Capcom's Inafune on cheapening Dead Rising DLC

Who was there: Keiji Inafune--executive producer at Capcom and the "father" of Mega Man--joined Shinsaku Ohara--producer on the original Devil May Cry, Resident Evil 4, and other major Capcom games--to talk about anything and everything related to Dead Rising 2 at a Comic-Con panel. Unfortunately, members of Blue Castle games (the development team behind the game) weren't able to attend as they're currently finishing up the game.

What they talked about: Inafune kicked off the panel by talking about the origins of Dead Rising 2. Of course, the original Dead Rising was incredibly successful for Capcom, so there was ample reason to start work on a sequel, but Inafune stressed that they wanted Dead Rising 2 to have a more Western feel. As such, they worked with a North American development studio--Blue Castle Games--to get the project done.

After that, Inafune and Ohara spoke extensively about some of the gameplay details surrounding Dead Rising 2, as well as its Xbox Live-exclusive prequel, Dead Rising 2: Case Zero. Inafune announced that it would be available on August 31 for a price of 400 points ($5). That price was of special note to Inafune who said that he had to fight with the company to get the Dead Rising downloadable content priced at that level.

Inafune explained that it could've just as easily been 800 points ($10), but that he wanted as many people to play it as possible. He also stressed that the free demo is also pretty fun and that "killing zombies for hours and hours never really gets old anyway." But those who do purchase it will be able to carry over experience points and costumes into Dead Rising 2.

The panel got a little more interesting when Inafune went into some behind-the-scenes details about Dead Rising 2. Interestingly, he said that because the original game was set in a mall and Japan doesn't have many of those types of structures, the team had to make numerous trips to the states to investigate them and spend money. Along those lines, the development team thought that if they set the next game in a Las Vegas-like setting that they would be able to take numerous trips to the infamous city on the company's dime. Unfortunately, he said, not many members of Capcom Japan got to make the trip to Vegas, baby. Vegas.

Additionally, the team contemplated putting Dead Rising 2 against the backdrop of a Disneyland-like amusement park. Inafune noted, in particular, that the irony of the situation--the violence of an M-rated game contrasted with a family theme park--would've been fun to work with and that the team would've enjoyed taking trips to amusement parks for research purposes. However, Dead Rising 2 does maintain some of this contrast in the form of Pokemon-like trading cards that feature the different weapons you can construct in the game.

Next up was a little bit of information and background on Inafune's directorial debut with the Dead Rising-themed movie called Dead Rising: Zombrex. He explained that he's a huge fan of the low-budget horror movies from the 1980s, and that he attempted to replicate the look with this film (and it certainly shows). He went onto detail the experience of directing Japanese actors to act as zombies, which he found to be difficult because many of the extras didn't quite understand what a zombie was.

And finally, there was time for one question. A person in the crowd asked Inafune if Frank West (the lead character from the original game) would be making a return. Unfortunately, Inafune said that while he knows Frank West is an incredibly popular character, he's currently taking a break, but we might see him soon.

Quotes: "We're not copying Avatar. We thought of this first," joked Keiji Inafune in reference to the lead character in his film who happens to be in a wheelchair.

"We Japanese don't often use duct tape, but we're aware of the American duct tape phenomenon," Inafune said while demonstrating a real-life version of one of Dead Rising 2's weapons.

The Takeaway: While we already know a great deal about Dead Rising 2, it was definitely nice to hear some of the behind-the-scenes info on the game, and if anything, the entire panel just reaffirmed how much Inafune likes zombies.