Welcome to the Powet Top 5, where we explore the top (and bottom) 5 items we think are relevant to any of a variety of topics that span the imagination. Sit back, read, and respond

Aiight, gather around folks, we need to talk.

Lets be clear now. Video Games aren’t dead or dying. They aren’t on life support or in the intensive care unit either. They aren’t even out with a broken arm, pulled hamstring, or 3-day flu. Nope, video games are just fine. Yeah I know how everyone loves the classics, but now is a good time to be involved with this hobby. We got high quality games like Mass Effect, Assassin’s Creed, and Deus EX being released on a regular basis, a thriving independent scene, and developers stretching the limits of what’s possible in video games. With that said, there are at least 5 big issues that video gaming could use less of. Some of these are on the part of publishers, others on the part of developers, and still others are even on the gaming community itself. Many of you will agree, many of you will not.
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We chat with Benjamin Howard, proprietor and principal talent behind Fizz Man Industries, and just what it takes to create such sweet gaming-based sculture art that just tears your heart out when you have to sell it to someone for money.

Also, we talk about the importance of spelling.

Here are forty three seconds of Avengers. Sure, thats shorter than any of the trailers, but its an actual clip instead of a bunch of jump cuts from all over the movie.

Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) is tied to a chair, seemingly captured by three men. She’s on the phone with Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg), who delivers some bad news. Whatever plan she had up her sleeve is cut short when she starts beating up all three guys while still tied to the chair.

Director Joss Whedon loves to make his female characters spin around and kick dudes. I can’t decided if he’s as in to female empowerment as many have credited him, or simply thinks this is as totally hot as most of our male readership does.

Gamasutra reports that Hirokazu Yasuhara has joined Nintendo, working at the Nintendo Of America headquarters in Redmond, WA. He joins as a designer with NST, who are credited with creating the Mario VS Donkey Kong series.

Why is this news? Yasuhara is credited as a co-creator of Sonic The Hedgehog, working with Yuji Naka at Sonic Team and at Sega through 1997. During that time, Sega produced games that challenged and overtook Nintendo in many regards. He also worked with Namco-Bandai on Pac-Man Party on Wii and 3DS. With his new position at NST he will inevitably work with Mario. Hirokazu Yasuhara will become the first game designer to be credited on games featuring the three biggest names in video games: Sonic, Pac-Man, and Mario.

If this is not an impressive enough feat, he also has level design credits with Naughty Dog working on the Jak & Daxter series on PS2 and all three Uncharted games on PS3.

Game Developer magazine published a great interview with Yasuhara in 2008 you can read here.

Many younger Poweteers recognize Factor 5 from their PS3 disappointment Lair. A few older poweteers remember them for their awesome N64 and Gamecube Rogue Squadron games. Before those however, they created the equally awesome, yet severely overlooked Turrican games, which hit the Sega Genesis, Commodore 64, Amiga, and the Super Nintendo. Super Turrican 2 for the Super Nintendo is actually the third Turrican game released on 16-bit systems, with Super Turrican being released on SNES and Mega Turrican being released on Genesis. Like its predecessors, Super Turrican 2 is a side-scrolling platformer in the vein of Metroid (although the stages are linear). However unlike other games, Super Turrican frequently incorporates other styles of play, mainly vehicles. Many levels you’ll take control of a tank or jeep. Sometimes you’ll even engage enemies in a Mode-7 sequence. When he is on foot, your character has several weapons, including a grappling hook straight out of Bionic Commando. While Super Turrican 2 was nothing groundbreaking, it was still an excellent game that exemplified what was great about SNES platformers back then. All three Turrican games are available on Virtual Console, so check them out.

After last week’s ridiculous teaser for a trailer for Total Recall, we now have a real trailer.

The movie stars Colin Farrell and Kate Beckinsale and has a supporting cast which includes Bryan Cranston, Jessica Biel and John Cho. The film looks pretty neat, so at this point I won’t let my annoyance at the ridiculous marketing cloud my judgement of the movie. It looks to be very similar to the original Total Recall film, without all that Mars stuff. Will this movie be intentionally ambiguous about what is or isn’t real like the first film, or will it just tell us straight up that the whole thing is nothing but a dream? Did I mention there’s a Kate Beckinsale/Jessica Biel cat fight? Yeah…

Keep reading for a few more screenshots of the trailer.
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