Toys News International is showing off some of the first wave of Marvel Legends under the direction of Hasbro. While a few fans have expressed distaste for the future of this line, I’m going on record as saying Planet Hulk looks cool.

See the gallery of Emma Frost, Ultimate Iron Man, Banshee, Planet Hulk and Hercules here: Hasbro Marvel Legends Series 1

One thing I think all can agree on, the new bubble packaging looks really nice. Its a big departure from the rather rectangular boxes Legends has has for years now, but its a lot more vivid and eye catching. Now it appears we’re losing the pack-in comic book, but we’re gaining a much better logo.

Ultimately we’re going to have to get these in hand before we can really tell whether Hasbro has improved or doomed this line. Either way, distribution is about to get a lot better and we’ll have to chase a lot less variants.

Thanks Josh!

Enjoy!

By the way, the song used is Action Figure Party by Action Figure Party.

Lets head back to 1989. Hudson soft released this often overlooked but high quality action game on the NES. You play as Apollo and your goal is to rescue the princess. Okay, so the plot isn’t all that original, but the levels offer up a mix of side scrolling shooter levels and platforming. It’s linear, but there are hidden areas to discover, as well as new upgrades and abilities. It’s kinda like Gradius meets Mega Man and Metroid. There is a small chance that this could come to the virtual console, so check out the rom until then.

This week’s $20 GOTY and lost classics are gonna take you waaaaaay back. First, lets take a trip back to the PS2 launch. Although there weren’t many titles worth grabbing at the time, (except Timesplitters and Tekken Tag Tournament) Capcom gave us fighting game fans something to tide us over.

You either love the EX series or you hate it. Those who like it, (me for instance) like the cool music, intresting new characters (although some are somewhat dull), and the fact that our favorite 2-d series translated so well to 3-d. Those who hate it harp on it’s static backgrounds, dull characters, and consider it blasphemy to take a 2-d stalwart and take it into 3-d. Capcom’s 3-d fighters have been more of a test run than anything, and the fact that they still continue to produce 2-d games speaks volumes of thier apprehension to make the jump to 3-d. Be that as it may, beside Rival Schools and Tech Romancer, this is probably thier best 3-d effort.

Although the only new character introduced here is Ace (a robot who you can set special attacks for in an all new mission mode), many of your favorites from the EX series have arrived. A new Tag Team mode, similar to the Marvel vs Capcom games is also included. You can’t change in and out as rapidly here as you did in MVC though, so it adds a layer of strategy and timing. A new single player mode tries to do things differently by having you fight more than one opponent at once, and giving you the option to recruit defeated opponents to your team. Finally, beating the aforementioned single player mode treats you to the wildest credit sequence ever; a free-for all brawl where the goal is to take out as many enemies as you can.

As I mentioned before, not everyone will like SFEX3, particularly series purists. I kinda miss the remixed barrel breaking game from the original EX. For those who don’t mind a little change now and then however, you can’t go wrong with this PS2 blast from the past.

If unlike Eric Cartman you can wait a little longer for the Wii to come out, then this will make it easier. Wii.com has posted several new videos, the most notable being the introduction cinematic for The Legend Of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Though only 1:22, it captures the same grand thematic feeling the Ocarina Of Time intro did.

Nintendo has also posted the final launch trailer. More Twilight Princess gameplay videos and demonstrations are available here.

32 years ago today the Sanrio company came up with the concept of a cat made out of some sort of marshmallow that took the world by storm. Join us as we celebrate the birth of the most popular character ever to be based on nothing.

Thanks to Trevor and Tash for letting me know about this day. Now here’s Hello Kitty showing you the finger:

Ramping up to the big Iron Man feature and follow on the heels of 2 successful Ultimate Avengers direct-to-DVD releases, Lions Gate and Marvel will release Invicible Iron Man on January 23rd. The invincibly tiny cover art was provided by DavidDVD and heres a synopsis of the plot:

While raising the ruins of a long buried Chinese kingdom, billionaire inventor Tony Stark digs up far more than he bargained for. He unleashes an age-old prophecy that foretells the resurrection of the Mandarin, the emperor of China’s darkest and most violent dynasty. To confront this destructive force, Stark creates an armored suit infused with high-tech weaponry to stop the evil that he himself has raised form the earth.

I’m supposing this will take place inside the Ultimate Avengers continuity as a prequel or something.

Special features include featurettes on the origin of Iron Man, a gallery of Iron Man armor, and a first look at the 4th Marvel DVD feature, Dr. Strange. Suggested retail is $20 as usual but theres a Gift Set planned with Iron man and both Ultimate Avengers movies and a Marvel Icons Iron Man bust. That will set you back $60. They obviously carefully planned this gift set release for the busy Valentines day season. Ladies, you now know how to charm your comic nerd boyfriend, and its with cartoons and the torso of an alcoholic in a suit of armor.

Hollywood Reporter is breaking news that the Matrix directing Wachowski Brothers are now going to helm a Live Action update of Speed Racer for producer Joel Silver.

The article mentions Vince Vaughn being screen tested for Racer X, and that Larry & Andy want to make a more family friendly movie unlike their existing efforts (Bound, The Matrix, V for Vendetta).

They’re of course promising mind blowing effects and racing in ways we’ve never seen before. I certainly hope so because after this summers 1-2 Nascar punch of Cars and Ricky Bobby, I’m not sure racing is very interesting to film without the type of unexpected chaos a car chase in a movie allows. That said, I’m a fan of the car chase in Matrix Reloaded and hope they’ve got some fresh ideas.

Speed Racer is of course an infamously cliched Japanese animated series, and one of the first to ever be imported to the US.

Of course, instead of posting an actual Speed Racer clip to go with this article, I’ll go with the Dexter’s Lab send up. Its funnier and less boring.