News for June 2010

Weekly News Roundup: 6/27/2010

Games

The conceptual awesomeness of Pac-Man.

The creator of Pac-Man, Toru Iwatani, revealed his original concept drawings of Pac-Man to German site Control. The historical documents are in remarkably great condition for being 30-years-old and kept in a binder.

Level 5 and Studio Ghibli's game Ni no Kuni: The Another World was originally for the DS, but now there's a version coming out for the PS3. Suffice to say, the PS3 version looks amazing.

What would the technology of 2010 look like if it was made in 1977? Designer Alex Varanese answers that question with 1977 styled iPod, Laptop, cell phone, and portable Atari, all with a fashionable wood grain.

BlazBlue: Continuum Shift will be out in August, however Aksys has already revealed a DLC character: a squirrel girl called Makoto. This chick had better be free because this seems like more than enough time to have gotten her into the regular game.

Super Mario Beatbox is pretty incredible.

Stetson made a real cowboy hat from the in-game models of Ken's alternate costume cowboy hat in Super Street Fighter IV. Only three exist. One each is reserved for Seth Killian and Yoshinoro Ono, while the third will be given to the top Ken player at the EVO 2010 tournament.

The PlayStation Network in Japan will be getting a free-to-play game called Bakumatsu Revolution. The free core game will last around 10 hours, but special items and additional quests can be purchased. No word on whether this is heading to the U.S. PSN.

Marvel costumes and level kits will be hitting LittleBigPlanet on July 7th.

Deviant Art user Christophe made a steampunk Master Chief helmet.

There could be a 3DS Seaman. If there's one game that needs to be in 3D, it's Seaman.

Figures

Of all the Transformers Generation 1 combiners, who would've thought we'd see the Seacons get re-released? The Seacon set was revealed at BotCon and will be an exclusive somewhere very soon. Tformers.com also has photos from BotCon 2010 of the SDCC exclusive blaster set, and tons of upcoming Transformers.

A Primus repaint is the latest in Takara Tomy's Transformers 2010 campaign. This Primus, who transformers into Cybertron, looks much better than the original.

Movies

Keiji Inafune's Dead Rising movie, Zombrex: Dead Rising Sun, will be available for free as eight downloadable episodes complete with a cheesy English voiceover.

The international trailer for Predators makes the film look even better than it already did.

After lots of rumors of different directors, Peter Jackson will be directing The Hobbit himself.

John Lithgow and Frieda Pinto have signed on for the Rise of the Apes, the Planet of the Apes prequel.

The Thing prequel will be to on April 29th, 2011.

The Green Hornet trailer is out and the movie looks way more comedic than I was expecting.

The proposed 3D Pac-Man cartoon has a trailer. It's easily one of the most awful things I've ever seen.

Awesome

The Make-A-Wish foundation installed a Millennium Falcon fort for 5-year-old Christen Bentley. That is seriously beyond awesome.

- Shawn - 6/27/10

Weekly News Roundup: 6/20/2010

Games

Metal Gear Solid: Rising had better have a Trophy/Achievement for slicing up a hundred watermelons.

E3 2010 happened this week. Here are some more of the trailers. Metal Gear Solid: Rising, Halo: Reach, MotorStorm: Apocalypse, Trine 2, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, Children of Eden, Kirby's Epic Yarn, Twisted Metal, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, Okamiden, Portal 2, Infamous 2, Tron: Evolution, The Sly Collection, Metroid: Other M, Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, and Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars.

At E3 there was a life-size version of McFarlane Toys Halo: Reach statue. If only that was the actual size of statue included in the Legendary Edition.

E3 saw two particularly amazing speeches during the press conferences. First is the awesome speech by Kevin Butler at the Sony conference. The other, from the Konami conference, is amazing in that it's so painfully awkward.

Darksiders 2 will be out in the faraway time of 2012.

Gran Turismo 5 is finally coming out on November 5th. The Collector's Edition will include a 1:43 scale 2009 Nissan GT-R Spec V model, a 300-page book, a keychain, and 5 DLC cars.

GoldenEye is returning on the Wii. Except it has Daniel Craig as Bond instead of Pierce Brosnan. And the plot is different. But is uses the same levels. So it's GoldenEye, but it's not GoldenEye. Weird.

Figures

Masterpiece Grimlock will be on Toy 'R Us shelves on July 1st. That's way sooner than I thought we'd see it.

Movies / TV

There are a ton of new awesome photos from Predators over at /Film.

There could be a new 3D Pac-Man cartoon where the original ghosts would be his friends. 3D and friendly ghosts? This is already off to a bad start.

The first few images from The Walking Dead show off a couple zombies and Rick Grimes walking on a road. So, nothing real exciting yet, but it seems to be going well.

Hugh Jackman is in a movie called Real Steel about robot boxers. This is hilarious, but why isn't this movie called Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots?

Now Neil Blomkamp could direct The Hobbit movies.

The new Batman: City of Scars fan-film is pretty decent.

Transformers 3 will be shooting in Milwaukee, WI at the Milwaukee Art Museum on July 12th. Casting calls are on June 26th. I wonder if any of my friends will end up being in Transformers 3.

- Shawn - 6/20/10

Weekly News Roundup: 6/13/2010

Games

In the new Mortal Kombat, Kung Lao has a fatality for your balls.

