What if Taito had made a Mega Man game, but instead of a little blue robot, you played as a Arnold Schwarzenegger look-alike*, and instead of an upgradable arm cannon, you used an upgradable boomerang to fight enemies? Well the end result would resemble Taito’s NES side-scrolling platformer, Power Blade 2. A sequel to 1991’s Power Blade, PB 2 once again casts players as Nova, a secret government agent in the year 2200. The Delta Corporation has created a new cyborg warrior and wants to sell it to the United States. The president refuses, and the Delta corporation is threatening to sell the robot to an enemy power. This doesn’t sit too well with the Department of Defense, so they send Nova on a secret mission to destroy Delta. It’s not going to be easy, as scores of enemy robots will stand in his way. However, Nova has his trusty boomerang at his side, ready to take on anything.

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Ever wanted to make your own block-rockin rap beats? Can’t afford thousands of dollars worth of studio equipment? Got a PSP? Well, Eidos has something for you. Traxxpad basically places a sequencer, sampler, and drum machine in the palm of your hand. The learning curve is a bit steep (especially if you are unfamiliar with music-creation software), but the disc is divided up into four basic functions. You lay down samples in the R.T.I.S.T editor, use the M.E.L.O.D to adjust their pitch and volume, and use the S.T.A.C to combine sequences and create a track. The Myxxer is basically a portable jam session, which makes it best for experimenting with the different samples. You can create tracks, export them as MP3s, or just save them to edit later. The WAV editor can be used to trim and crop your sounds, and you can use a PSP microphone to record vocals. Traxxpad contains over 1000 samples to use, and many of them have been supplied by outside producers and labels such as Sha-Money Management, Traxxamillion, and even Psychopathic Records (of ICP fame). The samples have been organized into sound banks, which you can load up and switch between at any time. You can even swap out samples from one bank and create a custom sound bank for whatever you need. There is a variety of different instruments, bass lines, and vocal effects, so if you’re creative, then you can come up with just about anything. Of course, seeing as how this is a PSP and not a computer, the limited controls will present some interface issues. Navigation through the menus is tricky, and there is a steep learning curve. The instruction book contains a brief tutorial, so you’d be wise to follow that before jumping in to the game.

Even with the steep learning curve, Traxxpad is an impressive piece of material. You’ll have to spend a lot of time with it to get the most out of it, but when you learn its ins and outs, the interface will become second nature, and you’ll be making dope tracks in little time at all. This PSP disc is quite powerful when it comes to the options you have available for making beats. There are better and more complex tools out there for producers-in-training (especially on the computer), but for beginners and seasoned veterans alike, Traxxpad is a good way to start out.

A number of Powet.tv members have been attending Otakon for a few years. What follows was at some point intended to be some kind of comprehensive overview of the con, but it should be immediately obvious that we weren’t able to follow through with such an ambitious goal.

Enjoy the trannies, furrie, LARPers, and some even seedier perversions that plague the geek community attending a standard convention. All things considered, the simple act of Cosplaying really isn’t that weird at all.

To be eligible for the contest to win the Yaoi book mentioned in the above video, please leave your relevant comment to this blog post in the next month.

Today we take a look at the Voyager Class Bulkhead figure from Transformers Animated. I managed to pick him up at Botcon and barely put him down since.

Show Notes:
Marvel figure close-ups from: MarvelLegends.Net
Bulkhead close-up photo from: Aftimes.com
Lugnut close-up photo from: TFU.Info

Show Clips were taken from the series as aired on Cartoon Network. Go watch the show! Its really great!

And the Pilot movie can be found here (it is NOT included in the Season 1 dvd set):	You can buy Season 1 here:	The figure can be purchased here:

Hasbro has some neat character bios up on their Transformers Animated site:
Transformers Animated Character Bios

There seemed to be a lot of hype around SDCC about Mattel’s new online-only exclusive Masters of the Universe Classics line. The first figure, King Grayskull, sold out in a relatively short span of time. We saw our first glimpse of He-Man and Beast Man. We were also told Merman, Skeletor and Zodac were on the way. The He-Man.org forums were abuzz with delight at the relaunch of their long desired property.

Many of the other online toy forums, not so dedicated to a single property, were not so keen on what was seen. While it was said that the character choices could come from any line of the He-Man property, we wouldn’t be seeing any of those other lines for at least a year. It was also stated that all figures would match the chunky retro style of the original 80’s toys. Even if a character was chosen from a different line with obvious style disparities from the original show such as New Adventures of He-Man or the 2002 version of Masters of the Universe, the sculpting style would remain in the classic chunky look of the 80’s figures.

This disparity among collectors has a lot of people wondering what will happen to the line now that these details have come to light and those not a part of the ‘hardcore 80’s audience’ is turned off by what they’ve seen thus far. Will the sculpting style change to match the style the character is originally from? Its certainly with in the sculptors’ capability since its none other than the Four Horsemen at the helm on that end. Ultimately though, its Mattel’s decision.

He-Man.org is running a poll to try and determine what fans think of the new line and I think its highly important for all fans to respond. The choices basically ask if you would collect the line, if you would collect the line if certain figures showed up from different series, or if you would not collect the line because of the classic sculpting being used for every figure. Go here to vote and be heard.

A brand new trailer for the newest James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace (break out your dictionaries kiddies!) has been released for all to see via the wonders of the web. The first trailer debuted during the run of Batman: The Dark Knight.

Check it out!

Out of all of Capcom’s intellectual properties, Mega Man stands as one of their best. The Blue Bomber has been around for more than 2 decades, and the franchise has branched out in several directions, including cartoons, action figures, comic books, and other merchandise. The series started off simple enough. As the title character, you fight a series of robots in whichever order you choose. When you defeat an enemy, you gained his weapon. The trick of course, was the find out which weapon worked best on which enemy. When you defeated all 8 robots, you went on to face Dr. Wily at his castle. As time went on, the series eventually spawned several spin-offs. While games such as Mega Man X placed a different face on the classic game play, other spin-offs such as Mega Man Legends have slowly moved away from what made the series great. Thankfully Capcom has recognized this, and as part of their retro-revival have created a new Mega Man game…for the NES! Of course seeing as how very few people these days have a working NES, Capcom did the next best thing: release it as a downloadable title via WiiWare, Xbox Live Arcade, and Playstation Network. The new game, Mega Man 9, will be released this month. In celebration of the new title, this week’s $20 GOTW and Lost Classics will be dedicated to the blue bomber himself. Coincidentally, this also marks the three-year anniversary of Powet’s $20 GOTW, so head right on in and check out this small tribute.

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In a bit of more obscure news for the week, it seems that another key member of the entertainment industry has left us, but not one of the ones you’d think of initially.

Don LaFontaine, also known as the “Movie Voice-Over Guy” who has done the recordings for over 5000 movie trailers and tv commercials (most recently his GIECO appearance), has died at the age of 68 due to complications with a collapsed lung. He was pronounced yesterday.

If you’ve watched any amount of movies in your lifetime, you’ve likely encountered LaFontaine’s performance several times, most notably his “In a World….” introductions in his booming ominous voice that were his niche. These became so frequently used, that parodies have popped up in the past on shows like Family Guy and as a comedy act by Pablo Francisco.

With another media star gone, one has to wonder if 2008 is a Black Year for the entertainment scene.