Updated February 22, 2009 with some new thoughts on weapon durability and the game environment.

Now that the existence of Dead Rising 2 has officially been confirmed, the masses can begin speculating on its contents from the few screenshots that accompanied the announcement.

As rumored last year, Capcom is working closely with Vancouver’s Blue Castle Games to develop the sequel, which in their anticipation will result in “a even better game”. In order to maintain the design intent of the original game, key team members from Dead Rising at Capcom Japan are meeting with the designers at Blue Castle at least once a week through video conference, which in the opinion of Capcom’s Keiji Inafune is just the first steps in Capcom’s “Global Design” initiative. I have to admit I was a little curious why such a successful IP was farmed out, but it’s reassuring to know that the project is being guided by its original creators.

At this point, the only confirmable detail is the game’s environment: a casino. Whether this is modeled after downtown Las Vegas, Atlantic City or simply another enclosed complex like the Willamette shopping mall remains to be revealed. The setting alone has me pretty excited about Dead Rising 2’s potential. An “adult playground” as Inafune puts it, where roulette wheels become weapons of mass destruction.

I love the original Dead Rising; I’ve said before this was always a game I wished I had been able to play upon release. Now that I’ve experienced the full version, the sequel is one of my most anticipated games of the coming year. I plan on writing a full review of Dead Rising at some point, but I find this to be an excellent opportunity to sketch out my main complaints with the original game and label them as expectations for the sequel, instead of cluttering my analysis with a wish list of improved features.

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Anticipating Resident Evil 5 was clearly a mistake. After playing Resident Evil 4 twice and subsequently labeling it “the most overrated game of 2005″, I should have known better than to expect anything different from a sequel banking on its progenitor’s critical and commercial success. But I can hardly be blamed in full for this misconception after all the posturing in the demo’s press release citing Halo and Gears of War as influences on its enhanced control scheme. This is only slightly true, as playing through the demo’s two available levels would painfully reveal.

The actual controls used in Resident Evil 5 share more in common with Resident Evil 4 with a few additions, but they are still clumsy and unnatural. Sure, one trigger is AIM and the other is SHOOT, but how about that awkward inventory selection screen? The D-pad can be used to quick select weapons, but there’s no on-screen menu or feedback like in Gears.

What is clouding the issue – and I explain this in my lengthy analysis of Resident Evil 4 – is that these controls are new to the Resident Evil series, and as such are only praised by fans who had to deal with even shittier controls before. But to ignore all the advances that have been made in console-based shooters in the last four years is to say that they don’t matter, and that the average gamer interested in getting into the series had better start learning some new controls. This is especially relevant now that Capcom has basically abandoned the horror aspects of the game and created a simplified shooter.

Contrary to what the designers at Capcom may think (and some fans, even) slow-turning tanks are not fun to control and only induce frustration, not fear. For the entire length of the series, Resident Evil fans have been making excuses for poor controls to the point where people actually stand up to blindly defend them when they are questioned. These controls have not adapted to genre standards, despite publicly referencing them.

The series is no longer scary. Resident Evil is not a horror game anymore, it is a third-person shooter. Why were enhancements made to the controls in Resident Evil 4? To make it easier to kill things. If killing things is more important than developing story or tension, then you have made a shooter. Except these controls were only half-realized. You can’t move and shoot; Even Dead Space, a game widely recognized as being based on Resident Evil 4, allows you to slowly move your character while aiming a gun. It is not unrealistic to expect a human to be able to do that, perhaps with reduced accuracy – and this is reflected in most games. You must be aiming your gun to be able to reload. There is also a context-sensitive melee system that makes no sense when you are surrounded by a pack of zombies. There should be a melee action button for whetever weapon you are holding and that’s the end of it. I should not have to equip my machete.

Resident Evil 5 certainly makes the most of the XBox 360 hardware: the visuals show serious improvement over Resident Evil 4, especially with the main characters. And that’s probably the only positive thing I can muster about this game. The Zombies/Infected as a collective are boring. They seem more human than ever before. Even Resident Evil 4’s denizens were more exciting because decapitating them or shooting limbs off would reveal an enemy that could smack you around from afar with evil-looking tendrils. In Resident Evil 5 the “zombies” are eager to run in for the kill, but stop suddenly in the general vicinity allowing you to queue up that laser pointer and blast away.

