CAPCOM® REVEALS NEW DETAILS ON UPCOMING TITLES AT ANNUAL CAPTIVATE MEDIA SHOWCASE IN ROME

Capcom Announces Lost Planet® 3, New October 2 Release Date for Resident Evil® 6, and PlayStation®3 System Cross-Platform Play for the PlayStation®Vita System Version of Street Fighter® X Tekken®
Capcom®, a leading worldwide developer and publisher of video games, today confirmed new information and details on its previously announced game line-up for 2012 stemming from its annual media showcase event, Captivate, which took place in Rome last week. At the event, Capcom officially announced Lost Planet® 3 is in full development and scheduled for release on the PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system, the Xbox 360 ® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, and Windows PC in early 2013. In addition, it was announced that the Xbox 360 and PS3™ versions of Resident Evil® 6 will now be released globally on October 2, 2012, with the Windows PC version to follow. Finally, Capcom is pleased to confirm that its forthcoming PlayStation®Vita system title, Street Fighter® X Tekken®, will feature Cross-Platform Play with the PS3™.

The extreme and unpredictable conditions that characterized the Lost Planet® series return, harsher than ever before in Lost Planet 3. Players take on the role of Jim, a utility rig pilot who has left Earth to take on a hazardous but lucrative contract on E.D.N. III. Delivering a diverse range of gameplay, including third-person on-foot battles and intense first-person utility rig action, players will need to brave the uncharted terrain, hostile climate and threat of indigenous Akrid creatures. With a number of multiplayer modes and a compelling single player experience, Lost Planet 3 will delve deeper into the Lost Planet universe, uncovering hidden truths when it releases in early 2013.

Captivate represented the first opportunity for media to see the highly anticipated Resident Evil 6 in action, with the game's development team showcasing one of Leon S. Kennedy's missions. Full of tension, the action has Leon and partner Helena Harper searching for an escape route from the Ivy University campus, the site of the most recent bioterrorist outbreak and the zombies that now stalk its hallways and grounds.

Announced and showcased during Captivate was the Cross-Platform Play for the PS Vita system version of Street Fighter X Tekken which allows owners of the PS Vita system version to compete against owners of the PS3™ version anywhere in the world, via Wi-Fi or 3G. Other features confirmed for the PS Vita system version of Street Fighter X Tekken were the introduction of touch controls, local and Wi-Fi multiplayer plus Near functionality alongside all the content from the home console version.

For the first time since its announcement, Captivate attendees were able to play DmC Devil May Cry® and experience the fast-paced, stylish combat that is the signature of the series. In addition, the game's development team, including members from Capcom Japan and Ninja Theory, presented a brand new level of the game. In this area, set at a carnival near the pier where he lives, Dante faces off with a Hunter Demon that has tracked down the Son of Sparda.

Steel Battalion™ Heavy Armor,acollaboration between Capcom and From Software and an Xbox 360 exclusive,introduced a brand new online four player Cooperative Multiplayer Mode available on the Xbox LIVE® online entertainment network when the title releases on June 19 in North America and from June 22 across Europe. Attending media were invited to work together, using the innovative mix of Kinect™ for Xbox 360 and regular controller play, and defeat the enemy's Vertical Tanks.

Attendees were also able to experience new content for the forthcoming open world action-RPG title, Dragon's Dogma™ and a debut hands on with the recently announced PlayStation®Move enabled Resident Evil®: Chronicles HD Collection.

XBOX 360 GAME REVIEW: The Witcher 2

The Witcher 2 is not a normal video game, and it is not a normal fantasy. It subverts the old high-fantasy stereotypes even as it employs them. The elves that you'll meet in Temeria aren't charming, ethereal forest-dwellers, they are guerrilla insurgents raining death on humans from the trees. The dwarves, typically cheerful, hard-working sorts, live in a city of worn rock that runs off the fumes of their former industriousness while its current inhabitants drink, joke and fornicate. the many different kingdoms are in the on the precipice of war, led by despotic kings who play their personal vendettas out on the battlefields at the expense of their armies' lives.

