Friday Downtime Feature

Under the sheer weight of Resident Evil news this week, you'd be forgiven for forgetting the fact that Resident Evil 5 finally made it to the shelves today.  Although our criticisms surrounding the controls stemmed from the unease at Resident Evil's slide towards becoming an out-and-out shooter, Jun Takeuchi's Resident Evil 5 still manages to offer an effective new slant to its predecessor's format with the stylish co-op action.

In other Resident Evil news, Wii Zapper owners can flip open their holsters with confirmation that The Darkside Chronicles is winging its way to the console.  The follow-up to the on-rails shooter, The Umbrella Chronicles, takes place during the events of Resident Evil 2 and focuses on Leon S. Kennedy and Claire Redfield's attempts to escape Raccoon City.  But it's not only that, with confirmation that the GameCube Resident Evil Remake and Resident Evil 0 will also be appearing on the Wii, Capcom also announced the release of a Versus mode as Premium Resident Evil 5 DLC on the day of release.  Although it's hard to get beyond the smell of rotting carcases and threat of nasty viruses, the rumours surrounding a remake for the 'other' iconic survival/horror origin gained a little momentum with a recent BBFC listing.

It was also a week of sequels and threequels news and details.  Jonathan Ross let slip after the BAFTA Video Games Awards that we could be hearing a lot more from him in the future with Fable 3.  Other related Albion news saw the confirmation that a second package of Fable 2 DLC goodness is currently in the works.  As Take-Two confirmed that the Xbox 360 exclusive second GTA IV episode, Mafia II, and Red Dead Redemption will all arrive during the remainder of fiscal 2009 – October 31st – it's the appearance of Bioshock 2 details that is really making all the splashes (sorry)…  oh, and Army of Two gained a sequel. 

A hint of originality came from Disney Interactive and Black Rock Studios follow-up to the surprisingly decent off-road racer, Pure.  Split/Second promises more in the action stakes with the premise of racing hard to entertain a watching TV audience.  If the initial trailer is anything to go by then we want this now, not 2010.

Elsewhere a government backed campaign to highlight the dangers of lazy lifestyles ignited a nearly unanimous response from the UK games industry.  The situation twisted further as additional information came to light.

Elsewhere we quickly romped through Sonic's latest escapades; posed some questions to Need for Speed: Shift's producer, and took a look at what The Sims 3 will offer when it eventually appears in June.  Oh, and Total War: Empire did particularly well for SEGA and The Creative Assembly in this week's charts; but can it hold off the challenge from Resident Evil 5 for a second week?  We'll have to see.