Between last weekend’s conventions in Philadelphia, PA and Charlotte, NC – not to mention the books that hit the stands this week – there’s been a veritable onslaught of comics news. To get your rundowns on the news from the cons, from details on the “Messiah CompleX” X-Men crossover, to the new writer on JLA (hint: try the mastermind behind the JLU animated series), to your quick ‘n dirty recap of what insanity has happened to The Flash, continue on after the jump.
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Finally, the triumphant return of the Grandpappy of action/shooter/platformers, (and more importantly, a return to sweet, sweet 2-D). Set to be released sometime in 2007, players will take control of one of four characters, (including the unfortunately named Lance Bean), and blast their way through horizontally side scrolling levels as well as vertically between the DS’s duel screens. Check out the official press release after the jump.

With E3 a scant few weeks away, we can expect to see the game in motion soon.

One more thing…grappling hook!
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Secondly only to Capcom’s Tech Romancer in terms of obscurity, this is one of the few times that Capcom bought their fighters into 3D. With a unique control scheme, crazy characters, and a high school setting, this game was something different. Not only was it different from most Capcom fighters, it was different from other fighting games in general. Even though Capcom fans like this game even more than the Street Fighter EX series, the fact that there hasn’t been many follow ups to this game, as well as the fact that Capcom continues to make (or at least Re-make) 2D fighting games more frequently than 3D speaks volumes of Capcom’s apprehension towards 3D fighters.
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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 –

Tomorrow, the DC/Marvel juggernaut churns on with the final issue of the current Flash run (#13 – with promises of importance, for some reason), an issue of The Incredible Hulk, and so on… But the choice find of the week will be the Tick 20th Anniversary Special Edition #1. As we’ve mentioned before here at Powet, there’s a crapload of creators contributing 1 to 2 pages of material for the book, which should make it approximately 2,000 pages thick. Give or take.

I’m not going to bother saying anything more to push this. Any and all Tick fans – just keep an eye out for this one. Non-Tick fans – feel free to cover yourselves in chocolate and lie down on an anthill.

If you got a fairly high-end PC, head over to http://www.theprodukkt.com/ and download this slick game, which was featured in last month’s Game Informer. Even though it’s only a beta of episode 1, the graphical quality is pretty good and can hold it’s own against most PC first person shooter games. The game is a bit rough around the edges when it comes to frame rate, weapons, and enemies, but it is only a beta, and hopefully the functionality will be improved in the final version. The main draw about this download is it’s size, which is only 96k! This is done by using procedural generation methods in order to process the textures and shapes. The textures are stored by creation history rather than a pixel by pixel basis. (Other PC FPS games take up so much space because of their graphical engines and textures.) You can read more about it at it’s wikipedia entry. Technological terms aside, that’s one heck of an accomplishment. It’s small enough to fit on your floppy disk and then some! The game is only one level, but if this is what the beta looks like, then I can’t wait to see the finished version. This may not be Unreal Engine 3, but it’s nice looking!

System Requirements:
Operating System: Windows
Processor: 1.5GHz pentium 3 / athlon or faster.
System Memory: 512MB Ram
Graphics: GeForce4Ti / ATI Radeon8500 (equivalent or higher) with at least 128 MB or VRAM with pixel shader 1.3 support.
Direct X 9.0b
Storage: 96k RAM
Sound: Direct Sound Compatible hardware

There may be some bugs. Read the FAQ on the site for more information. Also, your anti-virus software may detect the game as a virus or Trojan, ignore any warnings that may pop up when the game downloads.

A few notes about the technology and it’s developers
.theprodukkt is an ongoing project created by a group of German developers. It’s goal is to create a system that contains all the functions (scene management, textures, shading, etc) that developers use to create 3d computer graphics, integrate aspects that are needed for game development (i.e. AI, Interaction, and music), and is highly productive for experienced artists and programmers. .werkkzeug3, the creation tool which was used for .kkrieger, is available as a free or commercial download from their site. The game won first place at the Breakpoint 96k game competition in April 2004.

No sooner do we find that Batman Gets A New Suit For Dark Knight, but now we find he’s got new wheels!

Called “The Batpod” its in the same spirit as The Tumbler from Batman Begins. Its a specially design motorcycle equiped with twin machine guns, cannons, and grappling hooks. And like the 2005 Batmobile, its fully functional and rides at high speeds and will be filmed without the use of visual effects to distort the functionality of the vehicle, with 508 millimeter wheels and and two engines.

It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to think up what kind of chase scene this will play a part in, but I’m eager to see it all the same.

To see a video of Al Roker talking about it, click here.

From The LATimes

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