Platform: (XBLM)

4 out of 5

For a measly five dollars, just go buy Dead Rising 2: Case Zero. This Xbox Live Arcade release does exactly what Capcom must have wanted it to do: It gets you totally pumped up to play more Dead Rising 2, so it's a good thing the full retail disc game is releasing at the end of September. Cynics might try to to call this a paid demo, but they would be completely objectively wrong. For the price, this is a damn bloody good time--and a fantastic value to boot.(full review)

Platform: (PS3N,XBLM)

3 out of 5

It seems like developers have been trying to modernize side-scrolling beat-'em-ups since that first quarter was dropped into a Double Dragon machine, and Klei Entertainment's Shank is just the most recent to give it a go. That's not to say that its affection for, and attempt to refine, the old-school stylings of the genre are the only things Shank has going for it. Really, Shank's greatest function is as a showcase for an angular and brutal art style which conspires with a fluid and also-brutal animation system to provide the game with a really sublimely violent and high-impact first impression. Shank teems with satisfying gameplay moments, and it's a sadistic pleasure to look at, but it's still haunted by the genre's two-headed specter of repetition and brevity.(full review)