Hey everybody, the veil has been lifted and all the demons of the Warp…crap…went way off track (Damn you, Warhammer 40K Space Marine, you will not come here any sooner with you?), excuse me. –cough cough- Right…the veil has been lifted on all the grand information of Captivate, Capcom’s yearly media blitzkrieg located in the sunny Miami, Florida. Captivate is one of the few events that keeps an embargo on their information, and with good reason, because they treat Captivate like Elimination Chamber is to Wrestlemania. That is, it’s the event they use to announce new video games and information before E3 where they can clarify what they have announced to a grander audience. A lot of good little tidbits have been announced from the blue and yellow, so let’s dive right in to JustIceRei’s Captivate Fallout!

                First up on my list to cover (call it bias but I waited for Captivate for this), Street Fighter X Tekken (read: cross). A heaping crapload of information has been announced about this title, when you compare it to the tiny bit of info they showed us before. Now the game system is clearly defined and the roster has been multiplied by 2. And there was even a grand-spanking new trailer as well, featuring Kazuya $#1%-talking Jin through a Tekken Force soldier while Ryu was getting a good whiff of Kazuya’s superior foot (Ryu was down, thus Kazuya was superior in that regard). The roster is now Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li, Guile, and Abel repping the Street Fighter squad versus Kazuya, Nina, King, Marduk, and Bob on the Tekken side, with more characters promised. Each character has a special move they can charge, though not everyone had it in the build and it is still a work in progress when you look at it. This charged special gains properties the more you charge it. For example, Ryu can (duh) charge his Hadouken. At Level 1 (no charge) it’s just a blue ball of ouch. At Level 2 (takes about as much time as it takes a character to stand from a sweep), it becomes a meterless EX Shakunetsu Hadouken (for the people playing the home game, fire Hadouken) that hits twice. At Level 3 (I have no idea how long it takes to charge reliably), it becomes a Shinku (super) Hadouken that hits 5 times. Each match is a 2 on 2 battle, with your character in the background on standby waiting to kick some ass. If one character falls, the round is won by the person who knocked him out, with best of 3 rounds winning the match (like Tekken Tag Tournament, if you are familiar). The controls are your typical 6 button setup with Light, Medium, and Heavy Punches and Kicks. Each player has a Super meter on the bottom of the screen. You can use 1 bar for an EX version of a Special move, which gives it enhanced abilities, or you can use it to tag to your partner while in the air or on the ground, or in the middle of a combo (yes, this cancels your current move to tag out, allowing you to use the new character in the combo). Using a Super move will cost 2 bars of your meter, so you can feasibly tag out in the middle of a combo to end it with your partner’s Super. To throw, you press LP+LK. To tag into your partner, press MP+MK. You can do this freely, but your character does a second-long pose before this happens, which you can get hit out of and cancel the tag, or you can do the above thing and cancel in the middle of a combo or while you are prone. Press HP+HK for a long, but worth it, launcher. This launcher isn’t as nuts as Marvel vs. Capcom, It just pops the opponent up so you can hit them with juggle combos. A stiff departure from Street Fighter IV is the juggling system. Where you can barely juggle your opponent in Street Fighter IV (you can, but it is infinitely more complex than you ever thought possible), in this case it is encouraged, borrowing the juggling concept of Tekken to do complicated strings to juggle your opponent before they hit the ground. Tekken characters seem to gain the gist of the 6 button controls rather easy, I gathered. Sure, it is a rough change for them, but just imagine the rough change Street Fighter characters will have in Tekken X Street Fighter. For the guys and gals familiar with Street Fighter and Tekken, allow me to nerd out for a sec. Anybody else can scroll down to the other titles: Ryu gets his Thunder kick from 3^rd Strike, Ken can charge his Tatsumaki Sempukyaku into his Ultra 2, Guile can charge his Sonic Boom into a Sonic Hurricane, Kazuya can charge his uppercut into his Spinning Thunder Uppercut and his Super ends with his Devil Eye Beams, Nina’s super is nuts and she has her chain throws, Marduk’s tackle is in full effect in this title (his super is him tackling an opponent and just raging on their face with his fists), and both him and King can airgrab still. Alright, I’m done nerding. It’s still kinda rough but the visuals are impressive to say the least. Tekken characters in Street Fighter IV’s art style is pretty sick, you will not miss Kazuya’s childhood scar on his chest, I promise you that. That’s all I can say about the game in this stage, but I’ll keep you posted if anything changes.

