Mike Bracken's blog

I think we were all pretty excited by the idea of Gore Verbinski directing the cinematic adaptation of 2K Games' BioShock. Unfortunately, though, the global economy and other issues killed that dream and cast the future of the project into doubt—at least it did until last night.

Variety is reporting that director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo is currently in negotiations to take over the project.

While Fresnadillo isn't a household name, he did direct 28 Weeks Later—which was nice piece of apocalyptic zombie cinema. The style he displayed behind the camera in that film certainly gives me hope for BioShock.

This isn't official yet, but I'll keep you posted as details emerge.

This new trailer for Capcom's Wii-exclusive Resident Evil title (subtitled The Darkside Chronicles) debuted at Gamescon a few days ago. I was saving it for a slow news day—and lo and behold, that's exactly what today is.

This new clip is almost three minutes in length. It doesn't show any gameplay footage, but does spend a lot of time fleshing out the title's story. Truthfully, the story sounds like your typical Resident Evil tale—scientists playing god create horrible monsters who want to kill people.

I'm still interested in checking out the game. I have a weird fondness for the Resident Evil series' wonky narrative stylings and my Wii hasn't seen a lot of action lately. That will hopefully change when this game hits store shelves sometime this December.

Gamescon has brought us some interesting gaming news this week–but most of it has been mainstream gaming news and not horror gaming news. Despite this, I've managed to pick up a few odds and ends for my survival horror-loving brethren.

Here's the newest promo trailer for Ju-On: The Grudge—the video game adaptation of the popular Japanese horror film franchise. The game is headed to the Wii this October and maybe, just maybe, it'll finally give me a reason to turn my Wii on.

The trailer features the usual dingy visuals and moody music, but it also highlights some of the ways the Wii-mote will be used in game (it's a flashlight) and reveals that the game will score players on how calm they remain during the game's numerous scary moments.

Have a gander at the trailer and see what you think. Apparently, the game is set to retail for a mere $30, which should make it more appealing to gamers on the fence about whether or not they want to play it.

Usually when I bring you release date news, it's a movie shifting it's release date farther away. Such is not the case with today's news about Resident Evil: Afterlife.

Comingsoon.net is reporting that the fourth film in the popular franchise will now hit theaters on August 27th, 2010. This is a shift forward of several weeks. As reported before, Paul WS Anderson will write and direct and Milla Jovovich will be back as Alice.

Please mark your calendars accordingly.

With the September release date inching ever closer, Atlus is starting to really dole out the goodies when it comes to their PlayStation Portable re-imagining of Shin Megami Tensei: Persona. Earlier in the week we saw website updates (with more promised) and now we've got a lengthy video highlighting how the game has been upgraded, what's been added, and how the experience has been streamlined from the original PlayStation version from the '90s.

Some of the best gaming news I've heard this year revolved around the fact that Atlus is bringing the original Persona game to the PlayStation Portable. One of the earliest RPGs on the original PlayStation console (and the game that basically introduced most western audiences to the Shin Megami Tensei universe) is getting a port to Sony's handheld—along with a much needed facelift (we'll all finally be able to play the Snow Queen chapter).

If you swing by the game's official site (found here) you'll not only get a look at the game's packaging, but various other updates. Among these new additions to the site are: three new character profiles, two clips in the story section, clips of the Speedy Battles system, clips from the Snow Queen chapter, and two sample tracks from the game's soundtrack CD (a 2-disc add-in that will be available with every copy of the game).

If that (and the fact that this is a modern day occult RPG where you recruit demons to fight alongside you) doesn't get you off the fence on this game, then I don't know what to tell you. Atlus promises even more goodies for next week, though—so maybe something there will convince you that you need to play this game.

Persona hits the PSP in September of 2009.

I don't own an iPhone. I have an aversion to Apple products for some reason—but if I did plunk down my hard earned cash for something from Steve Jobs' technological empire, it would be the iPhone—the gaming possibilities alone make me lust after one.

I was fairly skeptical when it was announced that Dexter was coming to the iPhone as a game. I'd love to see a Dexter title (the show is great and certainly lends itself to becoming a game), but I didn't think this was the right platform. Give it to me on the Xbox 360 or PS3, and I'd be happy.

It's still too soon to tell if this adaptation will work or not, but these four new screenshots (courtesy of Games Press and available after the break) have me optimistic. The title looks like a PSP game at this stage—which is better than I expected. No firm release date has been set, but Dexter should be available for purchase later this year.

Dead Space was one of the better games of last year—an atmospheric blending of Event Horizon and Alien that gave me hope that maybe game developers can still come up with compelling original properties instead of just churning out sequels.

The game's already spawned a comic book, an anime movie tie-in, a sequel game and a on-rails offshoot title for the Wii—all this on top of the feature film version we’ve been hearing about for some time now. 

It looked like the big screen adaptation of Castlevania was basically dead in the water not too long ago. Director Sylvain White was gone and all signs pointed to the film spending a lot of time languishing in development Hell. Turns out that's not the case at all, actually, as Bloody-Disgusting has got the exclusive scoop that director James Wan (one of the co-creators of the Saw franchise) has come on board the project as a director and co-writer.

Production Weekly is reporting that the newest Resident Evil film, titled Resident Evil: Afterlife is set to begin shooting this September 28th in Toronto. No real details have emerged yet (although the film is currently slated for a September 17th, 2010 release date). We do know this much—the newest outing will take place in Tokyo. I figure it's safe to assume that Milla Jovovich will return, but that's not official at this point.