It’s easy for fans of the “Resident Evil” series to get excited for any title that bears the name of the popular franchise. We got our first look at ORC last year at E3 in Los Angeles and this week Capcom released “Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City” on the PlayStation 3, XBOX 360 and PC and the toxic reviews are hitting the internet hard as the media has voiced its distaste for ORC.

As someone who feels he can look at things pretty objectively as a gamer and not as critical as many in the media world, I’ll try to be short and to the point and let you decide if “Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City” is for you.

Before I even popped the game into my XBOX, I decided to look into the story a bit to find out what exactly was happening in the series as I hadn’t played a RE since 4 released on the Nintendo GameCube. This is what I found:

It is September 1998 and the action centers on the ill-fated Raccoon City. When the Umbrella Corporation learns that one of its top scientists, Dr. William Birkin, plans to sell the experimental G-Virus to the US Government they order an elite team of Umbrella Security Service (U.S.S.) soldiers led by Hunk into their secret research facility to secure the only known sample of the virus. The operation takes a turn for the worse when Dr. Birkin injects himself with the last vial, mutating into a deadly creature, G-Birkin and over powering the team. During the battle the deadly T-Virus is leaked into the sewers and spread through Raccoon City, infecting the entire population.

Hearing of the outbreak, the U.S.S. team is given fresh orders to destroy all evidence of Umbrella’s involvement and silence anyone that might discover the truth. The Umbrella Biohazard Countermeasure Service (U.B.C.S.) are also deployed to help contain the situation. Meanwhile the US Government has quarantined the city and dispatched its own team of special operatives to determine the source of the mysterious outbreak. Caught up in the chaos are rookie police officer Leon S. Kennedy and Claire Redfield.

I immediately took interest as it sounded like a show JJ Abrams would have produced. You are part of a team who is sent in to clean up Umbrella’s mess and you have to do your job at any cost.

The first thing I noticed was that the controls were similar to those in the recent RE titles and much more user friendly. If you have played 3rd person (or even 1st person) shooters before, you probably won’t struggle much and will be able to jump right in and play.

Once you’re in the game, it doesn’t take long to pick out some of ORC’s flaws. The AI characters on your team lack “intelligence” and can be more of a hindrance than an asset. The level designs are a bit bland and though the framerates are smooth, even with a lot of detail going on, there just isn’t much visually that will blow away gamers. On top of that, the game is extremely dark. Not the fun dark that you could turn off the lights and get scared to, but rather dark to the point where you don’t even know if you are being attacked or not.

Another problem I had, is that this game is just tough. I don’t mind a decent challenge but I wanted to get the gist of this game in order to get a review up and even on the casual difficulty, I found myself running out of health and ammo way too fast and getting my ass handed to me by the very first creature that doesn’t resemble a human (though the glitching didn’t help much).

The reason it has taken a bit of time to get a review up is because I wanted to step away from the game and reexamine it with a fresh mind. Instead of trying to progress on my own, I called up a few friends and Co-Op’d it for a few hours.

This made me see the game in 2 different lights: either this is a horrible game that you should not even bother playing solo or this is a fun game that RE fans can play together Co-Op. Who doesn’t love the idea of plowing through zombies with some familiar “Resident Evil” content?

The bottom line is, don’t run out and buy this game with the full expectations of it being another installment of the “Resident Evil” series. It’s not, and fans will be able to get their hands on RE6 later this year. This is a game that won’t win game of the year but is pretty fun to play over PSN or XBOX with your buddies.

Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment today announces North American pre-order details for gamers who want to ensure their copy of Lollipop Chainsaw is reserved on launch day.  Take a peek inside Juliet’s closet and pick the hottest outfit of your choice!  Players who pre-order can customize the appearance of the sweet and sexy zombie-hunter, Juliet, with five unique looks.  Juliet won’t be in her birthday suit, but players have lots of options for how to dress her up to celebrate her 18^th birthday!  Check out the wide variety of character skins available with Lollipop Chainsaw pre-orders. Amazon: Add Juliet to your pinup collection and pop cherries with Rockabilly! Best Buy: Head bang with the Goth Girl outfit. Step into the Funk with Juliet’s golden Foxy Funk outfit. GameStop: Become the original chainsaw master with the legendary Ash from Evil Dead. Bonus for GameStop® PowerUp Rewards™ members – Get insane with Jimmy Urine from Mindless Self Indulgence.

After being delayed due to problems arising during the beta phase of the game’s release, Warner Bros. has announced a firm date for the release of the online shooter based on the Batman universe, “Gotham City Impostors”.

After playing the beta for the past month (on and off), I am looking forward to a polished version of this title. With character and weapon customization that can be unlocked through your levels, GCI is a comical game that many Batfans may enjoy.

Today Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and DC Entertainment announced that Gotham City Impostors will be available beginning February 7 in the PlayStation® Network (Americas) and Windows PC, and on February 8 in the PlayStation® Network (territories outside of the Americas) and Xbox LIVE®.

Gotham City Impostors is a download only title that will be available for the Xbox 360^® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, PlayStation®3 and Windows PC.  Fans of the game can go to www.GothamCityImpostors.com for the latest updates and news.

Word broke this week that due to the feedback given during it’s beta phase, ”Gotham City Impostors” would not be released in early January as previously scheduled. As of now, the title has been pushed back to an unknown date in February.

We will keep you updated when we get a new release date from Warner Bros.

Gotham City Impostors is a download only title that will be available in the Xbox LIVE^® Marketplace for the Xbox 360^® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, PlayStation®Network and Windows PC.  Fans can go to www.GothamCityImpostors.com for updates and news.

Odd question, I know, but if you are playing “Batman: Arkham City”, you may have across this little easter egg that was either placed to get fans talking or may mean more to the future of the franchise.

When we spoke to Paul Dini, writer of BAC, he said he always places subtleties in his comics that will get the fans excited. This may very well be one of those things.

If you played “Batman: Arkham Asylum”, you may have found the secret room with detailed plans of Arkham City. The writers and game designers obviously had planned the future of the franchise and in this case, we could be seeing Harley coming back in a bigger role should there be a future game. And if Paul Dini has his way, there will be.

The easter egg can be found on the desk in the Joker’s Funhouse next to Harley’s outfit from “Batman: Arkham City”. Rumor has it, if you find the test before the game is complete, you can hear Harley singing “Hush Little Baby” (confirm in the comments if you have experienced this) which may indicate that she has already given birth to the Joker’s child…mind blown.

Be sure to listen to our interview with Paul Dini for more about BAC and the future of the franchise.

Today “Batman: Arkham City” finally released to drooling Batman fans that have waited nearly 2 years to get their hands on the sequel. Last night, we went to the launch event at the GameStop in West Hollywood, California to talk to fans and….are you ready for this? Paul Dini himself!

We will be doing a full review of BAC but in the meantime, check out some of the photos from the even and listen to our exclusive interview with Paul Dini before it goes up on the podcast!