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And who are you, amongst all this? You're Geralt of Rivia, a stoic and distinctly un-heroic monster hunter with a few memory problems and a faintly inexplicable way with the ladies. Though sworn to impartiality on matters of the state, he is drawn into this advanced political maelstrom by a series of regicides that brand him a criminal and pull him back into his own, forgotten past. The Witcher 2 is a game for adults, and not just because of all the sex and violence. It expects you to be intelligent and interested, to care about the political machinations, racial tensions and complex history of its world. Plenty of games shield you from their lore, afraid that it may scare you off. The Witcher 2 drops you right in the thick of it, and expects you to deal with it.

Since its release on PC in May last year, the Witcher 2 has been drawing envious glances from console owners. The Enhanced Edition for Xbox 360 includes around four hours of new gameplay and an interface redesigned for consoles, with everything else intact. Impressively, CD Projekt RED has managed to port the whole experience over to six-year-old Xbox 360 hardware with only a minimum of technical compromises. If you've got access to a consultant quality PC, it is fairly self-evident that's the version you should plump for, but Xbox 360 owners needn't feel short-changed by this rather competent port.

Underpinning The Witcher 2's ambitious fantasy is a sword- and magic-based combat system that is one of the best around, delivering challenge and flexibility alongside the straightforwardly violent finishing moves and lethal strikes that are the backbone of all good melee combat. Dipping into stylish slow-motion to select spells, bombs and traps from a radial menu, you chip away at groups of enemies through plans and intelligent positioning rather than simply hacking through them with silver or steel. Spells ignite, confuse or trap your foes, where oils and enhancements change the properties of your blades.

Getting used to the layout of these myriad functions on the 360 pad takes a good hour. in the beginning your fingers are forced into unnatural positions when you try to bring up the radial menu and keep your targeting reticule locked onto a dangerous enemy at identical time, but soon such difficulties are behind you. The Witcher 2 has absolutely no control problems on Xbox, but it does still suffer from a lack of clarity in menu-heavy activities like crafting and alchemy. a very detailed in-game journal offers a refresher on everything you could need to know about the characters, locations and recent events, but there are some elements of the actual gameplay that could be better explained.

For one, it is useful to realize that running away is occassionally a better concept than trying to stand and fight. Combat is challenging, and reliant on good preparation; taking the extra time to craft bombs, traps and potions that will help you in specific battles often pays dividends.

The Witcher 2 is full of excellently-designed quests, from the grand machinations of its central plot to side-quests that deal in ghost stories, missing persons and humorous mysteries. Spend time in taverns and get into a fist-fights or gambling debt, and you might find Geralt led into something bigger. Investigating a single murder might uncover a long trail of cause and effect. These well-written diversions mean that Geralt never feels like an errand boy, and the choices that you make – minor and major –affect the course of the narrative in a way that feels natural and organic. You're never told to choose between good and evil, filling some invisible morality meter. Instead it feels like what you're doing in fact means something.

it is in the cities that the contrast between The Witcher 2 and other, cleaner, more aspirational and austere fantasies is most apparent. Games occassionally create places full of marble palaces and gorgeous architecture, wide streets and bustling town centres. These, meanwhile, are ramshackle, grimy places where the tension between humans and non-humans constantly threatens to bubble up into mob violence. As a witcher – a mutated human, essentially – Geralt finds himself somewhere between these two racial camps, and many of the decisions that you make over the course of the game feed into a much bigger racial conflict that goes utterly current monarchs and recent resentments and sometimes feels like it is etched into the very stone that the cities are built from. The Witcher 2's history and lore is built into its world and geography as effectively as it is written into characters' dialogue.

Next to the PC version, one of the most technically accomplished games around, this Xbox version can't aid but look a little compromised, even if it is amongst the best-looking games on the console. The lighting and colours aren't as dynamic, and fog usually encroaches on your view of the brilliant outdoors. there's also occasional stuttering, frame-rate drops and texture pop-in, all of which are greatly improved by installing the game to the Xbox's hard drive. These things don't undermine The Witcher 2, but they do serve as a reminder that PC players are playing a slightly better version of this great game.

