Ben Judd, at the helm of production for Bionic Commando (PC, Sony PlayStation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360), was featured in a podcast and spilled details on Capcom’s attempt to revive the NES classic. Judd revealed that Bionic Commando was being aimed at a “middle ground” of the gaming market and that its key characteristic would be the swinging mechanic.

While the most of the hour-long conversation dived into remarks on games as art, the growing trend of classic revivals, and how most revivals will never address the hardcore fan base because of money, Judd was able to squeeze in a few thoughts on what appears to be the production team’s views on Bionic Commando as a product.

As a producer, Judd admitted that he first felt that he had to make Bionic Commando “the greatest game ever,” but recent training from Capcom’s internal producers told him to “stop looking at games as games.” To that end, he found it difficult to step out his gamer shoes to view the production from a business perspective.

Taking two steps back and viewing the title from a marketing standpoint, said Judd, showed that reviving the classic would have to be a consideration of a “middle ground” - that is, there’s enough profit to be had without sacrificing as many features faithful to the original. There’s a risk of alienating hardcore fans, but there’s more money to be made, he says.

Also, the game’s key selling point - or “hook” as a representative from Capcom’s subsidiary described it - would be the swinging mechanic. While already offered by Activision’s top selling Spider-Man 3, Bionic Commando’s version may not be so semi-automatic in flow and may even require some skill - or so Judd hints.

More details, and perhaps more clues to the Bionic Commando remake, as they come in.

Electronic Arts‘ CEO, John Riccitiello, has given a hint that the superstar publisher may soon experiment with new pricing models in the near future. Riccitiello has predicted that the usual pricing and revenue models will soon need to change, after emerging markets have defeated the US 59.99 premium price point for video games.

“In the next five years, we’re all going to have to deal with this. In China, they’re giving games away for free,” said Riccitiello. He believes that soon the rest of the world will reach the forked road and accept change. “People who benefit from the current model will need to embrace a new revenue model.”

At the start of 2007, Electronic Arts became one of the major worldwide publishers to have given away a current game for free. EA Sports‘ FIFA 07, Electronic Arts’ previous bid in the virtual soccer market, was practically given away to gamers and fans in South Korea.

It must be noted that the game was at first downloaded for free within piracy rings, but soon EA accepted that there was a growing trend in a much larger gaming market (in population) that Western companies would soon have to face. Gamers now want something for nothing, and EA was generous enough to oblige.

FIFA 07 no longer appeared for retail on shelves, and the game was offered free for download over the Internet. In order for EA to gain something out of the gesture, the publisher marketed game “enhancements” for a minute microtransaction fees. Unsurprisingly, it was widely accepted. Korea’s gaming economy flourished with microtransaction business models.

Riccitiello notes that as more publishers accept the online distribution model, Electronic Arts may begin testing out different pricing models for its wide lineup of games.

It’s no secret that sightseeing in the locations of Atari’s Alone in the Dark games is no easy feat, and from what this teaser can tell us, the latest installment for the Microsoft Xbox 360, Sony PlayStation 3, and PC won’t be leaving space for rest neither. A brief video that lasts just over a minute shows us the creepy places we’ll be exploring in good ‘ol Alone in the Dark style. The amount of detail developers added to the environment and lighting seems to indicate how much passion Atari has put into bringing famous scriptwriter Lorenzo Carcaterra’s ideas to life.

Other than a couple of what one would believe to be zombies, there’s not much else to the short but sweet video of Alone in the Dark. Fans of pure horror should check it out though, so here is Atari’s Alone in the Dark’s Central Park trailer embedded below.

The holiday season is almost here, and we’ll most likely see lots of console units and gaming software end up underneath the Christmas tree and in the Christmas socks of all good children. However, too much demand that outweighs the actual supply is always a bad thing.

Analyst Colin Sebastian from Lazard Capital Markets said that there will indeed be a general hardware shortage, not only for the Wii (as mentioned by Reggie Fils-Aime in his statement that there will be a Wii console shortage this holiday season). Explained Sebastian,

Holiday hardware demand may outstrip supplies. We believe one of the themes from the upcoming holiday period could be hardware supply constraints, driven by ongoing strong demand for Nintendo s Wii and a shift in Xbox 360 unit sales from 4Q into the September quarter, while Sony s PS3 and PSP may benefit from lower price points.