                Next up, Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition. In Japan (the lucky mfers) they released SSFIV in arcades with a whole bunch of gameplay tweaks to balance the characters out, and console gamers and those in the states who only own consoles griped on and on and on about not getting these new changes, and now they are coming. Come June 7^th, you can download the patch to unlock the content of Arcade Edition. What you will be getting is staggering. Four new characters: Yun and Yang from Street Fighter 3 and Evil Ryu (scary until you find out his defense is made of wet paper and childhood dreams) and Oni Akuma (all around scary….[insert way to make him less scary because Rey can’t come up with one]) unlocked right from the get-go. You also get all of the character balancing (Hakan’s Oil can stack, Makoto can…not suck, Bison’s Ultra 2 is now a charge move, Seth has more health, list goes on and on) as well as new Replay modes, which allows you to find your favorite player and follow all of his/her replays, as well as find replays of players with more than 3000PP (weed out the lamers…I really need Live now so I am not in that category). This DLC package will cost 14.99 on PSN, or 1200 in Microwonky Points. If you don’t want the characters, that’s fine, you can go for the free patch that will just give you the character balancing and replay channels, and the glimpse of the characters (you know, so you can play against them in online mode without getting sent back to menu). A week after the DLC, you can find the disc-based version coming out in stores at a price that “won’t break the bank”. This will probably be 30-40 dollars, but it’s the full version of the game, not just a disc-based expansion pack. Between this and Street Fighter X Tekken, Yoshinori Ono, you made my Tuesday.

                Third on the roster of announced items, Dead Rising 2: Off the Record. Basically, shooing away Chuck Greene and replacing him with who “should” have been in the game: Frank West (yeah, yeah, covered wars, yadda yadda). What this means is, is that they have completely reworked the story to include Frank West in this game, and they have completely reworked the system to reinclude photography in it. Only this time, it’s a digital camera, so (I am not kidding you) you can take a Facebook-duckface picture with a zombie you have in a headlock (warning; cannot post the picture to Facebook, I mean the term Facebook photo the same way MySpace photo meant you taking a picture with the camera up above your head and looking at it with a pout or something). They also promised the zombies are going to be a lot harder to take out than before. What I am noticing: wow, they faded Chuck Greene out slowly, didn’t they? First released the game, he gets his spotlight, then the DLC with Frank West tagging along in co-op, then whoosh, right out of the title like yesterday’s tomatoes. He’s still in the co-op mode, so you can play as him in there, but after getting ousted from your own game do you really want him tagging along with the guy who shooed him out? I am sure this will be a fun game to play, as all Dead Rising games are, but phew…talk about a huge pill to swallow.

                Fourth up, another trip into the zombie-infested city of Raccoon City, Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City. This time, you are playing as an elite squad of four soldiers working for the Umbrella SpecOps team. You heard me right, they are allowing you to play as the bad guys trying to cover up and kill any survivors of the Raccoon City disaster. This means you can put a bullet into Leon Kennedy if you want (it’s a mission, I kid you not) and move it along. It’s a squad-based 3^rd person shooter, with run-and-gun! Resident Evil with run-and-gun tactics.  Whoa. Each member has a set loadout that aid the team as a whole and it’ll be the leader’s task to mobilize the soldiers. What makes this game great is not just the single-player, because that is going to be very interesting. It’s the multiplayer. It’s a squad-on-squad team deathmatch, except it’s Umbrella vs. United States Special Forces….vs. zombies. You can actually shoot your opponent, make them bleed, and the zombies will come after them. You can get points for killing your opponents, yes, but you can also get them from killing zombies, with more points going to those who kill the big Hunters and Tyrants of the game. You had me as running and gunning, but I’ll stay for the assisting zombies in their dinner plans.

