Found this teaser trailer of the upcoming Avengers film, which is of course a reboot of the British TV series… wait, what?  It’s about comic books?  Interesting.  Oh, well here’s a really pointless video of Samuel L. Jackson talking while an “A” spins in the dark.  Enjoy.

Since it’s release in August of 2009, Batman: Arkham Asylum has garner great critical acclaim. And rightfully so, the game is a masterpiece. It’s a well constructed, faithful, and loving adaption of the Batman mythos.

One of most well received elements of gameplay is the silent predator mechanic. The game mode encourages players to use stealth, to hide in the shadows. Rather then running headlong into a room full of goons, Batman is most effective when he picks them off one by one. This trailer showcases Silent Predator gameplay:

I adore the silent predator mechanic, it makes the game a delight to play. It truly puts you in the role of Batman, allowing you to clear a room with a keen detective mind and a shattering arsenal of gadgets and strikes. The concept is great but it’s not original. In fact Batman Begins, released in 2005, utilized a very similar mechanic. Take a look at some game play:

I’m not drawing attention to the similarly in order to ruffle feathers. I’m not insinuating that Arkham Asylum “ripped off” the mechanic. To do so would be ludicrous. Arkham built upon the idea, improved it.

Batman Begins received mediocre reviews. As such it has become somewhat forgotten. But I will say that anybody who enjoyed Arkham Asylum may want to take a look at Batman Begins.

When it comes to movie licensed games most take the obvious route. An action movie becomes a first person shooter. A driving movie becomes a driving game. But Austin Powers: Welcome To My Underground Lair takes a unique approach.
It is a Gameboy Color game designed to emulate a PC. You turn it on and are greeted with a desktop interface. Clicking icons will take you to various mini-games and applications.

What Kills The Game
It’s novelty wears off quick. The quirky, faux computer angle is neat for a short time but will drive many people away. That’s assuming of course you’re not repelled immediately by the game’s premise. This is a novelty title, one who’s audience is extremely niche.

Why I Love It
I’ve probably spend more time playing this game then anybody else in the world. I enjoyed exploring all the features. I played the mini-games over and over again. I found the secrets in hidden in the dos section. I even composed a short story on the crude word processing interface. There is quite a bit of depth to the game. If you dig exploring applications then this game may be worth your time.

Wrestling games should be simple. You get some wrestlers in a ring and have them fight it out. WCW Backstage Assault breaks that formula. It is a game in which wrestlers fight in backstage areas. No ring is present.

The graphics look awful. I’m not the kind of guy that puts huge emphasis on graphics as I know they do not directly make or break a game. But in this game it’s unforgivable, as the previous game, WCW Mayhem, looked a great deal better. This game is a big step back graphically. The character models look smudgy and some, like Jimmy Hart, appear anorexic.

The backgrounds are not much better. All the areas feel so square. In essence each place is a big box with some wall decorations and few weapons laying on the ground. Visually, nothing pops in this game.

Why I Love It
I get a big kick out the physics. The collision detection is hyper sensitive. If a wrestler has an item knocked out his hand it will often come down and smack him in head. This will cause the model to spaz out.

Glitching the models is great unintentional fun and probably the only reason I played this game as long as I did.

When I saw the confirmed list of actors and the characters they will be portraying in the upcoming Avengers film I couldn’t help but feel that the team seems rather strange to me.  Of course there is the obvious fact that Nick Fury and the Black Widow aren’t members of the Avengers, which is explained in the movies as the Avengers being a SHIELD project, but I don’t think that’s it.  It could also be the absence of Ant-Man and Wasp, but I don’t think it’s that either.  I think what bugs me about the ensemble is the lack of female characters in the group.

Joss Whedon as a writer/director/whatever-else-he-is is known for creating diverse ensembles of characters which generally include equal male and female members.  Maybe it’s the fact that he’s the one directing the film, and in my mind when I hear his name I automatically think of strong female characters like Buffy, Zoe, etc.  which irks me when I look at the cast.  It seems to be heavily stilted towards strong (literally) male characters.

Sure, Scarlett Johansson is there but does anyone really care about her Black Widow that much?  In Iron Man 2 she was rather boring and felt crammed in there, as she does again in this film.  The Black Widow from the comics is a no nonsense, commanding type of person and  I didn’t really feel that coming across from Scarlett Johansson.

Strangely enough I don’t feel that the answer is cramming more characters into the movie either to even it out.  Sure, I would love to see She-Hulk, Spider-Woman, or Miss Marvel on the team but I would also want them to get a fair amount of screen time, and more characters would just clutter the movie.  Just think of how bad Fox’s X-Men franchise is at throwing characters all over the place just to have them in there.  I just thought of X-Men Origins: Wolverine and shuddered.

The problem, therein, lies in the fact that it’s much harder for a movie which is a couple hours long and cost millions of dollars to include the same amount of content that decades of comic books have built up, even in a rudimentary form.  The characters which make up the team now, aside from Hawkeye, have all been set up in their own films or at least another film in Nick Fury and Black Widows case.  Hawkeye gets a pass because it’s not really hard to explain that someone is a really good archer.  I just did it, and it took one sentence.  Characters She-Hulk and Miss Marvel probably aren’t going to get their own films, and require too much explanation to be shoe-horned into another film.

