In the most surprising and unlikely gaming mash-up in recent months, we can confirm that Capcom and Valve are teaming up on a cross-game Resident Evil 6 and Left 4 Dead 2 project. Owners of both games will now be able to play as the other franchise’s characters respectively, but it appears that this exciting revelation is only going to be available on PC – not console.

This has come out of nowhere it seems, with no rumors sneaking out prior to the announcement which is almost unheard of in today’s industry. Starting from April 5 though, Capcom has said that Resident Evil owners will be able to play as Coach, Nick, Ellis and Rochelle from Left 4 Dead 2, in the The Mercenaries No Mercy mode which is exclusive to PC.

Meanwhile, owners of Left 4 Dead 2 will be able to take on some of the villains that featured in Resident Evil 6, villains that have been created by Valve using the Steam Workshop. The Left 4 Dead 2 Resident Evil 6 update will be happening sometime in Spring, but best of all – both are going to be completely free to enjoy which is fantastic.

What isn’t so good news, is the fact that this appears to be exclusive to PC gamers only. That means that Xbox 360 owners with a copy of Left 4 Dead 2 and Resident Evil 6 will miss out, while PS3 fans are certainly going to be left off the left as well considering that the Left 4 Dead series hasn’t even made it to Sony’s console yet.

Whether it is cross platform or cross game initiatives, we would love to see developers do a lot more of this in the future, especially with the shift over to next-generation consoles. We’ve seen the likes of Kingdom Hearts, Marvel vs Capcom, Street Fighter X Tekken to name a few – but what other dream mash-up games can you think of, that would be great to see in the future?

What about a Marvel Vs DC game? – that would be pretty interesting to do. Let us know your thoughts on the upcoming RE6 and Left 4 Dead 2 crossover.

The game is now available to buy on multiple platforms and received mixed reviews, as you’ll see in our review roundup here. If you have the game on console at the moment, you’ll be interested to find out that someone has already managed to crack open the game and reveal content that is currently not available on the disc.

A video we’ve included below confirms that Capcom has plans to release a new difficulty mode into the game called ‘No Hope’. which will replace the ‘Pro’ mode as the most difficult mode in the game. While it sounds good, the problem is that the mode isn’t available to unlock right now, meaning that Capcom may have plans to charge for it at a later date.

Several other discoveries have been made as well, such as extra costumes and taunts, but we’ve since learned that these can be unlocked in the game by simply progressing through Mercenaries mode. Having said that, a new character may be coming at a later date, after it was discovered that one of the taunts features a soldier that you currently can’t access.

He looks a lot like Ada Wong’s partner in the co-op part of the game, so are Capcom planning to shock everyone again by locking extra characters away on the disc, so that they can charge for it later on after interest has died down a little bit?

Capcom has already responded to the onslaught of on-disc DLC complaints – admitting that there will be one piece of DLC that is already on the disc, but maintaining at the same time that ‘virtually all content will not be on the disc’. They’ve also said that the reason to include that one piece of DLC on the disc is down to ‘technical’ reasons.

Do you own a copy of Resident Evil 6? What are your thoughts on Capcom’s continued stance on locking away content on the disc?

After the far from perfect review scores for the game, this is a fresh headache for Capcom and a far serious matter as well since digital players are being blocked from playing along side those who have the disc version of the game – if you can believe that.

The original problem appears to have been fixed though, which stopped all digital owners of the game from playing the game full stop. Now all you have to do if you are getting the error code 80029513 as mentioned above, is uninstall and reinstall the game – bypassing the initial patch prompt which caused the game to freeze the first time.

Capcom has stated that a further patch is on the way asap to solve the problem where digital players cannot play with disc players and it should be available ‘imminently’ according to Capcom’s statement. Not being able to play the game at all though is pretty poor you have to say though, we can only imagine how frustrating that must have been for those that opted for the digital version ahead of the retail copy.

You can read the problem thread in full over at the official PlayStation Forums – 22 pages of constant complaints from users who are all experiencing the exact same problem. Capcom has asked for patience while they work to fix the situation, but has your patience actually run out with the developer?

Let us know if you had this problem yesterday with the game and if you are still unable to play the digital version of Resident Evil 6.

After the below par Resident Evil 5, gamers are expecting big things from Resident Evil 6. The demo provided an excellent preview of the new style of gameplay compared to the last game and we were actually pretty impressed with what we saw. It looked like an instant improvement on RE5 in our opinion, but some of the reviews that have been published have been less favorable to the game and Capcom may be in for a shock once they see some of the scores.

