In 2004, there were 3 big first person shooter games; Doom 3, Halo 2, and Valve’s Half Life 2. Of the three, many gamers consider this to be the best, and for good reason. The game is second to few in terms of graphical quality, story telling, gameplay, and capability for modding. Built on a modified version of the Havok physics system, a large part of the game’s appeal is simply picking up objects laying on the ground and throwing them at people. A weapon known as the gravity gun allows players to use the physics system to make anything into a weapon. Players take control of series protagonist Gordon Freeman, as he is awoken from stasis nearly two decades after the end of the original Half Life. He emerges into a world overrun by the combine. Joining up with a resistance group, Freeman has to fight back against all odds, battling head crabs, police officers, and alien creatures with a large variety of weapons.

As mentioned before, another part of this game’s popularity has to do with the modding community. There are several mods ranging from new deathmatch maps to full game conversions. One of the more popular mods, “Gary’s Mod” allows players to simply spawn objects in a sandbox environment just to play around with the physics system. Another mod is an attempt at recreating the popular N64 game GoldenEye. Of course when you’re through with the main game, there is plenty of more material coming to keep fans occupied. Episode 1 was released this year, continuing Gordon Freeman’s quest. This fall will see the release of Episode 2, along with the source engine based Team Fortress 2 and Portal. Xbox 360 and PS3 gamers can grab a special “orange box” containing the main game, as well as all the extras mentioned above. Whichever way you decide to get it, don’t miss out on the chance to play one of the best FPS games ever.

System Requirements
Processor: 1.2 GHZ or better
OS: Windows 98 and higher (including Vista)
Internal Memory: 256 MB RAM
Storage: 4.5 GB
Graphics: DirectX 7 or greater
Internet connection required for verification
DVD-ROM drive (unless obtained from Steam)

It would appear that there’s more to reveal at the San Diego Comic-Con than just neat toys and teasers for comics. TokyoPop, which is the #1 publisher of manga and graphic novels in the US and the and the largest supplier in the world, has seen fit to team up with in a marketing partnership with the largest touring video game music concert, Video Games Live.

“We are extremely excited to form this exclusive marketing alliance with Video Games Live,” quotes Marco Pavia, Director of Marketing at TOKYOPOP. ”There is strong crossover between manga fans and gamers. Some of our hottest manga is video-game based, including Warcraft, Kingdom Hearts, Devil May Cry 3, .hack, and Archlord. Forming this partnership with the sizzling Video Games Live concert series was a perfect fit.”

For those who don’t know, Video Games Live™ features the best music and exclusive synchronized video clips from the most popular games from the beginning of video gaming to the present, and tours the country in concert-style featuring music from popular games such as Mario, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Final Fantasy.

This partnership makes TokyoPop the exclusive sponsor for Video Games Live, and will be sponsoring shows for the world-renowned tour for the rest of 2007, including special promotions and giveaways for each stop in the tour. Exclusive live video of the concerts will also be featured on the TP.com website.

This, of course, helps bridge the gap between video games and anime/manga a little closer. With big-name games being released as manga and anime, such as the new Devil May Cry anime (and the manga which has been out for a while), this could help signal the beginning of a large-scale boom in game-based manga and anime being created in the near future. Shall we be seeing things such as Metal Gear Solid and Castlevania manga and anime on the horizon? We can only hope.

After the success of LEGO Star Wars, the next game announced was to be LEGO Batman, but now out of nowhere we get a trailer for LEGO Indiana Jones!

I won’t complain about more LEGO games, but I was kind of hoping I’d get Batman first… Oh well, I can’t wait to see how the infamouse Nazi face-melting works on LEGO characters. Or ripping a LEGO heart out of a LEGO Chest.

Little known fact to everyone who dreamed about being a producer: you don’t need hundreds of dollars worth of studio equipment to make hits. All you need is a Playstation, a little patience, and some skill. This week’s lost classic is one of my favorite games that isn’t really a game. Probably one of the earliest and most thorough music composition tools available on a video gaming system, Codemaster’s MTV Music Generator allows you to make some nice compositions. You simply pick a few of the hundreds of sound samples included, lay them down on the track, adjust the pitch, length, and timing, and there you go. You can even sample tunes off a compact disc, although it takes up a lot of memory. After you are done, you can add a light show to go along with your music. Just take some time to learn the ins and outs of this disc, and you can crank out some nice tunes in minutes. It was way ahead of its time, and its only limitation is the Playstation 1 itself. As stated before, sampling off a cd can easily take up a lot of space on a memory card, and there is no way of exporting an MP3 of your music (which is strange, as the manual states that you are granted royalty-free commercial releases of your creations). Also the collection is geared more toward techno and R&B, so users interested in making hip-hop tunes will have to improvise a little. Even so, this is a nice start for aspiring producers who don’t have a lot of money to spend on expensive equipment. There are two sequels that have been released, and there are several other games (such as the recently released Traxxpad for PSP) that expand on the functionality offered here. With a little more work and functionality on future products (such as say, an MP3 exporter), it could be possible for our Playstations and Xboxes to become vital equipment for up and coming musicians and producers.

As many of you may know, Otakon 2007 was last weekend in Baltimore – surprisingly early for the con. A bunch of the Powet crew were present to witness the awesome glory and crazy mayhem that was the largest anime convention on the east coast. Though visual documentary on the convention for us may be a bit on the slim side, I did manage to have enough footage (both my own and a few snippets donated) to put together a small video-tour of the convention.

It also documents just how big a bunch of nutty geeks we here at Powet are.

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As with each year at the SDCC, news is flowing out about upcoming plans, events and merchandise. Due to the sheer volume of data, I’m just going to cover the toy news from the Preview night (yesterday) and Day 1 (today).

I will be covering news for:

• The 7th Kingdom (FANtastic Exclusives)
• Minimates (Marvel)
• Marvel Legends (Main line and supplemental lines)

So if you are interested in any of these, continue on below!

More coming tomorrow!
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Over at that big ComiCon in San Diego, ABC and Ubisoft released this short teaser for the LOST video game. Don’t see much, but it looks like its all in-engine, not some pre-rendered tease video. Analysis for LOST freaks after the jump.
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Hey, wasn’t this series supposed to end with the third installment? I guess Capcom either forgot, or wasn’t done milking it yet. Either way, I’m not complaining. This is one of the greatest franchises of last generation, and it’s always great to see another installment of Capcom’s demon-killing samurai saga rather than another Street Fighter 2 remake. It also takes the formula and makes some nice changes to it, while still keeping what makes the series so enjoyable to begin with.
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