CLOSING COMMENTS
In every compelling way, The Witcher 2 on Xbox 360 is identical subversive and note worthy fantasy that it was on the PC. There are some minor technical and graphical blemishes, but they don’t detract from what is one of the best RPGs of recent years, and the extra content adds value. This is an ambitious and absorbing game that’s not just superficially “adult”, but genuinely mature.

Playsation 3 Game Review: World Gone Sour Review

We've all experienced the shamelessness of product crossovers, but not all of them make us slap our foreheads in disbelief and disgust. World Gone Sour is one big advertisement for the candy brand Sour Patch children, and believe it or not, it holds its own as a fairly priced, satisfying side-scrolling platformer. it is absolutely not a fantastic game, and it would be difficult to recommend it over the deluge of apparently wealthy adventures on your console's downloadable service. But World Gone Sour's low monetary barrier to entry makes it a guilt-free -- yet short -- romp that may be worth your time if you have an night to kill and five bucks burning a hole in your pocket.

The whimsy and humor of World Gone Sour will strike you as soon as you begin playing. A well-acted narrator who accompanies you throughout the game provides an interesting premise at the outset: what happens to Sour Patch children that are dropped on the floor, lost between couch cushions or otherwise discarded? By playing through three separate worlds (each consisting of three lengthy stages and a smattering of boss battles), you'll find out.

Gameplay consists of the typical mechanics you may come across in any side-scrolling action-platformer. Your little gummy character can jump and use a selection of special moves. He can also recruit other small 'little people' as he ventures through the quest, which allows him to buff himself out into larger, more robust sizes, thus giving him new, exclusive moves. While the smallest version of the character is spry and agile, he can also be murdered in one hit. Consuming your colleagues when you find them will make you larger, able to withstand more damage, and will empower you to execute special moves, such as smashing through weakened floors or tossing energized candies at armored enemies.

World Gone Sour totes mechanically sound and extremely familiar gameplay, but not all of it works well. Running, jumping and fighting (the latter done in Mario-esque jumping-on-heads fashion) functions fine, but you'll find that some of the minutiae that becomes important later in the game -- especially wall-jumping and to an extent using grappling hooks -- proves to be more fickle and outright non-functioning than you may have preferred. This takes good overall gameplay and drops it down a peg. Just wait until you get to the game's last world, where traps are everywhere and you constantly die while wondering why your character isn't wall-jumping properly even though you're executing on the control side.


Speaking of traps, part of World Gone Sour's charm is its exceptionally dark humor. Both your character and your companions can be killed in any number of ways, and the game in fact encourages it. along with finding point-producing stars, scouring for hidden collectibles and killing enemies, your score can be catapulted into the stratosphere by mutilating your friends. Skewer them, burn them, catapult them; all of that's fair game in World Gone Sour, and at times, sacrifices like these will be certainly integral to your achievement.

The look of World Gone Sour certainly screams LittleBigPlanet, though you shouldn't go in expecting a game even remotely on the level of Media Molecule's highly respected series. Still, treading through human-like environments as a tiny character with a high gloss of fantasy painted over everything certainly seems inspired by LBP, and it is something perhaps four or five people commented on when they watched me play it. Chances are you, too, will notice.

The aforementioned voice acting works ultimate within the confines of World Gone Sour's sardonic, pseudo-morbid delivery, but sound effects can get a bit repetitive and the music isn't all that memorable, either. Still, the game's cutscenes will make you laugh out loud, though you still may be left scratching your head about how such a little, concise downloadable title could have such epic load times. Is World Gone Sour running off of my hard drive, or did someone sneak a disc into my console?
CLOSING COMMENTS
Whether alone or with a friend via local co-op, World Gone Sour can be strangely satisfying. While it’s a game that has its own set of problems, and while those problems hold the overall experience back, we’re talking about a five dollar download here.

If anything, World Gone Sour proves two points: that product crossovers don’t have to suck (right, Yo! Noid?!) and that games on console downloadable services can be both cheap and fun. World Gone Sour won’t bend your mind with what it brings to listing, but it won’t break the bank, either. There’s definitely something to be said about that.