What’s more, all purchasers of a new copy will also get access to the demo for the next highly anticipated installment in the Resident Evil series on July 3rd on the 360, and Sept 4 on PS3. Sadly, I feel this is probably going to be one of the game’s largest selling points when the game itself doesn’t actually look bad. In the meantime, check out this newly released story trailer after the break to see if this game is worth your while

Those who pre-order game will also get some free DLC: “Pawn Upgrade Pack” from GameStop, the “Armor Upgrade Pack” from BestBuy and the “Weapon Upgrade Pack” from Amazon.

Players can jump into the boots of either side in Operation Raccoon City’s three competitive multiplayer modes: Biohazard, Survivor and Team Attack. The multiplayer will focus on four-versus-four combat while players can select their character with unique skills and abilities.

Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City releases March 20, 2012 for PS3 and Xbox 360, with the PC version to follow.

Asura’s Wrath will be available in North America on February 21 for Xbox 360 and PS3.

The new trailer goes deep into the triple threat combat between the US Spec Ops, USS, zombies and B.O.W.’s. Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City releases March 20, 2012 for Xbox 360 and PS3 with a PC release to follow shortly after the console versions.

However, what’s new is the disclosure of what Capcom says are a total GEM count of 57 in Street Fighter X Tekken, 52 being Boost GEMs, 5 being Assist. The original number of GEMs a character can equip has now been reduced to to 3 from the original 5. Each gem has its own advantages/disadvantages.

Capcom released an in-depth video preview on X The Line about the GEM system with Andrea Rene and Matt Dahlgren, which you can watch below.

Assist GEMs “provide helpful bonuses that are always activated but balanced by handicaps in other areas.” Boost GEMs “provide a stat increase in one of five areas (attack, defense, speed, cross gauge, vitality) but require a specific condition to be met in order to be activated.” A speed Boost GEM, for example, can only be activated after a player blocks 2-3 stringed attacks. Activation conditions for Boost GEMs can not be seen by opponents, adding a special element of surprise to the system.

Capcom-Unity has also released screenshots for all the GEMs that ship initially with the game, as well as the GEM lists for the pre-order incentives. You can view all these new screenshots below.

Street Fighter X Tekken comes out March 6 for XBOX 360, PC and Playstation 3. There is no current release date for the PSVita version.

Amazon
Fans who pre-order Asura’s Wrath at Amazon.com will earn the Devastator Pack. This includes two additional gauges in the game that allow the player to reduce damage taken by Asura, and fill his Unlimited Rage Gauge faster.

Best Buy
The Infinity Pack will be the reward for pre-ordering at Best Buy. Featuring the Extinguisher Mode and Zealot Mode, the Infinity Pack gives players the ability to recover more quickly from overheating due to heavy attacks and prolongs the player’s time in Unlimited Rage Mode.

GameStop
Those who pre-order Asura’s Wrath at GameStop will receive an exclusive combination art and comic book. Written and illustrated by the crew at Penny Arcade, the Asura’s Wrath comic book takes a hilarious “what if” look at Asura and how he would deal with everyday situations. The flipside of the book features a collection of concept art straight from the developers at CyberConnect 2. With illustrations of the Asian mythology and Sci-Fi inspired universe that makes Asura’s Wrath truly unique, the Asura’s Wrath art and comic book is sure to please any fan.

Ono-san also announced the Special Edition of Street Fighter X Tekken for North America, which includes:

- Street Fighter X Tekken game
- Build-It-Yourself Arcade Cabinet Bank (approximately 5”H)
- Exclusive Prequel Comic Book by UDON
- 36 Gems: Includes All Pre-Order Packs Plus An Exclusive Pack
- Pre-Order Bonus: Nine Exclusive Gems Only Available For Pre-Ordering Special Edition
- Total of 45 Gems When You Pre-Order

Street Fighter X Tekken will be hitting shelves on March 6 in North America and March 9 in Europe, and fans will be able to grab special packs of Gems for pre-ordering at various retailers.

