The Resident Evil Chopper is coming closer and closer to completion, as you can see in these two new pictures that Savage Cycles just sent our way. I'm not 100% certain, but I'm going to go ahead and claim that this is the craziest, biggest licensed product for a video game series ever produced. You know you want one, admit it.

In the photo above, you can see some of the smaller details on the bike starting to emerge. Notice the zombie slicing blades on the drag bars as well as on the foot rest. You can see the Savage guys also had to tape over the ends of the spikes on the front wheel so they didn't acidentally puncture themselves while working on the machine. And look at that engine, it's a brute. Put a belt on that bad boy and it's going to sound like the end of the world is coming.

Check out the forward profile of this machine -- wicked. I like the louvered vents on the LED headlights. The segmented armor over the wheels is hotness; It's like the chopper is riding on two gigantic, undoubtedly pissed off armadillos. The chopper is still a few weeks away from completion, so a lot of the roughness of the construction is going to slowly start fading out (like the weld spots on the wheel armor) as the finish is completed.

We'll be debuting the first finished Resident Evil Chopper with Hollywood Inc and Savage Cycles at the Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino on Jan. 8. If you live in Vegas or plan to be in Sin City for the Consumer Electronics Show, you'll have a chance to check out the bike (and maybe crash our Dark Void party) in person. We'll have more details soon!

If you can't tell your T-virus from your G-virus, Biohaze.com is the right place to go to get it straight.  George and Rodrigo have just updated the site, which features art galleries from all the games, transcription of various game files ("Itchy... Tasty..."), a crazy timeline charting the series and a list of every enemy and character in the game and much more. Think of it as the Wikipedia of nefarious biohazard outbreaks. I'll definitely be using the site as crib notes for future Resident Evil work.

I ride. Whenever I can, wherever I can. I'm fortunate enough to live in California, which means that I even rode in on this chilly December morning, while other parts of this Great Nation of ours looked out the window at rain and snow. I love the freedom of being on a motorcycle, the connection between man and machine and road. I also love video games and Resident Evil. Until right about now, these two interests -- motorcycles and Resident Evil -- didn't have much of a connection.

Capcom has recently partnered with production company Hollywood Inc and custom motorcycle craftsmen Savage Cycles and we're pleased to give you a sneak peek at the first fruit of this crazy union: the Resident Evil Chopper. Based in Frostburg, MD, Savage Cycles has been bending steel and spraying paint on custom bikes and hot rods for over 15 years. These guys have produced some amazing choppers, the kind of wheels that make bikers drool. And as you can see from the first design sketch, they've nailed the feel of RE in chopper form.

More details and more pictures after the jump. You must check this out!

We work on a lot of different, crazy licensed products here at Capcom, but as a rider, this is the one that I am most excited about. Savage will be creating an extremely limited number of these bikes that you'll be able to purchase! This isn't some crazy corporate bike being built for display instead of riding. Instead, this is an awesome piece of Resident Evil merchandise that you can fire up and take out on the open road.

Once Capcom and Savage struck the deal to create the RE Chopper, our two groups immediately began talking about ideas and themes for the form that the chopper would take. We decided that the over-all theme of the bike would be a post-apocalyptic zombie murdering machine, just the sort of thing a heavily-armed member of STARS would jump onto and blast into the middle of a runaway zombie crisis. 

Compare the final design image on the left to the early stages of the bike's creation and you can see where we're going with this project. The bike is low-slung and mean, armored but fast, with quick access to a number of "weapons" and items, such as an airsoft shotgun and pistol, "health sprays" and a combat knife strapped to the front fork. The exhaust pipes will be wrapped in heat-resitant black tape and slot into the armored fairing along the right side of the bike. The front tire is narrow as a stiletto for quick turns, while the back wheel is as wide as a country road overrun by slavering undead. The finished product will also sport subtle Capcom, STARS and Resident Evil logos and details painted on to various spots.

Here's more shots from the build...

This is the bare, original frame that Savage chose to use as the basis for the Residen Evil Chopper. Notice how sharp and deadly it looks, even before the engine is slung in.

Here's a front-on view of the bike as it's coming together. The forks are shined up, the narrow wheel on connected and the drag bars have been attached to keep this monster pointed in the right direction.

Here's an example of one of the many cool custom bits being added to the bike: a twinned set of spikes bracket the front wheel, all the better for STARs agents to shred zombies as they rip through the horde.

Savage is building out a really unique fairing for the headlight. This is all custom metal that they are cutting and shaping just for the bike.

Savage is hard at work on the bike, with the end goal of finishing up this first bike by the beginning of January. We'll continue to update with more pictures of the build and the final project as we go forward. Can't wait to hear what this thing sounds like when it's fired up!

Goods news, zombie hunters! Resident Evil The Darkside Chronicles is available for the Wii today. After a long wait, the co-op, online, arcade-shooter zombie massacre is yours for the en-blastenating. IGN liked it, giving it an 8.1 in their review, which you can read here. If you like the review enough to want to pick up the game -- and who wouldn't -- you might want to consider ordering from the Capcom eStore and getting a groovy RPD shirt with your game.

In Resident Evil The Darkside Chronicles (arriving in stores starting tomorrow, yay!), when you pop off rounds at a sign or a box or a brains-starved chunk of tofu, bits 'n pieces blow off in convincing, non-repetitive ways. When you shoot a sign, it swings. Blast a glass window and it shatters. Not only does all this interactivity make the world feel much more solid and real, but it's also thanks to Havok Physics, the same technology that went into Dead Rising, Lost Planet and Resident Evil 5.

Straight from Havok: "Used by more Nintendo Wii developers than any other physics middleware solution, Havok Physics delivers the broadest range of production-tested collision detection and physics simulation features and tools to Wii developers looking to extend their existing game franchises."

Thanks to Destructoid for 'shopping the image so that I didn't have to!