Some of the lowest scores have come from sites like Destructoid, who scored the game a paltry 3/0 stating that it is like a Michael Bay movie – not in a good way obviously. They also felt the need to say that Resident Evil 6 is “a step back for the series” and “a step back for commonplace, unassuming action-shooters.”

It’s a similar story over at The Verge’s review, as they have said that Resident Evil 6 “resembles one of its own grotesque mutations” – ouch. Thankfully, there are some kind words for Capcom’s latest shooter, as one of the more favorable reviews have come from CVG, who have praised the amount of content in the game, with a particular mention for co-op mode which ‘makes everything better’.

Elsewhere down the list, it really is a mixed bag with scores all the way across the spectrum. IGN has given the game a decent 7.9/10, while Eurogamer hasn’t been afraid to dish out a 6/10 score and face Capcom’s wrath. Are you shocked by some of the scores we’re seeing here?

More importantly, are you still planning to get the game on Tuesday despite the far from perfect review scores? No doubt that Capcom are not going to be happy with some of the scores given, but do they only have themselves to blame on this occasion? Check out some of the reviews below and let us know your thoughts on this.

Eurogamer – 6/10

IGN – 7.9/10

Destructoid – 3/10

The Verge – 4/10

CVG – 8/10

As usual with achievement reveals, there’s going to be a fair amount of spoilers involved, so we don’t advise reading the list if you want to find out everything for yourself to keep the excitement factor maintained. If you don’t care, you should read on over to Xbox360 achievements as they have the full list, with 1000 points to your gamerscore up for grabs.

We can tell you that there are even 6 secret achievements for you to unlock, but luckily these have been kept hidden so you’ll have to find them yourselves even if you view this list – they are worth 15 points each. Two of the biggest achievements have been named as ‘Leave it to the Pro’ – where you have to complete the game on the highest difficulty and ‘Mad Skills’ – max out all of the skills in the game. If you complete both of these, you’ll get an instant 180 points to your overall total.

With the game not due out until October 2nd, it’s quite astonishing at how these achievements manage to leak so early. If you didn’t know already, these achievements also confirm that you’ll be able to play as Ada Wong in campaign mode, so that should excite those of you who liked her in previous games.

Are you fairly confident that you’ll be able to gain every single achievement on view here? Let us know if you’re getting Resident Evil 6 at launch or not.

As you can see from the image above, it looks pretty nice doesn’t it and definitely something which we wouldn’t mind rocking ourselves when the heavens open. Believe it or not, Capcom appears to have a fetish for the physical umbrella, as it isn’t the first time that they have given away umbrellas as free items.

The company also had a Resident Evil 4 umbrella to give away way back in the days of the Nintendo GameCube, although that one definitely isn’t as sexy as the one you see above. If you’re interested in getting hold of one, you better act soon as Capcom has said on their blog that supplies are already limited.

The downside is that you’ll have to pay the full $59.99 retail price on Capcom’s web store, but this is the only place that you’ll be able to pick up an Umbrella umbrella. Having said that, those of you who have already pre-ordered the game elsewhere but still want the umbrella – there is a solution for you.

We’ve noticed in the collectibles section of Capcom’s web store, the umbrella is available separately for a price of $16.95. The status at the moment though is backordered, so hopefully Capcom are working on getting more stock in asap. Do you wish more developers came up with more unusual pre-order bonuses like this?

What is the most unusual item that you’ve ever received from pre-ordering a game? Resident Evil 6 is out October 2nd.

Today we wanted to touch on Resident Evil 6 locations and the campaign length, which is ideal for newcomers to the franchise or those of our readers that haven’t kept up with the latest happenings surrounding the next installment. Resident Evil 6 is going to be interesting, especially for newbies, and it will feature three story modes with connected storylines, and each of these scenarios has playable characters with partners, which is pretty familiar for people that have played previous Resident Evil games.

The Resident Evil 6 locations are likely to include Edonia, Eastern Europe, Tall Oaks, Raccoon City, Lanshiang China, Washington D.C. and possibly more. You can read detailed insight for each of these locations via this article, although some of these areas have been rumored for a while now.

Most gamers are going to love the Resident Evil 6 campaign length, which is said to be 30 hours when you take the 3 story modes into account. If you play as each of the three characters then you should expect the game to last around 10 hours for each character, although some veterans might complete things a bit quicker. The only thing that can let the game down now is a story that doesn’t pull you in enough.

