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Dead eyes

Bet you never expected the worst affliction you'd pick up from slaughtering zombies is eyestrain. Most reviewers are in agreement with us - Dead Rising is a hell of a lot of fun. What isn't fun is trying to read the game's tiny text if you're playing the game without a crisp, clear and huge HDTV. If you're stuck in standard definition, the text in the game is so tiny that - even on a decent-sized TV - it's hard or impossible to read, rendering some of the game's content unplayable.

Fortunately, gamers are taking it to Capcom:posts on the company's official forumhave pointed out the problem. WickedKitty, a moderator, comments that "we have heard your concerns and take them seriously. I have been seeing campaigns on other forums to send hundreds of emails to our support email." To think that nobody at Capcom or Microsoft thought to test this game on a standard definition television before printing up hundreds of thousands of copies... well, that's about as believable as a zombie infestation in a suburban mall, really.

Suggestion: ask for bigger text

Assuming you can actually read the game's text and are successfully playing it now, head on over to Capcom's website to fill out asurveyon Dead Rising. Bear in mind that the survey assumes you actually own the game... so don't try and fill it out just because you want to win a free TV. Fortunately, the text of the survey is a lot more legible than the text in the game. The irony here is that the prize is an HDTV... which you more or less need to own already, if you want to play the game. Nice work, Capcom!

Gears of brotherly love

Interested in Gears of War? Sure, who isn't? Well, people who don't own and don't plan to buy Xbox 360s, presumably, but let's forget about them for now... and takea dive into the mind of Cliffy B, the sexy superstar designer and rumored hair-gel headshot model in charge of the game's development. Gearheads of War, a fansite for the game, has posted a brand newinterviewwith Mr. Bleszinski that touches on such fascinating issues as the logistics of its pompous "Emergence Day" release plan and, asking perhaps the most important question, "Is the game fun yet?" According to the B, there will be a demo on Xbox Live Marketplace before it hits stores, so you'll be able to find out for yourself whether you want to ram a chainsaw into the head of a ravenous subterranean alien. Y'know... just in case you didn't already know. Does it make it any weirder that the interview was conducted by his older brother? We're not sure.

Bonk's back

In case you haven't been paying attention, Hudson - the house that Bomberman built - has arisen from its monolithic slumber and wants to become a force in US gaming once again. While the latest issue of Official Xbox Magazine wasn't too friendly to the so-extreme-it-hurtsBomberman Act: Zero, that's hardly stopping it. Dementia, a moderator on its official forum, has teased hardcore fans withnew imagesof classic character Bonk (of Bonk's Adventure fame, natch) and the tagline "A taste of things to come?" While the artwork is more than a little mediocre, we have to wonder what the future holds for Bonk (besidesa new cell phone gameanda confirmed place on Nintendo's Virtual Consolefor the Wii.)

Nintendo crows over Brain Age

Today, Nintendo spammed out a press release gloating over the sales of its non-game Brain Age, but when you stop and think about it - which you should be better at by now, assuming you've been playing it - it's actually pretty interesting. The game has sold over 3 million copies in Japan since its launch, 15 months ago. That's not a surprise, given the date. But did you realize that they've sold over 600,000 copies of the thing since it hit the US in April? Europe followed in June, and it's already up past 500,000 there - for combined total sales of over 4 million copies. For a game that obviously took 5 people about 20 minutes to make. Not bad...

Frak yes!

Although it will probably be a spoiler-fest for folks who haven't yet plowed wide-eyed through the first two seasons ofBattlestar Galactica, the popular sci-fi series is slated to slide a recap episode onto the Xbox Live Marketplace. Designed to remind you what happened prior to the third season's debut on October 6, the episode seems like a slick marketing tool for hooking more viewers into the saga than something, actually, y'know, interesting.

Telling the tale of the destruction of human life and the rampage of the Cylons, a race of evil robots - and sexy ones, too - it's narrated by one of the lead characters and will doubtlessly gloss right over major, major events in the rush to get the story told fast. All the same, the rumor is that the folks on Xbox Live might get to see it before anyone else, but we're not so sure - while owners of the BSG 2.5 DVD boxed set will get it in September, it'll be broadcast first on NBC on August 13. That doesn't leave much time.

What's the upshot again?

August 10, 2006