New in stock are Bioshock 2 Big Daddy Ultra Deluxe action figure from Neca and the Resident Evil Chris and Sheva action figures by Square Enix! Looking for a sidekick? Marvel Select War Machine action figure is available now. Ikki Tousen Kanu and Chou-un figures by Alter are back in stock. Ride in style with Good Smile Company’s Nendoroid Plus Vocaloid action figures with pull-back car. Go Back to the Future with the DeLorean Mark I. Boldly go with Tiberius and experience Pon Farr — Star Trek fragrance for men and women. They’re now in stock and ready to ship!

Enjoy!
Edward
Kirin Hobby

Revoltech Sci-Fi No.005 Nightmare Before Christmas: Jack Skellington [Action Figure] by Kaiyodo
Revoltech Sci-Fi No.009 Giant Robo (Johnny Sokko) [Action Figure] by Kaiyodo
Revoltech Sci-Fi No.008 Batman The Dark Knight [Action Figure] by Kaiyodo
Revoltech Sci-Fi No.007 Gamera: Gyaos [Action Figure] by Kaiyodo
Revoltech Sci-Fi No.006 Gamera [Action Figure] by Kaiyodo
Revoltech Sci-Fi No.004 Godzilla: Baragon [Action Figure] by Kaiyodo
Revoltech Sci-Fi No.003 Kaiju Booska [Action Figure] by Kaiyodo
Revoltech Fraulein No.018 Evangelion 2.0 Asuka Langley [Action Figure] by Kaiyodo
Revoltech Fraulein No.017 Evangelion 2.0 Makinami Mari Illustrious [Action Figure] by Kaiyodo
Resident Evil 5: Play Arts Kai Chris & Sheva 2-pack [Action Figure] by Square Enix
Resident Evil 5 (RE5) Play Arts Kai: Sheva Alomar [Action Figure] by Square Enix
Resident Evil 5 (RE5) Play Arts Kai: Chris Redfield [Action Figure] by Square Enix
SIF EX! Odin Sphere: Velvet [Figure] by Yamato
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS The Movie 1st: Nanoha Takamachi [Figure] by Alter
Ikki Tousen Dragon Destiny: Kanu Unchou 1/8 [Figure] by Alter
Ikki Tousen Dragon Destiny: Chou-un Shiryuu [Figure] by Alter
Fate/Unlimited Codes: Saber Lily [Figure] by Alter
To Aru Majutsu no Index: Index [Figure] by Good Smile Company
Nendoroid Plus Vocaloid: Rin Kagamine with Road Roller Pull-back Car [Action Figure] by Good Smile Company
Nendoroid Plus Vocaloid: Miku Hatsune with Leek Pull-back Car [Action Figure] by Good Smile Company
Nendoroid Plus Vocaloid: Luka Megurine with Tuna Pull-back Car [Action Figure] by Good Smile Company
Nendoroid Plus Vocaloid: Len Kagamine with Road Roller Pull-back Car [Action Figure] by Good Smile Company
Nendoroid Kodomo no Jikan: Mimi Usa [Action Figure] by Good Smile Company
Figma # 062 Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS: Fate Testarossa A’s (School Uniform ver) [Action Figure] by Max factory
Women of the DC Universe Series 3: Power Girl Bust [Statue] by DC Direct
Women of the DC Universe Series 3: Catwoman Bust [Statue] by DC Direct
Superman Forever #1 Mini-Statue (Alex Ross) [Statue] by DC Direct
Supergirl Mini-Statue (Michael Turner) [Statue] by DC Direct
Batman: The Dark Crusader Mini-Statue (Alex Ross) [Statue] by DC Direct
Bioshock 2: Big Daddy Ultra Deluxe [Action Figure] by Neca
Marvel Select: Iron Man 2 War Machine [Action Figure] by Diamond Select
Back To The Future II: DeLorean Mark I [Prop Replica] by Diamond Select
Star Trek: Tiberius Cologne for Men ~ Boldly Go [Accessories]
Star Trek: Red Shirt Cologne for Men ~ Because Tomorrow May Never Come [Accessories]
Star Trek: Pon Farr Perfume for Women ~ Drive Him Crazy [Accessories]

This is the second of the new mini games for Resident Evil 5. This time the two playable characters are Jill and Josh, if you’re a RE5 player you will understand that this mini game plays out during the main story from RE5. Just like the main game and Lost In Nightmares, Desperate Escape should be played with a friend, this way you will really enjoy the game and what it gives you, trying to figure out how to make it through the levels with the highest chance of Survival.

This time Jill and Josh are trying to make their way to help Chris and Sheva, and the way there is packed with enemies, gates and “mini bosses”. The puzzles are more violent compared to Lost In Nightmares, you’re constantly being attacked while trying to make your way forward, finding keys and doors to get you to the next area. It’s one long adrenaline rush that won’t let you rest until it’s done. The game won’t frighten you or make you twist around when something jumps in front of you, but it will keep you glued to the screen.

