What does Resident Evil, Phoenix Wright and Devil May Cry have in common? Pretty boys. Shinji Mikami of course! A warm Happy Birthday goes out to one of the gaming industry's living legends who turns 42 today!

Mikami has been in the gaming industry for more than 15 years now and is responsible for a number of games we all know and love. Aside from the ever popular video games mentioned above, he's worked on such classics as Aladdin and Goof Troop during the days of the Super Nintendo, Dino Crisis and God Hand.

After working with the Resident Evil franchise with Capcom for almost a decade (so many zombies, so little time,) he joined Studio Clover in 2004 where he worked with Hideki Kamiya to produce Devil May Cry. He later founded Seeds Inc. together with Kamiya and Atsushi Inaba which was last heard to be in the process of developing a new game.

Certainly a lifetime of achievement can't be fully captured in a scant three paragraphs but cheers to Shinji Makima and again a Happy Birthday!

Fans were enthralled in a one-day gaming extravaganza called Snake vs Zombie Vol. 2 put up by Grasshopper Manufacture in Japan. Talk shows and presentations were run all day, but everything came down to a face-off between two of the industry's true heavyweights: Director Hideo Kojima of the Metal Gear Solid series and director Shinji Mikami of Resident Evil.

The two met in an hour-long talk show where provocative questions were asked. Both men showed a healthy respect for each other's work by revealing their experiences playing each other's games. Kojima first ran into Mikami's craft when he played the first Resident Evil and finished it. Mikami, on the other hand, says he's played through Metal Gear Solid and liked it a lot.

Kojima even had an amusing suggestion for the Resident Evil online game. "The player is a zombie hunter and enters a town infested with zombies. When you die, you turn into a zombie and you start to walk aimlessly, unable to control your character -- just the camera. But, you will still pay for your monthly subscription!"says Kojima, as the crowd burst into laughs.

For his part, Mikami said that he could never direct an MGS game because of his impatient nature. He says whenever he goes out to play war games, he's usually the first to get shot because he just can't stay put in one place. Kojima chimed in that he has a similar problem whenever the MGS development team goes to the mountains for their combat training sessions.

Both Kojima and Mikami revealed that they have problems regarding their staff and jokes. Mikami says that his staff takes a lot of his jokes too seriously at times and some of it eventually reflects in the game. Kojima, on the other hand, has a problem getting his staff to take him more seriously.

The two, however, said that they would still want to direct a game if they ever end up in a collaboration. The host jokingly asked "So how do you decide, with rock, paper, scissors?"

Capcom may be putting a Wii-fied Okami rumor to sleep, and Clover Studio will soon be closing up shop, but don't think that this will be the end of the team that has brought us the likes of Viewtiful Joe. On the contrary, this may just be the beginning.

Much like how nature has cycles of life and death, the wilted clover slowly comes into our sight again in the form of the SEEDS development house that is taking root on the web. Their website does not carry any ongoing development news at the moment, but it is recruiting members to their ranks.

What does strike us is the current roster working at this new studio: Directors Hideki Kamiya (Resident Evil 2, Devil May Cry, Viewtiful Joe and Okami) and Shinji Mikami (Resident Evil, Dino Crisis, and RE4) are noted to be involved on SEEDS' roster, as are Nao Ueda, Mari Shimazaki, and Masami Ueda - all of whom were also part of the development crew for Okami. This studio also takes root in Osaka (Clover Studio's home base), and will be under the command of former Clover president Atsushi Inaba.

And in case you're wondering, they're now hiring planners, programmers, designers, sound people, and promotional staff. Must love dogs.