Well, we had an eventful morning today. You may have heard about Capcom Europe’s “Treasure Hunt” to promote Resident Evil 5’s release tomorrow. TheFluffyFist and I did our bit to help out the NHS by spending our morning searching London for Infected body parts. Apparently there was a bit of an outbreak…

14 clues were sent out last night, with instructions to search for body parts from 9am and get them to Westminster Bridge by 11am:

1. Hidden near a pub? Elementary, my dear Watson…
2. More drinks, this time with digging sailors
3. A Standard location on Villiers Street – and it’s a laughing matter…
4. A Proudly photographic display
5. Samuel Pepys dwelled here, his street a palatial namesake
6. Rubbish? Find out, where Chandos and Bedfordbury cross
7. 8 Bedford Court
8. Rubbish? Find out, where Bedfordbury and New Row cross
9. Make a call on St Martin’s Lane
10. London’s narrowest street
11. Sir Isaac dwelled here, with a view of the National Portrait Gallery
12. Captain Scott’s memory is keeping this safe
13. Take a seat between (IC)Art and the Arch
14. Seek out the pub with no name on Warwick House Street

Some serious Googling got us this map and route.

View Larger Map

Despite getting to Embankment at 8:50am, we didn’t find any body parts on Villier’s Street, nor the Sherlock Holmes pub. In fact, we cleared all 14 sites by 9:38 and didn’t find a single head, torso or limb that wasn’t firmly clutched in the paws of fellow socially-conscious individuals… The first ones we saw were in the hands of a couple of guys at 4 minutes past 9 who had found at least 3 (THREE!) parts already. Hmm… :|

No matter, it was a great way to spend the morning. Much more fun than a normal Thursday. Plus, everyone who turned up on Westminster Bridge got a free RE5 bag, copies of the game and photo ops with the body parts ;)

Met a friendly couple on Northumberland Avenue – Ricky Smith and Katherine Halls:

Ricky, risking himself to keep London safe:

Evidence, but no joy:

The winners:

The losers:

The Infected:

Resident Evil 5 is out in the UK on Friday the 13th (Ooooo!) March 2009.

Most amusingly, Gamezine reports that a bunch of the body parts were taken by people who didn’t then bring them to the drop-point on Westminster Bridge. What would you do if you found a bloody fake torso stinking of raw chicken liver?

Capcom have announced that a 2 level playable demo (the best kind of demo!) will be available from the 26th Jan 09 only on Xbox LIVE. What’s good about this demo is that it also includes 3 levels of co-op play:

• single-player with AI support
• two-player split-screen on a single Xbox 360
• two-player across Xbox LIVE (with voice chat)

Finally, Capcom has added 2 player support to Resident Evil. This is something I feel that should have been added a few games ago, but at least it is there now. And the game tinkering doesn’t even there. Now you get the choice of the “classic” Resident Evil controls (which were ok), or “action” controls inspired by Halo 3 (rubbish game) and Gears of War 2 (great game). Mmm.

For those of you who want even more of a Resi Evil fix you will also be able to watch the HD trailer for the game from the 16th Jan 09. The trailer was previously shown at the Tokyo Game Show, so don’t get to excited as you’ve probably seen it already.

Update 19th Jan 08: Playstation 3 owners will get to play the demo from the 2nd Feb 09.

Resident Evil 5 is due to be released on the 13th March 09 for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.

BEWARE – SMALL SPOILERS – skip the italicised text if you don’t want to know!

Age rating: 12+

What is it?

Adventure, action, but not really enough puzzles.

Is it fun?

Yes, for the most part.

Is it worth the money? £29.99 (from Play.com)

Yes, but the game is a little short (…I am seeing a theme recurring here)

Why?

Now Tomb Raider Legend has been released, the first Tomb Raider game in a long time. I heard Angel of Darkness (the most recent TR title before this) was utter pants, and was even blamed for the poor box office showing of the second film (which was a tad harsh, I wasn’t keen on either of the films) – I never played it though, having mostly given up on the franchise after playing TR3 (too much mucking about with flares for my liking).

I was really keen to see the new game regain the franchise’s former glory, and have just played through the PS2 version. How does it fare then? Continue Reading