Gaming jobs are awesome. Why? Well, just last week I spent the entire week in Las Vegas from Tuesday to Saturday, living it up in a posh hotel on the 32nd floor with free booze, food, video games and 150 like-minded video game folks to play them with. Plus we got to shoot at zombies. Now, before you're overcome with jealousy, live the event vicariously by clicking through and checking out all the games we showed off at Captivate 08.

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The biggest and most highly anticipated title at Captivate was Resident Evil 5. Not only did we show off a brand new trailer, but as a surprise, we also showed off actual gameplay. Co-producers Takeuchi-san and Kawata-san teamed up by having Kawate-san play a demo level of the game while Takeuchi-san talked through the demonstration. Amazingly, the gameplay showed that the scenes from the trailer are real and not pre-rendered scenes. The trailer also didn't fail to disappoint, as towards the end, a new partner for Chris Redfield was revealed. If you haven't seen it, definitely check out the embed (Go to the YouTube page for a high-quality version of the video)! Our Resident Evil 5 Flickr pool contains additional screenshots for you to drool on, plus character art for Chris Redfield and his new, unnamed partner.

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The other highly anticipated game, and the one that consistently saw the the most traffic, was Street Fighter IV. We shipped four arcade cabinets loaded with the final arcade build of Street Fighter IV to Las Vegas, and throughout the entire event, you would be hard pressed to find a seat and get a turn on the machines (Placing quarters down worked... sometimes). Ooh and ahhs were heard all over, along with screams of joy and empty promises of revenge. It was the first time that people got to see Rufus as well, and he was well received, though the majority of people stuck with old familiar characters such as Ryu and Ken when things got serious. My personal new favorite is El Fuerte, with his unpredictable moves coming out of his dashes. Capcom Europe's Leo Tan, who held it down pretty well and were bullying the media with Ryu, also echoed my sentiment about El Fuerte as well. In addition to the above gameplay trailer, we also have a new Abel vs Guile "Ink" Trailer, and a full gallery of HD quality screenshots, including the newly announced boss, Seth, and some new high-resolution character art (Perfect for wallpapers!) on our now full of awesome Flickr pool.

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At our previous Digital Day event earlier this year, we allowed the press to try out the Challenge Room feature of Bionic Commando Rearmed. At Captivate, the full game was available in all its glory, including co-op multiplayer. I often would pop in on community members Shawn and Joe co-opping it up in BCR, only to find that Shawn had already used up all his lives, leaving poor Joe to fend for himself against a boss. The lesson? When BCR comes out, don't play co-op with Shawn "Snow Infernus" Baxter. Just go play singleplayer. As a side note, Ben Judd, producer on BC and BCR, showed people the infamous exploding head scene at every opportunity, "Hi, I'm Ben Judd. It's very nice to meet me and here's an exploding head".

Bionic Commando Rearmed's Big Budget Brother, Bionic Commando, was of course on-hand, running on two PCs right next to Rearmed. For, as far as I can tell, the first time, the media was able to get their bionic arms swinging on a fully playable build. This build walked you through the initial gameplay elements, teaching you the basic swinging mechanics that probably harkens back to pre-evolution chest thumping, vine swinging, tree dwellers. Also revealed was the inclusion of multiplayer in Bionic Commando. Yes, now you can swing around as a tribe.

Unable to keep it under wraps any longer, we used Captivate to announce our new Wii game, Spyborgs. Unlike the other titles, Spyborgs is fully Westernized effort, designed and developed by Bionic Games (No, they're not commandos), a team with an experienced and well known pedigree in gaming, with people who worked on games such as Resistance, Ratchet and WoW, and funded by CEI. Spyborgs is an action-adventure game featuring highly charismatic characters, fun gameplay and an awesome sense of humor in the style of your favorite Saturday morning cartoon (Watch the trailer!). The game also features 2 player co-op play, using the unique Wii-mote controls.