What are all these E3 trailers doing on the internet before E3? What happened to saving things for the show itself? Anyway, there are trailers for Enslaved, Dead Space 2, Fallout: New Vegas, Killzone 3, Devil's Third, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II, Marvel Vs. Capcom 3, Mortal Kombat 9, F.E.A.R. 3, Gran Turismo 5, and Battlestar Galactica Online.

Here's the first video of gameplay for Harp Corps: Uprising, the Contra game that's not a Contra game. Despite the colorfulness they definitely have that Contra gameplay.

Did you see the PS4 videos? If not, here's the PS4 viral video and the PS4 commercial. Turns out they were made by Han West, a guy working on his Master of Fine Arts and these videos were projects for a class. These are exactly the kind of things Sony would do, so give that man an A. And a job.

Mass Effect fan Holly Conrad is making some impressive Mass Effect 2 costumes to show off at SDCC this year.

Those leaked screenshots were right: the next MotorStorm is MotorStorm: Apocalypse. I guess when the apocalypse hits we'll at least still have racing.

It's confirmed that Dreamcast games are heading to PSN and Xbox Live. The games will have better resolutions, surround sound, Trophies/Achievements, and leaderboards.

You can collect Playboy magazines in Dead Rising 2. At least you're not collecting Girls and Corpses magazines.

i09 has a great interview with Bear McCreary about his music and influences.

Insomniac Games' latest Full Moon Show has a retrospective on Resistance: Fall of Man with a look of what the game could have been.

This guy made a working Lego sniper rifle, then went into first-person shooter mode to demonstrate it. Awesome.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II Collector's Edition will have a Steelbook case, a 2GB Starkiller Mimobot flash drive, a digital art book, and a force load of exclusive in-game content.

The 29-minute Red Dead Redemption short film is online.

Telltale Games is making episodic Back to the Future games.

Figures / Toys

Time for some SDCC Tron exclusives. Spinmaster will have a light-up Tron figurine in a Tron arcade machine-style box and a die-cast Sam's Light Cycle. The figurine will be $40 with the cycle at $5. Meanwhile at SDCC, Previews will have a purple Tron Be@rbrick.

NECA will be making a sweet Claptrap figure from Borderlands. We can't tell how big it is in the photo. Will it be in-scale with their usual sized figures or will it be bigger?

Here are some packaged photos of the upcoming G.I. Joe Resolute seven-packs.

Awesome

At the China Central Academy of Fine Arts there is now a 32-foot statue of deity Guan Gong if he was a Transformer. The thing was mostly made from an old Chinese truck. The U.S. has no chance against the combined might of Japan and China in the robot wars.

- Shawn - 6/13/10

Weekly News Roundup: 6/6/2010

Games

This is way too colorful for Contra, but that's why the Contra name isn't on it.

Contra: Hard Corps is kind of getting a sequel with Hard Corps: Uprising. It's a spiritual sequel in that the main character is General Bahamut, an enemy in Contra: Hard Corps. It looks way too bright and anime-looking for a real Contra, but that's probably why the Contra name isn't actually on it. This is being developed by Arc System Works and should be on PSN and XBLA this Winter.

Blade Kitten has been delayed, but now instead of being a PSN exclusive, it'll appear on PSN, Xbox Live, and PC. More pink-haired kitten chick for everyone.

The E3 trailer for Red Faction: Armageddon is online two weeks before E3. Why is it the E3 trailer then if it's so early? At least Red Faction is doing something different with itself: aliens.

It's a live-action Super Mario Choose Your Own Adventure.

The first Killzone 3 trailer shows off no shooting, but a lot of beating up Helghast. Then the dude puts on the Helghast helmet because he likes the smell of sweaty bald men.

Bungie hated the "Combat Evolved" subtitle that Microsoft added to the first Halo.

If these leaked screenshots are what the source says they are, then Motorstorm 3 will be in a post-apocalyptic world. Racing after the apocalypse? What about the gangs in leather that murder for gas?

Here's the E3 trailer for Vanquish. How can this be the E3 trailer if E3 hasn't even started? Someone has to stop that from happening.

If you've ever wanted to be a background character for Street Fighter II, read these handy background actor character FAQs first.

The Boy Scouts now have a videogame merit badge. Seriously.

Figures / Toys

These new radio-controlled Mario Cart cars from Tomy can actually "shoot" bananas and shells at one another causing them to slow down or stop. Awesome.

Someone made Mass Effect's Citadel with Legos. Very cool.

Tformers.com has the first blurry photos of the War for Cybertron Soundwave toy in robot and vehicle mode. It's a little disappointing that he's not actually a boom box like in the GameStop commercial, but at least the future van looks better than his Scion box car mode from Transformers Animated.

A computer printer made from Legos. And it actually works.

Movies

Wondering what's going on with that Metal Gear Solid movie? David Hayter wrote a script, but after that he guesses that deals couldn't get finalized. There is hope that it could pop back up in the future, hopefully with Hayter involved.

Kim Kardashian could be starring as Lara Croft in the Tomb Raider reboot. She kind of has the look, but at least Angelina Jolie had talent.

Guillermo del Toro is no longer directing The Hobbit movies due to production taking much longer than expected and scheduling conflicts. Peter Jackson might direct the movies himself.

Jeremy Renner might be Hawkeye in the Avengers movie.

Here's the concept art of Captain America's movie costume. It looks pretty good. Meanwhile, Neal McDonough could be cast as Dum Dum Dugan.

- Shawn - 6/6/10