The stress will come back when you notice that the ammo can sometimes run low if you try to defeat several of the enemies. I recommend playing at a higher difficulty level to really get the most out of Desperate Escape (same for Lost In Nightmares), the challenge is still not a long one, but it will keep you entertained, and there is a replay value to try and all the achievements (if you’re like “that”).

There isn’t much of a story in the game but I don’t want to give out the ending for those looking for that in the games. If you don’t want to know the end bit, simply stop reading now, and go on to the “Welcome back” part.

THE END – great welcome! The best part of Desperate Escape is the ending bit, where you and you’re friend or AI buddy will play a horde like mode. A timer will start and you have to survive for 5 minutes, the area have some ammo and healing items ready, but after that, it’s all about what the monsters drop for you. This one area could have been a optional game of its own within Desperate Escape, it’s really enjoyable.

WELCOME BACK – so welcome back. Lets round it up, length wise, it’s pretty short of a game, but it will keep you entertained through the whole thing, it’s fast and action filled, the only place where it’s lacking is the story which sadly is pretty much nonexistent. I still recommend it for all the Resident Evil fans that want more.

GOOD
+ Action filled & fun
+ Barry & Rebecca in mercenaries
+ The ending

BAD
- Still short for a DLC
- Lack of story

/Nurgle
@Start And Select

http://startandselect.wordpress.com

One only sits shiva for the seven close relatives -mother, father, child, brother, sister, husband or wife. No matter how much the loss of another person might be felt one does not sit shiva for others.

If possible, the mourners should sit shiva in the residence of the deceased. This is not always possible or practical for various reasons.
You are allowed to sit shiva in whichever place you like. Normally all the mourners sit for the week together.

The mourners should move into the shiva house for the week. If this cannot be done then they should leave after dark and return early in the morning.

Mourners should ideally not leave the shiva house for the duration of the shiva. With the exception of Shabbat, Festival and according to some Purim, all prayers services should be held there. If by having prayers at the shiva house it means that there will not be a minyan at the local synagogue because the people from there will come to the shiva, then the prayers should take place in the synagogue and not at the shiva house. If errands need to be run others should do them. If there are questions concerning financial or other loses then the local Rabbi should be consulted.
Once shiva starts the focus turns to the mourners and away from the deceased. The mourners are meant to feel a loss and grief. The task of the visitors is to help them start to in overcoming their loss by comforting them and providing for their needs.
People are sometimes confused as to how to pay a shiva call and this will be discussed in a future posting.

Moving Resident Evil from the overview to the 3rd person was a great way to bring RE to next gen consoles.  RE4 was a smash hit so RE5 of course follows this.  The controls ended up being pretty spitting image of RE4 with the exception of the joystick and aiming.  It took a long time to get used to, but it worked well.  Overall the controls were pretty perfect.  My only concern is my curiosity as to when Capcom is planning on allowing our heroes to move while shooting.

Graphics were stunning.  Absolutely stunning.  I had no issues with anything here.  The scenery drew you in, the attention to detail was great.  That’s all I can really say here.

Sound was well enough.  The music queues were great.  It brought the experience to you with every noise made.  My only beef was Chris and Sheva’s heavy panting (which I didn’t get annoyed with til my brother pointed it out).  I can understand heavy breathing after a long run, but this is after any amount of movement.  It’s just over exaggerated.

The story line was quite filling, as compared to most REs.  While quite shallow to most standards, it keep you interested enough.  Which is more than you can say for most shooters.  I’m not too into the idea of forced co-op, with Chis and Sheva being inseparable, but it was decently pulled off.  I have not dealt with the online co-op, but splitscreen worked quite well for me and my brother.

This brings me to my one and only huge and major beef with RE5 (and in essence RE4).  Where did the horror and thrill go?  RE5 alone, the ‘never go alone’ idea takes too much from the ‘alone in the dark’ feel.  Whenever you ask a gamer or RE fan ‘what was your scariest moment in video games?’, their response is probably the old fashion REs.  Like the dogs or birds flying through the windows in a dark ally or hall.  Where are these moments?  Instead of *Crash!* monster flies through a window, you get the camera pulling away from your character (instantly you know something is going to happen) and you WATCH the monster walk in casually.  So not only do you know when something is coming, you get time to think.  It’s all sort of like having a scary movie where the kid is home alone.  However, when the kid goes by the window, the camera pans to the outside, where you see the murderer walk up to the window, then breaks the glass and scaring the kid.

Overall, great game and I suggest it to anyone who likes shooters, and zombie/mutant type stuff.  Just don’t expect RE4 or classic RE title here.

