At Capcom's recent "Digital Day" sneak-peek games rollout, PR Manager Chris Kramer kept the introductory thing short and sweet -- with good reason, with respect for history, and for maximum humorous effect. You see, after almost a year, the jokes, references and self-effacing corporate mea culpas still haven't stopped regarding Capcom's last Editor's Day: It had a solid lineup, to be sure -- including the then-just-announced Monster Hunter 2 for PSP and the awesome Zack & Wiki for the Wii -- but it also had a mercilessly-dragging (and by now damn-near legendary) bullet-point slideshow that went on for so long that several attendees were seen surreptitiously breaking out their Nintendo DS or Sony PSP under the tables in what was more or less psychic self-defense.

Perhaps as one of those "hiliarious," doesn't-exactly-translate-from-Japanese-to-English jokes, this gathering of gaming minds took place from an unholy 10 in the morning until 1pm-ish or so, and was notable for, among other things, a glaring lack of alcohol (of course, now that I think about it, they were turning a bunch of cranky, already caffeined-up and in some cases hung-over gamers, editors and fan-boys loose in their corporate lobby for the first time -- so this teatotaling measure may also have some form of self-defense. Touché, Capcom!).

This time around, both the press and gaming community were invited to Capcom's US headquarters in San Mateo, California for a markedly-tighter sneak-peek/hands-on session with a fistful of forthcoming titles. Per the official name of the day, the focus was once again on Capcom's multi-platform "digital initiative" -- a nerd-snooty way of saying that Capcom is aiming to bring games out for as many platforms as possible, particularly in terms of downloadable titles for PlayStation Network (PSN), Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA) and PC users. And yes, there are a few actual, retail, buy-'em-on-the-shelves games in the mix as well.


Few if any companies play the "classic" card as well or as reliably as Capcom, and those who want to cruise Memory Lane in a new ride won't be disappointed. 1942: Joint Strike, obviously based on the "194x" line of vertical arcade shooters, is coming out in summer 2008. It's still an alternate-history WWII, top-down, vertical shooter (albeit with really cool, striking HD graphics and backgrounds), but now two players can team up with new "Joint Strike" attacks, such as arcing bolts of deadly energy that allow allied players (in the same room, or connected via Xbox Live) to clothesline entire wings of Japanese fighters, battleships and bombers. Further, the widescreen format effectively gives each player their own combat-zone they need to keep track of (don't think too much about that fact that the 194x series comes, in fact, from a Japanese company. Did I mention that this is an "alternate-reality" WWII? Nothing to clear up 60 years of bad feelings like a new, graphically jazzed-up take on a formerly pizza-parlor pastime and healthy dose of Splinter Universe theory).



Already announced, but just as eagerly anticipated, was/is Bionic Commando Rearmed -- rearmed and, in fact, re-imagined, due in spring. Same slightly-sanitized-for-your-Western-tastes story, of course: The Nazis have another name, and Hitler is still "Master D," but the memory shackles are obviously off, and the arsenal includes firepower upgrades, grenades, and a shotgun with enough recoil to give you some added Swing for those platforms. Capcom's Digital Day featured a "Challenge Room" to see which representatives of which game-review/fan outlets could clear a room in the shortest time. To put it bluntly, Evergeek Media did not Represent in this particular competition... because we were, clearly, saving our skills for...



...Plunder, the cutest, friendliest, pirate-themed, hex-based real-time territorial domination game that downloadable gaming will see this year. I know that sounds all kinds of wrong, but it works, trust me. Plunder lets up to 8 players each captain their own bouncy little pirate ship (the visual tone owes a lot of the old Psygnosis game, Shipwreckers!) and cruise an easy-on-the-eyes hex-based map. The control is simplicity itself -- just move to the desired hex, and whatever you need to do will pretty much happen automatically, be it bombarding an enemy town, trading broadsides with other vessels, or snagging floating-crate power-ups. There's even a very easy custom map editor so you can paint up your own coves, peninsulas and archipelagos. Mechanically simple, with enough tactical depth and action, this would make a great game for the PSP and the DS -- Capcom hasn't made that promise yet, but here's hoping. You can never have enough pirate-themed games. Plunder is slated for summer, 2008.



Meanwhile, Mega Man Star Force 2 will hit the Western market in the form of an exploratory role-playing game (RPG) fused with action. It will come in two flavors, Zerker X Ninja and Zerker X Saurian, and will let players travel and fight in two co-existing planes -- the real, physical world and the virtual "Wave World" --, hooking up with other players in "Brother Band" networks courtesy of wireless LAN or Nintendo Wi-Fi. Look for them both in June 2008.



Conspicuous by its absence in playable form, We Love Golf is coming for the Wii this year, and will feature two new (Capcom) characters as determined by the Capcom gaming community (hurray for public input) -- namely, Ken and Morgan (myself, I'm jazzed at the idea of Zack, of Zack & Wiki fame, wielding a golf club). New unlockable costumes include those of Capcom favorites like Chun-Li and Jill Valentine, and slated modes include tournament character matches, online Friend and World play, and assorted special mini-games. To paraphrase the commercial, Wii would like to Golf!




For those of you keeping track of this kind of thing, yes, yes -- there was, in fact, a playable version of Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix (try saying that five times fast). Only Ryu and Ken were available at the time of the Digital Day, but the gaming stations were jammed for its entire duration. It's going to be available this summer for PSN and XBLA, with new artwork and high rez, 1080p images -- and if any of this sounds suspiciously familiar, it is: To Capcom's credit, they acknowledge that they made pretty much the same promise at their last Editor's Day. But this time, like, they mean it. Sincerely.



But wait... there's still something missing, isn't there? Why yes, there is, and a big something-something, too: Lost Planet: Extreme Condition Colonies Edition for PlayStation3, Xbox 360 and Windows PC (slated for release, precisely, on May 27). Any game with a title this long really deserves its own separate coverage, so I bid your adieu for now -- and I assure you that has little or nothing to do with some of the choice questions I've been sharpening up for the dev folks, which themselves have nothing whatever to do with the I-M-H-O vastly unfair ass-handing I received during this particular title's multiplayer session. But trust me, they're packing a lot of new stuff into the new iteration. 'll get back to you just as soon as I can comfortably sit down again.


In the meantime, do kindly bombard the Capcom phone lines and forums about getting Plunder onto the handhelds; I've got a lot of traveling coming up, and my DS will thank you.