IGN recent released an 8-minute clip for the CGI movie Resident Evil: Degeneration. The clip shows the beginning of the film’s story, starting with alot of brief backstory flashes detailing what happened publicly after the events of Resident Evil 2 & 3 and Raccoon City’s destruction. We see what happens as a result after 7 years have pasted since the incident.

The video comes in two actual parts. The first part is the 8-minute long opening which features plot and character shots, as well as lead-up. A second 3-minute video was made for a continuation of the scenes which featured MA-rated material. The second video is linked at the end of the first on IGN’s website.

Degeneration will soon have limited theatrical release domestically, and will be released to DVD and Blue-Ray on December 30th.

I finally managed to wrap up my review of the most recent in the Silent Hill series of survival-horror games with my return to video reviews.

If you can switch to the higher quality version, do so. I tried a slightly different way of presenting things than my last two videos, which help highlight my opinions alot better, but they get a wee bit obscured.

For any of you who thought the Sega Genesis no longer has any surprises and is a dead console, prepare to be sorely mistaken. It seems some people haven’t quite given up on Sega or it’s veteran consoles.

A brand new game called Pier Solar, is getting readied for a release. Set to be a huge (for Genesis) 64Mb cartridge, this game is 100% original from it’s story and characters, to its music and graphics. It’s been in the making for the last four years roughly, and is supposed to be coming out on Christmas Eve of this year, barring any delays like what pushed it back from its original Oct. 29th release date. Considering this is basically a game that was originally meant as a homebrew, a fully-working game capable of being played on a Genesis being the end result is epic.

Pier Solar is orginated from the Sega homebrew community of Eidolon’s Inn in 2004. Started as a small effort to bring the members of the site to virtual life in a little RPG, time has passed and the game has grown into something much more. Now Pier Solar is on it’s way to hopefully become a Role Playing Game maching all other great classics of the 16-bit era…..

A working demo is available for play on the game’s website. The game itself is available for pre-order in two different packages with extra goodies.
http://www.piersolar.com/

More fun stuff coming out of the Tokyo Game Show, and this time around we have a sweet treat from the ever wonder Resident Evil series. RE5 has a new full-length cinematic trailer, basically showcasing what the majority of the plot will be for the game. We also finally get a good long look at everyone’s favorite guy you love to hate, Albert Wesker, as he makes his actions clear.

Resident Evil 5 drops in North America on March 13th 2009.

It’s been raining Castlevania these days it would seem. Two games, Order of Ecclesia and Judgment, will be released within the next few months; an arcade game is being released in Japan; the manga to Curse of Darkness is being translated and released here in the states – not to mention the live-action movie and the animated Dracula’s Curse OVA that are in production. You’d think this would all be enough!

It would seem series frontman Koji Igrashi begs to differ. He announced at the Tokyo Game Show that they have yet another Castlevania game in production to be released in the future for the Xbox 360 and the PS3. Iga dropped the bigger bomb when he said that this new game would be a direct sequel to series highpoint, Symphony of the Night.
[Read the rest of this entry…]

It’s been nearly a full decade since the former video game development giant SEGA has released hardware of any kind into the market. The last console was the Dreamcast, which despite being a strong system with good games, was beat into the ground by Sony’s Playstation 2 a year after the Dreamcast was released. Sadly, the console was discontinued a few years later, and SEGA has since survived merely as a third-party publisher for software and games.

Now it seems SEGA’s renewed strength as a software publisher has given it enough of a confidence boost to try and test the waters of hardware production yet again. SEGA announced the release of a new portable media player called the Vision PMP.

The new handheld will actually be less of a portable game player, and more of a multimedia device. It will only be able to play Java-based games, but will also function as a TV tuner, a movie and music player, a video camera and recording device, as well as an eBook reader. Sounds too good to be true, right? Well, it very well may be. The design of the Vision is bulkier than both the PSP and Nintendo DS, and looks more like it’s failed handheld elder brother, the SEGA Nomad. We also have not heard about a price tag to go along with the portable player, and I can tell you that many people probably won’t bother with it unless the price is right.

Regardless, 2009 does mark a significant date for SEGA as its return to the hardware industry after being in the proverbial darkened corner of the video game scene for so long. Will it be a taste of things to come, or a complete bust?

A brand new trailer for the newest James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace (break out your dictionaries kiddies!) has been released for all to see via the wonders of the web. The first trailer debuted during the run of Batman: The Dark Knight.

Check it out!

In a bit of more obscure news for the week, it seems that another key member of the entertainment industry has left us, but not one of the ones you’d think of initially.

Don LaFontaine, also known as the “Movie Voice-Over Guy” who has done the recordings for over 5000 movie trailers and tv commercials (most recently his GIECO appearance), has died at the age of 68 due to complications with a collapsed lung. He was pronounced yesterday.

If you’ve watched any amount of movies in your lifetime, you’ve likely encountered LaFontaine’s performance several times, most notably his “In a World….” introductions in his booming ominous voice that were his niche. These became so frequently used, that parodies have popped up in the past on shows like Family Guy and as a comedy act by Pablo Francisco.

With another media star gone, one has to wonder if 2008 is a Black Year for the entertainment scene.