Another new addition to the Capcom family is Neopets Puzzle Adventure (Yes, that Neopets), coming this holiday to the Nintendo Wii, DS and PC. Based on the popular virtual world, Neopets Puzzle Adventure is like the classic game of Reversi and Go, with a unique Neopets spin, combined with many fun mini-games that will appeal to both casual gamers and of course, Neopets fans and will feature easy and intuitive "pick up and play" gameplay. There are 150 "PetPets" and over 300 items to collect, and through playing Neopets Puzzle Adventure, you will receive codes that can be redeemed for unique items on the Neopets.com website.

Admittedly, Dark Void had initially been in the shadow of RE5 and SF4 at Captivate 08. However, as it turned out, it became an accidental favorite of several of the community members we invited, as well members of the press. Brought to you by the same folks who developed Crimson Skies, Dark Void is a sci-fi action adventure that includes on-foot and aerial combat (a la Crimson Skies). Players will play the role of Will, the unlikely hero trapped in the Void. However, he comes well equipped with a rocket pack that can be upgraded over time and featuring a unique grip system that allows you to GTA UFOs mid-flight. Check out some early screens and art by clicking on the image above.

After harsh rounds of interrogation and deeply thoughtful surveys, we here at Capcom have finally figured out what people like: Pirates and ninjas. So, first, to the satisfy the pirate-ty crowd, we have Plunder, also previously shown at Digital Day earlier this year. Plunder is a swashbuckling casual, pick up and play RTS. Up to 8 players can send each other to Davy Jones' Locker (Unlike your high school days of being stuffed in the locker), as you plunder towns for resources to further upgrade your fleet and towns. Plunder will also ship (Get it?) with a custom and intuitive map editor, allowing you to create and share your own custom maps to play online.

The new Mega Man Star Force 2 has ninjas in it. Do I need to say more? It has ninjas in it. Okay, fine. Mega Man Star Force 2 returns with its unique blend of RPG exploration elements and fast-paced action. And ninjas. MMSF2 picks up two months after the previous games left off (with ninjas), and will once again feature multiple versions, Zerker X Ninja, and Zerker X Saurian, with players able to choose between Zerker, Ninja, and Saurian forms. Players with Nintendo Wi-Fi connection or Wireless LAN will once again be able to connect with in-game friends, regardless of their location, to form the "Brother Band" network, where they can share cards, status upgrades, and even help each other to perform upgraded transformations... Possibly into Ninjas.

A fully playable version of We Love Golf was available at Captivate 08, which somehow magically transformed our Wii Remotes into a virtual set of golf clubs and a realistic golfing experience. Developed by the guys who brought you the excellent Hot Shots Golf and Mario Golf games, We Love Golf will allow you to drive for show and putt for dough in single player, or four-player head-to-head competitions online. Multiple gameplay modes will be available, ranging from tournament, character matches, stroke play and special mini-games. And, of course, you will be able to unlock costumes from famous Capcom characters as well for play, such as the Ryu costume above.

Not to be forgotten by the introduction of Street Fighter IV, Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix was again available for hands-on play, this time with a few more characters than were available during Digital Day. I think by now, this game probably doesn't need much more of an introduction (and honestly, I'm out of things to say about it), except that it looks freakin' awesome. If this game hadn't come out in the 90's already, it could easily come out today as a full retail title. That's how awesome it is in full 1080p. To get the full authentic feel, the Rey, the producer, even brought two arcade joysticks with him for people to play with. SSFIITHDR has been a long time in the making, and some people are anxious to get their hands on it. And if you didn't know already, there is a way you can! If you buy Wolf of the Battlefield: Commando 3 on the Xbox 360 Live Arcade, you will automatically qualify for the free SSFIIHDR special beta, allowing you to try out the game before everyone else.

Speaking of Wolf of the Battlefield: Commando 3, this game was hanging out in what I dubbed "Commando Corner", along with BC and BCR. Commando 3 takes the no-holds-barred arcade spirit of its predecessors and crafts an all-new furious cooperative shooting adventure for the next generation. The game features three playable soldiers, each with unique characteristics. All are able to wield multiple weapons, including ye-old rocket launchers, grenades and shotguns. Up to three players can join the battle simultaneously and all hop in controllable co-op vehicles for maximum destruction of virtual bad dudes.

