Did you know that Dead Rising actually started as a top secret sequel to Shadow of Rome? It's true! Inafune-san was just coming to terms with his fairly visionary view of developing games in Japan for a truly global audience, and Shadow of Rome was Capcom's second stab (Ha!Ha!) at making a Western game. SoR didn't fare too well for whatever reasons, but Inafune-san was determined to continue making super-violent, blood-soaked action games fer us short attention span Amerikans, so the SoR team kicked loose the lame-o stealth elements, tossed in tons more weapons, upped the squish factor by about 1000%, made the chariot racing feel more fun... and then morphed Agrippa into a photojournalist (he's covered wars, you know), flipped the Romans into zombies and booted it all into a mall. Sure, why not, makes absolute sense.

I looooooooved Shadow of Rome -- at least all the bits that weren't the stealth-based loser sections. Senor Scott Jones and I once bonded over our love for this looney toons Capcom game while scarfing late night burritos and margaritas and now he's decided to share his love of gladiators with you. Warning: don't get too close or some of his love may get on your jacket, Clarice.

On Friday night, there's going to be a hell of a happening in Tokyo. You'll read about it over the weekend, but we're going to be unleashing the zombie hordes onto unsuspecting Western media at the Terror is Reality event at a secret location. Even though we've played the new stuff, we're sworn to secrecy, but that's not going to last long. Much care and thought have been put into the event by the development team in Osaka and they don't want us to spoil anything, so I'm only going to post this boring-yet-tantalizing photo from our staff meeting this afternoon. Ramsterball! More to come!

So, here's a thing: Crispy Gamer has a feature entitled "The World's Greatest Video Game Toilets." And some members of the gaming media wonder why they aren't taken seriously as journalists? Amongst the list of great gaming johns (a list which also includes Counter-Strike, Silent Hill and the health-replenishing cans in Duke Nukem) is Dead Rising's handy-dandy bathroom/save spot. I would totally link to the video on Crispy, but evidently they are not all about the embedding of content. Go there and see Frank interact with a urinal yourself.

Our very own Jason Allen talks to Game Trailers about Dead Rising: Chop Til You Drop. Sorry, Till, get it? No, me neither. Nicely done, J!

Fun Fact: although the title of the Game Trailers video says "PAX 08," Capcom was nowhere near that particular event. This interview was shot in the far-flung land of Leipzig, Germany, during Games Convention. Do your homework, GT!