Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City

Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City is an upcoming 2012 third-person shooter video game for Microsoft Windows,PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, co-developed by Slant Six Games and Capcom, and currently scheduled for a release on March 20, 2012 in North America and March 23, 2012 in Europe. It is part of the Resident Evil series, being set around the same time as Resident Evil 2, Resident Evil 3: Nemesis and the two Resident Evil: Outbreak titles.

The game takes place during the events of Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, and is set in Raccoon City, whose residents have been turned into zombies after an outbreak of the t-virus, a biological weapon developed by the pharmaceutical company Umbrella. Players will take the role of an officer of the Umbrella Security Service (USS). They have a vastly different objective compared to the Spec Ops opposition: Members of the USS are tasked with destroying evidence of Umbrella's illegal activities, including killing survivors of the outbreak, while the Special Operations team has to expose the actions of the company. Operation Raccoon City will allow the player to make major "what-if" decisions such as killing Leon Kennedy, one of the main characters of Resident Evil 2 and the protagonist of Resident Evil 4.

There are six playable characters in the game, Vector, Spectre, Beltway, Four Eyes, Lupo and Bertha. Each have their own unique abilities; Vector (real name unknown) is the team's recon expert and is equipped with a cloaking ability, Beltway (real name Hector Hivers) is proficient in the use of explosives, Bertha (real name Michaela Schneider) is the team's medic, Spectre (real name Vladimir Bodrovski) is the team's surveillance class and sharpshooter, Four Eyes (real name Christine Yamata) is the scientist of the group with the ability to program the bio-organic weapons (BOWs), and then there is Lupo (real name Karena Lesproux) who is an Assault class/Team Leader as shown in a recent trailer. Alongside the single-player mode, the game will also offer four-player co-operative gameplay, which pits the USS against the US Special Operations task force.

The zombies in the game will be able to attack the player in a multitude of ways. A zombie that gets too close to the player will usually attempt to grapple the player, prompting the player to rapidly shake his analogue stick to avoid infection. Players who are unsuccessful in doing this will be "invisible" to nearby zombies for a limited amount of time whilst they are infected before their death in game. If a player is successfully bitten and later runs out of time after becoming infected, the player will lose control of their character and begin attacking their former teammates until shot in the head, allowing the player to respawn.

The game also utilizes a bleeding mechanic, meaning characters who have been badly wounded will be deemed "bleeding out", giving their screen a blood red hue and making them a higher priority target to nearby infected than the others.
There will be additional enemy types in the game besides zombies. BOWs that can be confirmed from E3 are Hunters, Lickers and Tyrants. Furthermore, the player will be able to control them under certain circumstances.

In December 2011, Capcom unveiled 'Heroes Mode', an online multiplayer feature allowing you to play classic hero characters such as Leon S. Kennedy, Claire Redfield, Jill Valentine and Carlos Oliveira, plus the villains Ada Wong, HUNK, Nicholai Ginovaef and an all-new character, called Lone Wolf.

The idea for the game came about during the development of Lost Planet 2. The May 2011 edition of the Official Xbox Magazine, released on April 5, shows an image of an individual in a gas mask along Umbrella, Inc. logo on the issue's cover. On November 1, 2010 Kotaku reported on a rumor that Slant Six Games, developer of SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Confrontation, was developing Resident Evil: Raccoon City. On its website, Slant Six Games wrote that it was currently developing "an amazing new project" that was unannounced, which was developed in conjunction with a "new publishing partner on a world class franchise."

As of March, 2011, Masachika Kawata estimated the game to be 45% complete. According to Kawata, there are currently discussions on introducing new "bio-organic weapon" enemy creatures into the game. Unlike previous iterations, Operation Raccoon City will allow players to run and shoot simultaneously.

Street Fighter X Tekken

Street Fighter X Tekken (Japanese: ストリートファイター X 鉄拳 Hepburn: Sutorīto Faitā Kurosu Tekken?)(pronounced Street Fighter Cross Tekken) is an upcoming crossover fighting game being developed by Capcom. The game was announced at the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con International by Capcom producer Yoshinori Ono. The game is set to release on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows and PlayStation Vita sometime in March 2012. The game will feature characters from both the Street Fighter franchise and Namco's Tekken series. As the game is being made by Capcom, with Namco being involved more in the licensing of the Tekken cast, the gameplay will be based on the 2D gameplay of Street Fighter as opposed to the Tekken series, and will feature projectile moves such as the Hadouken. Namco is currently producing their own take on the crossover, Tekken X Street Fighter, which will follow their own style of gameplay.

