As a huge fan of Resident Evil, since my first introduction to the original title back in 1996, I’ve followed the whole series and played almost every version of the game, including the Gun Survivor entry. I have loved this series in every type of incarnation. Yes, I even enjoy the movies. And without going into the whole discussion about games and their often times terrible big screen counterparts, I’ll just say the diverting direction of the movie story line was something easy to go with. They kept the same basic things from the games, but added their own twists.

I have also enjoyed the direction and gradual evolution of the games. Now there are a lot of fans that be-moan the series’ more action oriented direction, but really where can they go? We are still playing the same characters. Just like any battle hardened soldier, the more you see the less you jump in fear, which leads to more of just taking care of business. Fans complain about the loss of the fixed cameras, yet we all know we would complain endlessly if they were still there. If you really think about it, many of these changes are not that surprising for a franchise that as been around for almost twenty year now. Which brings us to today, the beginning of 2012. We have no less than five Resident Evil related properties coming out this year.

• Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City (PC/PS3/360)
• Resident Evil 6 (PC/PS3/360)
• Resident Evil: Revelations (3DS)
• Resident Evil: Retribution (live-action film)
• Resident Evil: Damnation (computer-generate film)

That’s right, five properties coming up in twenty-twelve: three games, a live-action movie, and a computer generated movie. Yes, certainly something for the Resident Evil fans to look forward to. And although such a influx of content will undoubtedly have the fans smiling from ear to ear, over-saturation is a concern. Is it just too much? Having so much come out so soon definitely has the potential to leave a sour taste in ones mouth.  Are we so quickly bored with our games now that we need the next one so soon, or are these games differentiated enough that they each have a chance of success in their own right. Let’s take a look.

Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City, and presumably Resident Evil 6, both have online elements, with rumblings of it being a very important component in Operation Raccoon City. Will these undercut each other? If your a budget gamer by necessity, how  do you go about picking which one to get? Do you go for content, story continuation, or game play? So many things to consider. If you have a Nintendo 3DS, as well as a Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 that’s three games in one year to look at, in the same series with a pretty hefty line-up of other titles for each system this year as well.

The decision to see the live-action movie is not so bad. Like me, you will probably go to your theater’s cheap day, or hit the cheaper matinee. As for the computer generated movie, judging from my previous enjoyment of Degeneration in all its 1080P glory, it will most likely be a buy for me.

I don’t know about you but my belt budget is pretty tight. Like most of you have probably had to do, I have had to cut extra holes in the belt to hold my financial pants up. One of these I will be missing out on, as my fanboyism of the series no longer is so feverish as to make me by a new system. So Resident Evil: Revelations, I will most likely miss out o, unless borrowing it from a friend is an option.

With so much of a franchise that I love coming out, and most likely not enough money to enjoy it all, how do I choose what to experience? Or if I even have the money to experience it all, is it too much in such a short a time span? How would we react to say that many Street Fighter, or Call of Duty titles coming out in one year? What do you think?

So I picked up this game at Gamestop for about ten dollars –brand new– out the bargain bin a while back. For obvious reasons, GameStop just wants to get this product out of the store. And for all the horrible reviews Duke Nukem Forever has received, I had to see for myself if such overwhelmingly negative reviews were justified. Brace yourself.

The gameplay mechanics are OLD AND SERIOUSLY OUTDATED. Currently, gameplay mechanics are measured by such games as Halo or Call of Duty, and if a game doesn’t play anything like these games, you can almost certainly know it will be automatically received as being bad. This game plays like all the first person shooters that came out when this game should have come out, about eleven to thirteen years ago. Game intensity and difficulty ranges from calm and relaxing to ‘I want to pull my hair out’. As far as controls go, by today’s standards the controls are clunky at best. Don’t get me wrong, they are responsive, but nothing like what we have become accustomed to. There is no snap feature when it comes to locking onto a target, and no lock-on system whatsoever, with the exception of the rocket propelled grenade launcher, but then you have to manually keep the rectal on the target for a few seconds to get the lock. The multiplayer system suffers from the same outdated-ness. Multiplayer matches are limited to four-on-four no matter what mode you are playing.