So aside from the almost-inevitable Wii shortage, we may also witness shopping brawls over who gets the Xbox 360 or the PlayStation 3? Certainly not an impossible scenario, what with the release of the more affordable PlayStation 40GB SKUs, and quite possibly the newly launched Xbox 360 arcade SKU, which is aimed at the casual market.

Eidos Interactive has some good news for gamers eagerly awaiting the release of Kane & Lynch: Dead Men. The title has already reached gold status and will be in stores across the U.S. a full ten days before its expected November 23 release.

“We are excited to ship Kane & Lynch: Dead Men earlier than expected and get a jump on the holiday season,” said Robert Lindsey, Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Eidos Inc. “Kane & Lynch will offer something entirely fresh and unique in terms of narrative depth and character, but also as a next-generation action title.”

Kane & Lynch: Dead Men will be available for the Microsoft Xbox 360 and Sony PlayStation 3 home video game consoles as well as the PC gaming platform on November 13. Kane & Lynch: Dead Men is developed by IO Interactive, the team behind the award-winning Hitman series. Jesper Kyd, who provided the score for the Hitman series, will also be scoring Kane & Lynch: Dead Men.

Buy: [Kane & Lynch: Dead Men (PC)]
Buy: [Kane & Lynch: Dead Men (Xbox 360)]
Buy: [Kane & Lynch: Dead Men (PS3)]

Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment president Bob Chapek had some harsh words for HD-DVD backers, saying that those in the HD-DVD camp are prolonging the format war even though it is clear that Blu-ray will win. During a two-day Blu-ray festival in Hollywood, Chapek said the following:

Blu-ray’s competition’s attempts to sell less than the best will inevitably be trumped by what we stated from the very beginning: That the Blu-ray technology is not a half-step format that will sell consumers short, but rather it is a revolutionary technology that will change the way we view movies for the long term.

And we firmly believe that revolutionary technology, my friends, is indisputably, undeniably and inevitably Blu-ray.

Chapek wasn’t alone in chastising HD-DVD backers. Fox’s home entertainment president Mike Dunn earlier this week blasted Paramount for switching to HD-DVD. Dunn referred to the rumored US 50 million payout that Paramount supposedly received, accusing the studio of “taking the bait”.

Trick or treat! It’s the day of the year when everyone’s in the mood for chills and thrills, so we decided to conform with the times and conjure up some scary memories. This Halloween, we’re bringing you a nostalgic treat of what we think are the most horrific gaming experiences ever. Did any of these games make you sweat cold and wet your pants when you were younger? Let’s see when you post your comments below!

10. Sanitarium - Even with the limited PC graphics of the late 90s, developer DreamForge was able to come up with a little-known masterpiece of a game. What starts out as a rather generic premise of waking up in a sanitarium with no memories quickly transforms into a plot so vividly grotesque that it makes the simple point, click, and interact mechanic palm-sweatingly intense.

Describing Sanitarium in more detail will give away some twists in the very intricate story of self-discovery. All we can say is that if you ever get a chance to play it, you’ll definitely be more scared of getting committed to a mental institution than ever before.

9. Dark Seed - For a game released in 1992 for the PC, Dark Seed can definitely hold its own against today’s spooks in terms of storytelling, execution, and horror taste. Set in a locale where even things as mundane as dolls can turn into objects of terror, you’ll immediately get the sensation that nobody is to be trusted.

The dated visuals may not turn heads today, but looking closer at H.R. Giger’s artwork of the alien fiend gripping suburbia will prove to you that horror is timeless and good horror art can scare anyone at any era.

8. Alone in the Dark - While Capcom’s Sweet Home can claim the distinction of being the great grand-daddy of survival horror, InfoGrames has the distinction of developing the first one with 3D characters. Alone in the Dark launched in the early 90s and set a benchmark for franchises like Resident Evil and Silent Hill to follow.

What starts as a routine investigation of suspected crimes in a mansion later reveals that the crib is actually crawling with everything from demons to zombies. You’ll have to use your head and your guns to make sure that you won’t be joining the happy mansion posse anytime soon. If that isn’t enough to make you a believer, Alone in the Dark also features some insane and literal rat-slapping fun.

7. Doom 3 - id Software’s Doom series lives in immortality with the recognition of being one of the foundations of modern shooting. Just when everyone thought that the bar couldn’t go any higher, 2004’s Doom 3 came out and blew everyone away.