Finally, for those who just can't get enough Arcade Shooter/Shump action, there's also 1942: Joint Strike. Another game that takes inspiration from its grandfathers, Joint Strike should be familiar to any and all players who played video games in the radical 80's. This time around, 1942 will feature 3D HD graphics and special two-player co-op attacks called, appropriately enough, "Joint Strike" attacks, new weapons and power ups.

One of the coolest things in Lost Planet was the Akrid, the insect-like alien lifeforms you are constantly battling against. In Colonies, you can take the battle to the next level: By playing as an Akrid! Hey, as the old saying goes, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em". Here's a video of Akrid Hunter mode in action.

As some of you already know, the upcoming Lost Planet: Extreme Condition Colonies Edition isn't just your typical "Platinum Hits" re-release. It comes instead packed to the brim with new features, levels, weapons and multiplayer gameplay modes. In addition, there are new achievements to obtain, up to a full list of 1000 points. Here are 10 of the 50 new achievements you can look forward to, some of which you may already be familiar with. Stay tuned for more achievements coming soon!

Easy Difficulty Cleared	5
Normal Difficulty Cleared	5
Hard Difficulty Cleared	10
Extreme Difficulty Cleared	20
Easy Mode Coin Collector	5
Normal Mode Coin Collector	5
Hard Mode Coin Collector	10
Extreme Mode Coin Collector	20
Trial Clear - Clear Trial Battle Mode	5
Great Scorer - Clear Trial Battle Mode with over 150,000 points	20

 

Since Lost Planet, Extreme Condition Colonies Edition is coming out in a few weeks, we posted up a new batch of Akrid bashing, egg hoarding screenshots to whet your appetite some more. Click on the image above to see the whole high-resolution Flickr set.

Now that Rocketmen: It Came From Uranus is released for on both XBLA and PSN, I finally got the guys behind the madness to sit down and answer some hard hitting questions. In addition to probing them about Uranus, I also got them to give me way too much information about them you never wanted to know. Let’s start with the typical softball question: What are your names and what do you do at Acronym?

Funky Swadling: My name is Daniel "Funky" Swadling, and I'm a producer, programmer and designer for Rocketmen, as well as one of A.C.R.O.N.Y.M.'s founders. Since we're not a huge company, we all get to wear a bunch of different hats when working on a project. Jesse Joudrey: I'm Jesse Joudrey, the other founder of A.C.R.O.N.Y.M. as well as technical officer for the company, and was a programmer and designer for Rocketmen. Jeff Yu: Hey, I'm Jeff Yu, producer on Rocketmen.

How was Acronym started? Any particular reason?

JJ: A.C.R.O.N.Y.M. was started primarily because we believed that a small team of creative people could create small, fun games and have a much better time doing it compared with working on a 100+ person team. We may have messed up the "small" part of small fun games -- nobody would call Rocketmen small compared to any other XBLA or PSN game out there, but we think it's pretty fun and we had a blast making it. FS: Compared to working on, say, a next-gen retail game with a huge team (like we used to do), working with a tight-knit team where everybody knows everybody else allows faster iteration, more communication, and it's just more enjoyable. JY: We also wanted a reason to use the period key more in our day-to-day lives, and typing A.C.R.O.N.Y.M. over and over definitely gives us that excuse!

Why Rocketmen? What was the concept behind Rocketmen and how did it come about?

FS: Rocketmen has come a long way since its original conception as a PSP game called "Humans vs. Aliens vs. Robots vs. Demons" (H.A.R.D. for short). Although both games were, at their core, two-stick shooters with "RPG-lite" elements, the changes brought about by changing the platform, IP (that's game developer talk for intellectual property, meaning the Rocketmen concept invented by WizKids), graphic style, online gameplay, and game scope meant that what we ended up with was pretty different from what we started with. JJ: When we first dreamed up the idea (this was in the days before Xbox 360 was launched), there had been a long period of time where two-stick shooters had been forgotten about. So, bringing that style of gameplay back was a great idea. Too bad everybody else had the same idea during the last three years! But we did add a lot to it, rather than being limited by some of the conventions of the genre. JY: We liked Rocketmen for the graphic style and humour of the internet cartoon episodes, the fact that a universe was already defined for the game, and how well the characters tied in to the gameplay that was already fun in H.A.R.D.