The narrative of Duke Nukem Forever hurts the game a lot, but this could partly be due to the game going through several development teams. But honestly, it’s a Duke Nukem game and none of them have been known for their stories. When Duke was first introduced he was a parody of every seventy’s and eighty’s action hero. He’s muscled, kicks-ass, crude, and spouts a crap-ton of one liners. The game is filled with lots of moments of plain silliness.  For instance, on one stage Duke does nothing but go through his strip club finding items to get a lap-dance in a dream sequence. There are moments when it seems your going to have non-player character help, but these are basically cannon fodder and die almost as soon as any action picks up.

There are several places where the gameplay takes a change. A turret sequence, some vehicle driving, and a few places where Duke gets shrunk down and has to do some platforming to get around. The weapons are typical Duke. With many Duke mainstays like the trusty pistol, shotgun, RPG, and devestator, with the added weapons of a Shrink ray, and a freeze ray. You also get two types of throw-ables, the pipe bomb that you throw and then detonate with a car clicker, and a trip mine you can set onto any surface. The bosses are set to where only explosives can kill them so these, along with the explosive weapons are your only means to win.

Once you beat the game on normal you unlock the cheat extras. Which include Big Head, God Mode, Infinite Ammo, and more. Yet like all other games they disable trophy acquisition. Which may or may not matter as for the most part the replay value of the single player is a bit lacking on the whole.

For the multiplayer you have the normal game modes with some twists. Death-match and team death-match are called Duke Match and Team Duke Match. The capture the flag is Capture the Babe, which does have some interesting twists. You of course pick up the enemies Babe, but you lose the ability to use any of your weapons. You must instead use the single shot garter pistol the Babe has on her. She will make it hard for you as well by placing her hand in front of your face, but you can just press the button to spank her ass and she will move it away. The garter pistol is a one shot kill which is nice, but it has slow reload, and the lost of the snap feature does mean you have to use more skill. Your domination match is Hail to the King, where you must take the control points and do a Hail to the King while in the point.

You get quite a bit of customization as you progress through the multi-player. You get different hats, eyeware, and shirt logos to outfit Duke. Also added is the My Digs, that has furniture, games, and babes to unlock as you level up. Which makes wanting to progress through the multi-player a bit more intriguing as you get the ability to ogle the babes.  The maps are interesting. You get simple ones, and some that are really cluttered. Duke Burger map has all of you shrunk and running around the Duke Burger kitchen. It’s a very fun map, in that you have several ways to trap and kill other players with environmental hazards like the microwave, and dishwasher.

Unfortunately the main problem with the maps are the weapon placements. Some are hard to get to, and are set to where you can be a very easy target. Which can make it very frustrating to get the things you need to rack up your points, unless your the guy that gets them first and starts camping. Matches can be set up in various ways: limited weapons, infinite ammo, score counts, etc. As a side not, guys flying around with jetpacks wielding the devastator can just ruin your day.

Overall the game is enjoyable, and will give you a few good hours of playtime. The multi-player is actually a great way to hop online and just play for a few matches and then get off. It also has a huge plethora of challenges you can do that can rack up to big experience point rewards. Again if this game had come out when it was originally supposed to, the only thing that would have given it a run for it’s money would have been Doom 3. As is today, I really think they just put it out to get rid of it and maybe move on to something else.

For the original price it definitely wouldn’t have been worth looking at. At ten bucks or even five, like some Best Buys have done, you get what you pay for. A simple game that plays simple, gives you some fun moments, and has lots of crude humor, and gives you something to go “Damn” about.

