14 DAY TRIAL // Resident Evil 5 was one of the more innovative titles of the series, but that didn't prove to be something all that good. When the game designers decided to have the title take place during the daytime, they took a big risk and it was felt. Regardless of your enemies, their design, the sounds and the gameplay, things just aren't scary during the day. Survival-horrors and movies of the similar genre have but one goal, and that is to scare you. One of the primal fears of an individual is fearing that which they do not know. It's not death that's scary when you're hunted or chased by a pack of zombies, it's that you don't know which door they'll break through and feast on your brain.
Even Capcom saw that, and it is trying to liven up the game a little with some new content. The North American release of the Resident 5 Alternative Edition has received a lot of attention from its developers and they tried as much as possible to do a proper localization of the product. The first thing that Capcom did for its new release was to ask the fans in which format they would prefer the game. The fact that it decided to actually ask the players what they wanted to get from the game was a good-enough thing already, but its final decision was even better.
The developer, following the results of the poll that was up on its official site, reached the conclusion that it was a little too early to go full-DLC on the game, so RE5 Alternative Edition will be launched in America in both formats. For those that already own the original RE5, the Lost in Nightmares episode and costume pack will be available as DLC on February 17 on the Xbox 360 and a day later on the PlayStation 3. The second untitled content pack will become available on March 3 on the Xbox 360 and on March 4 on Sony's PS3. A new Mercenaries Reunion mode will be included that will add another eight new characters to the action, each with their own guns.
The other big announcement Capcom made today concerned the $50 Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition. This release will contain the game and all of its add-ons and the updates that will be ready by the time it launches, on March 9. Sony users will get the title on a single Blu-ray disk, while the Xbox 360 fans will get the additional stuff via a download code that comes with the package. RE5 AE's Japanese release for the PS3 will support the Sony motion controller, but it remains to be seen if it will also be featured in the American release. "We're in talks with Sony in North America and Europe about the motion controller," a Capcom representative said. "We're still waiting for clarification of their plans for the controller outside of Japan."