Being developed by Capcom, the core gameplay is similar to that of the Street Fighter series, incorporating elements such as Super Combos, as well as EX Attacks from Street Fighter IV. Players each choose two fighters from the Street Fighter and Tekken series, both sets of characters are controlled using the Street Fighter 6-button system, however it has been revealed that the Tekken characters will be able to perform Tekken style combos using the primary four buttons in a similar fashion to the Tekken 4-button system. These fighters can be switched out normally, or during certain combos. As fights go on, players build up power in a three sectioned meter at the bottom of the screen referred to as the "Cross Gauge", which allow the player to perform various techniques depending on how much of the gauge is filled, such as EX Attacks, Cancels, Super Arts and various Cross techniques detailed below. As opposed to the other crossover fighting games released by Capcom, in which the player must eliminate all the opponent's fighters to win, victory conditions are more similar to Tekken Tag Tournament, in which the first player to have one of their fighters' health bars reduced to zero loses the round, the player who wins the most rounds winning the match.

The tag team element of the game is heavily emphasized, with players being able to switch between the two characters in their team in a variety of manners. Switch Cancel allows players to switch partners in the middle of a combo, whilst Cross Rush combos involve launching the opponent into the air before swapping partners and continuing the combo. Cross Arts, which require a full Cross Gauge, allows players to chain together each character's Super Combo in one straight attack, whilst the Cross Assault mechanic allows players to simultaneously control both characters in their team until the Cross Gauge runs out.

Street Fighter X Tekken features two new game mechanics: the Gem System and Pandora Mode. Players equip up to three gems to their characters, which provide different stat boosts depending on the type of gem. Six varieties of gems exist: attack, defense, speed, vitality, assist, and Cross Gauge. Each gems and its effects are designated by a specific color, and will activate as the players fulfill certain conditions during battle. When a character on a player's team has less than 25% health remaining, that character can be sacrificed in order to activate Pandora Mode, which gives the remaining fighter increased strength and an infinite Cross Gauge. However, this state has a time limit and the player will automatically lose if he/she cannot defeat the opponent before the Pandora state runs out.

The game will feature various online options. Two players can battle on the same team, one controlling each character, and face off in four player matches. Scramble mode allows four players to fight simultaneously in pairs of two. The game will also support online training modes which can be played competitively or cooperatively with two players, as well as support the Fight Request feature.

Other Capcom games will be referenced in the game, such as Dino Crisis, which has a stage based around one of its levels.

Prior to tournament EVO 2010 at Las Vegas, Nevada, producer Yoshinori Ono was teasing a yet announced game which were initially believed to be a new Darkstalkers entry. Before EVO 2010's Super Street Fighter IV finals, Ono was confronted byTekken producer Katsuhiro Harada on stage after teasing more of the game that would officially be announced at the 2010 Comic-Con.

During the Super Street Fighter IV panel at Comic-Con, Harada appeared out of the crowd and went towards the stage while handing out free copies of Tekken 6, which was met with cheers and boos. Ono and Harada then confirmed the existence ofStreet Fighter X Tekken.[16] Both the teaser trailer and early gaming footage of Street Fighter X Tekken was also shown at Comic-Con. During the announcement, Harada also revealed that he has a related project under way, which is being developed by Namco. As Namco is in charge of production of this game, the gameplay will be similar to that of Tekken.

This is not the first time Namco and Capcom have made a game together as they released a Japan-only crossover game in 2005 for the PlayStation 2 titled Namco × Capcom. However, this game did not exclusively consist of characters from the Street Fighteruniverse and Tekken universe, but instead included various characters from the entire Capcom universe and entire Namco universe. Namco × Capcom was a role-playing game, thus making Tekken X Street Fighter and Street Fighter X Tekken the first games in the fighting game genre to be made by Namco and Capcom. It has been stated by Yoshinori Ono that a 3DS version of the game "should happen" but nothing has been officially revealed, information will be provided at Captivate 2011. The game was announced for PlayStation Vita at E3 2011, and will feature Cole from Infamous as a playable character. Downloadable content will be cross-compatible between both the PlayStation 3 and Vita versions of the game.

Capcom expects to sell 2 million copies worldwide by March 31, 2012.

Diablo III

Diablo III is an upcoming dark fantasy/horror-themed action role-playing game in development by Blizzard, making it the third installment in the Diablo franchise. The game, which features elements of the hack and slash and dungeon crawl genres, was first announced on June 28, 2008, at the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational in Paris, France.

The game takes place in Sanctuary, the dark fantasy world of the Diablo series. This world was saved twenty years prior by a handful of unnamed heroes in Diablo II, heroes who, having survived the onslaught brought by the armies of the Burning Hells, have gone mad from their ordeals. It is up to a new generation of heroes to face the forces of evil threatening the world of Sanctuary.

Players will have the opportunity to explore familiar settings such as Tristram.The only confirmed NPCs are Deckard Cain, who has appeared in both of the previous games, and his niece, Leah, a new character who accompanies the hero in quests from time to time. The plot will revolve around two surviving Lesser Evils, Azmodan and Belial, and an artifact known as the Black Soulstone. Diablo's world map is composed primarily of two main continents with several small islands in the Northwest region. The world of Sanctuary has been dramatically changed by the events of Diablo II: Lord of Destruction, for the destruction of the World Stone underneath Mount Arreat has reshaped the world's geography.

