Its been some time since Valve and EA announced they’d bring the stunning Half Life 2 to the Xbox 360 & PS3. Its been an even longer time since Valve commited to an episodic sequel instead of a full on development of Half Life 3.

Valve’s updated their Steam service with news that Episode 2 is nearly complete! This is great news because it means they can get it up for download very soon and the wait is almost over. Well thats great news for PC Gamers anyway.

Console folks like myself can rest easy knowing that full focus will soon shift toward completing Episode 2 for consoles, to be released in the “Orange Box” edition with the new online Multiplayer Team Fortress 2 and the gravity physics puzzle game Portal, not to mention the full release of Half Life 2 and Episode 1. Even at the premium price of $59.99 for a next gen game, thats a crazy amount of content!

Hey, thats not all, Game Head went to Valve’s offices recently, and you can watch the full episode below…
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Josh Duhamel, who plays Captain Lennox in Transformers was on Ellen yesterday. And since all actors bring clips of their movies, here is 45 seconds of Transformers. The clip is mostly unremarkable, and the last few seconds clearly jump WAY ahead so its not a full scene, but you do see a little bit of whats happening in Qatar.

Nova #2
written by Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning, art by Sean Chen

My surprise delight last month was issue #1 of Nova. Having read Annihilation I was definitely looking forward to the series. After all, it was the same team that wrote his lead-in book to Annihilation, and that was probably my favorite of the four that were made. While this book wasn’t as deep on story as I expected, it was one hell of a thrill-ride, all the way through. Sean Chen doesn’t have a long resume of work, but I was definitely pleased with his work here. He showed some gorgeous spacescapes, his aliens were nicely alien looking, and he did some great, great action sequences. Even better, the book was written very clearly, in a way where someone who didn’t read Annihilation could pick it up and run with it.

If you missed the first issue, you missed one of the better new series to come out in the last couple years. It’s a crapload of fun and excitement, and it’s a lot of fun to read, if for no other reason than that the Worldmind that Nova’s constantly dealing with is kind of an arrogant prick. Issue #2 lands this Wednesday, and with Nova’s newfound galaxy-class power levels, it looks like he’s about to come face to face with a post-Civil War Iron Man, which I can only hope results in Iron Man getting turned into toothpaste.

Your store may have another copy of Nova #1 lying around, so grab it if you can, and grab issue #2 while you’re at it. This book kicks ass.

Gotta love Square-Enix for their teasers.

Yesterday, a new site was launched representing the newest addition to the legendary Final Fantasy series : Dissidia. Obviously, not much is out right now in terms of information about the game, other than it’s for the PSP, and Nomura is doing the character designs. The unconfirmed info concerning the game is that it very well might not be a traditional RPG, like the rest of the series, and that it may be based off of Final Fantasy XIII. This is also meant to be a part of the “20th Anniversary” stint of special goodies being released by Square-Enix.

More details will supposedly be released at this weekend’s Square-Enix Party. No release date other that “TBA” has been given as of yet.

You can check out the teaser site HERE.

Slow news days make for great little snippet updates.

Seems the boys over at Project 51 Productions have been brainstorming quite a bit, and have some exciting news. There’s not to be just one animated Castlevania movie – but three! A trilogy of animated movies, all telling the extended take of Castlevania 3: Dracula’s Curse. While this might not be what some fans had in mind, as I know I can hear some saying “But why can’t they just make separate movies for each game in the series?”, I can only say this – you want it done, or do you want it done right?

It also appears that series head, Koji Igarashi, is also involved in the movie as well. Of course, he was also supposedly ‘involved’ with the Castlevania comic books too, and those only got half-hearted reviews. Again, more news as it develops on that one.

Oh, and just as a smaller note – Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles for the PSP will now be released in September.

SuperHeroHype has two images from the Iron Man movie, one of them new, one of them not – both of which we’re mirroring here for your viewing pleasure. On the left, you’ve got Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark. And on the right, you’ve got a much bigger version of that Iron Man suit image, which is just absolutely glorious. Which image you’re likely to prefer of course depends on whether you’re more into mechsuits or guys with goatees.

As you no doubt know, Spider-man returns to theaters this weekend in a big way. In honor of his return, this week’s extended Lost Classics and $20 GOTW will take a look at some of the best games featuring the web slinger. So click below for some interactive web slinging action.
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Interesting little quip – notorious movie review site, Rotten Tomatoes, has compiled a list of the near-hundred comic book based movies so far created and released, and has listed them starting from worst to best based on review scores from both critics and users, and has them all lined up neatly like ducks in a shooting range. Take that how you will.

Of course, don’t go into it thinking your opinions of a certain movie are going to be shared by all. Apperently some movies, like the appalling Catwoman, did have a few that were rated actually worse than itself, if that’s possible. What I thought was interesting was the fact that they don’t limit it to just comic books, but also comics you’d see from the Sunday News, such as Garfield and Richie Rich. Then there are the movies you didn’t even know were based on comics, such as was the case with me and Judge Dredd. Regardless, despite a usual concensus of underwhelming applause for a good number of rather decent movies, it’s an interesting trip to walk through.

Check it out – at your own risk of possible homicidal rage of course.