Soon You Can Buy Resident Evil 4 – Again!

Capcom is about to please a very particular type of fringe-demographic with their latest announcement: the people who still haven’t played Resident Evil 4. In fact, it’s fair to assume that most people who have played RE4 b4 have also bought it at least twice in any of its previous five dozen incarnations (or at least 10), considering the game was once called a “Gamecube exclusive”. I own it for the Gamecube, the Playstation 2 and the Wii, which is quite impressive for a game it took me two playthroughs before I stopped thinking it was a disappointment. Soon you will be able to buy it all over again for the 360 and PS3 with the impossibly diffuse title “Resident Evil Revival Selection HD Remastered Version.”

Yes, it’s a classic and yes, it could be quite nice to see it in HD and maybe get something out of the online capabilities, but apart from crisper graphics is there any real reason to pay money for this game again? It feels futile to further satirise Capcom and their eagerness to milk their successes, but surely even they must draw the line somewhere. RE4 is a great game, one of the greatest ever, but it was great when we lived it through on the microscopic TVs we had to suffer before HD rolled around and saved our eyes from screens smaller than a single atom cleft in twain.

And that’s not all! Be sure to stay tuned for the 3D version coming out in 2012, brining us a new dimension of fear.

Dead Island’s Impressive Teaser

It’s been just under 24 hours since Deep Silver released the teaser for their upcoming survival horror game Dead Island and the internet hasn’t wasted a minute showering it with well-deserved praise. It is a very impressive taster and if you have somehow avoided it until now, I urge you to take a peek.

Now this is undoubtedly a very effective video to kick-start that all-important buzz machine, despite not actually giving us any real indication of what kind of game it is preparing us for. But then again, this trailer’s first and foremost purpose is not in fact to make us crave Dead Island, but to pave the way for us to even accept yet another zombie game. And in that regard, I’m pretty sure it succeeds. Zombies along with pirates, ninjas and other initially meme-driven tropes are becoming so stale and lifeless () that even parodying them feels half-assed. Are zombies even really scary anymore, after Dead Rising, Left 4 Dead and even Plants Vs. Zombies? Resident Evil abandoned them long ago and when they crop up in the Call Of Duty games they serve more as humorous side dishes rather than genuine horror fodder. Deep Silver needed to make us feel the fear again and did so the exact same way Zack Snyder once did it: little zombie girl.

For all the talk of how this might be the greatest game trailer ever, try to find a single part of it that you haven’t seen in any other zombie game or movie. It is nothing new and god knows it ain’t trying to be – nor do I think it’s actually trying to be scary either. It’s zombies the way god intended them to, scary and a genuine threat. That’s a good start, at least.