Family Friendliness-This title is riddled with excessive violence and gore.  Lots of decapitations, body parts exploding, and strong language. (ESRB Mature17+)

3 Paws Out Of 5

Pros:

• Fun Gameplay
• Great Visuals
• Gameplay Stays Fresh

Cons:

• Feels Like A Broken 3rd Person Shooter
• No Zombies
• No Horror or Thrills
• Coop Mechanics Break Solo Gameplay

Sheva yang meninggalkan Chelsea pada musim ini memberikan beberapa pendapat mengenai mantan timnya ini dan juga Carlo Ancelotti yang pernah menjadi manajer AC Milan – klub Shevchenko sebelum ia pindah ke Stamford Bridge.

“Ancelotti memulai musim ini di Inggris dengan sangat baik. Ia memiliki skuad yang luar biasa padanya, dan mereka sedang memuncaki klasemen. Bagi saya, sudah pasti Chelsea adalah favorit utama untuk menjuarai liga Inggris,” ungkap Sheva yang kini sedang menjalani perawatan atas cederanya.

“Semua tim yang pernah saya bela, akan selalu ada di hati saya. Dan ini bukan hanya Milan, namun juga untuk Chelsea. Saya adalah penggemar Chelsea hingga akhir hayat saya,” ungkap Shevchenko.

Sedangkan mengenai Avram Grant yang sempat mengantar Chelsea ke final liga Champion, Sheva mengaku bahwa Grant adalah pelatih yang baik. “Ia bekerja dengan baik mengantar Chelsea ke final liga Champion. Dan bukan salah Grant jika penalti krusial itu bisa gagal. Saya rasa jika kami menang di final tersebut, ia tidak akan dipecat saat itu.”

What:  Gamer and Commentator

Where:  http://conceptualgamer.wordpress.com/

Why:  Conceptual Gamer is a fairly new addition to the WordPress community as am I.  However, he has already written several thought provoking articles; some of which have been featured on N4G.com.  He has a habit forming elaborate ideas that he then advocates be implemented in popular game titles such as Resident Evil 5.  Take a look at his blog; it’s interesting and at the very least it’s an intriguing approach to game related blogging.

November 26, 2002

Champions League 2002/03 | Phase 2 | Group C

Galaticos: Zidane, Figo, Roberto Carlos, Raul,… and Pavon!

Rossoneri: Maldini, Nesta, Rui Costa, Rivaldo,… and Shevchenko!

Click on the thumbnails to see full size (Bấm vào hình nhỏ để xem hình lớn):

————-

Alright, I now manage to make RE5 run on the current PC I’m using(not mine). Since I’m using a Radeon X1550 on this one, it’s not easy. First of all your operating system should be Vista. For some reason, Vista enhances the performance of your video card. The driver should be updated, in my case i’m using Catalyst 9.8. Now you’ll need a patch made to make your video card recognized as an Nvidia GeForce card. Here’s what I used http://boris-vorontsov.narod.ru/download_en.htm. Once you’ve installed and run the game, make sure to lower the all video related settings to minimum. You should now be able to play RE5. But note that the game will be very sluggish most specially when enemies started to come out.

————-

Finally able to play re5! Hell yeah! Here are some videos. Sorry for the quality, it was taken from my mobile phone.

I’ll post a review when I finish the game.

Click on the thumbnails to see full size (Bấm vào hình nhỏ để xem hình lớn):

 

Por Claudio Prandoni

Adoro coisas criativas e igualmente aleatoriamente aleatórias. Tipo esse calendário aí. Bem na janela entre o lançamento de Resident Evil 5 para consoles caseiros e PC a modelo e dubladora Karen Dyer disponibilizou no site oficial dela um calendário 2009/2010 temático de Sheva Alomar, uma das heroínas do jogo.

A guria foi dubladora e atriz de motion capture de Sheva (e falou sobre tudo isso e mais nesta bela entrevista das meninas guerreiras do Girls of War). Já o calendário exibe a moça com o modelito básico de Sheva, a roupa secreta tribal africana e, err… um outro que me lembra os filmes da série Austin Powers.

Em tempo, o visual em si de Sheva é inspirado em outra moça, no caso, especificamente falando, a australiana Michelle Van Der Water. Ah!

Which makes it all the more confusing that Chris Redfield, trained soldier with biceps larger than the average tank, and Sheva Alomar, who has been fighting with guerilla groups since she was eight, both seem to suffer from the same disease that makes it impossible to move from the spot when aiming a weapon. Whilst this ‘feature’ has been present and correct since Resident Evil first began on PlayStation back in 1996 before the third person shooter really took off, once upon a time it was forgiveable, before other games came and threw some innovation and modernisation at the genre. Now it’s completely inexcuseable.

Resident Evil 4 was hailed by many as a revolution in the series, a true return to form, fixing the archaic control scheme. Those ‘many’ are a tad stupid, evidently oblivious to the fact that the control scheme hadn’t changed at all. Shifting the camera to the shoulder didn’t alter the fact that it still took an hour to turn 45 degrees and that fact that you had to stand still to be able to aim or fire your gun. All it did was turn it from an old-and-dated survival horror game into an old-and-dated third-person action shooter game.

