Ever since 2000, Activision has made good use of the licencing rights to Spiderman, putting out some of the best games based on the webslinger. The video game adaptation to the second movie is no different. Taking a page out of Grand Theft Auto, Spiderman 2 features an open world design where players can websling thier way around New York city and stop crimes. (Although at times some of them can get pretty repetitive and lame) Players can earn hero points, which are spent on upgrades and new attacks. In typical gaming fashion, the game follows the plot of the movie while adding additional material from the comics. Along with Doctor Octopus, you’ll also run into Mysterio (the final battle with him ranks as one of the funniest moments in video games) Shocker, Rhino, and the Black Cat throughout the course of the game. Only bad spot is the lack of real unlockables, considering how much extra bonus stuff Activision has packed in the past. Instead you earn badges for doing a certain amount of tasks, which do nothing, except maybe as act as a precursor to Xbox Live 360 acheivements. Even so, Spiderfans owe it to them selves to check out this game.

Tecmo’s Deception series is one of those games that refuses to be piegonholed into a single category. Is it an action game? Is it an RPG? Is it a puzzle game? It is varied enough to compete in any genre. This is the third installment of the series. Instead of killing enemies with swords and magic, you use specalized traps that you set up before entering the level. You can even create new ones between levels by combining certain objects found during the game. This new game tells the story of a girl abducted alongside her adopted family on her birthday, and forced to use her newfound powers to survive and gain revenge on the king and queen responsible for her predictament. It’s funny as hell to watch a body fly through the air after stepping on a catapult. There is a sequel of sorts out called “Trapt” on PS2. Although this is a pipe dream, a next-gen installment of the serie making use of Havok physics and realistic gore effects would be awesome. Until then, pic this up and satisfy that inner sadist in you.

Mark your calendars, He-Man fans! The New Adventures of He-man are coming to DVD December 26, 2006.

He-man.org brings us details about the set. It will be a 6 disc set and will feature 33 episodes.
The set will be Volume 1 of 2.
The bonus features include

• Two all-new half hour documentaries; one featuring interviews with members of the New Adventures of He-Man production team, and the other featuring the history of Masters of the Universe comics (both classic and 2002) and interviews with their creators
• 50 Detailed Characters and Location Profiles with Bios, Images and Clips
• Trivia Fun Facts
• Art Gallery
• Easter Eggs
• DVD-ROM features including scripts for multiple episodes and the series bible (PDF format, PC/Mac readable)
• Ink & Paint trailers for many other cool animated releases

While this is far from the most beloved series of the Masters Of The Universe franchise, it definitely has its place. I remember watching it everyday before leaving for school. Also, the spine of this set adds on to the spine art picture of the previous sets and the She-Ra sets. See the picture below for a picture!

Also, don’t forget Volume 1 of She-Ra, Princess of Power comes out November 7th.

Wolverine and Magneto review the disastrous DVD release for the latest in the X-Men movie series by talking about some discs accidentally containing extra scenes, Fox’s double dipping plans and the already released European DVD with all the features we should have gotten in the first place.

Listed below are the special features we’re missing:
– 11 additional deleted scenes
– ‘X-Men: Evolution Of A Trilogy’ featurette
– ‘X-Men: The Excitement Continues’ featurette
– ‘X-Men Up Close’ interactive gallery
– ‘Anatomy Of A Scene: The Golden Gate Bridge’ featurette
– Pre-viz animatic gallery
– Brett Ratner’s production diary
– Character gallery
– Concept art gallery
– Models galleries
– Storyboards
– Vignettes
– Blogs
– Easter egg

Thanks to forum member spooie and powet.tv enemy Dave for educating me on some of these problems and for the sexy Janine for running into a wall for me.

Action Comics #844
I rarely buy Superman comics. So when the new issue of Action Comics hit the stands today, I completely forgot why it was THE book to buy this month. It took someone in the shop to remind me, and as soon as he did, I was ashamed at having forgotten. See, this arc of Action Comics is being co-written by Geoff Johns and Richard Donner. That’s Richard Donner, as in, director of the first Superman movie. The one who was recently granted the opportunity to re-cut Superman II with old, lost footage he shot way back when, just before he got unceremoniously kicked to the curb. This alone is reason enough to make a person sit up and take notice.

But then I bought it.
[Read the rest of this entry…]

One of our forum regulars Spooie has given INTER-NET a glimpse into what game news was like before INTER-NET.
Basically its a local news report on the Consumer Electronics Show from 1990 featuring some hype on Moonwalker for Genesis, forthcoming Turbo Grafix 16 use of CD technology, and of course Super Mario 3…
Also keep an eye out for Nintendo hero Howard Phillips!

GØDLAND #13
written by Joe Casey, art by Tom Scioli

After taking a few months off at the end of the first year, this book picks up again tomorrow with issue 13. It’s a difficult book to describe, but basically, astronaut Adam Archer has been transformed into a super-being, and he seems to be the next step leading humanity into a much larger role in the universe… but for the moment, he’s much more wrapped up in the problems that keep on popping up around him. In the first 6 issues we encountered 4 super-villians, but the awesomest by far is Basil Cronus:

As you can see, he is clearly awesome. In issue 9 he got that new body, because – sorry to spoil it – the head that was on it exploded suddenly. It was incredible! And with all the crazy runningarounds going on with Adam Archer’s early villains, the giant spacedog Maxim is keeping him on track with his cosmic destiny!

This book is a powerful dose of fun, and the art and the writing do a bang-up job of providing a throwback to old school, Golden Age comics, while keeping it fresh and modern – much like how Captain America does it, only with a lean more towards the crazy Silver Age. In some ways, it’s really telling that it takes a team of two to channel the wonder and fantastic that Jack Kirby always brought to the table. If you don’t trust me, you can read the entire first issue online at Newsarama! And besides, any book that can boast the line “No time to chat, sis. I’ve got a giant, intergalactic dog to save.” is brilliant in any universe.

Marvel’s got a bunch of news that came out today – after a slow, slow, slow week – so here’s the roundup’s rundown:

• Marvel: Ultimate Alliance finally ships this week. Just to remind us that it’s happening, here’s a slick new trailer for it! I’m looking forward to this game. And the trailer looks pretty good too.
• To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Heroes Reborn nonsense and the Onslaught mess that spawned it, Marvel’s putting out a mini starting in November called “Onslaught Reborn.” In true celebratory fashion, it’ll be written by Jeph Loeb and drawn by Rob Liefield, as they both played a large role in the original Heroes Reborn launch. Here’s the new trailer!
• And, just because Marvel trailers are all the rage today, here’s the one for the upcoming Guiding Light crossover. It made me laugh a lot. Probably wasn’t supposed to though.
• There’s been a lot of photos shown online for the wedding scene on the roof for the Fantastic Four 2 movie. But the newest set of photos looks pretty interesting, largely because they show Jessica Alba stopping a helicopter with some sort of invisible powers! One of which is mirrored here.
• Lastly, Rich Johnston confirms that Stuart Immonen is the new artist taking over on Ultimate Spider-Man, following Mark Bagley’s insane stint of 110 issues. Please note – none of those issues shipped late, he all too often shipped more than 12 issues in a year, and they all looked fantastic. Immonen, you’ve got big boots to fill.