2011 was one heck of a year for gaming. Once again, the Call of Duty franchise set records for the largest entertainment launch in history. A game that was only in Beta was able to sell millions of copies and spawn an ungodly large community to the point they had a convention before the game was officially released. There were tons of critical darlings encouraging developers to rethink how they create games.
Take a look this week at the awards The Flickcast (along with The Bitcast team) are proud to present for gaming in 2011

Think Outside the Box Game: Portal 2

While many may argue that Minecraft may be the most deserving of this award, they need to remember one thing. In Minecraft, there are no rules. The expanses of the box are too extreme to find the outer boundaries of. Within Portal 2, players are asked to explore new viewpoints of physics, matter and… well, portals. The puzzles in Portal 2 completely overtake the complexity and creativity of the original, which in itself was groundbreaking. With additional toys at their disposal and the introduction of a cooperative mode, the team at Valve came up with a game that redefined both the puzzle solving and FPS genres all at once.

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Dead Rising 2 was a slight departure from the tone of the original game from 2006. While the sequel was just as violent, outrageous, and insanely fun as its predecessor, the game carried a more somber feeling in regards to its story and protagonist. Chuck Green was a vastly different protagonist than wisecracking photojournalist Frank West (hero of DR 1); he was a more sympathetic character, and his quest to save his daughter made for a more earnest and emotional story.

Next week, however, Capcom is releasing Dead Rising 2: Off the Record – a ‘re-imagining’ of DR2 that puts Frank West back in the spotlight. Having been referred to as the video game version of a director’s cut, this release will feature new combo weapons, psychotic boss battles and entirely different dialogue and story points. While still being set in the same location (the Vegas-esque ‘Fortune City’), this is promising to be a very different game.

Check out the official launch trailer below, and stay tuned for our full review next week. Dead Rising 2: Off the Record is available on XBox 360, Playstation 3 and PCs starting October 11th, 2011.

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Last year, we took a more traditional approach with our Best Video Games of 2009 article with categories such as Best Music Game or Best Action Platformer. This year we are going to depart from the traditional and give what we think are categories that truly deserve to be rewarded their due.

Best Use of Zombies / Best Downloadable Content – Red Dead Redemption “Undead Nightmare”

The ultimate “What If” scenario brought forth to one of the best games of 2010, “What if the undead invaded the old west?” And the answer doesn’t just involve a lot of people dying. There are horses of the apocalypse, big foot, some hard choices to be made and people turning on or abandoning their fellow man left and right.

This awesome story told over the revamped look of Red Dead Redemption using characters players have already grown to know, love or despise makes Undead Nightmare not only the best zombie game of 2010 but also the best exmple of DLC for the entire year as well.

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Dead Rising 2 was easily one of the most fun games of the past year to come out. Aside from the series’ signature creative violence, part of what helped hype the game was the XBox Live exclusive Dead Rising: Case Zero.  The prequel to the events of Dead Rising 2, Case Zero help set the stage for the unique father / infected daughter relationship that would drive the events of Fortune City.

Dead Rising 2: Case West looks to continue the downloadable trend by filling in the events that take place after Dead Rising 2 but also letting players catch up with their favorite war covering and zombie invasion surviving photo journalist Frank West. Frank, the protagonist from the first Dead Rising, will fight alongside DR2′s Chuck Green. There will apparantly be some cameos from survivors of Dead Rising which will also help explain the events that happened in between the two games further.

Returning to the DR fold will be Frank’s signature camera (as well as a disposable for Chuck). Just like capturing PP in the first DR with awkwardly posed zombies and rampaging psychopaths, we hope Dead Rising: Case West gives us that same photogenic eye.

Dead Rising 2: Case West won’t strictly be a co-op experience though. Capcom has revealed that if a player wants to go through the game solo, Frank will be controlled by computer AI. And while AI of survivors has been the leading cause of their deaths in the past, Frank won’t be able to be killed as long as he is under computer control.

Stick to the Flickcast for more coverage on Dead Rising 2: Case West when it comes out next month on XBox Live Arcade.

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It’s been four years since players found themselves locked in a shopping mall with a group of survivors, psychopaths, and oh yea, a horde of the undead. The much applauded Dead Rising came out for the XBox 360 under the simple premise of almost everything being a weapon and everything that isn’t a weapon is trying to kill you. Now, changing scenery (sort of) in Dead Rising 2, players take the role of Chuck Greene in a world following the events of the outbreak of the original Dead Rising on both the XBox 360 and PlayStation 3.