Thanks, Gematsu, for the video!

The HD collection adds enhanced widescreen visuals, “bonus content,” and Trophies and Achievements. Check the comparison gallery here.

I still remember the glorious year of tears when RE fans moaned and bitched about the action approach of RE4 (wonder how they felt about RE5) but RE4 managed to capture just as much of the same horror vibe as its predecessors with a new control scheme that worked fantastically. Well Capcom has finally decided to bring RE4 to the downloadable battlefield in what they say is an HD update (it’s not). Honestly, if you’re going to shell out the $20 (seriously Capcom?) for this it’s because you haven’t played it before, or you seriously loved RE4.

Resident Evil 4 follows the pun filled adventures of Leon Kennedy, one of the survivors of the Raccoon City incident which got him promoted from first day cop to bodyguard of the president’s daughter. He travels to most likely Spain a wonderful Hispanic village full of charming folks. Somebody in that place kidnapped the president’s daughter on your first day of your new job (Leon just doesn’t get a break) and he needs to rescue her before he gets fired. You’ll go from fighting regular farmers to sea monsters, weird worm/larva, a Gigante (giant), and learning why your friend told you to fear the Regenerator. RE4 really is one of those memorable games with fantastic pacing, great gameplay, and a brilliant cast of characters that you just can’t help but smirk when Leon pulls out his cheesy one-liners.

If you have been living under a rock haven’t played this game before then you’ll probably be quick on the controls if you played Resident Evil 5 or Dead Space since RE4 was the game that basically popularized that control scheme. I still think Dead Space perfected the controls of that tank control, but I had no problem sinking back into RE4 especially since it offers multiple control schemes if you don’t like one of them. You’ll still go from area to area shooting (or running) from the hordes of villagers and scavenging for ammo while you’re trying to decide whether the enemies endlessly respawn or if there are just a ton of them. Every so often you’ll come across one of the memorable boss battles and the environments vary from a peasant village, mountainside village, an ominous castle, and a couple more to keep things surprisingly fresh yet still creepy. You’ll occasionally find a puzzle that varies from insultingly easy or somewhat clever and there are tons of weapons you’ll be able to purchase from everyone’s favorite weapon dealer with upgrades to reload speed, strength, capacity, etc. Here’s a tip: Don’t buy the second shotgun you find or upgrade the starting one, you’ll quickly find the third (and I think final) shotgun quite quickly and it’s worth the wait. Also, the grenade launcher is shit, fuck your opinion.

This release contains all the extras from the previous versions which is of course expected, but Capcom could’ve been a dick and not included them. This means you’ll get the Assignment Ada where you play the game through her point of view while Leon was busy flipping his hair and coming up with puns. Mercenaries is of course back which has you play as Leon, Ada, HUNK, Wesker, or Krauser as you kill as many Ganados to hit that highscore before the timer ends. There’s also New Game+, new costumes to unlock, the bottlecap minigame, and an infinite rocket launcher to go through.

The “HD” part of this port seems a bit exaggerated. The game looks like it was just up-scaled into HD with no textures redone or anything. If Capcom had said they were just releasing RE4 just for shits and giggles, it’d be fine. The fact that they’re advertising this as an HD port seems like a slap to the face when you play the game and see just how ugly everything still looks. When I play an HD game, I expect it to look better than the original like the God of War or Sly Cooper collections. There are only a few parts where a friend mentioned “Well the character hands look a little smoother” to which I would reply with “Yea man, glad I spent $20 for smoother fingers”.

The Final Word
All in all if you haven’t played RE4 before or want to relive some nostalgia then this seems like a good buy, but $20 seems a bit much for a game that’s obviously not an HD update and has no gameplay updates either. Also, first I hear that MH3G isn’t coming to America and now you give the 360 version of RE4 a full 1000GS but the PS3 doesn’t get a platinum? That’s fucked up Capcom.