Via Major Nelson’s Blog/Microsoft:

This holiday, in addition to offering the best blockbuster and Kinect games, Xbox 360 consoles are set to deliver live and on-demand TV shows, movies, videos, sports, music and news, becoming the best device to experience all your entertainment. TV and movie fans can instantly stream their favorite episodes of current television shows all season long, as well as past favorites and new-release movies.

Xbox 360 is building on its expansive catalog of movies, sports, television and music available through Hulu Plus, Last.fm, Netflix, Zune music and video and ESPN®, as well as on its existing lineup of great TV providers, such as AT&T U-verse® TV in the U.S., TELUS in Canada, BSkyB in the U.K., CANAL+ in France, Vodafone Portugal, VimpelCom in Russia and FOXTEL in Australia, by also now rolling out the following new entertainment partners and apps:

December 6th:

• EPIX. United States
• ESPN on Xbox LIVE (ESPN). United States
• Hulu. Japan
• Hulu Plus. United States
• LOVEFiLM. United Kingdom
• Netflix. Canada, United States
• Premium Play by (MediaSet). Italy
• Sky Go (SkyDE). Austria, Germany
• Telefónica España – Movistar Imagenio. Spain
• TODAY (MSNBC). United States

Later in December:

• 4 on Demand (C4). United Kingdom
• ABC iView (Australian Broadcasting Corp.). Australia
• AlloCiné. France (AlloCiné), Germany (Filmstarts), Spain (Sensacine), United Kingdom (Screenrush)
• Astral Media’s Disney XD (Astral Media). Canada
• blinkbox (Blinkbox). United Kingdom
• Crackle (Sony Pictures). Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, United States
• Dailymotion. Available in 32 countries globally
• Demand 5 (Five). United Kingdom
• DIGI+ (CANAL+). Spain
• GolTV (Mediapro). Spain
• iHeartRadio (Clear Channel). United States
• Mediathek/ZDF (ZDF). Germany
• MSN. Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, United Kingdom
• MSNBC.com. United States
• MUZU.TV. Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom
• ninemsn. Australia
• Real Sports (Maple Leaf Sports). Canada
• Rogers On Demand Online (Rogers Media). Canada
• SBS ON DEMAND. Australia
• TMZ (Warner Bros.). Canada, United States
• TVE (RTVE.es). Spain
• UFC on Xbox LIVE (UFC). Canada, United States
• Verizon FiOS TV. United States
• VEVO. Canada, Ireland, United Kingdom, United States
• Vudu (Wal-Mart). United States
• YouTube. Available in 24 countries globally

Early 2012:

• Antena 3 (Antena 3 de Televisión). Spain
• BBC (BBC). United Kingdom
• CinemaNow (Best Buy). United States
• HBO GO (HBO). United States
• MLB.TV (MLB Advanced Media). Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Columbia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, United Kingdom, United States
• Telenovelas/Sports (Televisa). Brazil, Chile, Colombia, France, Italy, Mexico, Spain, United Kingdom
• Xfinity On Demand (Comcast). United States

The PS3 and Wii are both 5 years old. The Wii, already a generation behind in the hardware dept, has a successor coming next year in the Wii U. Sony has been quiet about PS4 release timeframes. They’ve touted the PS3 as having a 10 year life cycle, but much of that is lip service. Both the PS1 and PS2 had 10 year cycles that heavily overlapped each other, expect that to happen again. The soonest I would expect anything from Sony is at least 2013, possibly later.

Yeah, remember that?

Typically the need for new hardware arises about every 5 years. Since the third generation (NES and Master System), the average time between consoles is 4.8 years. We are at 5 and 6 years into the seventh generation with no end in sight. This delay can be attributed to multiple factors. Updatable firmware, graphical diminishing returns, and consistent hardware sales are factors, but the biggest thing in the way of the new generation is the economy.

The current economic climate initially didn’t affect the games industry, but now that we are 3 years into the recession, less money is being spent on everything, including software. The argument goes both ways, on one side sales could be down because there are no new consoles, but on the other side consumers might not be able to afford new hardware. Right now, both Sony and Microsoft are more comfortable rolling out stop gap upgrades and peripherals to prolong what is becoming the longest generation since the Atari 2600 days.

