E3, the once great video game Exposition, has been reduced to a shadow of its former self. What was once a never-ending cacophony of lights, sound and swag is now an invitation only press event. While we can still expect industry-shaping keynotes from the big three hardware developers, the show floor is barely recognizable. Industry giants, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, Electronic Arts, THQ and others have been relegated to a 20’X20′ space.

Quite a contrast to previous E3s where developers battled each other for total show supremacy. After last year’s expo, which was completely dominated by Nintendo and the newly revealed Wii, Sony and Microsoft decided that paying millions or dollars for little or, worse yet, negative press coverage just wasn’t worth the effort. They basically took their ball and went home. The other big companies followed suit and now we have, what I’ve dubbed, Neo-E3, or the E3 Media & Business Summit.

Moved from May to July, and Los Angeles to Santa Monica, the newly redesigned expo is meant to create a smaller, more intimate environment for developers and publishers to talk shop. Neo-E3 is also designed to make it easier for independent developers to roll out their wares to potential publishers, (even though next to no indie devs are on the roster).

Hopefully we can expect more direct feed footage and one on one interviews with the movers and shakers of the industry. The E3 Media & Business Summit will take place from July 11-13th.

What are your thoughts on the redesigned E3 expo?

The Superman: Doomsday DVD arrives this fall, on September 18th, but the website for the movie has just launched! Alright, I admit, that’s not really news in itself, but what IS news is that there’s a pretty telling, very interesting behind-the-scenes trailer that runs as soon as you enter. You can visit the site here and see the trailer in full. If you want a quick look at some some screencaps and analysis of what was said, then read on after the jump.
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Courtesy of Entertainment Weekly, the world gets its first look at the ketchup-and-mustard flavored suit Robert Downey Jr. will be wearing in Jon Favreau’s Iron Man. The suit was designed by Oscar-winning special effects man Stan Winston, who has quite an impressive resume to his name, spanning from Edward Scissorhands to Predator to Galaxy Quest to Terminator 2 … and the list goes on and on.

Favreau had made a cryptic comment on myspace yesterday, saying, “Check out this weeks EW. You might want to check their website as well.” And clearly, this is the payoff. I only wish they had a bigger image to share than the one showing on the left.

As for the suit itself, it definitely looks, for lack of a better word, right. I can’t say I’m surprised; they did such a glorious job on the grey suit that I expected them to knock this one out of the park as well. As cool (and comics-accurate) as the suit might look though, it turns out (not too surprisingly) that it’s a bit of a chore to wear. “Robert was very bullish on wearing the suit whenever possible,” said Favreau. “Now I don’t know if he’s such a fan of that idea.” Oh, you crazy Hollywood people, not wanting to walk around in giant, heavy, sweaty mech-suits.

In a bold display that proves you can’t control information, social news network Digg.com has been over run with the code to decrypt HD-DVD, the high definition video format.

The code went up on digg mere hours ago, and the site was served a cease & desist order. Digg CEO Jay Adelson let it be known Digg would comply with the order to avoid the lawsuit. This level of censorship of course drove the millions of nerds who basically run Digg without much actual control or supervision all day completely crazy and the code began appearing in virtually every story submitted and gained millions of hits. In case you didn’t know, on Digg, users submit links which are then approved by other users when they “digg” them. A few hours ago, over 50,000 digs had been counted toward various HD DVD code submissions.

Now Digg Founder Kevin Rose has bowed to his users. Digg will go down fighting.

Gutsy move, sure, but the only option Digg had unless they wanted to monitor all stories and have them go through an editorial process. I hope it works out for the best.
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Looks like Uwe Boll didn’t learn from his last screw ups regarding the BloodRayne movie franchise. A new movie, titles “BloodRayne 2: Deliverence” began production in January of 2007 with a grand budget of $10 million, and is set to release straight to DVD as of later this month.

This movie is supposed to take place in the wild west with vampire cowboys and Billy the Kid being their ringleader. Actress Kristanna Loken has thankfully not reprised her role from the first movie, and instead actress Natassia Malthe has taken her place as the bombshell dhampire huntress. Actor Zack Ward will be playing the role as Billy the Kid, which somewhat depresses me as I believe him to be better than something going straight-to-video, but that’s just me. Kinda hard to feel any kind of positive for the sequel of a movie that was considered one of the worst game-based films in existance.

Trailers can be seen both at the official website and at Bloody Disgusting.

There have been many consoles that people would consider “god systems”, that pack convinience and multitasking into one console. Well, another one has recently hit the market, in the form of a console that plays *both* 8-bit NES and 16-bit SNES games! Whodathunkit?!

The FC Twin Video Game System was released on November of 2006 by the manufacturer known as “Yobo”, but only has recently become any kind of known in the gaming world. This system has separate circuitry and separate slots to play both Nintendo and Super Nintendo cartridges, which can be switched between the two types with a double throw power switch to toggle back and forth. It also utilizes two SNES compatible controllers, which can also map to NES controller inputs. (B maps to Y, A maps to B).

Sounds like the perfect grab for anyone whose current retro systems are failing, and don’t want to shell out for the two separate systems, right? Well, there are a few drawbacks. one being that the system can’t handle the NES zapper lightgun for games like Duck Hunt. Another downside is that a few certain games made for either system will not play for the FC Twin, such as Castlevania: Dracula’s Curse – one of the reasons I actually bought the system in the first place…. *mumble*. See wikipedia’s entry for a list of the games for both NES and SNES that cannot play on the Twin. Also, some sounds for the NES may not sound exactly like their originals, but SNES sounds seem to work fine. And don’t even think about trying to use Super Famicom games.

Despite the downsides, the FC Twin system itself is a neat toy for any gaming enthusiast, and comes at the eye-catching price of around $40-$50, which would make it generally less than buying clean copies of both original systems that it emulates. So if you’re looking for a good backup system for either of your original Nintendo consoles, like I did, then picking up the FC Twin might be a decent investment.

Rockstar Games history is the kind of tale you’d expect to hear about an up and coming band, complete with pitfalls and successes on the way to making it big. The name really does fit them.

WIRED‘s Dave Kushner takes a deeper look into the rise and fall of Rockstar this month. It might seem ludicrous to claim the company is sliding now unless you consider the last 3 games they’ve release have sold poorly, and they’re in such financial trouble even a million selling Manhunt 2 on Wii may not save them. Hot Coffee can still be enjoyed, but backdated stock options could close the doors for good.

Whatever the case, its a good read about a group of developers who got more than they bargained for when they wanted to turn games into controversial social commentary. Read on…

New Avengers/Transformers #1 may come out in July, but the first glimpse of the interiors has just been made available for your viewing pleasure – just click on the thumbnail on your left. It’s the pencilwork for page 19 (of the 32-page book), as drawn by Tyler Kirkham.

I realize it’s not much, but at least we’re getting an idea of what the interiors will look like. And hey, we even get to see a glimpse of the two groups standing face to face. More or less. I kind of hope this isn’t the first meeting though – otherwise, what are the first 18 pages being spent on? I guess if that’s mostly Doctor Doom and Decepticons running around together, I could live with that. Personally, I’m loving that Doom is the Marvel equivalent to ALL of the Decepticons. That’s a lot of sneaky bastardliness to fit in one human being.

As previously announced, the book goes on sale Thursday July 5th (not on Wednesday the 4th as it’s a little local holiday) and will cost $2.99.