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#superannuationsassortedscoopery Editor's Note: The mysterious person known as Superannuation shows up every two weeks like a new paycheck, if you had a job that paid you in gaming rumors and secrets, all sourced to publicly available information. More »

In the latter half of 2009 and early 2010, Capcom released two major retail games in collaboration with prominent Western devs: Crimson Skies dev Airtight Games created Dark Void, and gun-for-hire Grin rebooted Bionic Commando. Those two games, however, were prominent sales flops. One even contributed to the eventual closure of Swedish dev Grin.

For its part, Capcom promptly returned to its tried and true franchises, with a lineup today featuring many more sequels than back in 2009. At the time, Mega Man co-creator Keiji Inafune was overseeing production on Capcom's retail titles, and when I spoke with him this past week at the Tokyo Game Show, I wanted to know what went wrong. Beyond sales, neither game was particularly loved by critics, especially Dark Void.

"[It's] very, very simple: The publisher was Japanese and the developer was foreign. Even inside Japan, when you work in two different companies, they always blame each other for any small mistakes, so that's pretty much what happened in those two games -- blaming each other," Inafune explained. He went on to compare those development experiences with that of Dead Rising -- a game that has since become a major franchise for Capcom, not to mention a commercial success.

Dark Void may have met with a cool reaction critically, but it's been temporarily granted a new feature that might improve people's impressions: costing ten dollars.

Through June 1, the PC version of Airtight Games' jetpack-packed action game is available for just $9.99 on Games for Windows Live. A price like that skirts the boundaries between "rental" and "purchase" -- it's cheap enough that you can basically get it just to screw around with the jetpack and not feel bad. It's almost cheap enough that you can get it solely for the purpose of "completing your Dark Void collection" should you already have Dark Void Zero.

[Via Capcom-Unity]

The grizzly-named composer Bear McCreary, most famous for putting together the score on the recent Battlestar Galactica TV series, has announced on his blog that he'll be composing the music for Zipper Interactive's upcoming SOCOM 4. McCreary previously did the scoring work on Capcom's Dark Void (and 8-bit spin-off Dark Void Zero), and for SOCOM 4, he says he's written, "muscially, a franchise re-boot," with over eight hours of original music featuring "ethnic percussion, virtuosic Asian stringed and woodwind instruments, and the spectacular, other-worldly tones of the gamelan." Insert joke here about how that Indonesian ensemble's name actually looks like "game LAN."

McCreary also says that the soundtrack will fulfill his dream "of a video game score that would feel as if it were being composed specifically for each player, adapting and shifting perfectly to capture the mood of the individual gamer." Which sounds fun, but if we start hearing an orchestral version of "All Along the Watchtower" as our individual score, what exactly does that mean?

#captivate2010 The man behind some of Capcom's biggest video game creations is now in charge of personally assuring that all of the developer's titles are hits. More »

Capcom unleashes a slew of Mega Man info, talks zombies, and game development.

The Rocketeer raconteurs at Capcom have announced downloadable content for January's critical crash-and-burn, Dark Void. Dubbed "Survivor Missions," the pack allows you to "relive key events" from the third-person shooter, modified by increasingly difficult waves of enemies and a points multiplier. Think: Gears of War 2's horde mode, only you're alone and ... can turn into a plane? The DLC should be available on Xbox 360 next week, February 10th, at 400 MS points ($5). It'll land on PlayStation Network the following day, February 11th, for $4.99 -- that's one cent cheaper than DSiWare's Dark Void Zero. And if you're looking for even more ways to spend money on Dark Void, Bear in mind the soundtrack, which launches on February 9th.

New missions are right around the corner.

Though Capcom's jetpack-infused action title Dark Void may be getting universally panned by critics, one element of the game seems to be garnering praise from reviewers: Its Bear McCreary-composed soundtrack. Thanks to an announcement from music publisher Sumthing Else Music Works, we now know when said soundtrack will get its own release: February 9. Unless, of course, that's when Modern Warfare 2's soundtrack gets released, in which case they'll probably push it back a little bit. Personally, we can't wait to pick up the album, which will be shipped to retailers and available for purchase on Sumthing Else's site. Soon, we'll be able to sit back, close our eyes and listen to McCreary's orchestral jams without worrying about jetpacking into a cliff face.

Highly anticipated orchestral score written and produced by acclaimed "Battlestar Galactica" composer Bear McCreary.

Capcom talks Dark Void, Mega Man, Tatsunoko vs. Capcom and takes your suggestions.

We didn't love Dark Void, but with an average metacritic score of 59, it looks like the review sites just laid into Capcom's latest franchise attempt, despite its cool premise. The highest score so far actually comes from Playstation: The Official Magazine, which gave the game an 80. Here's what other outlets thought of Dark Void: Game Informer (70/100): "Unfortunately, the shining strengths of the game are buried underneath a thick layer of rust that only the thirstiest of air-junkies should bother chipping through." [Feb 2010, p.95] 1UP (C+): "It begins with a fantastic introduction to flight, and ends with an all-out aerial dogfight followed by a suitably epic boss battle. ... It's just a damn shame that the nigh-amazing 'The Rocketeer versus UFOs' premise crashes hard into 'tepid Gears of Uncharted knock-off' ground." IGN (50/100): "I don't hate Dark Void, but I don't care for it, either. This is one of those titles that just exists; I doubt few will remember it this time next year." Wired (40/100): "Even though some stages (like the penultimate aerial battle) felt like they lasted forever and ever, Dark Void is a pretty short game with an anticlimactic ending that does little more than set up a sequel ... In all other respects, Dark Void was an ambitious project that just didn't make it off the ground."