Diablo III is similar in style to its predecessor, Diablo II. The proprietary engine will incorporate Blizzard's custom in-house physics, a change from the original usage of Havok's physics engine, and feature destructible environments with an in-game damage effect. The developers are aiming to make the game run on a wide range of systems, and have stated that DirectX 10 will not be required. Diablo III will use a custom 3D game engine in order to present an overhead view to the player, in a somewhat similar way to the isometric view used in previous games in the series. Enemies will utilize the 3D environment as well, in ways such as crawling up the side of a wall from the depths into the combat area.

As in Diablo II, multiplayer games will be possible using Blizzard's Battle.net service, with many of the new features developed for StarCraft II also available in Diablo III. Players will be able to drop in and out of sessions of co-operative play with others.
An enhanced quest system, a random level generator, and a random encounter generator are slated for use in order to ensure the game provides different experiences when replayed. Overall, the game will include both static and randomly generated levels. Additionally, there will be class-specific quests to go along with the main storyline quests. Blizzard originally planned to have in-game cutscenes, but decided these would divert from the gameplay and decided against them. Three new armor pieces will be available: shoulder plates, arm-guards and leggings.

Unlike previous iterations, gold can be picked up merely by touching it, rather than having to manually pick it up. One of the new features intended to speed gameplay is that health orbs drop from enemies, replacing the need to have a potion bar, which itself is replaced by a skill bar that allows a player to assign quick bar buttons to skills and spells; previously, players could only assign two skills (one for each mouse button) and had to swap skills with the keyboard or mousewheel. Players can still assign specific attacks to mouse buttons.
Skill runes, another new feature, are skill-modifying items that are randomly dropped by monsters and used across all classes. Rather than changing equippable items as inDiablo II, they are instead attached to skills, often completely changing the gameplay of each skill. Skill runes also have the ability to make one particular spell in each class more powerful, and give the player options as to how the rune will enhance a particular spell. For example, investing skill runes on the wizard's "lightning" can allow the players to make the lightning jump onto additional enemies, or, alternatively, adding the runes with explosion effect blows the enemy up and causes damage to the surrounding area.

Development on Diablo III began in 2001 when Blizzard North was still in operation. The original artistic design differed from that shown at Blizzard Worldwide Invitational 2008 demonstration, and had undergone three revisions before reaching the standards felt necessary by the team behind Diablo III.

Diablo III's lead designer is Jay Wilson, a former Relic Entertainment designer credited with work on Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War and Company of Heroes as well as Blood II: The Chosen for Monolith Productions. Its lead world designer is Leonard Boyarsky, one of the six co-creators of Fallout.
The game is being planned for a simultaneous release on both Windows and Mac OS X platforms. Blizzard is considering a concept design for consoles, reportedly even hiring staff for a console version, while stating this concept will not affect PC/Macintosh release dates. The project’s lead designer Josh Mosqueira said that Blizzard is "very, very serious about bringing the Diablo 3 experience to the console". It was also revealed that the game would require a constant internet connection to play, even for single-player mode.

Russell Brower composed the music for Diablo III. When composing for the orchestra, he tried to respect the Wagnerian style from the expansion to the second game in the series, Lord of Destruction. The Overture is considered the main theme of the game and it has been performed by the Eminence Symphony Orchestra. A similar composition was used in the cinematic teaser trailer of the game. The Tristram theme from the first Diablo videogame, also used in the second game, is present in Diablo IIIwith few changes.

BioShock: Infinite

BioShock Infinite is an upcoming first-person shooter video game, and the third game in the BioShock series. Previously known as "Project Icarus", it is being developed by Irrational Games for a 2012 release on the Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 platforms. BioShock Infinite is not a direct sequel or prequel to previous BioShock games, taking place in an earlier period and different setting, though it features similar gameplay concepts and themes. The player controls a former Pinkerton agent, Booker DeWitt, as he attempts to rescue a woman named Elizabeth trapped aboard the collapsing air-city Columbia in 1912.