At the time it was launched, Doom 3’s graphics were almost unparalleled. The monsters and demons in their flat, 2D pushovers in early Doom games worked just fine for targets in their time, but the horror factor was upped when uber 3D and full stereo came along.

6. Clock Tower - The only thing scarier than trying to escape creepy enemies while keeping them at bay with gunfire is trying to escape them with little to no weapons and only rooms to keep you safe. Clock Tower pulls this mechanic off for hours and keeps you on your toes every second of it.

The story isn’t half bad either. The idea of a crazed killer using scissors while he’s on the prowl just gives that internal sense of paranoia which just motivates you to run like hell in fear of death by shears.

5. Resident Evil (GameCube remake) - Where Sweet Home started survival horror gaming and Alone in the Dark took it to the next level, Resident Evil made the genre a household favorite. While the latest iterations are more action-packed than scary, we say that the original Resident Evil’s remake on the Nintendo GameCube still has its place on the cream of the creepy crop.

Taking the basic haunted house with zombies rhetoric, Resident Evil made a lot of its scenes classics. The first sighting of the zombie nibbling away at poor Kenneth’s corpse is an indelible memory to countless gamers, and the traps, jumps, and boss fights that follow soon after are simply the stuff of legends.

The GameCube’s hardware made Resident Evil scarier than it ever was, leading a lot of pundits to conclude that this is the level by which all remakes must stack up against their predecessors. On that merit, we grant Resident Evil a spot on this list’s upper echelon.

4. System Shock 2 - 2K Boston’s BioShock is still making waves on the Microsoft Xbox 360 and PC as this list is being written, and as great as BioShock is, we say that it owes a lot to its elder brother from almost a decade ago: System Shock 2. For those who were lucky enough to have experienced it, System Shock 2 made a plethora of innovations with its trans-genre approach. Part shooter and part RPG, System Shock 2 was all style when it comes to creeping you out.

Set in the cold grip of space, players must deal with disturbing wails of euthanasia from fellow crew members while they try to split your skull open. Constant plot shifts will keep you guessing until the climactic finish where you have to come to grips with the reasons why you’re the only darn person left in the ship still fighting. This is a true cult classic if there ever was one, so do yourself a favor and get it so you can better appreciate BioShock.

3. Silent Hill - While Resident Evil and its sequels brought survival horror into gaming’s mainstream, few people will argue with the notion that Silent Hill brought the genre into a more chilling new zone. With a bizarre storyline, innovative elements, and haunting environments, Silent Hill is your kind of town if you love lurking on the dark side.

The fog that blankets the little town conceals threats totally unseen before in any game. Add to that the fact that your radio blares static when monsters approach, and you’ve got spooks onscreen and inside your head. Perhaps the sickest, most memorable part of Silent Hill for this blogger is in the hospital. Having a flashlight that barely illuminates the path and running into a zombie nurse with a scalpel in hand was just too disturbing for me to play the game ever again without the lights on.

2. Fatal Frame II - Imagine having to trek a haunted village tormented by spirits of murdered maidens filled in a strange human sacrifice ritual from the years past and you’ll get an idea of where you’ll be taken by Tecmo in Fatal Frame II. Playing as young girl Mio Amakura, players must search for their separated sister Mayu in the village armed only with a mystical camera which has the ability to exorcise ghosts.

Guided by a powerful storyline, players are compelled to face their fears as they have to take snapshots of scary ghosts that seek revenge for their gruesome fate. The only thing creepier in Fatal Frame II than having to photograph the creepies up close is seeing a figure move in the background and getting left wondering if it’s part of the game or just your imagination.

1. Silent Hill 2 - While we can sum up the justifications for Silent Hill 2’s status as the scare-for-scare ruler in this list with two words: Pyramid Head, let’s go down to the details to do Konami Digital’s masterpiece some justice. Silent Hill 2 is best described as a story told much in the same way as a bad dream would be. Cause and reason aren’t in abundant supply here. All you know is that your dead wife sent you an invitation to everyone’s favorite spook city and it sets the stage from some seriously weird chills.

Look-alikes, freakish enemies, and by far one of the weirdest game nemeses of all sum up to create a true masterpiece of horror gaming. With so many things disturbing in Silent Hill 2, it’s a real test to pick just one scariest moment. It’s been years since this blogger played through this game and getting over ol’ Pyramid Head is still a far cry.

