The surprising success of this hit from last year (as well as the failures of 25 to Life, FInal Fight Streetwise, and many others) proves that not everyone who plays Grand Theft Auto plays it for the sex and violence, but for the way it implements it’s open world design.  Pick one of three mercenaries, each of which with thier own special talents, and blaze across North Korea in an attenpt to dethrone a dictator, capture the deck of 52, stop a nuclear strike, and get paid beaucoup dollars while doing it.  You take missions from 4 different factions, playing each side and staying on good terms with them to gain special advantages.  The Russian Mafia for instance, gives you access to the “Merchant of menace” website where you can purchase weapons, vehicles, and anything else you need in your missions.  The main draw of this game is the ability to blow up pretty much anything standing.  You are also free to go about the missions however you choose.  Pandemic, this game’s developer is also behind another solid open world sandbox game, “Destroy all Humans”.  A sequel is also on the way, for PS3 and hopefully Xbox 360.

The Seattle Times is blowing the lid of Microsoft’s new portable, positioned to compete not only against the PSP and DS, but also the iPod. This is what happens when you have this many competitors.
Endgaget provided the picture of the supposed device. While the design certainly looks like it could do the media player functions of iPod and PSP very easily, its hard to think of it as a games machine.
But, oh yes, a games machine is coming, whether this is it or not. Millions in R&D are already spent, and J Allard, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 Launch poster boy is leading the charge. We’re hearing its compatible with XNA, and with WiFi standard on the unit, its a good bet Xbox Live Anywhere will play a part as well.
Major movie and music publishers are lining up to offer content to loosen Apple’s grip on the download market.
A big annual meeting is scheduled for July 27th, where the Xboy or xPod or whatever ridiculous name kids want to call it may be revealed and dated for a fall/Winter launch.
Does MS have what it takes? They’re years behind in the portable market, and the portable market is pretty well satisfied right now, even if it does lack a good all-in-one device. And will the buying public be able to stand new DRM standards that may render Apple, Sony, etc downloads incompatible with the new unit?
I don’t know, but it’ll be fun to watch, pass or fail.

Retro Gaming with racketboy has graciously decided to share some classic game magazines with those of us who missed them or just want to remember good times.
PDF: Sega Visions Magazine – Summer 1991
PDF: Nintendo Power #1 – Jul-Aug 1988
PDF: Playstation Magazine #1 – September 1997

Update: While we all thought the magazines would be a fun read, who knew they would yeild this kind of pertinent info–
Kotaku: Sony Pulls Rumble… from the Playstation! Apparently, Sony announced they were going to not included rumble in their original Playstation Dual Analog pad because of a patent dispute with Immersion Technologies. Sony went ahead with the DualShock anyway, the rest is history.
Joystiq: CliffyB, the retro gaming god. A sharp reader spotted the name Cliff Blezinski as the having the top score in Super Mario Bros on NES, and one email later confirmed that it is in fact Cliff Bleszinski aka “Cliffy B” now of Epic Games and lead for Microsoft’s winter tentpole, Gears Of War!

It seems the organizers of SDCC have put up a panel description that pretty much tells us one way or another what will happen to the popular line now that its in Hasbro’s hands. Here’s the description:

2:00-3:00 Hasbro/Marvel: Marvel Legends. Spider-Man Origins. Superhero Squad and much more!— Find out what it’s all about at the first Hasbro/Marvel panel ever! Jesse Falcon from Toy Biz joins Hasbro team members Billy Lagor, Randy Shoemaker, and Brian Wilk. Don’t miss this opportunity to see a sneak peak of what Hasbro has in store for their spring 2007 Marvel line. Room 8

You may remember Jesse Falcon from an interview we linked to here. Hopefully we will get more than just news and see some prototypes or designs of some sort. I also wouldn’t complain about a slightly less skewed Spider-man to Villain ratio in any Spider-man lines they are working on.

via

Tags: Marvel, Marvel Legends, Spider-Man

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Last weekend was not only an American holiday, but it was also the GI Joe Collectors’ Convention down in New Orleans. Since there was plenty of coverage, I thought I’d try to pull together what I could from different sources and put it all in one place for your reviewing pleasure.

After the jump you will see all my findings. Enjoy.
[Read the rest of this entry…]

Over at Ain’t It Cool News Quint spends a day in the desert with Michael Bay.
He goes into great detail about his set visit at Holloman Air Force Base while shooting an attack scene featuring Scorponok. Scorponok erupts from the ground sending soldiers flying as they struggle to call in for back up. Quint informs us there were a lot of explosions.
He also describe’s Scorponok’s tail, as it was one of the few peices constructed:

I walked up to the tail laying on the ground, the non-pointy end buried in the sand. It was silver metal, almost like links in a chain as it got shorter and shorter until it got to the spear-tip. The tip had 4 nasty looking barbs all hooked with a giant skewer barb that would thrust out between the 4 barbs.

Bay also shot a video introduction for the official site, and hopes to have an animatic of a Transformer up there pending Paramount approval.

Picture courtesy USAF set report

The crack editorial team here assembled in the Powet Watchtower this week to dish out the Final Word on Superman Returns.
After the jump, you can read four reviews, and four differing views on the same movie.
[Read the rest of this entry…]

Amanda Congdon is now the former host of the web’s most popular vlog, RocketBoom.
Theres obviously a difference in the story present on the front page of the site and the one Amanda herself describes. Andrew Barron, the other part owner of the site says the show will go on with a replacement.
We here at Powet.tv wish Amanda the best of luck. Our show would not exist if Rocketboom had not proved people would watch a show on the web that wasn’t a silly flash game or video game characters cursing at each other. Best of luck to remaining Rocketboom staff and correspondants as well. I can hope this split (as nasty as it may seem now) yeilds new opportunities for all.
Amanda has posted a video that we all know won’t be her last.