Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary: As was inevitable, Microsoft have finally announced the Kinect integration that’s going into the new Halo: CE. You can scan items by aiming at them and saying “scan”, use gesture controls to navigate your library of scanned items – vehicles, characters, enemies, weapons – and apparently summon magical pixies to reload your gun simply by saying “reload”. I won’t lie, as an interface geek I am curious to see how the Library navigation works but will it add any fun factor to Halo? Of course not.

Blizzcon: It’s Blizzcon time again. Yes, we know it’s in Anaheim and would therefore cost an absolute fortune to attend. That’s why Blizzard are offering £25 virtual tickets to watch the HD Blizzcon stream. You’ll also get a virtual Murkablo pet for your WoW avatar, streams of all the panels as well as the Foo Fighters closing concert.

Be In A Zombie Game: British developers Chaos Created are making some kind of transmedia Windows Mobile zombie game called Zombies Ate My City. No details on how it will work yet but they’re filming zombie action over here in London’s Docklands next Saturday, 22nd October. Do you like dressing up in zombie outfits? Come along and be in the shoot! Apply to be a zombie here.

We’d need you to come along already dressed as a zombie (ripped clothes, pale faces, crazy hair…) ready to take part in a few short videos from 11am – 2pm. We’ll give you a credit in the app too, just in case your friends and family don’t recognise you! We’ll also reward the best zombie-like outfit with 4200 Microsoft Points for you to spend on Zune or on Xbox Live and we may have a few other things to give away.

Rift: If you’ve been wavering about Rift, maybe now’s the time to buy it? They’ve announced a price drop to £5 for the next three days only – from now until 19th October. The catch is, you get bugger-all game time with it. In other words, you’re basically paying for the privilege of downloading the client and maybe creating a character. To actually play the game it’ll cost you £13.99.

Gears of War 3: If you were one of the poor souls who bought Dead Island but didn’t enjoy it (unlike our own Dan Crawley), HMV will take it off your hands and sell you Gears of War 3 for the princely sum of £1.99. Seems to be an in-store offer only.

PlayStation Vita: More info was revealed on the upcoming Vita handheld. CNET’s gadget blog details the Vita accessories coming from Sony while NowGamer comments on the 3-5 hour battery life. Still no word on a European release date but it will be out in Japan before Christmas. Seems likely to come to us in the first few months of 2012.

Zombies, Run!: Real-world gaming veterans Six to Start and Naomi Alderman are creating an iPhone and Android app that will turn your fitness run into a race for your life. The game sends location-sensitive instructions and audio clues to your headphones. Running over medicine packs, batteries and ammo will automatically pick them up. It all sounds very cool and if I wasn’t so goddamn lazy about running, I’d consider funding this indie project myself. Watch the video and donate to the Zombies, Run! Kickstarter fund if you like it.

He’s responsible for some awesomely geeky and catchy tunes like Re Your Brains and the classic song from Portal – Still Alive.

Event Summary:

• Location: Union Chapel
• Address: Compton Terrace, Islington, London, N1 2UN
• Date: Saturday, 11th June 2011
• Time: Door open: 7pm, concert starts: 8pm
• Tickets: £18 , £20.25 or £22 (all unreserved seating)

You can find the sheet music to Still Alive here and also watch Felicia Day singing Still Alive with Jonathan at PAX 2008.

At the moment this content pack is exclusive to the Xbox 360. No word of a release date for PlayStation 3 or PC yet.

The pack includes these multiplayer maps:

• Stockpile – Remote Russian farm town with secret WMD facilities
• Zoo – Abandoned Soviet Russian Zoo
• Convoy – Ambushed US military convoy
• Hotel – Roof of a luxury Cuban hotel

However, there is one more tasty treat within this map pack, namely Call of the Dead. This map is inspired by the zombietastic films of legendary director George A. Romero. Set on suitably spooky standard freighter in Siberia, players must try and escape the undead horde. The playable character models feature the voices and likenesses of 4 Hollywood stars:

• Michael Rooker – Mallrats
• Sarah Michelle Gellar – Buffy the Vampire Slayer
• Danny Trejo – From Dusk Till Dawn
• Robert Englund – Nightmare On Elm Street

Even George A. Romero makes an appearance in this brilliant Call of the Dead trailer.

I’m not a big fan of the Call of Duty games, but I do like the look of the Call of the Dead. Zombies, gore, violence and Freddy Krueger. What’s not to like? Although, Sarah Michelle Gellar’s character model does look a bit crap and lifeless. She’s at risk of being mistaken for one of the zombie horde herself. Also Sarah’s now got a much bigger set of boobs! Seriously Treyarch, get a little carried away in the breast department did we?

Update 3rd May 2011: The content pack (986mb) is available now on Xbox LIVE. Here’s a direct link to the English [EN] pack on Xbox.com so you can start downloading it. NOTE: For those people outside the UK, please make sure you download the pack that matches your Black Ops disc. e.g. Russian users must download the [RU] version of the pack. Check before you buy.

The Escalation content pack will be available on the 3rd May 2011 on Xbox 360 for 1200 MS points. Call of Duty: Back Ops is available now on PlayStation 3, PC and Xbox 360.

According to the developer – Blue Castle Games – Dead Rising 2: Off The Record is a re-envisioning of Dead Rising 2. So same locations (plus 1 new area), different gameplay.

With the Resident Evil games undergoing a re-envisioning in the form of Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City, I wonder what Capcom game is next? Anyone care to hazard a guess?