Is Resident Evil 6 a day one purchase for you? Unless the Resident Evil 6 gets a delay you can expect the release date to be October 2, and the game will land on PS3, Xbox 360, and PC platforms. We have included 26-minutes of gameplay below, so check it out if you haven’t seen this video before. You can also see around 60-minutes of gameplay in an earlier article here, which details each of the playable characters.

For those that don’t particularly care for cutscenes too much and just want to get on with the actual meat of the game, this may raise an eyebrow or two. For reference sake, Resident Evil 5 only had 65 minutes of cutscenes and Resident Evil 4 before it ‘only’ had just over two hours.

Four hours plus is certainly a lot of cutscene content, certainly a duration that Square-Enix would be proud of. The discovery was made by Game Informer as Capcom had to send the total cutscene content in Resident Evil 6 to the British Board of Classification so that the came could be rated. Unsurprisingly and probably pleasing to you – Resident Evil 6 is going to carry an 18 rating in the UK.

Some of these cutscenes could be seen in the demo that is now available to Dragons Dogma buyers on the Xbox 360. The interesting question that some of you are probably asking yourselves now though, is whether these four hours of cutscenes are skippable or not. If you’ve played Final Fantasy games, you’ll know that the majority of cutscenes cannot be skipped and is often a sign of frustration to those that just want to get on with the action.

Do you think that Capcom are overing doing it a bit here, or are you happy that the game is tailored around the whole ‘movie feel’ to it? We’ve seen the cutscene quality in the demo and we’re not too bothered actually.

There is a lot of pressure on Capcom’s shoulders to deliver with their latest Resident Evil game after RE5, but after seeing early glimpses of the game at E3 and other events – we’re considerably impressed with the way the game is shaping up. Resident Evil 6 is actually pretty unique as it gives you the opportunity to play three separate campaigns from the very offset, using three different characters.

Each character is different and offers a completely different style of gameplay and it is a great idea that Capcom has implemented to give the game a new lease of life and add that element of variation that the series badly needed after Resident Evil 5.

The demo gives you your first taster of this, as Xbox 360 players will be able to choose from either Leon Kennedy, Chris Redfield or Jake Muller. Each player has a respective parter to join the adventure and in Leon’s case, we see a stunning cutscene featuring his partner Helena Harper right at the start of the demo when Leon has no choice but to take out the president who has now become a zombie.

For a demo, you have to say that the content that Capcom has put on the table four months before release is very generous indeed. We wouldn’t have complained if Capcom chose to just give us one of the three campaign teases, but to include all three is very nice of the developer.

Unfortunately though, it is a shame that the game has once again become subject to exclusivity agreements. Microsoft has partnered with Capcom to ensure that DLC arrives first on the Xbox 360 and it is a big blow for PS3 users who still have to wait until September to get their hands on this same demo.

We’re guessing that the fact that the very first Resident Evil game arrived on the PlayStation 1 before any other platform in 1996 counts for nothing now and the real deal breaker for many developers now is how much money they can manage to get from either Sony or Microsoft.

It sounds harsh, but that really is the reality right now. Another classic example is Activision putting the Tony Hawks Pro Skater HD remake on Xbox 360 first, when the series basically made its name on the PS1. It shouldn’t be a surprise though any more, especially with Resident Evil 6 since this exclusivity deal was announced a while back.

For now though, the demo remains exclusive on the Xbox 360. Have you played it? What are your thoughts of the new look game? We think it is looking rather impressive – would you agree?

After the mixed reception for Resident Evil 5 and Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City, there’s obviously a big weight on Capcom’s shoulders to deliver with Resident Evil 6. From the initial gameplay that Capcom has shown, we’re very impressed with what we have seen so far as Capcom seems to be making an effort to try and bring the series back to its horror roots that gamers grew to love on the PS1.

In the three main gameplay videos that we have to show you, we see Capcom demo footage using Leon Kennedy first, then Chris Redfield and then finally Jake. We have to say that the graphics are looking great and we’re guessing this gameplay has been taken from the first level of the game. It seems to be set in a university campus and naturally all the lights have been shut off, with Leon only having a torchlight to navigate his way around.

Unfortunately, there doesn’t appear to be much zombie action in the footage. Perhaps Capcom don’t want to reveal too much too early, as don’t forget the game will not be out until October. It’s good though that Capcom has given us these introductions to Leon, Chris and Jake, so true Resident Evil veterans will probably still appreciate this.

How is the game looking for you at the moment? We’ve seen a lot of criticisms already about the style of gameplay, but we think it looks great – certainly better than RE5 anyway.