Fortunately, of the two main problems with RE4, one of them is fixed (for the most part) in RE5. Whilst when in aim mode it still takes an eternity to move the laser sight from one side of the screen to the other, in normal gameplay it is now possible to control the camera with the right analogue stick, and since the ancient up = forwards mechanic remains, it is now much quicker to steer your character whilst walking or running. Walking is of course controlled by using the left stick, but to run, in traditional RE fashion, you must hold down a button whilst moving the stick. Capcom has clearly failed to notice that the last 5 main RE games and countless spinoffs have all been developed exclusively on consoles with analogue controls. In a day of third-person action games like Gears of War, GTA IV and Uncharted sitting on the shelves with such perfected cover systems and combat mechanics, using “it’s a survival horror” no longer works as an excuse for RE refusing to get over its stubbornness and take influence from these great examples of the genre, because it isn’t.

Back in the day Resident Evil, despite the incredible campness, was a survival horror game. Fixed angles prevented you from seeing around the corners, subtle noises like creaking floorboards or very faint groanings providing the only clues to the horrors that may or may not lie behind each door. Obscure puzzles prevented progress until you’d managed to come to the same illogical conclusion as the developers. With RE4, Capcom ditched any semblance of subtlety, opting for hordes of angry drugged up psychopaths at every turn instead of trundling zombies, but there were still a few obscure puzzles. In RE5 I recall one puzzle of note, and one that took all of 30 seconds to suss. Apart from an abomination of a control scheme, Resident Evil has strayed about as far from its roots as is possible.

But it’s not all bad. Once you’ve learned to contain your frustration at the horrors of the controls, you can divert your attention to what’s on the screen in front of you. And what’s on the screen in front of you is nothing short of jaw dropping. RE5 is a graphical tour-de-force like few others. The human character models in particular are astounding (even if Chris’s steroid-pumped body manages to defy all known laws of physics), with gorgeous backdrops, lots of on-screen action and huge explosions never creating a noticeable dip in the rock-solid framerate. The in-engine cut-scenes are big action-packed affairs, excellently choreographed and a sight to behold.

The sound doesn’t quite reach the same heights. The soundtrack isn’t particularly intrusive or bad, but it’s completely forgettable. The voice-acting is mixed at best, laughably awful at worst, sticking with the classic RE camp for the most part. Notorious series villain Albert Wesker is the worst offender, with some truly cringeworthy performances throughout. Sheva, despite being voiced by a Jamaican-American and supposedly being an African character has a strangely strong British accent.

The story is as you would expect. a chemical virus, evil pharmaceutical corporations and everyone’s favourite Neo-wannabe Wesker make up the bad guys, as huge numbers of Africans become infected, which makes them to lose the ability to speak in words and causes giant octopi to grow out of their faces, and go on a murderous rampage. And you have to stop them. And that’s pretty much it. There are a few of the old cast making brief appearances, and a host of dull and irrelevant new faces. You will get through the game not feeling an ounce of emotion for any of the characters, and will most likely have forgotten the story in its entirety by the time the credits finish.

When played in single-player, RE5 has you taking control of Chris (for the first playthrough at least), with Sheva being controlled by the AI. On the easiest difficulty setting, you may as well not be there. Sheva seems able to take off an enemy’s head with a single shot in half a second from three miles away with a standard pistol. Bump up the difficulty, and Sheva finds herself unable to hit the Titanic from six inches away. It’s all very inconsistent. She also can’t manage her own inventory, meaning whenever she’s used up all her ammo (usually within a minute of you handing her a dozen magazines), you have to stand next to her and start managing her items, giving her what she needs to be able to function. Just to rub this in, for the first time in RE you now can’t pause whilst managing the inventory, meaning you have to hold her hand and manage her equipment for her whilst countless infected come charging at you. This is eased somewhat on subsequent playthroughs, as completing the game means you can unlock infinite ammo for fully upgraded weapons, so you don’t have to watch her stock levels.

It’s worth making sure you’re the sole possessor of health items. Give Sheva a fully recovering first-aid spray, and she’ll use it on you as soon as your health goes down to 99%, wasting an entire can for nothing, just before you enter a boss battle. Her AI is replicated faithfully in the enemies. Because the inability to run and shoot would make the game physically impossible if the game’s enemies behaved in any way naturally, Capcom have counterbalanced this by making the Majini charge towards you, then stop dead about 6 feet away from you for a few seconds, giving you ample time to line up that headshot. It’s ridiculous and looks terrible, but as long as the control system remains so bad it’s hard to think of any other way of making the game playable.