Actually, take back what I just said.  She-Hulk could have totally been in the Avengers movie.  Audiences have already seen enough of the Hulk to know what he’s about, I think they could wrap their minds around a simple origin such as her gamma blood transfusion.  Her name is also very simple, and conveys that she is a she, and she is also a hulk.  She-Hulk.  Makes sense.

I’d like to end by saying that I’m not pre-judging the Avengers film or condemning the cast.  I think the actors they have gotten together are amazing, and seem to be perfect fits for the roles (aside from Scar-Jo, or at least from what she showed in Iron Man 2).  Who knows, maybe there will be more characters included that have yet to be mentioned.  The thing still is two years away.  We may not even be watching movies in 2012.  Maybe we’ll all have hover skateboards.

Over at BloodyDisgusting.com they have a few pictures they took of AMC’s booth for the upcoming TV series Walking Dead, based on the zombie comic by Robert Kirkman.  The booth seems to be a recreation of some sort of violent zombie apocalypse scenario.  What I want to know is if this is representative of the level of violence the show is going to exhibit.  Hop on over to check them out for yourself.

In an article oddly timestamped April 30, 2009 as of my writing this, Yahoo! has revealed what it claims to be an exclusive look at some new posters for the upcoming Captain America and Thor films.  The new posters are going to be distributed at Comic-Con this weekend, and attendees will have the chance for the actors to sign them.  As of now not much has been seen of what Captain America is going to look like in his upcoming film.  I recommend checking out their website for a look at both posters and clicking past the break where I scrimshawed some words of my own about the posters.

Captain America looks like Captain America.  He’s got the shield and blue and white suit with a star.  Interestingly he’s carrying a gun, but he did used to carry one back in WWII so it’s not that big a deal.  It’s a little strange that his helmet doesn’t have his trademark wings on it but it’s not a huge loss if they don’t show up.

Also, Thor looks like Thor…. yep.

Overall if you’re concerned greatly at this point about the way the characters look you need to calm yourself down.  Try not to judge the finished product until you’ve actually, I don’t know, seen some footage from it.  We were all skeptical of Iron Man before that came out and it turned out to be the best comic book to film translation we’ve seen to date.  Let’s give Marvel the benefit of the doubt that they actually know how to handle their own characters and that these new films will be up to snarf snuff.

And yes, I carved the above into whale ivory as well.

If you owned an Nintendo 64 then it’d likely you’ve heard of GoldenEye 007. Released in 1997, the game was groundbreaking and to this day holds up in the quality department. The game never had a sequel in the strictest sense. Video game company Rare, the makers of GoldenEye, released a spiritual sequel with Perfect Dark. The game was built on the same engine but featured new, original characters.

No one really expected another GoldenEye to me made. But then in 2004 GoldenEye: Rogue Agent saw release. It’s title is deceptive in that it has nothing to do with the movie GoldenEye or the N64 game.

In the game you take on the role of GoldenEye, a rouge M16 agent who has aligned himself with the forces of evil.

What Kills The Game
It falls flat on it’s concept. The premise has much promise but game is just lacking. Much of that is due to the rating. The game has a T for Teen rating. It would have benefited greatly from an M for Mature rating. It’s rather weak to be playing a rogue agent who is just shooting people. What we have here is a guy who’s been wronged, a guy that is furious. An M rated game would of allowed him to cut loose. He would have been able to take all his experience as an agent and apply it to twisted revenge tactics. I think that darkness would have given this game the edge it needed to overcome the shadow cast by it’s name usage.

Why I Love It
The game makes stellar usage of the James Bond license. Several familiar faces pop up. Goldfinger, Dr. No, Odd Job, Pussy Galore, and Xenia Onatopp. Being able to interact with classic Bond characters in a fresh way is a novel concept.

I truly enjoy this game and feel it got a bad rap. A sequel was planned but poor sales axed that idea. Which is a shame as further installments would have created wonderful character mash-ups of classic Bond characters.

There is no reason I should like this game. I didn’t watch That’s So Raven. I don’t really like Disney. The game was bought for my sister. She didn’t really watch the show either. Why on earth do I own have this game?

I don’t know the answer, but the fact remains I do. And despite a sincere indifference to this game I find a sliver of charm to it.

What Kills The Game
It’s very existence seems rather pointless. Yes I know that TV licensed games are a big deal. But honestly this game accomplishes nothing. The levels follow the classic “collect items and dodge enemies” formula. With the plethora of titles using that formula this game does nothing to stand out from the pack. Therefore the only real draw becomes the show’s license. Fans may pick this out purely out of show loyalty. But the mainstream will ignore it.

Why I Love It
I adore it’s cheese factor. At the end of the day it’s pretty harmless fun. It’s not bogged with bugs or anything. It just lacks a real point. If you can get past the flimsy premise and focus on the game play then this game is an all right way to pass some time.