Gameplay:

Sometimes, there is a complaint about the repetitive nature of sequels not changing it up enough from their original. That is not the case in Dead Rising 2. Just like Grand Theft Auto 3 had endless hours of appeal in the idea of driving down the sidewalks crushing pedestrians and killing hookers to get your money back, Dead Rising 2 has a near endless appeal of running through the streets, casinos and mall of fortune city grabbing everything possible to slice and dice through the never-ending zombie horde. The game’s leveling system keeps things interesting as it takes some time to turn Chuck into the ultimate zombie slaying badass like Woody Harrelson in Zombieland.

Also adding to the fun is the new concept of combination weapons. Players get combo cards by performing certain tasks in the game such as defeating psychopaths, finding posters and leveling up that show them combinations of items that can be duct taped together to create devices of maximum slaughter. Some of these are just way more fun than people should have by killing off zombies. Instead of just blowing up a gas canister, now a box of nails can be taped around it resulting in an explosion of shrapnel that takes out anything undead in its vicinity.

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With zombies all the rage still along with the upcoming Walking Dead premiere, it’s no surprise about the level of hype Capcom is putting behind the sequel to their XBox 360 blockbuster Dead Rising with the aptly titled Dead Rising 2.

As we talked about in our hands on from Comic Con,  Dead Rising 2 takes everything we loved about the first Dead Rising and kicks it up a notch. The “everything is a weapon” mentality remains along with the mission timers which give players a sense of urgency instead of allowing a total sandbox mode like a Grand Theft Auto title. Instead, every action can mean life or death to a survivor or even Chuck’s infected daughter.

In the first of the four videos below, Chuck’s tale of terror is explained as the developers explain the motivation behind Chuck’s escape from the safe house in fortune city. The second video talks about the game’s creator Keiji Inafune and his focus on character development and how that affected the story of the game and the team working on it. “Tools of Destruction” focuses on the concept of combination weapons and how the action plays out differently than it would in other action adventure and even first person shooters. Finally, the final video talks about the game’s competitive and cooperative multiplayer aspects and how co-op almost didn’t make its way into Dead Rising 2 if not for the community outcry, proof that complaining on internet forums and blogs can make a difference.

Check out all four developer diaries below for Dead Rising 2 and stick to the Flickcast for more as the zombie outbreak spreads to Fortune City on the XBox 360 and PlayStation 3 on September 28th.

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At Comic Con, the Flickcast got our first opportunity to get hands on with Dead Rising 2. Standing next to a replica of the game’s workshop covered with dozens of makeshift weapons, we got to see just what is in store for the game’s new lead, Chuck Greene on the streets of Fortune City.

Right off the bat, Dead Rising 2 feels bigger. Knowing you aren’t confined to the space of just one shopping mall, there is a level of freedom that didn’t exist in the original title. It also appears that there are even more zombies on screen at the same time in this game as well.

The animation is still fluid and it feels like the control, especially in regard to aiming, has been tightened up some. One drastically improved feature of the gameplay is the lifespan of weapons. In the original game, weapons fell apart at an alarming rate. Players were forced to flee more than fight which ultimately lead to Frank West not living up to the potential badass he could have been. Chuck, who already has some badass cred to his name being a motocross rider, feels like he can take the fight to the zombie horde that has engulfed the US rather than just hope to survive like Frank did.

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Everybody loves a good zombie video game. Slicing and dicing your way through a few hundred zombies is a great way to spend an afternoon while also training for the impending zombie apocalypse. That’s why, in a double dose of zombie invasion, Capcom has announced some really cool upcoming stuff for fans of Dead Rising.

This September we’ll see the release of Dead Rising 2, but only North America will you be able to pick up Dead Rising 2-Zombrex Edition. It’ll be able on launch day, and will come in a Steelbook case, in case any zombies get their hands on it. It’ll be packed with exclusive features, which vary between the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions.

These exclusives will include an art book and a “Making of” featurette. It’ll also come with Zombrex, an anti-zombie medication (which, to us in the non-zombified world, looks a whole lot like a pen) a safety information card, sales brochure, and 25-page prescription pad. The special edition of Dead Rising 2 will retail for $79.99, a small price to pay for anti-zombification medication, am I right?