And yet despite almost an entire review of bitching, there’s a saving grace for RE5. This is the first time the series has introduced co-op play, with player one taking charge of Chris and player two taking control of Sheva either via split-screen or online. This is perhaps the worst designed co-op in the history of anything ever. The screen isn’t split in two, as one might expect. The game gives each player a 16:9 window at the top and bottom of the screen, with big black bars down the side, meaning each player gets around 30% of the screen, with 40% of potential space completely wasted, making it needlessly small and hard to see. And this doesn’t even happen until you get into the game, which takes forever. In any normal game you would start a co-op mode, or the second player would press start on the level select screen. Not here. Player one must choose a game mode, choose the level, choose ready on the inventory screen, wait a while for the level to load, then once it’s loaded wait another ten seconds until the game has autosaved. Then, and only then, can player two press start, and the game dumps you both back to the inventory screen, and you have to load the whole thing up again. It’s beyond ludicrous.

But all this said, once you eventually get into a playable game of co-op, it’s strangely compelling. With hundreds of enemies bearing down on you, planning strategies, working together and outsmarting the opposition can be immensely satisfying. Once it gets going and you get in the groove, most of the fundamental game breaking issues are forgotten, and the game goes from being a frustrating, headbangingly bad experience to a still frustrating but stupidly fun one. The level end stats screen that displays each of your accuracy ratings and kill counts adds a nice bit of competition to go with the co-operation. It’s hard to identify exactly what it is that turns what is clearly such a bad game in pretty much every way in which a game is measured into such a joyful shooter. It doesn’t come under the Freakout/Big Rigs/Spirit Of Speed heading of being so utterly awful that it’s hilariously brilliant, and yet there’s no denying the happy times that lie within its multiplayer campaign. Without Sheva redefining the word ‘retard’ and not having to hold her hand throughout, a lot of the needless pressure is relieved and more time can be spent focusing on blowing things up. Having a competent sidekick who can actually cover whilst you reload is a useful thing to have.

Resident Evil 5 simultaneously manages to be among the best few games and worst few games I’ve played this year. There is almost nothing good to say about it, and yet when all is said and done it’s some of the most fun gaming I’ve ever done. It’s most definitely a game worth owning, but only if you have another friend with a copy. If you’re planning to play through the game by yourself, I’d advise picking up a length of strong rope to go with it. It’s not often I give a game two scores, but it would be unrepresentative and unfair to give Resident Evil 5 a single score. Even in the terrible single-player mode, it’s a better game than RE4, but its refusal to move with the times makes it better than not a great deal else, but when it wants to be, it’s a whole lot more fun that just about anything else out there.

Single player: 4 /  Co-op: 9

Click on the thumbnails to see full size (Bấm vào hình nhỏ để xem hình lớn):

The image above comes from Siliconera and previews the DLC costumes that will be exclusive to Resident Evil 5 PC players when it’s released. Resident Evil has always been known for having some awesome unlockables, and Capcom is definitely continuing that trend. But I really hope they at least bring them to Xbox 360 in the near future. Because I have a 360, and I want my Chris to be totally BRUTAL!

Dearest CrunchGear readers: I recently had the honor and privilege of speaking to Karen Dyer, who is not only the voice of Sheva Alomar, from Resident Evil 5, but who also did said character’s motion capture. I hope you enjoy it on this day, our day of freedom.

Obviously, “K” is for Karen, and “N” is for Nicholas. With that…

N: Well, first off congratulations. Resident Evil 5 was a big hit. It sold something like 4 million copies.

K: That’s what I hear!

N: Excellent. But before we get into the game, I just wanted to bring up something I saw on your bio. It says here you’re known for your circus skills, and I just wanted to say how that awesome that is. And I wanted to ask, where do you study that? Because I don’t know if your average community college offers that type of training.

K: You might get a juggling course, but maybe not everything that I do. I’ve actually been doing a bit of circus stuff for a while. I’ve been doing fire eating, breathing, twirling performance, stilts, juggling, walking ball, and aerial. It started off just kind of knowing the right people and hanging out with them, and then getting involved with different circus troupes and doing a little bit of circus myself. Now I’ve kind of created this alter ego, Eva La Dare, that I get to use as my sexy circus outlet, if you will. [Note: Here's a video of Eva La Dare in action. I'd say it's mildly NSFW because she's eating fire in a sort of exotic dance setting.]

N: And how’s that working out? Is the circus business booming, or… I have no idea. That’s a world…

K: It is booming! And you know why? Well it’s just so damn interesting to look at, for one. You might have noticed Christina Aguileira had some circus stuff in her latest tour. T. Pain’s whole album was about being the ring leader, and I was actually on tour with T. Pain doing fire and stilts as my alter ego for his last tour; I just got off tour in February. And of course now Brittney is on tour with her Circus album. So it’s not doing too bad.

N: Alright, well. It was just something that like, wow, that’s sorta unusual. I don’t really read about that too often.

