Over the past couple of months I've been sharing some of my favorite moments and memories from Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil Code Veronica. So by now you should be experts on the storylines... no excuses! Recently we unveiled the brand new South American scenario for Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles, where partners Leon S. Kennedy and Jack Krauser are dispatched to investigate the disappearance of a number of young girls. If you're a follower of all things Resident Evil you should have a good working knowledge of Krauser and Leon's relationship, but if not you're probably wondering who this guy is and what's the big deal... let me explain. In Resident Evil 4 you're introduced to a bunch of new story elements and characters, one of those things being Leon's involvement with a man named Jack Krauser. In today's entry you'll hear some of my highlights from Resident Evil 4 as well as the scoop on Leon and Krauser's history. See you after the jump!

Resident Evil 4 was a "game changer" for the franchise as a whole in my opinion. For the first time we get an over the shoulder perspective instead of an overhead camera view and what helped make this possible was that console/controller technology was evolving. For the first time our development wizards had dual analog sticks at their disposal. Which on a side note is now the control scheme of choice for TONS of modern AAA franchises; it's a much more natural and fluid feel once you're willing to step away from the old d-pad. The debate will rage on for all eternity, what's the best way to play Resident Evil? Purists argue that playing RE on anything other than a Playstation d-pad is almost blasphemy, but like I said before consoles/controllers are evolving and so are the players.

I grew up playing Resident Evil myself and agree that playing the older titles with the Playstation controller is your best bet, but also think that Resident Evil 4's (and subsequently 5's) scheme was great for the gameplay that it offered. With so many different realistic areas and environments to explore it feels much more natural to be running/dodging with the analog sticks. Let's also not forget the fact that up until now there was no real option for precision aiming either other than straight, high, or low. Now it was possible to strategically disable enemies via a shot in the leg, shoulder, or a quick finish with a blow to the head. I'm a firm believer in respecting one's video gaming roots, but I'm also a firm believer in headshots so hopefully one day we can all hold hands and rejoice the fact that RE has been able to keep fans up on not only the coolest survival horror game content, but also the best ways to play these games as well.

Anyways, back to Resident Evil 4! Once you start the game and get to exploring things a little bit one of the first things you might notice has changed is the inventory system. Instead of just having a set number of open slots for items, we've now been equipped with an attache with a number of cells for holding items.  One cool/frustrating thing that has changed is that it's not only going to make you organize items based on quantity, but on size as well. This is by far my favorite iteration of the inventory system in the RE franchise. I loved organizing my ammo and grenades by color and shape so that it looked presentable every time I brought up my inventory, all the while cursing my mild OCD because I'd end up throwing things away items just for it to look nice.

Aside from my own personal opinion, it did add more depth because now you've really got to make a choice about what you're carrying and using more realistically. Now I love using my rifle and shotgun for zombie crowd control, but man those things are huge and really cramped my style until I could afford the bigger attache. On that note you were also able to buy and upgrade your weapons with money/treasure that you picked up in game, which was a cool option. I thought I had the system all figured out at this point, I'll take my pistol and just max it out, because it takes up the smallest space in my attache. Well this was fine and dandy until I found a different pistol that was more powerful "stock" than my current blinged out piece. Thank goodness you're able to sell your old weapons as well!

I'm on a roll now talking about weapons, items, inventory, and buying stuff so how could I forget about the merchant guy?

Throughout the game you'll be meeting with the merchant who will buy treasure off you, sell you items/weapons, and entertain you with some of the creepiest/funniest lines that you're probably now just running through in your head since I mentioned him. He's become somewhat of a pop culture reference over the years actually. The dudes over at Mega64 did their own little spoof with the merchant "terrorizing" people at a pizza stand, check out the lolz below.

Besides the merchant there's a bunch of other new colorful characters ranging from the massochistic cult leader Lord Saddler, the giant troll like enemy known as "el gigante", and the pint sized loud mouth Ramon Salazar. As much as I'd like to give you an in depth low down on all these guys, I'm here today on a mission, and that's to give you the working background between Leon and Krauser.

You first encounter Krauser and learn that he's the one who kidnapped the President's daughter Ashley ...HELP ME LEON! (sorry, couldn't pass that up, lol). After some brief dialogue you're treated to an awesome interactive knife play scene while you learn a bit of their history. You find out that Krauser was presumed dead 2 years ago, but now he's up to something. He's got his own personal agenda and plans to do everything he can to retrieve the sample Saddler created. It's also hinted at that he's in connection with Wesker, Ada, and Umbrella but this isn't gone into much detail... that's all for you guys to figure out! A link to the video can be found HERE (some mild violence and language).

You encounter Krauser later on in the game again, and he seems to be toying with Leon for some reason. Were they friends before this? What's Krauser's real agenda? What does this have to do with Umbrella? There's a lot stuff shrouded in mystery between these guys. I'm not going to spoil anything for you now, but I can guarantee you'll be uncovering a lot of dirt on Krauser and Leon when Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles launches in just a couple days!

Well that's gonna wrap up my little write up on RE4. If you've played it before then you know I didn't cover off on like 99% of all the cool stuff in the game. But if you haven't gotten a chance to play RE4 yet, feel free to crawl out of whatever hole you've been hiding in and jump into what some people have labeled as one of the greatest games of all time! More on the Darkside front coming soon, like tomorrow morning soon, so stayed tuned!

I wanna give a quick shout out to Tsurumaru for creating the title image of Krauser up above, tis truly awesome! I also wanna thank PracticalAl for the awesome art she drew me. I showcased some of her killer art back in my last Code Veronica blog and she was kind enough to create a couple of pieces for me, one of which featured everyone's favorite infected superhuman Albert Wesker! ... and me next to him looking equally as cool :)

I'm always on the hunt for awesome Resident Evil/Capcom art so if any of you have some cool material that you'd like to see one of my future blogs just shoot me a message!

and as always... thanks for reading!

~mike

Last Saturday our pals in Toronto held the 7th Annual Toronto Zombie Walk. What's that you say... never heard of a zombie walk before? Well my friend you're in for a treat then. If you've played any of the Resident Evil titles before you're no strager to hordes of zombies chasing you through the city streets. Even a zombie veteran like Leon S. Kennedy would need a fresh pair of undies after meeting up with the throng of 5,000 or so zombies that took a stroll through downtown Toronto last weekend.

more pics and zombielicious info after the jump!

We couldn't pass up the opportunity to be a part of this event, so with some help we setup our very own Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles zombie makeup booth! Those willing could line up for a free RE zombie treatment from some of the areas top makeup artists.

During the walk itself there was no shortage of Resident Evil fans roaming around. Even the crew from Umbrella showed up to help with zombie traffic direction...er containment! Rock on guys!

There are way too many photos to post up here without me crashing your browser, so you can find them all in my photo album linked HERE!

Talking with some people on Unity I've found out that Toronto isn't the only place being overrun periodically for these zombie walks. Texas, California, Virginia, Michigan, New York, Australia, the UK, and many others all host these events to give the dead a chance to stretch their legs. If you've been to one of these events before or even would like to check one out sometime in the future post your thoughts and let us know.

There's less than 3 weeks away till Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles launches on November 17th! Take a good look above, because you'll be seeing a lot of familar faces running through the streets of Raccoon City, the Ashford mansion, and around the all new South American location! We've still got a few other RE: Darkside Chronicles surprises coming soon so stay tuned!