It’s still classified as a ‘survival horror’ series, but the last few games in the Resident Evil series have strayed far from their roots. The first few games forced you to flee more often than anything else with limited ammo and hordes of enemies. Resident Evil 4 was a big departure, taking the series in a far more action-heavy direction by providing you with a wide range of weapons and truckloads of ammunition. The demo of Resident Evil 5 shows that with the exception of the including co-op it’s more or less the same.

Survival is still a big must and there are some definite chills to be found but the true horror aspect came largely due to your relative weakness as a soft, squishy human being with limited firepower. Zombies are much more horrific if you’ve got no real way of dealing with them. While I admit to being much more interested in blasting zombies than escaping them, fans of the originals will be glad to hear that Resident Evil 6 is planned to be a reboot of the IP, bringing it back to its original style of game play. This comes from producer Jun Takeuchi in response to reviewers who have complained at the ‘glaring similarities’ between this game and its predecessor.

Some series keep the same hero, or groups of heroes for game after game while others adhere more to a structural framework in terms of style and game play, creating new characters or even new worlds every time. With the rich, complicated universe that underlies Bioware’s scifi RPG Mass Effect everyone knew that a sequel would be at the very least set in the same universe, although specific characters and chronology could have changed majorly.

With the first trailer Bioware answered a few questions, but raised even more. If you haven’t seen the trailer yet it mentions Shepard, giving some of the details from the first game including a list of deeds you’d have accomplished playing through the game as well as his ‘known alien accomplices’, the non-human party members from the first game. It goes on to say that Shepard is listed as ‘KIA’ (killed in action) and as the trailer pans out you see that an armored suit bearing Shepard’s N7 special ops designation is being worn by a Geth, both details throwing the survival of Shepard into question.

Although it’s only an early trailer it’s impossible really to doubt that Bioware plans to feature Shepard in some way. After all they wouldn’t make a trailer that mentions nothing other than the original protagonist without reason. This trailer sparked a whole lot of talk as you might imagine, and BioWare has responded in some small part: Bioware community managers mentioned several times on their forum to keep your save files from the original. It’s impossible to say what direction their taking this, but there are many possible guesses. Perhaps your character will be sent in to rescue him (I apologize to anyone who played the game with a female Shepard), or discover him accidentally in the course of their own adventure. Even more worrisome is the possibility that Shepard will be the villain.

If you liked all those little casual cake baking and waitressing games, then you might just enjoy Gazzoline from the folks at Addicting Games.  Now you too can see just how badly the service industry sucks for yourself by waiting on idiots who want way too much too fast, dealing with drive-offs and trying to fit three sports cars at the one sports car pump.

Gazzoline is exactly like those other games–click on the pump to start it, click on the gas station hot dog someone’s feeling suicidal enough to eat (seriously, who eats gas station food unless they have to?  Are there no McDonalds around?  That’s at least supposed to serve food.), click on the car to bring the item to it, take the money, repeat until your index finger falls off.

It’s fast–maybe a little TOO fast–and it’s also a quick, engaging little play.  You’ll have to survive ten days as a gas station jock in a station where people are really impatient, and you’ll discover that you can get pretty annoyed with customers really quickly.  This is, of course, nothing new to anyone who’s actually worked retail (served five years in a video store, thank you very much), but just in case you’d like a lesson in how the other half works, then you’ll get it fairly nicely from Gazzoline.  Otherwise, spare yourself the misery of reliving your part-time summer job.

I have to admit that, when I started playing Left 4 Dead, I thought I was going to be offended by its very existence.  I snarled at that game box for what must have been ten minutes before finally grabbing it up and hauling it up to the counter like a small child forced to take medicine. And medicine without the flavor shots added to it–man, we never had THAT kind of thing back when I was a kid unless it was the over-the-counter cough syrup.  Kids today.

Geriatric mutterings aside, I sat down to take my Left 4 Dead medicine, slapped it in my Xbox, and was surprised by the way it actually went down.  Surprisingly smooth, as a matter of fact.

Left 4 Dead basically puts you in a group of four survivors of a zombie apocalypse and gives you five separate scenarios to try and get out of Dodge in as rapid a fashion as possible.  You’ll fight your way through freeway underpasses, through churches, through hospitals and various other scenic locales in a desperate bid for survival.  Along the way, you’ll take on zombies that explode in a cloud of bile when you shoot them (boomers), zombies with enormous tongues that burst into smoke when you shoot them (smokers) and gigantic roid-raged zombies that can throw cars (tanks) along with female zombies that break down sobbing when they’re alone, but if you disturb their mourning they will burst into a homicidal rage and rip you apart with their bare hands.  These are called Witches.

I have been killed by Witches several times now.

I hate Witches with a fury formerly reserved only for child molesters.

But I was surprised at how much fun I had blasting my way through zombie hordes.  Sure, the gameplay is a bit monotonous–go here, shoot that, repeat until your thumbs fall off–but it just felt better overall.  I think it has something to do with the relatively open floor plans of the levels in which I was blasting all those zombies.

I had fun, yes…and I wasn’t enraged by the game itself, but that’s not to say that I’m letting Left 4 Dead off the hook just yet–no sir.  In fact, I’m pretty upset with it, and here’s why.

1. Track Star Zombies.  When the game actually has the characters say, in canon, that “zombies aren’t supposed to be this fast”, they’re RIGHT.  The walking dead are not supposed to be able to sprint without tiring and climb chain-link fences in a couple of bounds.