Dead Rising 2: Off The Record is due for release during Autumn 2011

…experience a retelling of classic moments from past titles Resident Evil™ 2 and Resident Evil™ 3 and watch the events unfolding from the menacing perspective of the Umbrella Security Service, giving fans the chance to rewrite the history of the Raccoon City outbreak.

I really, really hope Capcom finally fix the crappy, sluggish and generally rubbish character controls that infects every Resident Evil game. I mean, seriously, make the characters more responsive and allow them to run and shoot at the same time. These changes would make the Resi games bloody brilliant.

Rehashing “classic bits” from the older Resi games smacks of laziness on the part of the developers. Couldn’t they have come up with something new? It’s not exactly hard now is it. Take a remote city/town somewhere. Concoct some tragic/accidental/deliberate T-virus outbreak sub-plot, add in a bit of Wesker and voilà, zombies a plenty!

Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City will be out sometime during winter 2011 on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC.

I’m pretty sure you can guess the storyline, but if not, here goes. You are a survivor of a virus that turns the population into zombies. As with any good zombie flick, you are miraculously immune to the virus. Oh, and you also know how to use lots of weapons. The story comes at you via stylish comic book graphics between levels, maybe a bit cliché but it suits the game perfectly.

There are only 10 levels of gameplay; most seem to be around 15 to 20 minutes long. While this might seem short, do remember this is a PSN game and there are the different difficulty levels. I’m still fighting along in normal mode, however even on this level I still die often enough. Since people seem to be going after Platinum trophies right now, it will come as good news that Dead Nation features one. You will need to complete the whole game a couple of times on different difficulty levels, as well as commit zombie genocide!

Isometric 3D did seem a strange choice in this day and age, a bit Diabloish. Once you start playing however, you’ll see it works very well. The environment is very well rendered and there is actually strategy that you can use. See, zombies love to go beat up anything making noise, so shoot a car with an alarm and watch them run to beat it up. Keep shooting it, and boom! there go the zombies.

The game itself is very easy to pick up and play. The controls are simple, left thumb stick to target, right to move. Weapons are selected with the left D-pad; the issue I find is that when in a tight corner being mauled to death I have a habit of selecting the wrong weapon. For some reason it always seems to be the launcher and I end up blowing myself to hell and back.

With regards to the weapons, there’s quite a selection from the stock rifle, to blade throwers and electroshock cannons. Also you can collect distraction items, like flares, grenades, mines and so on. These are very handy for clearing large areas of zombies. Personally, I tend to just use the rifle, SMG (for mass slaughter of weak zombies), grenades and occasionally the launcher.

I would strongly suggest buying all the improvements to the normal rifle first. How do you do that? Well while killing zombies you gain money and there are hidden boxes scattered around the levels. You can also open the trunks of cars to find more goodies.

This brings us nicely to armour. It’s important to look around for the hidden boxes, as this is where you’ll get the different types of armour from. Trust me; you will definitely need it to survive being overrun by zombies. I’ve been mainly trying to keep the Endurance, Strength and Agility attributes balanced, but your preferences may vary.

So where does that leave us? With a game that I keep coming back to, swearing at, and trying again. I’ve yet to try the co-op, or online but I can see how these would only enhance the game further. At $14.99 in the US and £9.99 in the UK, it’s definitely worth buying. Throw in the latest additions of voice chat and check point saving – what are you waiting for? Go get Dead Nation right now.

Screenshots

Are you doing the Zombie dance yet? It’s ok, nobody’s watching. Apart from your cat, and maybe your Kinect camera ;-)

I love Zombie is different to other Zombie games as it’s all about helping and nurturing Zombies rather than killing them. You need to herd the horde to overrun cites and towns to get back the “precious thing” that was stolen from their farms. Yeah, the Zombies used to be farmers before they were screwed over by horrible, evil, nasty humans who deserve to die by cold dead, Zombie hands.

See, now you want to help the Zombies, don’t you? Apparently Zombies like bunnies too, as shown in the video below. However the sheep prove to be a bit more of a handful for the poor Zombies. Baa!

No word yet if I Love Zombie is going to be released outside Japan. I really hope it does, as I really want to care for my own Zombie hoard! Braaaaainnnnssssssss.

I Love Zombie is out now for the Nintendo DS in Japan.

You play a Zombie accountant that has to collect tax returns whilst not eating your co-workers (however dull they might be) in order to rise up the ranks to become a partner. You can run to the right with increasing speed and jump. Err, yeah, that’s about all you have left in terms of skills after Zombification. Oh, you can also eat BRRAAAIIIIINNNNSSSSSS!

Zombie Accountant is out now on Xbox LIVE Indie Games marketplace.

The pack also includes new weapons and combos such as “zap and shine” and the “reaper” as well as adding co-op functionality. Yes, you read that correctly. Case West finally adds the long awaited co-op action to Dead Rising. Awesome! Just imagine how much Zombies killing mayhem two people will be able to unleash. However, during single-player mode the AI will take control of Frank West. Interestingly enough, while Frank is in this mode he will be invincible. Now that could be very handy.

Check out the gameplay trailer to see an awful lot of co-op Zombie killing action from Case West.

Capcom haven’t announced a release date or price other than it will be out in Dec 2010. As soon as I get more information, I’ll update this post.

Dead Rising 2: Case West is released on the 27th Dec 2010 on Xbox 360 for 800 Microsoft Points.

Update 13th Dec 2010: Added confirmed release date and price.