Someone tell Nolan North that he can turn projects down.

The battlefield extends from ground to air in the last installment of the video series for Dark Void.

Does Capcom's shooter go straight to the top or crash and burn? Find out in the official GameTrailers review.

Dark Void is a great first date, but a terrible marriage. As our numerous previews will attest, this jet-pack-toting third-person shooter makes a fantastic first impression, with its breath-taking air battles and pounding score. But that just makes it all the more disappointing that even the faintest scratching at that surface reveals a wholly unsatisfying product below.

Avoidance tactics.

As the developers at Airtight Games would put it, Dark Void is really an underdog story. You've got these people, downtrodden and stuck in The Void, trying to overcome what seems like insurmountable odds. Yeah -- been there, done that. But then you throw this jetpack into the mix and suddenly we're wiping the drool off our keyboard and rubbing the sleep out of our eyes, imagining all of the loop de loops and barrel rolls we'll be doing. But, hey, we identify with Airtight Games' plight; it's a start-up studio with a lot of new blood. It's kinda like the story of Joystiq's rise to fame being a site our mom reads on the gritty streets of the blogosphere. Just like Airtight, we had to eat a lot of government cheese in our first year.

PC gamers anxious to strap on a jetpack and hit the great blue yonder can finally do just that, as Capcom's released a demo for Dark Void. The PC demo is available exclusively at File Planet and weighs in at one whole gigglebyte. Just make sure you clear your schedule for the day, because if our own experience is any indication, your download is going to take some time. Dark Void releases on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on January 19. [Via VG247] Gallery: Dark Void

Airtight games developers talk about rising to the challenge of making a brand new high-caliber title to honor the tradition of Capcom with Dark Void.

NVidia fuels the action on PC with the new shooter Dark Void.

The Unity team heads to Las Vegas for CES and shows off goodies from Resident Evil, Lost Planet 2, Dark Void and more.

Get your feet on solid ground and take cover with combat on foot in the next installment of the Dark Void feature.

We appreciate the helpful tips provided in the Dark Void trailer you see above, which instructs its viewers on the many options afforded to them when it comes to staving off hordes of robotic assailants. Like, it's great to know that we can choose between popping between cover points on the ground or fly through the air using a futuristic hover pack, shooting dudes as we float. However, who in their right mind would ever exercise the first option when the second is available? Check out the video above to see the dichotomy in motion, and don't forget: The only time you shouldn't go with the hoverpack is if there's an even cooler jetpack somewhere nearby.

Capcom announced today that a demo for its upcoming jetpacktion game, Dark Void, will be available this week on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network. The demo, which promises "a combination of thrilling aerial dog-fighting, unique vertical cover action and on-foot combat," will be released Wednesday, January 6 on Xbox Live Marketplace and Thursday, January 7 on PSN. Wait, did it say we'd be fighting aerial dogs? Total nightmare material. Should you decide you like strapping fire to your back and hanging with old pal Nikola Tesla, the retail Dark Void game will be released on January 19. Expect the DSiWare spinoff, Dark Void Zero, sometime in January, as well.

Mega Man 10 isn't the only pseudo-NES game coming out of Capcom in early 2010. Capcom is expanding Airtight Games' jetpack adventure, Dark Void, with side-scrolling DSiWare game Dark Void Zero. Zero follows Rusty, one of the first humans to land in Dark Void's world, as he fights the Witchers with Nikola Tesla's help. Like Will from the next-gen games, Rusty has a jetpack, which can be used to hover in place or fly upward. Unlike the next-gen adventure, Rusty's fight is presented as a somewhat Metroidvania-style NES game, with graphics reminiscent of Capcom games like Strider and Bionic Commando. Rather than making a quick promotional game, Capcom seems to have gone all out for Dark Void Zero, recruiting Dark Void composer Bear McCreary to create an authentic NES soundtrack for the game. Capcom has also invented a fiction not just for the game, but about the game, portraying it as a lost dual-screen PlayChoice-10 project. See a trailer and some thrilling in-game footage after the break. According to GameSpot, Dark Void Zero will be available in January for 500 DSi Points.

Quick question: In a hypothetical war between inventor extraordinaire Nikola Tesla and an advanced race of robots, who would win? The answer is, of course, entirely dependent on the version of Tesla we're talking about. Real-life Tesla stands a pretty good chance -- after all, that debonaire mustache is probably capable of disabling most electronic devices. The safe money's on The Prestige's Tesla, who was played by David Bowie, who can disintegrate any synthetic material using nothing but the power of his rocking. The Tesla in Dark Void looks like he'd stand a fair chance as well. Check out the above dev diary to see the warring factions of technology present in the game, and to get a few more sweet, sweet glimpses of the title's jetpack-based combat.

See what becomes of the world when Tesla is introduced to alien technology in the Void!

Take control of your airspace in Dark Void with jetpacks, planes and alien warships!