The world of gaming and fantasy has lost one of its fathers. Gary Gygax, creator of the Dungeons & Dragons, has died. He was 69.

News comes down from Troll Lord games, a small company Gygax was devloping games for. You can read more about the man at Wikipedia.

Farewell, Dungeon Master. Though I wasn’t much for your game, it is because of your games that the world of sci-fi fantasy and videogames are what they are today. You will be missed.

My birthday was this past week, so in lieu of my usual $20 Game of the week and Lost Classics segments this week, I decided to give you a look at the the first half of one of the greatest console role playing game franchise of all time. That’s right, it’s my birthday, but I’m giving you the gift. See how cool I am? Well, onto our special feature.

After Dragon Quest (or Dragon Warrior as we knew it over here at the time), Final Fantasy was and still remains one of RPG gaming’s most prolific franchises. It introduced and refined several conventions that are seen in RPGs such as the turn-based battle system, character customization, ability progression, and story writing. Even so, it wasn’t until FFVII bought the series into 3-d that the series gained mainstream popularity. However, the first six games of the series still hold a special place in the hearts of many longtime FF fans.

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In an unexpected turn of events, the Botcon Exclusive box set has already sold out. While no official word of the sell out has been posted on the Botcon.com site, TFW2005 is reporting this as fact based on an email received from Botcon staff in relation to an inquiry about the box set.

That means for the second year in a row, the Exclusive Box set for the convention has sold out before the last figure(s) had been revealed. This is a surprise considering the rabid anticipation for last year’s set compared to the seemingly lukewarm reception for this year’s set.

The last two figures were revealed shortly after the reported sell out.

First up we have Starscream, whom we previously saw a prototype of here. Its nice to see he’s been given some more paint apps than the prototype shows. That being said, whenever I look at it, all I can think is that Starscream is wearing a Jetfire halloween costume.

 

Lastly, we have been shown the mini-con, Razorclaw. Razorclaw is a repaint of Overbite from the Classics Mini-con Predator Attack team. That means there are still two more mini-cons from that team to be included in either the at-convention exclusive sets or the preregistration freebie. Rumored to be in the exclusive at-convention sets are a black version of Classics Rodimus with a beard in one set and a repainted Energon Megatron painted in black and silver with blue wings in the other set.

 

The quality of Superman movies varies greatly. Defenders even have trouble justifying The Quest For Peace.
But the quality of Superman music has been pretty much completely good. John Williams original score and the composers who followed him universally captured the Last Son of Krypton without words or images. Now Film Score Monthly is going forth with a limited to 3000 edition 8CD box set of every note from the Christopher Reeve Superman movies and selections from the 1988 Superman Animated Series.
Its currently on sale for $119.95 via Screen Archives Entertainment. If you’re interested, buy it now, because once they tick 3000 orders its done.

Via AICN

Although this game was one of the first role playing games to be released on the original Playstation in Japan, it would end up being the one of the last RPGs on the original PS1 in America. Arc the lad spawned several sequels and an anime series. Ironically, even though it was Sony Computer Entertainment themselves who owned the franchise, the ‘anti-2-d’ stance of its American branch was the main factor that prevented this game’s release. Working Designs (best known for its U.S.releases of Lunar) even attempted to score the U.S. publishing rights to the three games, but they were denied by Sony. However, things turned around thanks to new management at Sony and the success of other RPGs, most notable Final Fantasy VII and VIII. After several months of delays, Working Designs finally gave us the chance to play this classic. Not only that, we got all three PS1 games to boot. Arc the Lad Collection carried a $75 price tag, but being able to play this classic RPG series made the hefty price worth it.

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Botcon.com has posted four new pictures revealing two figures in both modes from the convention exclusive box set for this year. I think Jazz’s colors and new head came out great. I wasn’t a big fan of the Cybertron Crosswise mold, though, so I’m not sure how excited I am about it.
 

The revelation of Grimlock puts the kibosh on the photo from taobao.com (?) of the black Grimlock as being the Botcon exclusive.

 

Here is the photo of the rumored black Grimlock:

Also, it appears that a prototype of the Botcon repaint of Cybertron Voyager Class Starscream has surfaced. He appears to be modeled very much in the likeness of Jetfire. You can see the auction here with lots of pictures. I’ve included a few of them below.
 

February 18th was the release date for the first box set of the 2002 He-Man and the Master of the Universe animated series. Just before that, however, some news started coming in about a defect on the first disc of the set.

BCI Guy a member of the He-Man.org forums and representative of BCI itself (the company producing the sets) had this to say:

“Sorry for the delay getting back to everyone, but I needed to make sure we were totally sure what happened, how we could fix it, and what we could do about it before reporting anything.

The masters that we received from Mattel are complete – the scene is not missing. The problem was in authoring. There is a layer break in the episode (Disc 1, Episode 4) and when the layer switches, it skips over about 3 minutes of the program. Unfortunately, it’s during a transition and there is no visible or audible break, so the only way to notice it’s there is through story continuity. And no one that watched the check discs caught that it was missing. Honestly, that’s not a valid excuse – it should’ve been caught by someone, and the authoring house needed to realize that one episode was running 3 minutes short. It’s inexcusable, and we’re taking drastic measures to fix this problem once and for all. We’re committed to giving everyone the best possible product – content, features, packaging and quality control. 3 out of those 4 is not nearly enough, so we’re moving Volumes 2 and 3 to a new authoring house that has assured us of the quality and depth of their Quality Control department.

We have already reauthored Disc 1 and will have replacements available by street date – Feb 19th. We will be setting up an 800# to request replacement discs which we will ship out along with a new exclusive bonus item for your trouble and as an apology from us.

We appreciate your continued support.”

This was posted here.

As a follow up a few days later, this was posted on He-Man.org, once again from BCI Guy:

“The replacement disc for Mattel’s He Man Volume 1, Disc One can be ordered by either sending an email to HeManDisc@gmail.com or calling 866-641-3472. Please include your name, your address, a daytime telephone number and the store name and location where you purchased your DVD.”

As seen on Anime News Network, Leonardo DiCaprio has been announced to produce Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira manga into two live-action films; one set for a 2009 release, and another that has yet to have it’s release date projected.

“Each film will cover three volumes of the renowned science-fiction manga about a governmental genetic project and a teenager’s attempt to save a fellow biker gang member.

The manga set in Neo-Tokyo, a city rebuilt after being destroyed in a mysterious explosion. Otomo directed his own animated film adaptation that premiered on July 16, 1988 — the same day that the story has the fictional Tokyo being destroyed. The first live-action film is scheduled for release in the summer of 2009 and will move the story’s setting to “‘New Manhattan,’ a city rebuilt after being destroyed 31 years ago.” “

So, it looks like not only will we be getting DiCaprio as a producer, they’re also going to try and adapt the original plot and premise to suit American ideals. Because that’ll go over well with fans of the anime movie and manga, I’m sure.

Warner Brothers originally had rights to the movie, until Executive Vice-President Greg Silverman (300, Batman Begins) had to re-acquire them from Kodansha after a large bidding war ensued. Ruairi Robinson will be making his feature directorial debut with this project, and Gary Whitta (Book of Eli) is taking the reigns of script-writing. Nothing has been mentioned about casting as of yet. Looks like we’ll all have to keep our eyes on this one, though I wouldn’t hold out much hope.