Trick or treat! It’s the day of the year when everyone’s in the mood for chills and thrills, so we decided to conform with the times and conjure up some scary memories. This Halloween, we’re bringing you a nostalgic treat of what we think are the most horrific gaming experiences ever. Did any of these games make you sweat cold and wet your pants when you were younger? Let’s see when you post your comments below!

10. Sanitarium - Even with the limited PC graphics of the late 90s, developer DreamForge was able to come up with a little-known masterpiece of a game. What starts out as a rather generic premise of waking up in a sanitarium with no memories quickly transforms into a plot so vividly grotesque that it makes the simple point, click, and interact mechanic palm-sweatingly intense.

Describing Sanitarium in more detail will give away some twists in the very intricate story of self-discovery. All we can say is that if you ever get a chance to play it, you’ll definitely be more scared of getting committed to a mental institution than ever before.

9. Dark Seed - For a game released in 1992 for the PC, Dark Seed can definitely hold its own against today’s spooks in terms of storytelling, execution, and horror taste. Set in a locale where even things as mundane as dolls can turn into objects of terror, you’ll immediately get the sensation that nobody is to be trusted.

The dated visuals may not turn heads today, but looking closer at H.R. Giger’s artwork of the alien fiend gripping suburbia will prove to you that horror is timeless and good horror art can scare anyone at any era.

8. Alone in the Dark - While Capcom’s Sweet Home can claim the distinction of being the great grand-daddy of survival horror, InfoGrames has the distinction of developing the first one with 3D characters. Alone in the Dark launched in the early 90s and set a benchmark for franchises like Resident Evil and Silent Hill to follow.

What starts as a routine investigation of suspected crimes in a mansion later reveals that the crib is actually crawling with everything from demons to zombies. You’ll have to use your head and your guns to make sure that you won’t be joining the happy mansion posse anytime soon. If that isn’t enough to make you a believer, Alone in the Dark also features some insane and literal rat-slapping fun.

7. Doom 3 - id Software’s Doom series lives in immortality with the recognition of being one of the foundations of modern shooting. Just when everyone thought that the bar couldn’t go any higher, 2004’s Doom 3 came out and blew everyone away.

At the time it was launched, Doom 3’s graphics were almost unparalleled. The monsters and demons in their flat, 2D pushovers in early Doom games worked just fine for targets in their time, but the horror factor was upped when uber 3D and full stereo came along.

6. Clock Tower - The only thing scarier than trying to escape creepy enemies while keeping them at bay with gunfire is trying to escape them with little to no weapons and only rooms to keep you safe. Clock Tower pulls this mechanic off for hours and keeps you on your toes every second of it.

The story isn’t half bad either. The idea of a crazed killer using scissors while he’s on the prowl just gives that internal sense of paranoia which just motivates you to run like hell in fear of death by shears.

5. Resident Evil (GameCube remake) - Where Sweet Home started survival horror gaming and Alone in the Dark took it to the next level, Resident Evil made the genre a household favorite. While the latest iterations are more action-packed than scary, we say that the original Resident Evil’s remake on the Nintendo GameCube still has its place on the cream of the creepy crop.

Taking the basic haunted house with zombies rhetoric, Resident Evil made a lot of its scenes classics. The first sighting of the zombie nibbling away at poor Kenneth’s corpse is an indelible memory to countless gamers, and the traps, jumps, and boss fights that follow soon after are simply the stuff of legends.

The GameCube’s hardware made Resident Evil scarier than it ever was, leading a lot of pundits to conclude that this is the level by which all remakes must stack up against their predecessors. On that merit, we grant Resident Evil a spot on this list’s upper echelon.

4. System Shock 2 - 2K Boston’s BioShock is still making waves on the Microsoft Xbox 360 and PC as this list is being written, and as great as BioShock is, we say that it owes a lot to its elder brother from almost a decade ago: System Shock 2. For those who were lucky enough to have experienced it, System Shock 2 made a plethora of innovations with its trans-genre approach. Part shooter and part RPG, System Shock 2 was all style when it comes to creeping you out.