K: Anything that’s unusual and daring I’m usually into. It didn’t take me long to want to pick up a few skills. Someone would come along and say, “Hey do you want to eat some fire?” I’d be like, sure!

N: Who doesn’t!

K: Yeah, you know, willing. As long as you’re willing you’ll learn.

N: Excellent. All right, now I guess we can get to the reason why we’re here, Resident Evil 5. You’re the voice Sheva and you also did the motion capture, right?

K: That is correct, I did both. Quite a wild ride.

N: How did you first get involved with that? Who contacted whom? How does that even go about happening?

K: Well you know it’s funny. My experience with motion capture beforehand, I had only just done a couple of small games. Through a contact that I had worked with they recommended me to Capcom because they were having this search for someone who can handle the activities and the movement and the voice and everything that they needed for Sheva. And when I met with them I went through a series of tests. We did some green screen shoots, I went and got some training with guns and rifles because it was very important that I could do all the activity with my left hand. I’m a right-handed person and Sheva is left-handed. I had to make it look convincing. They made me jump through a couple of hoops and in the end they were happy with keeping me on. So I got the part!

N: And you did a good job, I would say. I mean I beat the game probably like three of four times. So, yeah, it was very convincing. So I wanted to know how long was that whole process, from the first day at the office till lights out, go home now. How long did that whole thing take?

K: I think it was a lot longer than most games. I was brought on in September of 2007. Up until that time they were still making the designs and the look of the characters, the background and the story. They’d been working on that since earlier in 2007. When I got brought in it was September of 2007. I went through a series of training with the green screen shoots. I don’t know how much you know about the background of how they developed this game, but we went through shooting the whole cinematic script on a green screen process that took the whole month of December 2007. So between September and December it was more about the training and getting familiar with the character. In December we did the green screen shoot, and then Capcom made their changes and decisions about what we would do for the next phase, which was the motion capture, which we started in January, which we did in phases throughout the year till about April. I started working on some of the voice earlier in that part of the year in 2008 and continued coming back for more voice sessions throughout the year all the way till about September, October of 2008. Between then and the game’s release there might have been a couple of pick-ups, not a lot. But yeah, a year, over the course of a year working on the same game which I hear is kind of unheard of. I feel like I’ve been totally spoiled by this whole experience.

N: Well it was a very big production. It doesn’t really get much bigger than that.

K: It was a huge production. Doing all the motion capture here in L.A. and using a film director in the Hollywood business. There was a lot of firsts for them.

N: Do you consider yourself a gamer at all, had you played any of the previous Resident Evil games? It’s one of the biggest franchises out there.

K: I haven’t played the earlier ones. I played Resident Evil 4 and really enjoyed that one. As far as games, I can’t say that I’m a hardcore gamer yet.

N: Oh, yet!

K: I say the word yet because now this has totally opened a whole new world to me and I’m attending a lot of my first conventions. I love the arcade games. I’m a big Time Crisis fan.

N: Oh, really?

K: Oh yeah. I love Time Crisis. Anything that I can actually use the prop in my hand I’m a big fan of. I’ve gotten used to—shooting real guns? That’s fun, you know? When I play Resident Evil 5 I get used to using my thumbs; I’m getting better. Especially with things like the Wii, the more interactive it is the more interested I’ve become. It’s opened a whole new world to me.

N: That’s actually tremendous. Now they’re developing all these motion controls, it’s supposed to be more immersive, this that and the third. I imagine more and more people will be gamers as the years go by.

K: Yeah, I can see it. It’s inevitable because everyone will want to be active in that way.

N: Yeah. Can you take us through the average day of production? Because you watch a documentary or whatever and you see Hollywood stars waking up at 4am to put on make-up and they’re working 17-hour days. Was it that arduous for you?

K: For me, I did have a pretty hectic schedule because I was in every scene. For me, and of course Ruben playing Chris Redfield, we probably had the bulk of the schedule to do. In the green screen shoot, we had the make-up call because we went through full make-up and full costumes for the green screen shoot. And the days were long. I would say at least 12-14 hours at the bulk of it, with the motion capture. My background, physically, has been mostly in dance and circus. I did sports in my school days and stuff; I’m pretty active. But I still had to get a lot of stunt training because I did my own stunts in the game.

N: That was going to be my next question. What type of training was involved? I imagine you’d have to be pretty physically fit to be jumping around all day doing motion capture.

K: Yeah, but I love the jumping around! I’m a pretty tough girl. At first, they were going to have a stunt double for me, but as we went through the process and they realized that I didn’t mind throwing myself around, I seemed to do it ok, they didn’t end up getting a double for me. All the training was basically on the set as we were going though it. When we would have the fight sequences come up, of course there would be a coordinator who was telling me how to do this, how to do that, how to make it look convincing. Within those long days they were very physical at the same time. As you can imagine, with all the gunplay—there was a lot of running away from zombies.