What that means for game development is that the innovation typically tied to new hardware is being stifled. The more developers work with consoles the better they get at exploiting the strengths of its features. That’s why first generation games on every system are ugly. Go back and play Perfect Dark Zero, or Motorstorm and tell me you don’t agree. Its not just graphics, its physics, lighting, shaders, enemy AI, crowd dynamics, or basically anything a game does that needs to leverage the hardware strength. We are getting to a point where the software wizards making games cannot get anything more out of the hardware.

I don't get it, I he supposed to be on fire?

Battlefield 3 on PC is evidence that there is a better looking graphical standard out there. This difference is a relic of a bygone era. It used to be that PC games were looked at as the future; “This is what games will look like on consoles in 4 years!” The decline of PC gaming is causing development to flip and instead of games being built for PC and ported to consoles, consoles are getting top billing and the PC games are upres-ed ports of console games.

Without PC developers pushing the boundaries of what can be done in a virtual space, console makers are content sticking with their current horse as long as the sales are consistent. Developers are hitting the glass ceilings created by processing bottlenecks, and unavoidable power limitations. The games being released this year are evidence that this is a growing problem that will only get worse until the next generation kicks off.

The top tier games this year are all still great, but they don’t have the innovation that came from their predecessors. Uncharted 3 is great but basically its just another Uncharted game. Sure it does alot of really impressive things, but I wouldn’t say anything in it is groundbreaking. Modern Warfare 3 is basically the same game that was released 2 years ago in Modern Warfare 2. The settings are different and the perks are adjusted, but again, no innovation.

I promise you, nothing in that game is nearly as epic as this painting.

Assassin’s Creed Revelations, Batman Arkham City, Gear of War 3 and Battlefield 3 are all guilty of being more of the same. Outside of some nifty Motion Plus features, Skyward Sword is exactly like every other Zelda game. The only real innovation that I hear coming from Game of the Year candidate Skyrim is that its scope is huge and you have a lot of choices, two things that don’t need new hardware to improve upon.

I’m not saying these games are bad, but they aren’t the generational milestones that their predecessors were, and outside of Bioshock Infinite, I don’t see anything coming down the pipeline that has “milestone” written on it. I hope you were pleased by the games released this year because chances are you will be playing them again next year and possibly the next. Come on guys, bring on the PS4 and Xbox 3, I’m ready for genuine excitement.

First off…this game is narrated by Patrick Stewart, yeah, THAT Patrick Stewart. Now that I have your attention, let’s talk about The War of the Worlds. It is currently available via Xbox Live Arcade.  Based on the H.G. Wells novel of the same name, this interpretation of story is not related to the 2005, $200 million grossing Tom Cruise/Steven Spielberg film. Following closely to the art direction and atmosphere of the book, War of the Worlds seeks to capture the feel of the story while building a compelling gaming experience, and it almost succeeds.

Borrowing heavily from XBLA darling Limbo, The War of the Worlds is a side-scrolling puzzle platformer. Your character, is traversing post-Martian invasion-London. He’s not only trying to survive, but also trying to find his family. During this journey, he faces several different types of Alien enemies and organisms. The puzzles are typically straight forward and there’s never a question as to where your character should be going.

What the game does well is atmosphere. Both the visuals and sounds are amazing. Its not a graphical powerhouse, but more an artistic canvas. Your character is for all intents and purposes faceless and his surroundings are the real star of the show. The Alien tripods are creepy and destroyed London is gritty and haunting. Like independent games have proven in the past, they are the current venue for artistic freedom. In regards to the atmosphere of the game, there are a lot of really cool things going on in The War of the Worlds.

The sounds design is epic in scale and fits both the time period of the game and the sci-fi nature of the fiction.  Patrick Stewart sounds like Patrick Stewart.  Him being from England helps the narration feel genuine, almost like he’s visited the landmarks he’s mentioning in the game.   

