A new Villains trailer is available for the Marvel Ultimate Alliance game RIGHT HERE, and it’s actually pretty sweet.  It showcases a large number of villains, lists off some of the heroes, and shows off some of the battle locations in the process.

While all the heroes that flash by super-fast at the end are already listed on the official site, many of the villains shown are not, so here’s a rundown of who made an appearance:

• Doctor Doom
• Loki
• Fin Fang Foom (incorrectly spelled as FING Fang Foom)
• Blackheart (Mephisto’s son)
• Mephisto
• Mandarin
• Ymir (a frost giant, one of Thor’s enemies)
• Ultron
• Kurse (another Asgardian enemy of Thor’s)
• Ulik (a rock troll, ANOTHER Asgardian enemy of Thor’s)
• Arcade-Bot (presumably a robot of Arcade’s)
• and Galactus

So clearly, the game’s going to spend a decent chunk of time dealing with Asgardian problems, which hopefully means we’ll actually be in Asgard.  This is some good thinking, as it can lead to some scenarios and scenery which will be completely unique from not only the rest of the game, but from other comparable games (like X-Men Legends, or the upcoming Justice League Heroes). By the way, if you’re too lazy to poke around their site yourself, you can find a full listing of currently revealed heroes and villains after the jump.

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For those of you out there with Xbox Live 360, the demo for Smackdown vs Raw 2007 is now available on the Xbox Live marketplace.  Grab it. We’ll have first impressions here after I play it for a little bit.  If it hasn’t been posted all over your favorite gaming sitesalready, then you read it here first!

The biggest news: Microsoft Partners with Peter Jackson. Not only is PJ producing the forthcoming Halo movie, he’s also developing a brand new game with his new Wingnut Interactive development company. In addition to the brand new game, he’s scripting a new Halo game with Bungie. A Halo game that is not Halo 3, but a brand new entry in the series.
Further, theres the long rumoured, much anticipated HALO WARS. Its an Xbox 360 exclusive Real Time Strategy game set at the outset of the war with the Covenant, back when Master Chief was actually a Master Chief of a group of highly trained SPARTAN warriors and not just a clever name. Read more direct from Bungie here.

Also, DOOM available on XBLA. Right now. Seriously. Doom 1. Full game, multiplayer, everything. Download it, play tonight.

Guitar Hero 360 is coming next year. Downloads are promised, but that white Explorer guitar is only a prototype.

For reasons unknown, Microsoft is allowing Rare to make another Banjo game.

We’ve already shown you Marvel Universe Online, but may I say this game looks like it may just cure the blues for folk like me who are bummed only 24 playable characters are in Marvel Ultimate Alliance. Let’s just hope Cryptic tries to grab hold of the X-Men Legends audience with great gameplay.

Thanks to SparkStalker for links!

Forgive me if this is old information, somehow I’ve yet to see this as a big announcement and thought I would inform others in case it slipped under anyone else’s radar.

Written by J. MICHAEL STRACZYNSKI
Pencils and Cover by TOMMY LEE EDWARDS
World War II. America needs a super soldier. Only one man possesses the formula to create the perfect fighting machine from volunteer Steve Rogers. But when a deadly bullet kills Dr. Erskine along with his bodyguard, M.P. Ben Parker, Steve’s destiny—and that of the Marvel Universe—is changed forever.
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Now available on YouTube, HERE is some footage from the Superman Returns video game.  There are scenes of battle with giant enemies, fights with multiple hand-to-hand opponents, racing around using super-speed, and the obligatory rescue missions – specifically one where he’s using his super-breath on a … tornado.  Weird.

What really caught my attention though is the segment, about two-thirds of the way through, clearly demonstrating the player in control of Bizarro, using his heat vision on the city.  Based on the appearance of things, it looks like we’ll finally have a Superman video game that isn’t absolute hell to play through, at the very least.  And a best case scenario might have game this topping the movie in terms of enjoyment.  Hate to say it, but it already easily does so in terms of action, in this footage alone.

Remember when Marvel sued NC Soft and Cryptic Studios, because they felt that the game “City of Heroes” included characters – and also allowed and encouraged players to create more, similar characters – that infringed on Marvel’s copyrights? Sure, the lawsuit was settled out of court long ago, but now Marvel’s making lemon meringue pie out of that lemon by teaming up with Cryptic (and Microsoft Game Studios) to make “Marvel Universe Online” – An MMO game for XBox 360 and PC using (surprise!) Marvel characters. While other articles go on and on with more discussion, analysis, and questions, that’s really all that they end up saying about it.

While this is an interesting newsbit, it raises more questions than it answers. For example:

• I can only assume we won’t be restricted to currently existing characters. While Marvel boasts a library of 5,000 characters, some of them – like, say, Turner D. Century – are simply God-awful. And yet, the issue is never addressed. Maybe we’ll just see a town full of dozens of Wolverines.
• On the technical side, they keep specifically saying it will be on “Windows Vista,” rather than simply saying “PC” in the articles and interviews. Does that mean it won’t work on XP? They won’t even hint at a release date, so maybe they don’t expect to be done until more people have Vista – or maybe not. With Microsoft, it’s really hard to give the benefit of the doubt.
• Aaaaand, let’s be honest – There’s really not a lot of information to go off of, other than it will exist in the future, they’re working on it, and they’re not allowed to say much about it. Lots of question marks, not a lot of actual info.

View the teaser trailer on Xbox Live Marketplace now, or right here.

Remember that show Friends? Remember Thundercats? Right now you’re only able to think about the memorable theme songs to those shows since in function neither was very good.
As a fitting tribute to terrible animation combined with terrible live action, here is a 90’s band’s cover of an 80’s cartoon theme song.
Apparently this gem is found on the second season dvd set for the Thundercats show. But now thanks to INTER-NET, you can see for free and not pay.
The Rembrandts do “Thundercats”

The Ultimates 2 #12
Written by Mark Millar, art by Bryan Hitch

With all the excitement surrounding Millar’s other big book, it’s easy to forget the ever-sporadically scheduled Ultimates 2. After 23 issues and 5 years, Millar and Hitch’s run on The Ultimates finally comes to an end. What with its seemingly-random appearances on shelves at the comic shop, it’s easy to miss an issue, and with this one being the big finale (despite the big battle kind of being won last issue), I figure this is one that readers won’t want to miss.

And for those of you that are critical of the book, well hey, today’s a day for celebration for you too – The book’s over! Until the next volume anyway. So here’s hoping that Jeph Loeb and Joe Maduriera do enough to differentiate themselves from their predecessors, while still retaining the hard-hitting enjoyment and interesting characterizations that Millar and Hitch always brought to the table. (But maybe try to keep a tighter schedule though, eh guys?)