is reporting that the comic book publisher has nabbed the rights to two more major game licenses; Capcom's Resident Evil and Devil May Cry games. (Wildstorm had previously released a number of Resident Evil comics a few years ago).

Details on the comic book adaptations have yet to be announced but it's clear Capcom likes using the medium; it's already signed a deal with Devil's Due Publishing to have them release comics based on Bionic Commando and Lost Planet.

Capcom has been coy about plans to release Resident Evil 5 on the PC so far. While Resident Evil 4 was released for the PC last year it got slammed by critics for, among other issues, not providing mouse support. However according to a recent Eurogamer article a PC version of Resident Evil 5 is likely.

In the meantime, fans of the series can look forward to Resident Evil: Degeneration, a full length CGI feature film from Capcom and Sony Pictures. The film, which had a new trailer premiere at the San Diego Comic-Con last weekend, will be released theatrically in Japan and released on DVD, Blu-Ray and the PSP's UMD format in the US later this year. The trailer shows some impressive human CGI animation and character models and fans of the Resident Evil series will be glad to see regulars Leon and Claire around. Oh, and there are zombies..almost forgot to mention that.