Like Limbo, the gameplay relies heavily on trial and error. Aside from small hints on the load screens, no direction is given on how to kill anything, or avoid traps. Expect to play sections numerous times until you find out how to get through. I died alot during my playthrough. Part of that was due to the difficulty of the game, but most of the dying was due to the infinitely clumsy controls. I can’t count how many times my character did something I was not intending to do.

Whether it was taking too long to crawl, not grabbing a ledge properly or accidentally leaping off a building, the controls are too responsive in some places and unresponsive in others. This combined with the over prioritization of animation sequences give the game a watered down pace and left me as this game’s victim rather than participant.  The closest game I can compare it to is the classic Prince of Persia. Fundamentally Prince of Persia is great game, but nearly broken controls make it damn near unplayable. 

Had the controls been more refined, the developers could have gotten away with better puzzles and more combat. As it stands, the puzzles are too straight forward (with the exception being a gas-mask handoff “puzzle” that just doesn’t make sense) and for the most part the combat is completely optional. I’m not saying the game needs something deep like a God of War or Devil May Cry combat engine, but it would have been nice to actually fight the Martians, instead of just sneaking up on them and putting an axe in their head.

Like most XBLA games, The War of the Worlds is not going to please everyone.  If everything you just read excites you, then get The War of the Worlds, you’ll love it. I can honestly say the only major flaw in the game is the erratic controls. If you are a big fan of The War of the Worlds as a story, and really like Patrick Stewart, this may be right up your alley. If you get frustrated quickly and don’t like replaying areas for dumb reasons, pass on this one.

Verdict: The fact that Tom Cruise is not in the game actually makes it better. 

Proving that zombies (like rats) can show up anywhere, Techland has invaded the Action/RPG/FPS genre adding another / with Survival Horror after that. Much like the Fallout series you run around stuff, pick up stuff, do stuff, level up stuff, and kill stuff. You get 4 different characters to choose from to do all of said stuff: Xian Mei who is your Ninja class. She is master of all that is sharp, and has skill unlocks that make her harder to be seen by the undead dummies. Logan is your projectile man. A former NFL star that has let his ego (and the booze) ruin what he had. Purna is on top of all things firearms, your resident man hater. Last but not least is Sam B. A one hit wonder from New Orleans’ lower 9th Ward, and your loved Tank classman.

As I stated this game is a Action/RPG/FPS/Survival Horror game, so leveling up is paramount. Each character has three skill trees that as you level up you get unlock tokens to use on new or to improve existing skills. With each character having vastly different skills. Purna in particular has a skill called “Gender Wars” which allow her to do extra damage to male zombies. LOL. And like any multi-genre thingy there are things for each genre section to do. There are missions to complete. Objects, and people to find. Random people to help, and zombies of different levels to contend with.

  No matter which character you pick you all start the same way. Picking up whatever you can find to make the zombies not go chompy  chompy on your booty booty. The controls are your standard FPS fair. Unfortunately you don’t have a skills hotkey. Now normally this wouldn’t be a problem in a single player affair, but I have yet to mention that this game is meant to be a co-oped endeavor. That’s right. You and 3 of your friends, or 3 random whatevers, can up and run through this game together. Either completing each mission together, or splitting up and doing them separately. Though I would suggest working together as much as possible, especially at the mid-way point of the game. All classes can bludgen, throw, shoot, slice, oh and flatten. So during co-op there is no pause while you upgrade skills. Oh! Don’t let me forget that you can find vehicles to run around in. The zombies react awesomely to being hit in those trucks.