If Dead Rising 2 doesn’t satisfy your need for zombies, perhaps Zombrex Dead Rising Sun will. Recently, Capcom announced this full-length feature film based on the Dead Rising universe. The film will be released in 8 episodes, and some episodes will include interviews with director Inafune-san about the process of making Zombrex Dead Rising. If you’re a member of Xbox Live, you’ll be able to download Zombrex Dead Rising for free before anyone else, a week before each episode goes live on DeadRisingSun.com

Dead Rising 2-Zombrex Edition will be released for Xbox 360 and PS3 on September 28th.  Zombrex Dead Rising will keep zombie fanatics occupied in the meantime, as it is released on Xbox Live starting August 4th and DeadRisingSun.com on August 11th.

A world on the brink of oblivion where people are turning into insane flesh eating monsters. Where would you want to be? Yeah, same here. Vegas. And while Dead Rising 2 doesn’t have a Las Vegas of their own, they do have Fortune City. In addition to providing a lair of sin and debauchery to cut your way through, many of life’s most important questions look like they will be answered over the course of Dead Rising 2.

Ever wonder if Siegfried and Roy’s prize tigers were good for anything other than mauling on the ambiguous duo? What happens if I tie dynamite to the end of an arrow? Will two chainsaws attached to the front of my motocross bike affect the race at all? Will rap music still be relevant during the zombie apocalypse?

Most importantly, what would it take to help me score with twins or a Playboy Playmate? That’s right, Playboy has partnered up with Capcom to bring content from their fine publication to the world of Dead Rising 2. It doesn’t matter if all the cities have fake names and there isn’t Cocacola in this game. As long as we can still get our hands on a good old fashioned Playboy, we think surviving the apocalypse can’t be too hard. You may even encounter a Playboy bunny in full bunny gear over the course of your adventure.

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So E3 starts tomorrow officially while today is the Microsoft Press conference. As you have already seen, we have gotten some advanced notice on some of the happenings going on at the event.  A few changes will be happening with our coverage of the event compared to last year.

This year we won’t be giving a fully detailed recap of the BIG 3 Press Conferences from Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo as a formal post. We will, however, be posting our thoughts and coverage on the big announcements and trailers as well as give a full indepth discussion with Matt Raub, Chris Ulrich and myself on this week’s episode of the podcast.

We have also gotten official word from various industry sources on what companies will be showing at the event. These have come from various press releases, other industry insiders and various leaks from the LA Convention Center itself regarding the event.

There has also been tremendous speculation around the event. Some of those rumors will be examined below as well. Finally, some of my own personal E3 2010 theories and predictions will be put out there too.

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After just over a year since the announcement of Dead Rising, Capcom announced at X10 that Dead Rising 2 would be coming to North America for the XBox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC on August 31st. In addition, the game will hit Japanese shelves on September 2nd and Europe on September 3rd.

In addition, XBox 360 owners will receive an exclusive downloadable prologue to the game entitled Dead Rising 2: CASE ZERO. CASE ZERO will give players an introduction to the series new front man Chuck Green and help bridge the gap between the events of Frank West and the outbreak of Willamette, CO in Dead Rising to Dead Rising 2′s Fortune City setting.

In addition, Capcom revealed at X10 a new mechanic to Dead Rising‘s gameplay where players would be able to combine a variety of weapons together to create even more fearsome combinations. It looks like the chainsaw motorcycle we saw a few months ago was just a hint of what is to come with these deadly weapons combos.

Dead Rising 2 looks to prove that the most important item on the planet is duct tape as it can be used to attach knives to boxing gloves, gas canisters to water guns and garden rakes to car batteries in an effort to eviscerate and mutilate in very creative ways, while still trying to stay alive at the same time.

Click through to take a look at some newly released screens and video from Dead Rising 2.

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Because today is a holiday in the United States and I like to let the writers out of their cages once in awhile to get some air and sunlight, we will have a lighter posting day today. That doesn’t mean we won’t be putting up anything for you to read and enjoy. Quite the contrary.

We’ve got some great stuff today including a bunch of info from Microsoft’s recent X10 event like new screenshots from Halo: Reach and a trailer for Dead Rising 2, previews of NBC’s new comedy/drama Parenthood and, in honor of today, the debut of a brand new feature here at the site: War Movie Mondays.

So, be sure to check back throughout the day for all these great articles, and more, right here at The Flickcast. We’ll resume our usual posting schedule tomorrow. That is, if I can get all the writer back into their cages in time.