For Resident Evil 5 we get some very cursory comments on the story behind the games and a separate Resident Evil series montage. Sadly, the montage is nearly a complete waste. A shortened version of the DVD version of Wesker's Report (distributed as a bonus for Resident Evil: Code Veronica on the PS2) would have sufficed, and most people – even well-versed gamers – probably wouldn't have even realized it was recycled material.

(As an alternative, the montage could have been a shout-out to the fans showing memorable shock scenes and humorously bad voice acting. Didn't happen, though.) Similarly, the references to previous Fallout games are not sufficient to provide neophytes with proper context.

Which puts Dead Space, the only new property in the trio of scary games, in the best position during this episode of Qore. It has the most to explain, and is given ample space to do so. Moreover, EA provided the illustrated panels to the fifth part of the graphic novel that was created alongside the videogame, and the interested viewer/reader can peruse it and, presumably, track down the other parts to learn the background of the game's setting.

Since Qore is a video magazine, the inclusion of the static graphic novel pages is puzzling – fully-voiced videos of the previous parts are available on the PS Store and would have been a natural to include here.

(Also, I'll take issue with the EA guy who says Dead Space is the only survival-horror game set in space. I believe the otherwise vile Dino Crisis 3 meets the required criteria. Know your history!)

Despite these concerns, the mechanics of the new games are explained well. I have intentionally ceased reading too many previews and watching game trailers, which has put me closer to the ideal Qore consumer. I found the promises of the co-op mechanics in Resident Evil 5 to be intriguing and the scale of Fallout 3's world to be impressive.

I thought all the spokespersons this month were entertaining and prepared with juicy information about their respective games. If other publishers are warming to the possibility of Qore as a vehicle for promoting their games, I hope we'll see an increase in such well-prepared deliveries.

As I've intimated before, I don't take an active interest in sports games, and my knowledge of Shawn White was quite limited. However, he turns out to be one of the more colorful Qore guests to date, and spoke frankly about not having much input into previous videogames (which I take to be a reference to his appearance in Shaun Palmer's Pro Snowboarder (as 2001 PS2 game). He does seem enthusiastic about this new game with his moniker, if perhaps a little clueless that he should let the ever-cute Veronica Belmont have some time with the controller.

The extras this month include a demo of Valkyria Chronicles (which I've not had time to try), last month's mini-game Qore Wars, and a new shooting gallery mini-game with three themes (Fallout 3, Resident Evil 5, and Shawn White Snowboarding). If you complete each of the three shooting gallery mini-games, you unlock a short video of Veronica Belmont getting zombie makeup. (As a reward, this clearly misses the mark. Even Belmont can't make rotting flesh attractive.)

Worse yet, you have to finish all three games in one-sitting, since Qore won't remember your accomplishments the next time you boot it up. Also confusing, as you complete the mini-games, your monster rating counts down from 3/5 to 0/5. Why the five? Were two more segments originally planned, but cut?

Finally, I was fortunate this month to attach my PS3 to a 40” Sony HDTV at 1080p this month, and I was appalled at the compression artifacts in some sections of Qore's video. Several of these are simply poorly compressed segments of trailers produced by publishers, but one segment about Resident Evil 5 was filmed just for Qore in front of a gray wall at Capcom's offices and the tell-tale blockiness of compressed video is plain as day.

With so much of Sony focused on the advantages of HD image fidelity (their so-called “HDNA”), it is a bit galling to have such low quality production for a supposed HD-quality video magazine. If the download size of Qore has to go up to improve the quality, then please ... make it so.