As for the zombies they come in quite a variety. From walkers, to runners, to just plain big and don’t want to die for nothing. That’s ok because for everything but the big guys each character has a MIGHTY BOOT!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yes I said mighty boot. You have a kick button that you can use anytime. So if you’ve ever played a zombie game and wished you could kick them back…….Well you got it.Now to me this thing is HUGELY overpowered. Except for the mini-boss guys I used the kick/stomp for every enemy I came across for the first 2 chapters. You can kick to knock back, then walk up while they stumble and kick to knock down, then stand over them and curb stomp the $%!* out of them. Of course when you have groups this doesn’t work as well. But I’ve had several times I knock 2 down at the same time, landing on top of one another, and took out both at the same time stomping.

Now even though I do feel it’s overpowered it just made playing that much more fun for me.  For the melee weapons you pick up you actually have two different control options to choose from. Digital or Analog. Digital is you aim the crosshairs, and then you hit the button to strike. Analog on the other hand has you move the mouse or right analog stick one way then quickly move the other way. Allowing you to strike in a horizontal, vertical, or diagonal trajectory. Also with analog the trade off from being more difficult is that you can build up more power in to your swings. Taking a page out of Dead Rising’s playbook you can also modify and make improvised weapons. Which there are some really fun ones to make. The electrified machete is a favorite of mine.

Dead Island is set on a fictional resort island. And it shows everywhere. The place looks like Panama City the day after Spring Break is over. Stuff broken, beer bottles everywhere, blood on the streets, stumbling assholes that are pissed and trying to kill you……..Wait a minute……..Maybe those aren’t zombies but dumbass collage kids. HHMMMM……. The Island looks gorgeous. Lush and green, with some awesomely blue water. Oh and if knocked down in said water whether it’s the ocean, a pool, or a stream, etc, the zombies take damage as long as their down. So yes to answer your question zombies CAN drown. But they can’t swim.

You know you want it!

For the first part of the game your running around the beach area. In and out of bungalows, lifeguard posts, and beach roads. Unfortunately the game switches to the city area, and it again becomes the drab, apocalyptic scenery we’ve all seen before.The zombies are very detailed. With different cloths, accessories, and body styles. Though of course you mainly see the fit body female zombies. On the consoles and the PC with options up all the way you can see on the fly damage registration on enemies. You can blow off the side of a face if your not dead on the head. You can break or sever limbs to make them unusable to the zombie. Which is the best strategy against the boss zombies.

Whether you play this with friends, strangers, or just with yourself, this game has a lot to it to keep you going. With missions that are easy, to “WTF?!?!?!”, there is something for everyone. Now granted when this game launched just a few short weeks ago bugs abounded. Luckily if you were on the fence, or just waiting it out a bit, most to all of these problems have been fixed.

For this outing, Rayne is sticking to the 2D plane. Betrayal has been made into a pure platformer with 15 levels of running, jumping, shooting, slashing, exploding fun. First off we’ll touch on Rayne’s changes. In addition to making the jump from 3D to 2D, Rayne’s look has changed as well. No longer bearing her belly WayForward has toned down Rayne’s sex appeal in favor of a more modest look, while still retaining the essence of the 3D game design. Her face has changed significantly though.  When you see her up close she looks like Emo-Rayne, which I must say is my only gripe as a long standing Bloodrayne fan. While maybe not the best games in their genre I have loved the first two games. They were a huge amount of fun for me.

The look of the game is like a very smooth running motion comic. All the animations flow easily from one movement to another for both Rayne and the enemies. The colors contrast nicely so you won’t lose Rayne in the chaos onscreen. There are a few moments where the screen goes dark and you simply see nothing but shadows as you slice up your foes.

Rayne still has her signature blades and a nice power packing pistol that can take out several normal enemies in one shot.  During the game she also receives a solar gun, the ability to transform, and can make enemies explode. That’s right, you can make them explode. How this works is when you go to feed on your victim to replenish your health you can simply bite them quickly and they will take on a green color and start to smoke a bit.  Then you can press the taunt button to make them explode, causing damage to nearby enemies, and even causing them to explode in a chain. Rayne also has a headstomp move.  Strangely enough there’s a trophy for do this 50 times in a row.

