In the realm of webcomics there is no bigger name than Penny Arcade. So when they announced they were making a game, we cheered at seeing our favorite game critics become game characters… and then of course, feared that the game would be the type they’d normally criticize.

From this short preview, theres very little actual gameplay, but it looks promising. It appears to take place outside of the normal “Tycho & Gabe” world in one of their stranger made up worlds. Oh and theres the Fruit Fucker.

Something that is for sure is the game is being simultaneously released to Windows, Mac OS, and Linux. So anyone who can read the Penny Arcade comic can play the game! It’ll be episodic, but hopefully not episodic like S.I.N., which was cancelled after one installment or Half Life, which has its second release now over a year late.

Get all 59 seconds of the preview in quicktime, wmv. or HD. Oh and of course, if you didn’t know already you can read Penny Arcade the comic strip 3 times a week here.

Accoring to an article in the New York Post sales for Blu-Ray to date this year are better than HD DVD sales. More specifically we can see that “The Departed” which was available in both formats sold 3 times as many copies on Blu-Ray as on HD DVD. To show this you can see that as of today The Departed on Blu-ray has an amazon ranking of 84 while The Departed on HD DVD has a ranking of 446. Not that either of these is very impressive considering the DVD has a sales ranking of 7.

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Minimates are pretty hot lately and have announced quite a few new licenses that they have acquired. While all is well and good with expansion, we still appreciate that the current licenses are still getting their just attention. Battlestar Galactica is one license that got off to a very awkward start after DST and Art Asylum has some sort of…well, I’m not even sure what to call it, but the original plans for the first few waves were scrapped and DST set our expectations anew (and a little lower. We still want our Minimate Vipers and Raiders, DST!).

According to Minimate HQ, series 3 of the BSG Minimates was revealed in some promotional material at NYCC. The wave includes Kara Thrace & Lee Adama, D’Anna Biers & Sharon Valeri, Helo & Deck Chief Tyroll, and Helo & Tyroll (Chase). I’m sure Grace Park will be excited to see her likeness in a new mold. You can check out a full picture of the entire wave below.

Over on Marvel editor Tom Brevoort’s blog, a previously unannounced “Howard the Duck” series was revealed, via the preview page mirrored to the left. If this series is as good as his recent appearance in Civil War: Choosing Sides, it may actually be an interesting read, though the art definitely looks a bit different.

It’s worth mentioning that this is maybe the third time in the last 10 years that Marvel’s tried a Howard the Duck revival… But that this time they may be doing it without original creator Steve Gerber in the mix. At the moment, this page is all we know about the series, but if you’re interested in a quick-n-dirty version of Steve Gerber’s sordid past with Marvel, Tom Brevoort, and creator rights, then read on after the jump.
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TFW2005 has a a few pictures from a photo op at Edwards Air Force Base here, where you can see all the Autobots in addition to the Decepticon Barricade and the F22 Raptor, which is the form of Starscream. Wow. Starscream is BIG. Check ’em out. ComingSoon has some shots of more Autobots from ShoWest 2007.

MTV has short interview with Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, with some spoilers.

And because you can’t bring up Transformers without talking about the voice casting, NO they still have not made a decision about Megatron and Frank Welker, though he and Peter Cullen were spotted together on Shia Lebeouf’s Myspace. Rumours have been flying of Will Smith in negotiations as Jazz, which sounds pretty good if you ask me.

Finally, Shia mentioned to IESB that Transformers got an “R” rating on its first run through the MPAA. Apparently keeping blood out of the movie didn’t work, as the intense ‘bot on ‘con violence was still enough. Spielberg went to bat for the movie and got it knocked down to a PG-13. A new trailer with more awesome violence is due next month.

Pokemon Battle Revolution is due June 25 on Nintendo Wii and it will be the first online multiplayer title for the system. Already released in Japan, it supports the dreaded “friend code” system that makes pairing with friends and keeping track in game much more difficult than in the firmware available for Xbox 360 or Playstation 3.

That may change now. GameSpy, who not only are a video game news site, but also a middleware developer for online games, have been charged with turning the Wii’s online capabilities into a full functional network. They developed the software that governs existing DS WiFi titles, but promise something more robust for the console. Full press release after the jump, but I’ll spoil it for you right here with the important parts

• Friends Lists
• Ranked Matches
• Matchmaking

Of course, all of those have been in place since Mario Kart DS became the first Nintendo online title, but the promise of keeping a list using the console’s identity rather than each game’s is enough to give us hope for the future. Launching 7 months after the Wii’s debut and a year and half after the Nintendo WiFi service launched on DS, they’ve had plenty of time to get this right.

Still no word if this GameSpy middleware is being sent to 3rd party developers.

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Update 2011-01-09: This game never happened but a new Sailor Moon game will be released on the Nintendo DS this spring.

Not letting the fact that the show’s been off the air for over 10 years stop it Sailor Moon seems to have a game planned for release on the Wii. Asian import store YesAsia has this product description up for a Sailor Moon game published by Namco set to be released in December 2007. While this isn’t a certain confirmation that a game will be released YesAsia is a reputable online store I’ve dealt with a number of times so this should be taken more seriously than your run of the mill bogus Totaka rumour.

Who knows what kind of game play such a title could have in store or how it will use the Wii’s functionality but rest assured Powet.tv will be the place to get news on this title as it becomes available.

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Stormwatch PHD #5
written by Christos Gage, art by Doug Mahnke

About two weeks ago, I was in the shop picking up my books, and one of the guys from the small mob that lives there pointed out that the book I was picking up was by Christos Gage. He and I briefly chatted on Gage’s excellent track record, starting off with his fantastic Deadshot mini, his recent Batman work, and before that, how he was writing episodes for Law & Order: SVU (the best of the Law & Orders, really). We dug issues 1-3 out of the back-issue bins, but I’m still missing 4, which now leaves a gaping hole in my soul.

The premise is that the Stormwatch: Post-Human Division (AKA superhero division) features a team of (mostly) humans tasked with taking down super-powered bad guys. The team does have one guy that’s half evil alien, and there’s also the chick who used to have heat powers, but lost them. The rest of the team is just badass humans, mostly with a law enforcement background. Christos Gage does some of his best work here, bringing out his strength of writing cops from Law & Order and melding those skills into a comic story, creating a fantastic book that reads more like a cop drama than you’d expect.

And Doug Mahnke’s no slouch on the art either. He’s constantly called to go back and forth between scenes of a super-villain mayhem slaughter, training scenes in a gym, and then scenes of a lab where a woman’s body has been splattered everywhere. His art matches his most work on the Frankenstein mini, but if you have a sharp memory, you’ll recognize the name as the original artist of The Mask. All in all, you’ve got a quality creative team putting together a really great book. Get onboard while it’s still on the ground floor.