Enjoy!

By the way, the song used is Action Figure Party by Action Figure Party.

Lets head back to 1989. Hudson soft released this often overlooked but high quality action game on the NES. You play as Apollo and your goal is to rescue the princess. Okay, so the plot isn’t all that original, but the levels offer up a mix of side scrolling shooter levels and platforming. It’s linear, but there are hidden areas to discover, as well as new upgrades and abilities. It’s kinda like Gradius meets Mega Man and Metroid. There is a small chance that this could come to the virtual console, so check out the rom until then.

This week’s $20 GOTY and lost classics are gonna take you waaaaaay back. First, lets take a trip back to the PS2 launch. Although there weren’t many titles worth grabbing at the time, (except Timesplitters and Tekken Tag Tournament) Capcom gave us fighting game fans something to tide us over.

You either love the EX series or you hate it. Those who like it, (me for instance) like the cool music, intresting new characters (although some are somewhat dull), and the fact that our favorite 2-d series translated so well to 3-d. Those who hate it harp on it’s static backgrounds, dull characters, and consider it blasphemy to take a 2-d stalwart and take it into 3-d. Capcom’s 3-d fighters have been more of a test run than anything, and the fact that they still continue to produce 2-d games speaks volumes of thier apprehension to make the jump to 3-d. Be that as it may, beside Rival Schools and Tech Romancer, this is probably thier best 3-d effort.

Although the only new character introduced here is Ace (a robot who you can set special attacks for in an all new mission mode), many of your favorites from the EX series have arrived. A new Tag Team mode, similar to the Marvel vs Capcom games is also included. You can’t change in and out as rapidly here as you did in MVC though, so it adds a layer of strategy and timing. A new single player mode tries to do things differently by having you fight more than one opponent at once, and giving you the option to recruit defeated opponents to your team. Finally, beating the aforementioned single player mode treats you to the wildest credit sequence ever; a free-for all brawl where the goal is to take out as many enemies as you can.

As I mentioned before, not everyone will like SFEX3, particularly series purists. I kinda miss the remixed barrel breaking game from the original EX. For those who don’t mind a little change now and then however, you can’t go wrong with this PS2 blast from the past.

Ramping up to the big Iron Man feature and follow on the heels of 2 successful Ultimate Avengers direct-to-DVD releases, Lions Gate and Marvel will release Invicible Iron Man on January 23rd. The invincibly tiny cover art was provided by DavidDVD and heres a synopsis of the plot:

While raising the ruins of a long buried Chinese kingdom, billionaire inventor Tony Stark digs up far more than he bargained for. He unleashes an age-old prophecy that foretells the resurrection of the Mandarin, the emperor of China’s darkest and most violent dynasty. To confront this destructive force, Stark creates an armored suit infused with high-tech weaponry to stop the evil that he himself has raised form the earth.

I’m supposing this will take place inside the Ultimate Avengers continuity as a prequel or something.

Special features include featurettes on the origin of Iron Man, a gallery of Iron Man armor, and a first look at the 4th Marvel DVD feature, Dr. Strange. Suggested retail is $20 as usual but theres a Gift Set planned with Iron man and both Ultimate Avengers movies and a Marvel Icons Iron Man bust. That will set you back $60. They obviously carefully planned this gift set release for the busy Valentines day season. Ladies, you now know how to charm your comic nerd boyfriend, and its with cartoons and the torso of an alcoholic in a suit of armor.

Hollywood Reporter is breaking news that the Matrix directing Wachowski Brothers are now going to helm a Live Action update of Speed Racer for producer Joel Silver.

The article mentions Vince Vaughn being screen tested for Racer X, and that Larry & Andy want to make a more family friendly movie unlike their existing efforts (Bound, The Matrix, V for Vendetta).

They’re of course promising mind blowing effects and racing in ways we’ve never seen before. I certainly hope so because after this summers 1-2 Nascar punch of Cars and Ricky Bobby, I’m not sure racing is very interesting to film without the type of unexpected chaos a car chase in a movie allows. That said, I’m a fan of the car chase in Matrix Reloaded and hope they’ve got some fresh ideas.

Speed Racer is of course an infamously cliched Japanese animated series, and one of the first to ever be imported to the US.

Of course, instead of posting an actual Speed Racer clip to go with this article, I’ll go with the Dexter’s Lab send up. Its funnier and less boring.

You know Zelda, you know Red Steel. You may even know Rayman, and you expect Madden. Nonetheless heres the entire 60 game (SIXTY!) list covering all the white boxed discs you’ll find in store and Virtual Console titles you’ll find online. Most are expected launch day or launch week, but all by December. Wii goes on sale November 19, 2006.
[Read the rest of this entry…]

All of us at Powet.tv would like to wish you a safe and happy Halloween. To celebrate the occaison, many of our members have shared their own unique pumpkin carvings.

bmxbot shares a Green Lantern logo and Hello Kitty pumpkin with us:

e.kohli‘s girlfriend carved this dragon:

xCharonx does the inevitable, given the number of trannies around this place, and gives us a decepticon logo:

SparkStalker shows us some pictures of pumpkins of past Halloweens with this skull carving and violently impaled pumpkin head:

And I try my luck at a Sailor Moon pumpkin:

SuperHeroHype brings us lots of updates on comic-based movies coming out.

• Ron Perlman and Kelly Hu are joining Samuel L. Jackson on the Afro Samurai project for Spike TV.

  • The five-part animated series is produced by Japanese studio Gonzo in association/partnership with GHK K.K. and FUNimation and premieres on SPIKE Thursday, January 4, 2007

• I just noticed that IMDB is listing Kelly Hu as Yuriko Oyama in the Wolverine movie, listed as ‘in pre-production’. So expect to see a rematch of Wolverine vs. Lady Deathstrike, or at least some interesting flashbacks.
• A Superman sequel looks like a go with Bryan Singer on board to produce and direct.
• Superman Returns hits 200 million domestically, clearing an obstacle for a sequel which already looks to be given the go ahead now.
• Fourth Spiderman 3 villain revealed to be Bruce Campbell?
• Marvel’s Moon Knight property is heading for a TV series!

[UPDATE – CRAZY: Just noticed that IMDB is listing Kelly Hu as ‘rumored’ for Wolverine and not yet confirmed.]