In the platforming department………..well damn.  Betrayal takes the typical platform challenge and amps it up. With great level design, and tricky jumps, platform lovers will be happy with where this game takes them.  When I say tricky jumps I mean TRICKY jumps.  There’s one battle where you have to fight while jumping from one quick vanishing hop post to another while fighting two enemies at the same time.  Some of the 15 levels are almost nothing but pure puzzles, challenging jumps, run through traps, moving saws, flying missiles, floating bodies, dropping spikes, and pools of acid. Whew they throw a lot at you in this one. It’s ok though, Rayne’s a tough girl and can take care of herself. She has two moves that really help with her survival. A dash move that has some frames of invincibility, and backflip move that gives much greater height to her jumping ability.  With almost 10 different enemy types the game doesn’t get very repetitive. Certain sections dish out the challenges out in combinations that will require you to use strategy to overcome.

In true platformer fashion there are power ups to find.  Every 5 red skulls you collect will give you the option to increase your health or ammo cache. I always chose health. Your score in each level is ranked and these scores are shared on the leaderboards. A time bonus is seen ticking down quickly when you start a level, or checkpoint. The faster you complete the level the higher score you’ll get. The controls are tight, and very responsive. When I missed jumps I knew that it was me that missed them and not because the controls were off. Just like a whip Rayne will do exactly what you tell her and just like said whip, if she stings you it’s because you told her to.

Sound-wise this game has hits and misses for me. First off, the sound is excellent. The music is full, rich, fun, but sometimes repetitive. Not annoyingly repetitive, but you do get a little tired of hearing the same few songs from time to time. Hits, grunts, moans, shots, explosions, deaths; they all come out beautifully and distinct. Unfortunately where the misses for me come from is not actually hearing the small bit of story that’s going on in the game. When I said the game looks like a really smooth motion comic I meant it. Dialogue is handled with text bubbles, so we won’t get to hear the sultry voice of Laura Bailey as Rayne this time around.  You’ll most likely remember her as the voice of “Lust” from the Fullmetal Alchemist series.

If your a longtime Rayne fan, or a fan of great platformers this is a must buy. At only $20 or $15 if your a Plus gamer.  This game is well worth your time and money.

Verdict: A MUST PLAY.

Rezurrection is available now for Xbox 360.  Release dates are still pending for PS3 and PC.  Here’s some delightfully vanilla press info directed from the mouth of Activision:

ONE GIANT LEAP FOR ZOMBIE-KIND ON THE MOON: ACTIVISION AND TREYARCH LAUNCH CALL OF DUTY®: BLACK OPS REZURRECTION
TO ERADICATE THE INFESTATION

The Undead Onslaught Culminates With the All-New Level “Moon,” Four Remastered Classic Zombies Maps, Enhanced Zombies Soundtrack and New Zombies Theme

Santa Monica, CA – August 23, 2011 – Call of Duty® gamers leave earth’s atmosphere today with the release of Rezurrection, the fourth downloadable content pack on Xbox 360® for the best-selling first-person-shooter title, Call of Duty®: Black Ops. Rezurrection’s stellar payload features the never-before-seen Zombie frag-fest Moon, as well as four re-mastered levels from Zombies past, an enhanced Zombies soundtrack and new Moon theme.

Moon features outrageous new weapons, futuristic gear and hordes of low-gravity undead beasts, delivering Black Ops’ most expansive, visceral, and otherworldly Zombies experience yet. Meanwhile, bolstered with the firepower and visual splendor of Black Ops, players can relive the nightmare of “Nacht der Üntoten,” escape the Zombie madness in the asylum of “Verrückt,” battle back the undead Imperial Army of “Shi No Numa,” and pull the plug on “Der Riese,” the zombie factory that started it all.

