I just dropped $35 on a reservation for the $90 Collector’s Edition of Resident Evil 5. Now… aside from the game, I have NO FUCKING CLUE what is coming in that $90 bundle. No one does, in fact, the only known information on the Collector’s Edition was posted here at dtoid a few days ago. That’s it, just the base casing is known. The Japanese collector’s edition comes with a 2GB USB drive, art book, and some fanny pack sort of thing, and being that no extra disc is mentioned, I’m going to say the Japanese and North American editions different.

Now, the reason why I dropped this money with out knowing what the hell I was actually buying is not just because I love Resident Evil, have played the RE5 demo, and know that I’ll love the game. It is because I feel like Capcom deserves my money. I feel like they, more than any dev have proven themselves this generation with a line up of great title, after great title across all three platforms. I feel as though they’ve been lost and a little underappreciated with all the talk recently of things such as best developer of the year, Unreal Engine 3, ect. So I’m just writing this to take a good look at what Capcom have given us this generation.



First we’ll look on the side of the 360 and PS3. The first game they delivered this generation was Dead Rising, a game that took a whole lot of people by surprise. Dead Rising was one of the first games to truly get the George A. Romero zombie style right. That of course being because they completely ripped it off or paid homage to… depending on whom you ask. Next there was Lost Planet, which I feel was really underrated. There was something just fun about blasting the crap out of huge ass bugs and the multiplayer I again feel went very, very under appreciated. Next was Devil May Cry 4, which some people like and others don’t. My opinion is that it was a very fun action game. It was like going to see a movie that you know isn’t going to win any awards, but having a blast anyways. Neiro is no Dante, but whatever I got over it.



Now, on the Wii we’ve had an equally solid line up of games. Capcom seems to be one of the lasting devs that isn’t going to abandon what they do well for shitty mini game collections. First up was Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition which some say is the definite version of the game. It had all the extras of the PS2 version as well as one of the most well executed Wii control schemes to date. Then we had the SORELY underappreciated Zack and Wiki. Which… if you have a Wii and never bought, SHAME ON YOU! I’ve said that enough through out my time here, so we’ll move on. Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles was a great retelling of the first few games and remains the best use of the Wii Zapper so far. We Love Golf was a largely ignored arcade like golf game in the vein of Hot Shots and Pangya. I must say that even I didn’t buy this game, but it’s always on my radar when I go looking through used games. Capcom also listened to the fans when they finally ported the art house that is Okami to the Wii. And sadly, the sales still weren’t all that spectacular even though it deserved so much more. There’s also Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, which remains at the top of Wii fan’s lists of “games we want translated.”

Although the Wii holds what looks to be Capcom’s first miss which is Dead Rising : Chop till You Drop. This game from the very beginning has just suffered from just too little, too late. Hopefully it won’t do too much injustice to the young franchise.



Now, moving away from the games side of things for a bit, I want to point out one thing that many people don’t praise Capcom for, and that’s their MT Framework Engine for the 360, PS3, and PC. Amidst all the press dick sucking of the Unreal Engine 3, the MT Framework Engine has gone largely underappreciated. Did you even know the name of their engine? Regardless, the engine that powers Dead Rising, Lost Planet, Devil May Cry 4, and Resident Evil 5. I remember seeing the in engine character models of Dead Rising for the first time at home and just remember being floored at how good they were. Every game that uses this engine is a gorgeous looking game which is more than can be said about the UE3 with games like Turning Point and Hour of Victory. Yes, that’s a bit of cherry picking because Capcom the creators of the MT engine are the only ones to use it thus know it better (much like Epic’s games always look better) but still, MT Framework Engine… UNDER APPRECIATED!!!



For at least the first half of 2009, Capcom doesn’t look to disappoint. They are coming out with possibly the two biggest sequels of the year… those being Street Fighter IV and Resident Evil 5. These two games I already know are going to be on my top 5 of the year, hands down. Among Capcom’s other announced titles are Dark Void which has gotten quite a bit of early hype and Bionic Commando which seems to need to prove itself. Both these later two games though don’t reflect on Capcom directly being that Capcom only publishes them, regardless we could have some hits or misses here as well.

Among other things, Capcom has embraced the downloadable games market with full force. Megaman 9, Bionic Commando Rearmed, and Street Fighter II HD, all good games. There have even been rumors of Marvel vs. Capcom 2 being released on Xbox Live Arcade and PSN, so we will have to wait and see.

So with all that, I think I’ve proven that Capcom is by far one of the biggest forces of this generation. With so much talk about Eastern developers falling behind the West, Capcom have proven themselves to know how exactly to please both the East and West audiences. I believe Capcom will continue to deliver hit after hit for the next few years of this generation. Who knows what else they could have up their sleeve… Dead Rising 2 anybody?