If you live on the West Coast, you better bust your hump on Thursday to get into your comic shop early. For some reason, retailers are getting screwed to a ridiculous degree on their order quantities of Civil War issue #6. In the words of retailer Brian Hibbs of San Francisco, “it looks like EVERY West Coast retailer is getting massively allocated (to the tune of 10-15% — I ordered 100 copies, and am recieving 14) on CIVIL WAR #6 this week.”

There’s no way of knowing why, as Diamond Distributors has done nothing to warn or notify retailers as to the hows or whys of it all, which of course is par for the course. Suffice to say, if your West Coast store typically orders 100 copies, you’d better be one of the first 14 in the door, and be one of the weekly regulars, because otherwise all your punk friends in Baltimore and Boston will be laughing at you all week long.

The new Indiana Jones movie, which is set to be released in May 2008, will begin filming this year. Co-writer George Lucas himself has stated that “It’s going to be fantastic. It’s going to be the best one yet,” and I for one am inclined to believe him as he had the same thing to say about every one of his Star Wars prequel movies!

Old man Harrison Ford will be reprising his role as Indie though there has only been speculation over whether or not even older man Sean Connery will be making an appearance as his Dad. Other casting rumours include the return of Karen Allen as Indie’s love interest, John Rhys-Davies as Gimli the dwarf and even Natalie Portman as his daughter.

Source: MSN Movies

Update! Lucas Backpedals: “We are still working on Indiana Jones, hopefuly we can get that going.”

Lets start the first day of the first month off right… with a song about the number One.

As I promised, this week I’m doubling up on the $20 GOTW. One game brings back something that hasn’t been seen since the days of the SNES: a pack in game. The other is yet another good gaming compilation that may seem familiar to some PSP owners. If you have yet to spend the money grandpa gave you for X-mas, here are a few good cheap games.
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Like I promised, I’m giving you two of each of my articles this week. I’ll add $20 Game of the Week later this weekend, but for now, enjoy these two Lost Classics. One of which is a perfect example of licencing gone wrong while the other is one of the most underrated fighting games of the 16-bit era.
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…Not in the literal sense, but for those who want in on the ‘Halo 3’ Beta, you may be required to buy ‘Crackdown’.  A bad move on Microsoft’s behalf?  No.  A cheap one?  Yes. 

The generic-looking GTA-clone from Microsoft and the developer “Real Time Worlds” (Formerly ”DMA Designs”) and lead designer David Jones is set to hit stores on February 20th.  In the newest issue of Gamepro Magazine an ad is featured for the game which reads “Includes Invitation to Halo 3 Beta” and cites it as a “Limited Time Offer”.  [Read the rest of this entry…]

Astonishing X-Men #19
written by Joss Whedon, art by John Cassaday

Hey you! New comics come out on Thursday this week! I realize that this could be considered late notice… but maybe it’s just early notice for next week?

Um, so while this is allegedly the kickstart to Whedon and Cassaday’s final arc on the book, it’s really the mid-point of their final 12-issue arc. Regardless, with its strangely delayed release schedule, now’s as good a time as any to remind you that it happens to be coming out, specifically today.

I suppose I could try and sell the concept to you, but if you’re not reading it already, I somehow doubt you’re going to pull your head from your rump and give it a fresh shot now. And if you are reading it… Man, how horrible was that “Dangerous” arc? I hated that. Crippled Professor X driving a truck? Was this really the same guy who’s written the other 12 issues we’ve gotten? Anyway, if the last 6 issues are any measure, these final 6 should be awesome. And according to the image, it arrives in November! So, you know, you should keep an eye out for it. In November.

(Or today.)

Yesterday’s weekly update on Nintendo Wii’s Virtual Console saw the release of Super Mario Bros. This is considered by some to be the most important game of all time, and odds are you already own a copy of it. Maybe 2 copies. Probably 5. You might as well get it again so you can play with that sweet VC controller, and maybe work on your speed running.

Just to add a little value to your 500 Wii Point purchase, try going to the Negative world. This hidden glitch was covered up in many of the remakes and re-releases of the game, but is intact on the Wii since its the original NES code faithfully emulated. You’ve probably seen this trick before, in world 1-2 you break the bricks above the pipe at the end of the underwold (as seen at left) and then carefully jump backwards to the right without breaking the brick, so you slide off to the right and enter a warp pipe that takes you to a weird underwater world.

A top story on digg right now announces “How to Get to the Illusive Negative World in SMB!” but the link to the World -2, -3, and -4 is completely fake. Amazing that 21 years after the release of Super Mario Bros, players can still be falling for bogus tips like slackjawed schoolyard simpletons.