Out of all of Capcom’s intellectual properties, Mega Man stands as one of their best. The Blue Bomber has been around for more than 2 decades, and the franchise has branched out in several directions, including cartoons, action figures, comic books, and other merchandise. The series started off simple enough. As the title character, you fight a series of robots in whichever order you choose. When you defeat an enemy, you gained his weapon. The trick of course, was the find out which weapon worked best on which enemy. When you defeated all 8 robots, you went on to face Dr. Wily at his castle. As time went on, the series eventually spawned several spin-offs. While games such as Mega Man X placed a different face on the classic game play, other spin-offs such as Mega Man Legends have slowly moved away from what made the series great. Thankfully Capcom has recognized this, and as part of their retro-revival have created a new Mega Man game…for the NES! Of course seeing as how very few people these days have a working NES, Capcom did the next best thing: release it as a downloadable title via WiiWare, Xbox Live Arcade, and Playstation Network. The new game, Mega Man 9, will be released this month. In celebration of the new title, this week’s $20 GOTW and Lost Classics will be dedicated to the blue bomber himself. Coincidentally, this also marks the three-year anniversary of Powet’s $20 GOTW, so head right on in and check out this small tribute.

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In a bit of more obscure news for the week, it seems that another key member of the entertainment industry has left us, but not one of the ones you’d think of initially.

Don LaFontaine, also known as the “Movie Voice-Over Guy” who has done the recordings for over 5000 movie trailers and tv commercials (most recently his GIECO appearance), has died at the age of 68 due to complications with a collapsed lung. He was pronounced yesterday.

If you’ve watched any amount of movies in your lifetime, you’ve likely encountered LaFontaine’s performance several times, most notably his “In a World….” introductions in his booming ominous voice that were his niche. These became so frequently used, that parodies have popped up in the past on shows like Family Guy and as a comedy act by Pablo Francisco.

With another media star gone, one has to wonder if 2008 is a Black Year for the entertainment scene.

This little known title from Capcom is basically a homage to 80s action films. You play as a secret agent, sent into South America in order to stop a terrorist group and rescue its prisoners. You travel your way through several stages, shooting enemies and rescuing hostages. It even takes a few pages out of Rolling Thunder’s playbook, as you have to enter doorways to collect ammo and rescue hostages. While it may not have revolutionized the 2-d platformer genre, it was still an enjoyable experience for what it was.Hopefully this should show up on the Wii Virtual Console soon. Or better yet, Capcom will show some more retro gaming love and give gamers an next-generation update/sequel a’la Bionic Commando Rearmed, Street Fighter IV, and Mega Man 9.

Capcom is one of the most celebrated developers in the gaming industry. Throughout the years, they have released dozens of games. Many of these titles have become classics amongst gamers, achieving only cult status at the worst (Okami, Killer 7, Pheonix Wright), while at their best Capcom has created games that have spun off into mega-franchises (Mega Man, Street Fighter, Devil May Cry). One of their most prolific titles from the past decade casts players in the role of a hapless protagonist who has been thrust in the middle of a town infested with zombies. Using what little they have at their disposal, players must discover the truth behind the madness, assist any survivors, and live through the madness long enough to escape in one piece. The game I’m referring to of course, is 1998’s Playstation classic Resident Evil 2. The eagerly anticipated sequel pushed the series to new heights, becoming an instant best seller, and was regarded as one of the best games on the PS1. Capcom followed it up with more hits, including 2005’s Resident Evil 4, which changed the face of the series. Oh yeah, a while later Capcom released Dead Rising for the Xbox 360. While this sleeper hit carried the same basic premise of RE2, it was completely unrelated to Resident Evil. In fact, it gave gamers an experience that was unlike any previously seen survival horror video game.

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I used to write about Halo on this site all the damn time. Thats when Halo 2 multiplayer was in full swing and Halo 3 stuff was still trickling out. Now Halo 3 updates are so frequent I can’t report on them all, and theres still no news of another game from Bungie Studios.

Well its not a new proper Halo game, but Ensemble’s Real Time Strategy based in the universe should still scratch that itch, at least aesthetically. And to prove that, here is the box art.

Click to maximize
We don’t know when its coming out. Early 2009, probably March or April. Are you interested in playing an RTS based on Halo? Can an RTS really be played with a controller? Does halo have a shot being out of the hands that made the first 3 games a success? Let us know in the comments section.

The success of The Dark Knight means WB wants to do another Batman movie. But the success of Iron Man, Hulk, Spider-Man, X-Men, etc means WB has to try harder to do other movies.

The Wall Street Journal talks to Warner Bros. Pictures Group President Jeff Robinov, and he states that of 8 big summer movies planned before 2011, at least 4 of those will be DC properties. The good news is none of those is going to be Justice League. WB plans to launch individual films following the Marvel Entertainment model. From the article:

The studio is set to announce its plans for future DC movies in the next month. For now, though, it is focused on releasing four comic-book films in the next three years, including a third Batman film, a new film reintroducing Superman, and two movies focusing on other DC Comics characters. Movies featuring Green Lantern, Flash, Green Arrow, and Wonder Woman are all in active development.

Supermax, the Green Arrow prison break movie from David Goyer, is my big hope. Green Lantern and Wonder Woman are long overdue, and Flash has enormous potential for chases and special effects.

Seems SEGA isn’t out of the game just yet, and has decided to produce and release a brand new addition to their classic HotD series – House of the Dead: Overkill.

The game itself seems to be a prequel in the long-running franchise of light-gun shooters, and takes place in a small backwater town of Bayou City, where rookie AMS agent “G” finds himself and new partner Washington eventually battling with hordes of the walking dead created by a mysterious source. (three guesses as to who might have a hand in it)

Overkill appears to take a page out of Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles in it’s use of the Wiimote targeting and looks to have it’s roots in the traditional on-rails gameplay of previous titles of the series. Headstrong Studios, who have taken it upon themselves to create the game, have said that they’re basing it off of old grindhouse movies, right down to the gritty film of cutscenes and the copious amounts of gore and violence that should be commonplace in anything related to hacking apart zombies.

If the trailer is a faithful depiction of the actual gameplay of the title, then I do believe we have ourselves another fine offspring of the HotD’s deliciously screwed-up family. (with HotD4 being the redheaded stepchild and HotD3 being the awkward middle-child in comparison to their elder sibling titles)

Bionic Commando Rearmed hit Xbox Live and PSN last week, so in honor of this special occasion, this week’s $20 GOTW and Lost Classics will take a special look at the new game, as well as a previous entry in the series. Enjoy!

In 1987, Capcom released an arcade game called Top Secret, which we over here would know it as Bionic Commando. It was a side-scrolling platformer in which the protagonist used a grappling arm to traverse the game’s 4 levels. It wasn’t a terrible game, but it was nothing special. When an NES sequel, which was known in Japan as Top Secret: Hitler’s Revival was released the following year however, that was when the series really took off. Players took control of Nathan ‘Radd’ Spencer, who was sent behind enemy lines to rescue Super Joe from the Imperialist Nazis who sought to resurrect Adolf Hitler. Players traveled through several stages to uncover the enemy’s plan and stop them. [Read the rest of this entry…]