- MonsterVine Rating: 4 out of 5 – Good

„It’s Code: Veronica in High Definition. Look up a review from 10 years ago. The end.”

That was my first thought when I was contemplating how to review the newest iteration of Code: Veronica. Despite how news headlines always say „old game to be remade in HD”, the recent HD conversions, such as the Sly Collection or our current subject Code: Veronica are nothing more than ports of old games with enhanced visuals. They are a simple and easy way to cash in on an old classic one more time.

However, I would be lying if I said that this didn’t have a good side. Obvious cash-in or not, these HD releases are a very good way of introducing new gamers to old games and are also great for older gamers who missed out on a certain game. I was in fact happy to see CV getting an HD release, if only because the Survival Horror genre is practically nonexistent today and it was good to see a game of said genre, even if it is just a port.

As far as new content goes, there’s not much to talk about. As you could guess from my first sentence, apart from cosmetic changes everything is the same as it was in the ’X’ versions on the Dreamcast, PS2 and Gamecube. What is new in CVX HD is the lighting and water effects. The water looks a good deal better than it did before, to the point where it looks a little out of place at first glance. As for the lighting, characters now have proper shadows. The visuals are also sharper and much less blurry than before. As such, CVX HD looks a lot better than its previous incarnations. Too bad I can’t say the same about the CG cutscenes – most of them suffer from frame rate issues. Considering this game is 10 years old, that is pretty disappointing.

To be honest, CVX HD is exactly what I expected it to be. That is why I am disappointed. You see of all the RE games, CV is the one that is most in need of an update. Not because it is so great or because of fan demand, but simply because it was always a lackluster installment, even when it was first released. It was a good game overall but take a look back to its predecessor, RE3. That game introduced a handful of new gameplay elements, had different paths to take, included a minigame and a good deal of unlockable weapons, costumes and an infinite ammo mode. Then you sit down, play through CV, and notice: this game has virtually no extra content or replay value. The only unlockable function is the Battle Game, where you pick one of the four main characters and go on a predetermined path, killing every enemy you come across with infinite ammo. So unless you’re going for an A rank, or playing as Wesker who only has a knife, there is virtually no challenge in it. Other than that, you can unlock a rocket launcher in the main game, but that’s it. There are no extra costumes, gameplay modes or any other extra weapons besides the rocket launcher.

The only truly new features are the trophies and the leaderboards. Now the trophies are kind of pointless. There are only two that aren’t related to plot events, meaning the rest you can all get by simply beating the game. The leaderboards are equally disappointing. First off, the Battle Game doesn’t have them, despite being much more competitive by nature than the main game. It has two boards: one with no restrictions and one that restricts the use of the rocket launcher. So basically, the leaderboards have two categories for speedrunners to compete in. This is not bad, but the developers missed a big opportunity here to make something more interesting. The RE games have many skillful fans around the world who can beat the games with ridiculously hard self-imposed restrictions, like using only the knife. Why not make leaderboards for these kinds of playthroughs?

Speaking of challenges, another reason I felt this game needed an update was because of the difficulty. The game has no difficulty levels to select, and CV is by far the easiest game in the series. It needs a higher difficulty setting to make it challenging for those who have already played it. Even after not having played it for a few years, I still managed to remember enough of it to beat the game in 5 hours, with enough ammo and healing items left over at the end to beat the game a second time. And no, this is not an exaggeration.

The Final Word
Resident Evil Code: Veronica X HD is the same game it was ten years ago. It still has all its good and bad qualities and still manages to be fun, even today. However the HD conversion is not perfect and the game lacks any sort of gameplay update that makes it worth buying again. Despite the fair price, if you already own a copy on an old console, don’t bother buying Code: Veronica a second time. I know I wouldn’t.

MonsterVine Rating: 3.5 out of 5 – Fair