After a long decade of waiting, Marvel vs Capcom 3 is finally out, and the game features dozens of old and new faces. However, there was one fan favorite who was noticeable by his absence: everyone’s favorite non-ninja, Strider Hiryu. After helping to sell thousands, if not millions of Genesis units before Sonic came along, Strider went into obscurity (with the exception of the lame U.S. Gold Strider 2) until reemerging to prominence in the two MVC games, bringing with him a plethora of badass moves. Surely this should have been the catalyst for a Ninja Gaiden-like revival. Or at least it would have been, have Hiryu not squandered his comeback opportunity on a mediocre side scrolling action game.
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Sucker Punch has another trailer, and even though its a lot of stuff we’ve seen before, its still a pretty spectacle.
The entire trailer is set to “Panic Switch” by the Silversun Pickups. Director Zack Snyder has hinted at a musical element to this movie, but outside of a trailer that borders on a music video, we haven’t seen any of that yet. We’ll find out on March 25 if this dazzling gamble pays off, or if the future director of Superman is in as much trouble as we’ve heard.

CBR has reported that writer Dwayne McDuffie has passed away from complications due to a surgical procedure.

McDuffie started as part of the Marvel editorial staff in the late 80’s, and later went on to become a fulltime freelance writer and writing for several companies including Marvel and DC. He is best known for creating the Milestone Media brand in 1993, with the goal to expand the role of minorities in comics.

Later McDuffie moved into the world of DC Animation, where he wrote, edited, and produced on several properties including Static Shock and Justice League. More recently he was involved in writing for DC Animations’s direct to video animated movies including Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths and All-Star Superman which coincidentally was released today.

DC Comics Co-Publisher Dan DiDio had this to say about McDuffie:

“Dwayne McDuffie left a lasting legacy on the world of comics that many writers can only aspire to. He will not only be remembered as the extremely gifted writer whose scripts have been realized as comic books, in television shows and on the silver screen, but as the creator or co-creator of so many of the much-loved Milestone characters, including Static Shock. The industry has lost a true talent.

Our sincerest condolences go out to the family and many friends he leaves behind.”

Our condolences to his friends and family. Let us know your favorite work or memories of McDuffie in the comments.

Mattel had a bunch of news of new products for its DC licensed line including DC Universe Classics, a new Young Justice line, the final year of Justice League Unlimited and a brand new Batman line.

Read on after the jump for all the news.
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In the United States, there are two major toy companies that have been battling back and forth for the number one spot for decades. The current leader is Mattel, but the number two, Hasbro, is bridging that gap by leaps and bounds in recent years. As an avid toy collector, I know quite a bit about toy history, but not so much about toy company history. Thats why today’s article H is for Hasbro.

Banner image from Consumerist.

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On February 18, Bizarre Creations officially closed its doors. Activison purchased the studio in 2007, and after 2 underperforming games (Blur and James Bond: Bloodstone), they decided to shut the group down. Previously, Bizarre had a stellar track record, including the Project Gotham Racing series for Microsoft Xbox and Xbox 360.
Bizarre can also be credited with creating the success of Xbox Live Arcade and downloadable console games in general. Geometry Wars Retro Evolved was an early hit, and at only $5 sold very well and helped pave the way for the hundreds of score attack and arcade style games that now populate the service.
There is little doubt that without Bizarre the Xbox platform would not be what it is today. Not even close. It is a shame that their move to Activision and producing for the PS3 as well resulted in closure so quickly.
(official site) (wikipedia)

The last time that the name Remedy was attached to a game, Max Payne and Mona Sax were blowing away mobsters back in 2003’s Max Payne 2. Since then, the Finnish developers have been working on this Xbox 360 exclusive. It was one of the first titles announced for the system, and then info on it became scarce, almost to the point where one would think it was canceled. Thankfully that wasn’t the case, and Alan Wake finally hit shelves last year. Although it didn’t sell anywhere near what it deserved to, it provides gamers with a unique and memorable experience. You play as the title character, Alan Wake. A struggling writer from New York, you and your wife travel to Bright Falls, a town in the Pacific Northwest hoping to get away from it all. However, things go awry rather quickly. You wife goes missing, you keep finding pages of a manuscript you’ve written, although you don’t remember writing it, and worst of all, you’re constantly attacked by a darkness which has taken over everyone and everything in your way.
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It’s only a matter of time now. This week on Jeopardy! a special event took place as Watson, a sophisticated computer system from IBM, faced off against Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter who are generally regarded as the greatest human Jeopardy! players. This is a distinction we need to make now as Watson pretty much completely trounced them.

Despite his monolithic appearance when seen from the front Watson is actually conveniently placed monitor. He’s actually a huge computer system on state of the art IBM hardware. We know this of course because this event was basically a huge advertisement for IBM. They clearly put a good deal of work to program this guy so I guess that was the trade off for all the viewers this event pulled in.

Watson does some crazy algorithms to determine the most likely answer and the probabilities are then shown on screen. If the chance of the answer being right is above his threshold, he buzzes in, with great speed, and shoots and answer. But he’s not always right!

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