For your regular dosage from the resident Castlevaniac, we’ve got clips from the upcoming PSP game, Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles. This preview delves a bit deeper than a previous trailer, in that it actually shows Dracula’s ressurrection by the dark Priest Shaft. This scene mimics the opener for the PC Engine Duo version of the game, Rondo of Blood. (except for the fact it’s not in a cheesey anime style, and Dracula doesn’t look like Trunks from Dragon Ball Z)

Here’s the original opening –

It would appear that someone’s prayers were answered. Paul S. Anderson has announced that he is stepping down from directing the live-action Castlevania movie, in favor of making the movie Death Race instead. Anderson hands control of directing over Sylvain White, and has said that the two will collaborate on rewriting the script for the film. Sylvain Wright is known for such movies as Stomp the Yard, and hopes to do a film adaption of Frank Miller’s Ronin in the future.

Oh happy day!

Of course this will still rub some Castlevania fanboys the wrong way, and cries of ‘it’ll be some melodramatic dance movie’ have already been sounded. Of course this is despite the fact these same fans complained that Anderson would make Castlevania another Resident Evil or Alien vs. Predator disaster. What does this CV fangirl say to all that? At least it’s not Uwe Boll people.

Castlevania now has a slated release of late 2008.

Just a quick little weekend update for your gaming cravings. Bungie Entertainment and Microsoft have released the official box art for the highly anticipated Halo 3 game, slated for release in September. Ravenous fanboys can breath a sign of relief now, for gazing upon it’s cover is the next step between now and the game hitting the shelves. Master Chief, we salute thee.

It may be just me, but for such a highly waited-for game that fanboys have been drooling over since Halo 2 came out, the cover art seems a wee bit….anticlimatic to me. Of course, that’s just me, and I’m just a silly gamer girl who doesn’t know quality, right?

The rest of you can continue salivating now.

It would appear since so many movies recently have been based off of comic and gaming heroes such as Spider-Man and the upcoming Iron-Man film, that even the more ambiguous names in the hero world want a piece of the fame.

Tom DeSanto, who produced the Transformers movie slated to release next month, has announced he plans on bringing the multiplayer online RPG City of Heroes into the cinama world that has made so many other heroes blockbuster hits. DeSanto states that he wishes to take advantage of the variety of protaganists that could come from the game’s “mix-n-match” hero creation theme.

“You also haven’t seen a big superheroes vs. aliens movie. I see this as the next big superhero franchise.”

There’s also talk of DeSanto making a TV series based on the game as well. Given the influx of such hero movies as of late, this seems to look like it will either be genius or a complete flop.

It’s a widely known fact that, despite what your personal preferences may be, Final Fantasy 7 was undoubtly the most popular and well known games of the FF series thus far. Since its conception a decade ago, people have been wondering that, since it was so popular, shouldn’t the game be remade on the newest generation of consoles for an even better rendition of the classic tale? Of course this has always been a rumor, but never has there been cold hard facts that it was or wasn’t being considered by the good people at Square-Enix.

Well, looks like we finally got our first batch of “official” news on the topic, and it’s not a good report. Tetsuya Nomura, who was the character designer for the original game, states that overseas rumors are just that.

“My apologies, but we’re absolutely not making [such a game].”

So that’s it? That’s the cold hard truth from the horse’s mouth? Everyone hoping that a 10th Anniversary remake being secretly made are out of luck? Seems kind of hard to believe, given that even Normura himself has proclaimed in contrast, “We of course know ourselves what the fans want so we’d like to continue thinking up a variety of things. As long as there are people who want to make it and people who are waiting for it, we don’t want to proclaim ‘the end.”

It’s not like it’s a crime to report false testaments to media outlets, and considering some supposed PS3 production art for a technical demo that’s been featured on IGN such as [here] and [here], there may still be reason to hold out a bit of hope that the developers at Square-Enix still known what their fans crave.

Seems Gamestop is having there huge “Summer Sale” early this year. “Game Days”, which started this past Saturday and will run until June 17th (or while supplies last), features 25% – 50% off many video game titles, accessories, and movies. Things like my beloved Castlevania: Curse of Darkness are going for $9.99. (which makes me hurt inside a bit) Also, trade-ins on hardware count for an extra $20 during this time period, as well as getting some extra cash when you trade in multiple used games.

http://www.gamestop.com/gs/gamedays/

So if any of you are in the western NY area, back off because I’ve got that as claimed territory. Otherwise, I’d say get in on this if you feel like saving a few bucks on some titles you may be missing from your library or want to get some extra value on your trade-ins.

It’s been approximately three weeks since seeing Spider-Man 3 in theatres, and I figure by this time either you’ve seen the movie, or you don’t plan on seeing it. And now, with Pirates of the Caribbean 3 having come out this past Thursday and my own plans doing an eventual review of that, I should probably get to my previous priority of sharing my take of this movie. I’ve premeditated this more than I should have.

So of course, I had been wanting to see Spider-Man 3 for the longest damn time. As soon as I heard that that they were going to do the black costume story arc, and there was going to be at least an introduction of Venom into the scene, I got about as giddy as I possible could, which says a lot for me. Even after hearing that they were also going to be throwing Sandman in as a villain as well, I was deterred at all, because as I’m sure the rest figured as well, I was hoping this would just be and introduction into Venom story, and they’d actually debut him at the very end of the movie as a teaser, or they’d simply lead up to him showing up fully in a 4^th movie. Everything was going to be fine, I assured myself.

[Read the rest of this entry…]

Who remembers Mystery Science Theatre 3000?

Ok, I don’t think I honestly need to ask that question, seeing as how if you don’t know what MST3K is, you should just surf away from this site right now. (err, no wait…come back) Anyway, for those who do remember the syndicated television show where one man and 2 robots would constantly rip on older horror and science fiction flicks like a in-film perversion of Siskel & Ebert, but regret the fact that the show no longer runs featuring some newer films to dump on, you’re in luck!

RiffTrax.com features MST3K’s Michael J. Nealson doing various movie critiques of some of the field’s more recent cinema, such as the the morse recent Star Wars Trilogy, Eragon, Casino Royale, and The Matrix – all in Mystery Science Theatre format of halarity. All you have to do is download the MP3 commentary that goes with your movie of choice, and play it at the same time as the DVD!

http://www.rifftrax.com/

Of course, there is a downside – you have to pay. Each movie MP3 is about $2-$3

So, if you’re feeling bored some night and have the money to spend for some tried-and-true funny times, then this might be right up your alley. Otherwise, you may just want to get your friends liquored up and pop in Army of Darkness or Happy Gilmore.