It sounded like a fair enough idea.  Capcom signed on Slant Six Games to produce a new Resident Evil game that takes more of a team initiative, and rather than controlling the usual heroes (or anti-heroes, depending who you choose), you’re instead in charge of someone working for Umbrella, in this case some Spec Ops soldiers sent in to do clean-up.  It sounds like a compelling idea, but how did Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City go wrong?  Well, it’s right there in the opening sentence – Slant Six Games.

There are a lot of influences that Capcom can easily say it drew from when it was putting together Asura’s Wrath alongside the team at CyberConnect 2.  Dragon Ball Z definitely comes to mind, especially with all the rage bursts that seem all Vegeta-like.  For that matter, we also spotted a little God of War, Panzer Dragoon, the Incredible Hulk and even a little Mr. Furious from the Mystery Men films (though obviously that’s a small percentage – Ben Stiller this guy ain’t).  But somehow it all blends together into a gaming experience that’s more style than substance, yet it’s something that shouldn’t be missed.

Steel Battalion was a rather quirky game for its time.  Unlike any other?  Sure.  But it also came with the most realistic vehicle play you could imagine, thanks to a deluxe sized controller that featured literally dozens of functions, ranging from various settings to an eject button, when things got too hot under the collar.  It was definitely an acquired taste, especially with its $200 price tag.  But Capcom is ready to bring this series back for a whole new audience, as it’s doing away with the controller in favor of Kinect-supported controls.  Will that be enough?

Say what you will about Capcom’s practice of releasing a fighting game, and then releasing an improved version of that game months later, but it’s quite effective, giving them time to add characters that make a difference to fighting fans, or adding the key features that will bring in an even bigger audience.  Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 easily fits into this business pathos, and after creating havoc on consoles a few months back, it’s making its handheld debut on the PlayStation Vita, along with a couple of extra features.  So, is it still good?

When Ghost Trick came out last year for Nintendo DS, it introduced a great, quirky little mystery that stepped aside from the norm, mainly because the main character was the person whose death was being investigated. What followed were plenty of touch-screen shenanigans, along with interesting gameplay elements and an art style belovingly conjured by Phoenix Wright creator Shu Takumi.  But at $30, not many people were willing to take such a leap of faith on the game.  Perhaps they will for $10, now that Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective has landed on iPad and iPhone.

Consoles and PC's have had a slow month interms of new AAA quality games arriving for your respected platform. While January got off to a slow start, it quickly recovered to bring us high quality tittles through digital distribution. Plenty of great downloadable arcade tittles were made available through XBLA, PSN and Steam, giving us many hidden gems on the digital marketplace. Let's look back at the games we reviewed over the past month.  

We're only a couple of months away from the release of Capcom's latest crossover fighting game, one that combines two iconic franchises for the first time since the company teamed up with SNK many years ago.  This time around, the team's working closely with those over at Namco to mesh the worlds of Street Fighter and Tekken together.  The game's bound to be a hit on consoles, but one version you might not expect to be such a hot commodity is the one coming for the PlayStation Vita handheld.  We're here to tell you why it shouldn't be missed.