Resident Evil 5 is vanilla; it is unoriginal and it is playing it safe. Co-op may be where games are gravitating towards, but even that is not preventing this demo from being some of the most unexciting gaming I’ve ever experienced. Make me scared again, Capcom. Return to the horror roots of this franchise and stop trying to compete with shooters. There are already too many of them.

I’ve been playing Dead Rising for the last few weeks, and must give credit to Capcom for capturing what it’s like to actually be threatened by a crowd of zombies. Sure, shooting a gun is about as satisfying as punching myself in the side of the head, but at least I can pick up a baseball bat and swing that for a while. In its current form, Resident Evil is offering nothing more than a bunch of slow moving targets to aim a laser pointer at. I never liked Resident Evil 4, so maybe I was a bit naïve thinking that Resident Evil 5 would win me over. This game is for Resident Evil fans, and they can have it. For a tedious exercise in survival horror, I’d rather go back to Dead Space.

When I saw the name of this mission in Left 4 Dead, my thoughts turned to a last stand at an abandoned small town radio station, where the four Survivors must send out a distress call to anyone who would answer, while static rang through the building in defiance. With the onslaught of Infected raging outside the building, the Survivors slowly start to make peace with the fact that they might not get rescued this time after all. As the ammunition is consumed and the walls start to crumble behind the massive weight of encroaching Tanks, the Survivors take stock of the situation. They are about to die.

Except that’s not what happened. Apparently Valve was thinking about an airline staffed entirely by Infected. So we get an airport. A big, sprawling airport with an incredible scene involving a plane crash just in time for the final standoff. Which, as it turns out, is nowhere near as exciting as my little scenario. But that doesn’t mean that the rest of the mission wasn’t as exhilarating as those that preceded it.

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Last night I played through the “Death Toll” campaign in Left 4 Dead with my game group. Which, to avoid sounding like I have a surplus of friends who play games is really just me and a good friend of mine (you might remember him from this story). We deftly tackled “No Mercy” over the weekend and were ready for more.

Playing with two AI-controlled Survivors is like playing with the ideal teammates. The AI is responsive to the group’s well being, and definitely puts the whole “need before greed” thing into practice when it comes to first aid kits and pain pills. You’re never incapacitated for long either, as one of the AI-controlled Survivors are usually there to lend a hand after clearing the immediate area around you. If only humans were willingly this considerate.

One of the achievements in Left 4 Dead is “No One Left Behind”, where you must finish any campaign with all four survivors alive. We easily accomplished that with “No Mercy”, but the final standoff in “Death Toll” proved to be a lot more challenging.

A lot has been said about the AI Director, and while it seems a little more noticeable than it was in the demo, its presence is still a subtle one. The sudden appearance of the Infected horde feels like a natural buildup to a tense “What do we do now?” moment when you’re lost in one of the game’s many dead-end rooms. The Special infected also tend to show up when you least expect it, but not in a way that it breaks immersion. In the final standoff of each campaign, you’re supposed to be inundated with Infected as you await your rescue vehicle. At least, that’s what would happen in a movie.

So when we finally cleared a pathway to the dock where the fishing boat was to pick us up, I noticed that Zoey had fallen down and was being swarmed by a large group of Infected behind us. I jumped off the dock, and ran back to assist. Keep in mind, I had already obtained the achievement and there was no reward for doing this. I just felt the sudden need to return the favor. Of course, it also meant my immediate death. My friend laughed at me saying, “What was the point of that, exactly?” He died shortly after, trying to come back to save me.

After another couple of tries, we managed to make it through the finale. Except it involved me dying a very dramatic death on the gangway to the boat as the Infected followed us on to the dock. I held them off from the ground with my two pistols, while I watched the other Survivors run past. Everyone got away except me, but I didn’t feel cheated. It felt like the perfect ending.

Left 4 Dead is pure hollywood.

Updated November 14, 2008

Left 4 Dead goes out of its way to create an interactive horror movie. The movie poster introducing the upcoming mission, the four horror movie archetypes forming the group of survivors, a city overrun with Infected presenting seemingly overwhelming odds, and enough darkened corners to make anyone trigger-happy. The maps are linear, designed to move the player forward without too much thought and keep players shooting at the Infected. Swarms of the Infected will appear as if from nowhere, at any time. There are no monster closets. They are everywhere. They will jump through windows. They will rush through hallways. They will pretend not to see you, and then all of a sudden a group of them is launching an attack. And then the Boomer shambles around the corner, and your party of four is suddenly fucked.

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