“Our Zombies fans are so incredibly engaged with us in the ongoing development of the franchise, and we’re excited to deliver them our first all-Zombies content package,” said Treyarch Studio Head, Mark Lamia. “Rezurrection is Zombies nirvana, with four of our best Zombies experiences, topped off with the awesome, all-new level Moon.”

Once Rezurrection is downloaded, Black Ops will make available a free Zombies soundtrack with three tracks never before available for purchase, and a free Moon theme. For our fans who purchased the Black Ops Hardened or Prestige Editions and have already downloaded the Classic Zombie pack with re-mastered maps, the pack can be redownloaded to get Rezurrection with Moon; and Black Ops will make available the soundtrack and theme for free.

Additionally, the team at Treyarch has once again partnered with avid Call of Duty fans and rock superstars, Avenged Sevenfold, to feature their classic track, Nightmare, in the “Moon” level of the Rezurrection map pack.

To mark the release of Rezurrection and help kick off the first ever Call of Duty fan celebration, Call of Duty XP, this September 2-3, the team will host Double XP over the Labor Day holiday weekend from Friday, September 2 through Monday, September 5th.

Developed by Treyarch and published by Activision Publishing, Inc.(NASDAQ: ATVI), Call of Duty: Black Ops is rated “M” (Mature) by the ESRB for Blood and Gore, Intense Violence and Strong Language.  Call of Duty: Black Ops Rezurrection is available first on Xbox LIVE® Marketplace for the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system from Microsoft for 1200 Microsoft Points. Players who purchased the Call of Duty: Black Ops Hardened or Prestige Editions can download Rezurrection in its entirety for free. Free with the purchase of Rezurrection, the Zombie soundtrack and Moon theme must be downloaded separately. For full details on download options and instructions please visit http://www.callofduty.com/intel/492 for complete instructions.

For additional Call of Duty updates and information, visit us on the web at www.callofduty.com/blackops, www.facebook.com/codblackops, and also via Twitter @Treyarch.

What UBISOFT claims makes this game different is that it doesn’t come with a plastic instrument. You get the game, a usb cable that plugs from your PS3, PC, 360 straight into a real guitar. That’s right, there’s no faux strings, silly 5 buttons, strum bar, etc. You actually use a real guitar to play this game. UBISOFT claims Rocksmith will learn and adjust to your experience level. If you’ve never tried a real guitar before it will stick with simple single notes. Have you been playing for 10 to 20+ years?  Then it will make you play the whole piece.

Rocksmith is reported to have over a dozen difficulty levels and a huge initial library of at least 50 songs to choose from. It will also come with a virtual amp mode so you can just shred to your hearts content.The interface is a bit different onscreen. Yes we do still have the different colored notes that come down and you strum at the right time. Yes they fall vertically, but what’s different is that the color code is for each string and the tumble system covers the whole screen. You get a virtual fret board on the bottom of the screen with each fret having it’s own column.

To play, you will be going up and down the whole fret board of the guitar. Something nifty they have added is a simple learning tool that is basically called DUCKS.  This mode is your basic learning tool. You have the frets across the bottom of the screen and you have 8-bit pixel ducks that start to go up the drop board.

You strum the correct fret to shoot the duck. So it teaches you how to slide your hand up and down the fret board, strum notes, and makes it a much more intuitive learning procedure than your basic music game. Whether or not the DUCKS minigame uses just one string per fret or actually moves onto using specific notes or chords per fret is unknown at this time.

The big question is this. Does this game really even matter? I think most everyone still has in their memory the epic FAIL that was Powergig: Rise of the Six-String. Will this game revive the music game genre, or is it just a few years too late? Also, do you want to spend $80 for just a game and a chord, then buy your own guitar? If you pre-order now you will get a $25 voucher from Guitar Center, but you won’t get it till you pick up the game. UBISOFT has stated that any guitar with a working pick-up jack can be used. So you can always head to the pawn shops, or craigslist to find something cheap to start with.  Either way you look at it, unless you have a guitar you’re looking at dropping around 200 bones to get started.

What are your thoughts?