                While I am on the subject of Resident Evil, allow me to shed some light on the fifth item up for announcing, Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D for the 3DS. A port of the wildly-engaging minigame from Resident Evil 3, 4 and 5, this title features a mash-up of playable characters in a mash-up of playable levels killing a mash-up of villains from 4 and 5. So far, the announced roster includes HUNK (I hope he shows up in ORC, it only makes sense), Krauser, Chris Redfield, Claire Redfield, Albert Wesker, and Jill Valentine. What makes this game unique is how the controls will be. Not only will you be able to now run and gun at the same time, but you can also aim down the sight. Since this is a 3D game, that means when you aim down the sight, what you see pops up at you from the screen in typical 3DS fashion. Another departure from the typical Mercenaries port, you can level up 3 abilities attached to your character that boosts their efficiency, like weapon strength boosters, electric shock fists, and on-the-brink adrenaline rushes that makes you stronger the closer to death you are. You can connect to another player through local wireless or be paired with another player on Wi-Fi, which makes this game a good arcade-like player you can whip out and play at Starbucks while you are waiting for something. If you aren’t familiar with the playstyle of Mercenaries, feel free to find videos of it, it’s a nice departure from the horror of the main game, but this game will be worth the price if you found yourself immersed in the minigame while playing Nemesis or 4 and 5.

                Now onto some new blood entering the Capcom family of video games. First up, Dragon’s Dogma, from the team that brought you Devil May Cry 3 and 4. This game is actually pretty far from what the team used to make. This is a four-player medieval-based game where you can choose three different classes: strider (rogue), mage, or fighter. And that’s where the comparison to fantasy adventure stops. You swing your sword, shoot your arrows, or sling those magic bolts of awesome all in real time. You don’t have an ATB bar or they have to wait for you to run up and swing on a foe (sorry Dragon Age 2, I actually like you, don’t be insulted). You can alternate between light and heavy slashes via buttons, and you have a grab move in case you need to interact with your opponent (like, for example, getting onto a griffin to layeth the smacketh downth on its dichotomic  keister). This game rewards your patience, giving you stronger attacks the more you prepare them (for example, the arrow is stronger the more you hold it in preparation). The classes, though not very numerous, offer a branching set of strengths that define the team as it goes on. And each member of your squad, whether human or computer-controlled, will belt out their position or their actions to you so you can plan accordingly, like getting near a mage as it casts a healing field. Not only will they support you, but they are smart enough to do things on their own accord, like hold up a fallen orc to attract the griffin their way so you can strike. Another new feature is just how you’ll use your partners. You can go to the town and hire new ones stronger than what you might have then, or you can send other townspeople out to do recon work to gain intelligence on your future quarry. You can also have the townspeople improve your weapons or refill your health, and it’s not hard to find someone to help you in the 200 person populace of the town. Outside of the town there is an open world, so you can find yourself easily distracted amidst running to your next mission, but that’s all the fun of this fantasy action slasher. Keep your eye out on Dragon’s Dogma, it has the chance to do some pretty big things next year.

                Also due to cause quite the ruckus next year, in comparison to the ruckus it caused reporters last week, Asura’s Wrath, made by a fusion of Capcom and CyberConnect, the team that made the .hack video games (love ‘em). There wasn’t much of a playable demo out that people can watch, if I see one I’ll let you guys know, but the video for the game is nuts. Information based on the game state that Asura, which I can only imagine is supposed to represent the Buddhist god of destruction in all of his six-handed glory, has his daughter stolen from him by demigods. He is, quite obviously, very pissed at this (I don’t know, title gave it away?) and decides to go punch stuff, and decides ogres are the perfect choice. After some select punching on some ogres, I kid you not, a giant finger decides to try and squish the crap out of Asura. This finger is owned by Wyzen, a diety who looks remarkably like Buddha, and it makes planetfall right on top of Asura. Now imagine looking at this finger coming down. It’d be the equivalent of being on Dublin, Ireland circa UC0089 (psst. ZZ Gundam joke, google it). Except imagine it falling on you. Asura puts his arms, all six of them, up to stop it and actually holds the finger off from crushing him like…well, an ant, he’s got enough arms for that kind of joke to actually work (doubt it worked on you, you sassy reader you). He pushes the finger away, but loses some arms in the push. That’s the end of the trailer. What makes this game unique, besides the giant Fingerpoke of Doom (ha, WCW joke, I’m soo witty…and alone…-sob), is that in game, the difference between cutscene and action and neglible at best. You can completely control Asura during any cutscene, and given that one of those cutscenes involves a finger you probably would not be able to dodge (barring a natural 20…just kidding) it’s probably safe to assume you’ll be mashing on buttons to escape that disaster. Expect something on this game to come out for E3, since I would figure that’d be the best place to drop some gameplay footage at.