N: You’re not just sitting behind a desk all day…

K: No, it’s not a behind-the-desk job at all. So there is some truth to that, having the long days. The setups, too, especially in the motion capture process. They have to be so precise with the props and the set as far as spacing because it has to match when they put it in post-production, so there’s a lot of waiting between setups. You know, hurry up and wait.

N: I was literally just going to say that, hurry up and wait, but I didn’t want to sound…

K: Yeah, hurry up and wait. And when you’re not waiting you’re going full blast, no pun intended. But it was so much fun, because it really was like playtime. We had such a great cast and crew. The attitude was always fun, and everyone was focused on getting the game done and making it the best it could be, so it really was like playtime most of the time. It didn’t feel like work.

N: Are you now a licensed gun owner now, or did you get specific training?

K: I’m certified to use rifles and pistols. There’s another program that you go through that allows you to buy weapons. At the moment I’m not really interested in owning my own weapons. I have enough friends who have weapons that I can go the range. So I’m not owning any weapons at the moment, but I am certified to use them.

N: That’s awesome. I’m not a gun owner, but I’m not Mr. Anti-Gun, so it’s all sort of fascinating to me, the whole culture I guess. Now when I was playing the game, I just sort of classified Sheva’s accent as a sort of British accent. What did you base her voice on, is it just a generic British accent?

K: It went though a couple of changes. Her parents are from Africa, she was born there. She doesn’t grow up there, her parents die when she’s really young and she gets shipped to Europe where she spends most of her childhood. Capcom was trying to find this middle ground of what she would sound like. There was a lot more African in the beginning but she wasn’t there for most of her life so they decided to go with a more British accent. It’s funny because there’s still a hint of African in there, which you know makes sense if that’s the culture she’s from. So that’s how we came up with it.

N: Do you do other accents? Is voice talent another one of your skills, can you break into a French accent if you wanted to, or…

K: Probably not a French accent, no. My parents are Jamaican, so definitely there’s a Jamaican accent in me. I grew up in Miami so I can pull out a Spanish accent. As far as voice, this credit has been really great in getting more work and opening that door for me more. I really love doing voice-over and sometimes I’m just using my regular voice in doing narration in commercial and stuff like that. Yeah this game has opened so much opportunity for me in that area.

N: Is voice acting something where you need to know someone who knows someone, or can you literally just show up to auditions and suddenly you’re some big guy.

K: I’ve been an actress all my life, and I’ve always had an agent for theatrical and commercial work. I know other voice actors who got into the game really early but I’m finding out now that it is a clique to get into. There are specific voice agencies that handle most of the submissions for voice-over work. If you’re not with them you’re probably not hearing about the work going on. It’s very difficult to just show up at a voice-over audition because most of the time they’re just sent in by tape through the agency or online. It’s not like showing up at an audition, just showing up at a certain place. It takes a while to get into as far as getting representation. Some people have done it by credits with people they know. A lot of it is word of mouth, that definitely helps.

N: Ok, well now I know.

K: Why, are you starting a voice-over career?

N: No, no. My brother, he’s studying dramatic writing at college so now I’m being exposed to the Hollywood scene, maybe, the production side of it. It’s just sort of interesting. Now, I just wanted to touch on the supposed controversy. When you guys were working on the game, did you feel that Capcom was being racially insensitive by setting the game in Africa, and all that the entails. Was that ever a concern, or is this all just a bunch of bologna?

K: I’ve addressed this question from day one, as you can imagine. Yeah, it is a bunch of bologna. I find it funny because if the game was never set in Africa then you’d have people complaining about that. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. There was a huge uproar a E3 2007, where it was just the Chris Redfield character in the trailer. At that time the development of Sheva was not even done, and they had started developing that character, and I have all the notes to prove it, from early 2007, but you know Chris Redfield is an established character; they already know what he’s about. So by the time I came in September 2007 they still weren’t done with how she was going to look, she was still being created so there was no way of being done by that E3. Unfortunately when people didn’t see anything but Chris in Africa I guess it had a reaction that was not totally all the way positive. She wasn’t an afterthought. This is a co-op game, it takes a lot more time to just whip that together. It seems a little bit ridiculous to just do that as a type of reaction and say all of a sudden yeah let’s make it co-op.

N: Yeah, I just wanted to get a sort of behind-the-scenes perceptive on that. I just read those things and it’s like, why am I reading this? It’s just absurd.

K: The whole time I was on set there was nothing racial, you know? I did not feel—I cannot imagine that if I was being offended that I would have stayed for a whole year, you know? That I was being totally abused racially, why would I have stayed?

N: Ok, I have an answer now, thank you. Now you’ve worked on a number of different mediums like TV, film and stage. Do you have a favorite? If you could only do one for the rest of your live would you pick or do you like them all equally?