Set in the cold grip of space, players must deal with disturbing wails of euthanasia from fellow crew members while they try to split your skull open. Constant plot shifts will keep you guessing until the climactic finish where you have to come to grips with the reasons why you’re the only darn person left in the ship still fighting. This is a true cult classic if there ever was one, so do yourself a favor and get it so you can better appreciate BioShock.

3. Silent Hill - While Resident Evil and its sequels brought survival horror into gaming’s mainstream, few people will argue with the notion that Silent Hill brought the genre into a more chilling new zone. With a bizarre storyline, innovative elements, and haunting environments, Silent Hill is your kind of town if you love lurking on the dark side.

The fog that blankets the little town conceals threats totally unseen before in any game. Add to that the fact that your radio blares static when monsters approach, and you’ve got spooks onscreen and inside your head. Perhaps the sickest, most memorable part of Silent Hill for this blogger is in the hospital. Having a flashlight that barely illuminates the path and running into a zombie nurse with a scalpel in hand was just too disturbing for me to play the game ever again without the lights on.

2. Fatal Frame II - Imagine having to trek a haunted village tormented by spirits of murdered maidens filled in a strange human sacrifice ritual from the years past and you’ll get an idea of where you’ll be taken by Tecmo in Fatal Frame II. Playing as young girl Mio Amakura, players must search for their separated sister Mayu in the village armed only with a mystical camera which has the ability to exorcise ghosts.

Guided by a powerful storyline, players are compelled to face their fears as they have to take snapshots of scary ghosts that seek revenge for their gruesome fate. The only thing creepier in Fatal Frame II than having to photograph the creepies up close is seeing a figure move in the background and getting left wondering if it’s part of the game or just your imagination.

1. Silent Hill 2 - While we can sum up the justifications for Silent Hill 2’s status as the scare-for-scare ruler in this list with two words: Pyramid Head, let’s go down to the details to do Konami Digital’s masterpiece some justice. Silent Hill 2 is best described as a story told much in the same way as a bad dream would be. Cause and reason aren’t in abundant supply here. All you know is that your dead wife sent you an invitation to everyone’s favorite spook city and it sets the stage from some seriously weird chills.

Look-alikes, freakish enemies, and by far one of the weirdest game nemeses of all sum up to create a true masterpiece of horror gaming. With so many things disturbing in Silent Hill 2, it’s a real test to pick just one scariest moment. It’s been years since this blogger played through this game and getting over ol’ Pyramid Head is still a far cry.

Remember Nintendo UK boss’ David Yarnton’s recent speech about Nintendo still catering to the hardcore set? The speech appears to have raised some hackles, particularly this part (in verbatim):

For all the recent talk of record breaking entertainment launches, it might just be that the defining and most influential video game of this generation is a simple game of tennis that the whole family can gather around and play and enjoy together.

Some people thought that “record breaking entertainment launches” quote is a dig aimed at Bungie Studios‘ wildly-popular Halo 3, which helped in Microsoft’s current Xbox 360 hardware sales jump (as shown by the NPD group in their recent hardware sales chart). 

However, Nintendo clarified that Yarnton did not refer to any specific game in his speech, especially not Bungie Studios’ opus. ” We were merely putting Wii Sports into a wider cultural context alongside cinema, books and TV,” said a Nintendo spokesperson, adding that they consider the Halo games as indispensable to the gaming industry.

Well, that certainly helped in stopping a console war storm before it even started…for now, at least.

Ethan Thomas has been through a lot. In Monolith Productions‘ 2005 release Condemned: Criminal Origins, he had to kill more than 200 people. That’s expectedly left him feeling a bit down and disturbed, so when he’s called back to action in Condemned 2: Bloodshot, what does he do?

That’s right. Kill some more. Of course, his targets may only be hallucinations that have been made up by Ethan himself, but they still pack a mean wallop. That’s why it’s up to players to help Ethan use the arsenal of firearms, blunt instruments and the all-new fighting system in Condemned 2: Bloodshot so he can survive.

For a peek at what players, and Ethan, will be up against in Condemned 2: Bloodshot, check out the game’s debut trailer below. Oh, and watch out for the amazing disappearing zombie head at the 00:15 mark. Monolith Productions’ Condemned 2: Bloodshot for the Microsoft Xbox 360 and Sony PlayStation 3 hit stores next year.

Buy: [Condemned 2: Bloodshot (PS3)]
Buy: [Condemned 2: Bloodshot (Xbox 360)]