How long was the total development time? How many people did it take?

JY: If you go back to the game (and the company's) beginnings, the entire process took three-and-a-half years, with over a dozen people working on the game at times. JJ: That doesn't count the external contractors... that's just people in the studio working on the game! We've got over twenty people working full time at the studio now. FS: It all started with just two programmers doing everything. As you can imagine, the art was pretty sad at that point, but as we added people (particularly artists!) to the team the game started getting more professional looking.

Any funny or interesting background stories happen during development?

FS: No. Development was completely boring, and nobody had any fun. JJ: That's not entirely true... there was that time where... uhh.... FS: Yes? JJ: Forget it. Development was boring. JY: Yeah. What fun can you have making games?

Did the game turn out the way you guys wanted? What would you have changed?

FS: On the whole, Rocketmen hit on all the features we wanted to deliver. We created a game with a story, great moment-to-moment action, RPG-lite elements, fun online and offline multiplayer, and the most content for a $10 game you can possibly get. JY: If we could go back in time and change a few things, we would definitely have made the free version of the game be less of a tutorial (people either get the game right away, or they'll never get it) and more of a "here's what the game is like after you've played it for a while." In Rocketmen, your character starts off weak and becomes strong. People get the wrong idea of what the whole game is like when they play the demo and see that the character is weak. JJ: I'd also lower the amount of story "cut-scenes". They're pretty funny (assuming you share our sense of humour), but everyone ends up skipping over them the second time they see them. FS: Some people skip them first time! JJ: True. Also, the game could be shorter -- 10 huge levels for ten bucks, what were we thinking? JY: Yeah, but some people think that kind of value is awesome. Not the people who compare the game to Gears of War and Dead Rising, obviously, but not everyone is going to be satisfied with a downloadable game. JJ: I'm satisified with a downloadable game. FS: Me too.

How did you come up with the name “It Came From Uranus” for the Rocketmen expansion?

JY: About an hour after a spicy takeout meal, the name just came to us. FS: Actually, it was forced on us by the evil people at Capcom marketing, who thought the name would appeal to juvenile boys (our largest target demographic) JJ: We wanted to call it something serious. But that just wouldn't be acceptable.

What’s next for you guys?

FS: We've got the Rocketmen expansion just about done, we're working on the PSN version of another Capcom game that I'm sure people will be able to read about one day on the Capcom blog. We're also ramping up for a new original game for XBLA and PSN... but that one is so secret it doesn't even have a public name. JJ: We want to keep doing what we've been doing: Fun small games with fun small teams.

What is your goal for the Acronym? How will you know when you’ve “made it”? When you’ve all got Ferraris?

JJ: A.C.R.O.N.Y.M.'s goals are simple. We want to keep working on a variety of different games that can be completed with small teams. If we can keep that up as a business model (and all indications are that we can) then we're happy. JY: Also, Ferraris don't handle too well in Vancouver's constant rain. We'd be better off with something solid and heavy, like a VW mini-bus.

Any advice for aspiring development studios?

JJ: Make sure you've got a ton of experience. If no-one on your team has completed a game, you're in for a very rude awakening. Even if people have been working on games for years, as is the case with A.C.R.O.N.Y.M.'s senior team, there's still lots to learn. JY: Make sure you can afford to stay in business while you make your dreams come true. Finance is a slow thing compared to game development. FS: Don't bite off more than you can chew. It's easy for development to get out of control, especially with an enthusiastic team. JJ, JY, FS: In short, don't bother. It's impossible! :-)

Spotted on the sometimes questionable but occasionally awesome 4chan, Street Fighter IV and Okami themed wallpapers! Click on the images to get to the original large sizes on our Flickr pool.

I'd credit the whoever made these, but they were posted as Anonymous, as most 4chan posters tend to do. Update: Thanks to commentors, I can give credit where credit is due. The above SF4 image was created by Giovanny. The Okami image is entitled Okami - 13 Brush Gods, by syncaidia@dA over on Deviant Art.