BioShock Infinite is a first-person shooter with role-playing game elements similar to the previous two games. As DeWitt, the player moves about the various structures of Columbia using a grappling hook, a series of railways connecting the buildings called the Skyline, and other transport means to search for Elizabeth. The player will gain weapons which can be used in numerous ways within the environment, including on the Skyline, to defeat enemies. DeWitt gains powers and abilities by using vigors and nostrums that are found through Columbia, the equivalent of BioShock's plasmids and tonics. Vigors grant activated powers such as telekinesis, electricity manipulation, or animal control (as seen by the manipulation of a flock of crows within the gameplay demo), while nostrums are passive abilities that can improve the player's strength or damage resistance. Unlike BioShock in which the player was able to use special Gene Banks to alter the loadout of plasmids and tonics they had, the choice to imbibe a certain vigor or nostrum is permanent and cannot be changed later in the game, placing emphasis on the consequences of the player's choices throughout the game. Infinite does not use EVE, the equivalent of magic points, for powering abilities gained by vigors or nostrums. Each container of vigor has a limited number of charges in it, and while more can be found around the game's environment, the player can only carry a limited number of vigors into battle, with more powerful vigors containing fewer charges. Nostrums are permanent changes to the character and cannot be removed once used. These come in two types, stable and unstable varieties, the latter referred to as "potlucks". Stable nostrums are more expensive, but the player knows exactly what effect applying the nostrum will gain them. Unstable nostrums are cheaper or can be found lying around the environment, but upon use, require the player to select one of four random effects to alter their character, an idea inspired by Heroes of Might and Magic according to Levine.

Once reunited with Elizabeth, who also has a set of such powers, the player must work together with her to escape Columbia. For example, Elizabeth can create a localized rainstorm on foes, which the player, as DeWitt, can then fire upon with an electricity-based attack, electrocuting the foes. The player will not be directly in control of Elizabeth, but instead she will react to the player and the current situation in a manner similar to the AI Director in Left 4 Dead, according to Levine. However, using Elizabeth's powers also harms her, an action compared to the choice of killing or saving the Little Sisters from the previous games. Elizabeth also has the ability to interact with the tears in the fabric of space-time, pulling objects from the other side to use within Columbia, escaping from battle through these, or repairing them. The player will need to protect Elizabeth, but will not need "to babysit and hand-hold" her through the game. Levine has stated that working with Elizabeth in the game is "in no way, shape, or form is this an escort mission", identifying that players reacted negatively to a late-game stage in the original BioShock in which they were tasked to protect a Little Sister.

Several different forces are at work opposed to the player's progress within the city. Furthermore, the player and Elizabeth are chased by both Songbird (sometimes simply referred to as "Him"), who is attempting to snatch Elizabeth from the player, and the Handymen (originally named Alpha), robotic-like monsters housing a human heart and head and with the ability to heal weaker units.

The Skyline is a rail-based system (originally designed for moving cargo around Columbia but later used for personnel transport) similar to the concept found in the Ratchet & Clank games and described by Levine as "a roller coaster, over another roller coaster, over another roller coaster"; players activate a wrist-mounted tool that DeWitt and other enemies wear to jump and hang onto the self-powered tracks. Players can jump onto, off of, and between Skyline tracks at any time, and may face enemies that use the system to attack; the player can use weapons in DeWitt's free hand to defend the character. The freedom of movement along the Skyline allows for several varieties of combat, including flanking, cover, and area-of-effect attacks through creative uses of the system.

Irrational Games has stated that the game's set pieces are not heavily scripted; this statement was made in response to reaction to a gameplay preview video released during the week of September 21, 2010, which, within ten minutes, demonstrated numerous elements of the game. The development team called the game's pacing "likeBioShock 1", and that while there will be some scripted set pieces, the developers want the player to be able to explore Columbia at their own pace. Unlike Jack or Delta, the silent protagonists of BioShock and BioShock 2 respectively, and who are guided by radio commands from a third party, DeWitt will be a vocal character, with dialogue designed to aid the player in leading DeWitt to complete his mission.

At the present time, Irrational Games has not committed to including a multiplayer element within the game. While the team will experiment with concepts for a multiplayer component, Levine has stated that they would only proceed forward if it had elements not otherwise found in multiplayer games like Halo or Call of Duty.

During Sony's E3 press conference on June 6, 2011 creative director Ken Levine announced on-stage that BioShock Infinite will support the PlayStation Move. Though some reports believed that a new Move controller would be produced for the game based on information from Sony, 2K Games debunked these stories, stating that no new hardware is being developed for the game.

BioShock Infinite was on display for the general video game audience at the 2011 E3, and won the "Best of Show" award from the Game Critics Awards, as well as "Best Original Game", "Best Action/Adventure Game", and "Best PC Game".

NeverDead

NeverDead is an upcoming video game, developed by Rebellion Developments and published by Konami for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. It is scheduled for release on January 31, 2012 in North America and February 3, 2012 in Europe.

The protagonist is an immortal and will be able to survive severe injuries. Over time, the player will lose body parts and will have to collect the removed limbs by rolling into them. Players can cause large objects to crush nearby enemies, harming them but not the player. Gameplay will also feature puzzle elements. A female partner will assist the player, however she will not be immortal and player will have to take damage to protect her.

The game is directed by Shinta Nojiri, and developed by Rebellion Developments.

The main soundtrack to the game is composed by Megadeth.