2. Shoot It In The…Um…Anywhere’s Good, I Guess.  Zombies are not supposed to go down after a couple of rounds to the center of mass.  You’ve got to shoot it in the head, Cooper…not anywhere you please.  Okay, sure, if you shoot the legs you’ll knock them down.  Shoot them in the chest for ballstic impact and some stunning.  But if you want to kill a zombie, you have to destroy the brain or separate the brain from the rest of the body.  Anything else is just a crock perpetrated by people who don’t understand the work of zombie master George Romero.

3. Where The Hell Did They Get All The Steroids?  I’m not sure I even want to know who thought it’d be a good idea to have bloated zombies that throw up on you as a battle tactic, or smoking zombies with tongues that make Gene Simmons’ curl up in the fetal position and whimper.  Don’t even get me started on the tanks.

But if you’re willing to ignore, or at least forgive, still MORE Romero blasphemy, then you’ll probably get along pretty well with Left 4 Dead.  I did, essentially.

Leisure Suit Larry games were pretty big back in the ‘90s, but since then the series has lost much of its luster (see the pun I did there? no?) and with the release of Magna Cum Laude in 2004, the series went bust (another pun!).

Even then, it appears Codemasters has enough faith in it to sign on to publish Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust, according to a listing on its official website. Originally to be published by Sierra, the game was left without a publisher due to the Activision Blizzard merger.

Now due out this spring, the game is set to make parodies of movies without the involvement of series creator Al Lowe. It will be out on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.

Capcom news once more: the company has officially unveiled Lost Planet 2 through a trailer on Xbox Live, fulfilling its promise that a new game would be announced.

While more information is expected later this week, it is known that the game will feature various environments as opposed to the original’s icy ones. In fact, it’s at least partially set in a sunny jungle enevironment, thanks to terraforming.

No platforms were mentioned, though Xbox 360 remains an obvious choice. It will surely come to PS3 and PC seeing as how Capcom has sworn off platform exclusivity for its upcoming releases.

Coming as no surprise, Activision has confirmed that a digital recreation of Mercyful Fate singer King Diamond will show up in Guitar Hero Metallica during select songs. He joins the members of Metallica themselves, as well as Motorhead vocalist and bassist Lemmy.

In addition to appearing in the game, Mercyful Fate has re-recorded “Evil”; Motorhead also offers a re-recorded version of “Ace of Spades”.

GH Metallica ships to stores next month on PS3 and Xbox 360; PS2 and Wii versions are expected in May. It builds on the gameplay of World Tour, offering full-band play, but with more heavy metal songs than you can shake a stick at.

You’ll be snooping around futuristic prisons in the dark come April, as Atari today announced that The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena will be released in North America on April 7; Europeans will get it a few weeks later on April 24.

They additionally announced that downloadable PS3 and Xbox 360 demos will arrive next month.

The enhanced remake of the 2004 shooter features redone graphics, improved gameplay and an entirely new single-player campaign in addition to the original. There are also several multiplayer modes.

The highly anticipated return of the classic fighting franchise has made quite a hit at retailers worldwide, as Capcom today announced that it has shipped over two million copies of Street Fighter IV. The game hit North America and Europe last week, while the Japanese got it two weeks back.

The company noted that “first week sales in North America have been unbelievable – just wait until you see the figures [by] NPD next month!” No regional breakdown of sales was given, though Capcom claimed that the title was sold out at retailers in Japan.

It is now available on PS3 and Xbox 360; a PC version is due out eventually, but no release date has been mentioned yet.

The problem with many of the Wii’s better casual games like Mario Party and Wii Sports is that while they’re amusing for a short time, they offer absolutely nothing to keep hardcore gamers entertained. The most well crafted and decisive strategy falls apart when your opponent is a bit luckier than you on die rolls or in mini-games.

While it might have the same cutesy, cartoonish graphic style as many other Wii games, Dokapon Kingdom really does offer a great way to bring the casual and hardcore crowd together. The game is best described as a cross between Mario Party and Final Fantasy. In the story mode players undertake a quest to cleanse the magical realm of Dokapon of the monsters who have invaded it. Whoever ends up with the most money gets the hand of the Princess Penny and thus will become the next king of Dokapon.

Players start off as a basic character class (wizard, fighter, thief) but in time you can unlock other classes which have their own unique powers, benefits and perks. You buy weapons, shields, spells and items at stores along the way, and as with many things in the game they range from the serious to the silly, including toy hammers and mittens.

Combat is something of a rock-paper-scissors setup and is fairly simple to figure out, though even if you always guess right there are times you’ll simply be over your head. At the beginning it’s very easy to be defeated by the monsters you come across. Much of the game is random, which can be frustrating at times, but nothing is more frustrating than dying and being stuck for three turns, unable to move or take any actions.

Unlike games like Mario Party however this is a game that takes a long time to play. You can set a certain number of turns until the end, but a short game will only have you scratching the surface of the many options out there. Playing the full story is long. I’m not talking on the order of an hour or two. Getting to the end might take the better part of a day if you’re playing with four players. One of the most frustrating things is that if you’re playing with computer characters there’s no way to speed up their turns, you have to watch their full choices play out as if they’re live opponents. Unfortunately by the time you’ve played through the story you’re probably going to have done it all. There’s generally little replay value as the setup of the board remains static and the few random events do little to truly shake things up, but with the right friends the first play-through is a great time.