K: I love being diverse. I love having the variety. With all my little extra skills I never get a moment to be bored. It seems like every week I’m working on a different project. I love being challenged, I love having different things to do. Gosh, if I had to pick one I wouldn’t really want to. I would say at the top it would definitely be film because I also make my own films, I love to write and produce. It was my first love, getting into the business. Motion capture, especially with games and film and animation, has become a very close second because I’m finding that my skills come in handy on a lot of projects in that genre that would not totally play out on television and film. I have much more freedom in casting character wise to play different roles than I’d be able to play in television and film if you had to see my face or be a cetain body type. So I love the freedom in that. So those two would be my top.

N: Now, we are a tech site at CrunchGear, so I’m gonna ask you a few tech-related questions. Nothing too crazy.

K: I hope I can answer them!

N: No, it’s not like how to fix your printer or anything like that. It’s nothing that boring, I swear. What type of phone do you use?

K: I’m an iPhone girl!

N: Oh, you are! Do you have the new one?

K: I don’t yet, but I’m gonna get it. I’m really excited by it. I’m sick of looking at my phone now when that one’s out there.

N: Well, if you have an iPhone what’s your favorite app?

K: I’m so embarrassed to say this. It’s my Scrabble game.

N: Oh, there’s no shame in that.

K: I’m so addicted to this Scrabble game that I got an app for it. It’s that and my translator because I’m interested in different languages.

N: Well if you have an iPhone you must be a Mac fan right? Or do you not even care?

K: I’m a Mac girl! And I’m really happy to be one because I’m a new one, sorry Windows. I finally made the switch early this year and I have not looked back.

N: I’ve been using Mac for a few years now so I understand.

K: They’re awesome.

N: And I wanted to ask, do you know who John Biggs is?

K: John Biggs? Not by the name alone, should I?

N: No, you shouldn’t. I guess I have one more question. What’s next for you? What are you doing now and what are you looking forward to?

K: Well, you know in the video game world you really can’t talk too much, so I can’t talk about that.

N: Can you say what company it’s for?

K: I probably shouldn’t.

N: Meh, then don’t, no big deal. But it’s a game we now know!

K: Yeah I probably shouldn’t. You think you’re saying little and then all of a sudden [gasp!] you get that reaction somewhere. But I do work on that Robert Zemeckis film called Christmas Carol coming out this voice-over with Jim Carrey and I actually get to use my circus skills.

N: Tremendous. Ok well I don’t want to take up all you’re time so I’ll let you go now. Thanks for the chat.

K: Well I’m glad everyone enjoy the game, thank you!

Yep, that’s right, there’s going to be another Resident Evil film. This one is called Resident Evil: Afterlife and currently has a release date of Spetember 17th 2010. Milla Jovovich will probably be returning but it hasn’t been confirmed and there is also no word about Paul Anderson returning as director. The other three Resident Evil films haven’t been very good so I’m not expecting much from this one but I would like to see a good Resi film. I haven’t saw Resident Evil: Degeneration yet but it could be the good Resi film I looking for.

Most people think that Resident Evil 4 reinvented the series for the better so maybe the fourth film will do the same.

Okay I’ll review each game separately and let’s start of with the first.

Resident Evil(1)

This is the first ever Resident Evil game released and the first game to carry the genre survival horror. Remember that Resident Evil 0 was made after the first three games as a prequel to the original Resident Evil.The story begins with reports showing that there were animal like attacks near the Arklay Mountains. STARS Bravo Team was dispatched to investigate. The STARS Alpha Team was then dispatched when they lost contact with the Bravo Team. The horror begins when they found Bravo Team’s Helicopter and they were chased by a pack of what appears to be mutated dogs. Alpha Team was forced to take refuge inside the Spencer Mansion.

From here on you’ll play either as Jill Valentine or as Chris Redfield. Jill is able to carry more items but is easily injured compared to Chris. But she has the capability of using lockpicks. Chris on the other hand is stronger than Jill but is unable to carry a lot of items. Chris uses small keys to open some doors instead of lockpicks. Jill’s storyline is easier, especially with another of the Alpha Team, Barry, always there to assist her. Chris will eventually be accompanied by Rebecca Chambers, a member of the Bravo Team as the game goes along. There are different type of endings that you can get. This depends on whatever choices you made during the course of the game. The ending may feature all of your team surviving or some may have died. There is also an ending where the enemies were destroyed and an ending that shows the monsters being able to escape through the woods.

This is probably one of the scariest game of it’s time. Step aside the cheesy dialogue and this is an adventure you’ll never forget. A remake was made for Gamecube featuring an entirely new graphics, improved dialogue, and better FMVs. I haven’t played the remake yet since I don’t have a Gamecube. And EMUs for Gamecube does not fully support this game yet. But hopefully once EMUs were able to support this, I’ll definitely play the Remake. Since I won’t be able to review the Remake anytime soon, here’s a clip for your viewing.