Turn down your speakers before getting too far into this video, but heartily enjoy the feast for the eyes. Halo 2’s best map, Zanzibar, is back as “Last Resort”

The inside of the base is completely different, but before long the player is looking around the outside and you see how far this has come. You’ll also get a taste of the Spartan Laser and the ATV.

I can’t wait to play Assault here.

Catwoman #66
written by Will Pfeifer, drawn by David Lopez

It’s a bit of a slow week, so this time around, instead of whoring this space out for the Next Big Event (it’s Amazons Attack, if you must know), I’m going to push this book because the previous issue, according to the Invincible Super-Blog, contained “killer robots, explosions, time travel, and a heroine who smack-talks the cornerstone of the DC Universe just because she isn’t in any mood to deal with him at the moment.”

The book’s been reviewing extremely well, and what art I’ve seen looks gorgeous (I’m not just talking about Selina Kyle), and a cursory glance at the solicitations tells me that this book should be accessible to a newcomer. So instead of digging deeper into the event-driven mess that the comics landscape has become, live a little, and try out a good book that seems to be accessible to newcomers – something of a rarity in the world of comics.

Well at least they’re being upfront about it.

This is a promotional image that popped up online on Omelete.com for some reason. A new animated series for the X-Men has been in the works for some time, and we’d heard they would “focus” on Wolverine, but I didn’t imagine he’d get top billing like that. Take a look at Xavier in the background. He’s got new legs like Lt Dan.

Where is there room for the other major X-men players? Will there even be any character development for secondary characters? I realize thats a lot to assume from a single image, but they’re the ones who put Wolverine in 400 pt font.

Marvel is producing this themselves, not unlike the Avengers or Iron Man movies they’ve already released. Steve Blum will play Wolverine, no word yet if he’ll use the same voice he always uses in every role he’s ever played.

Long before merging with Squaresoft, Enix released this launch window SNES title which bought together Castlevania-caliber action and Sim-City style level building. Playing as “The master” (or God, as he was known in the Japanese release) you awaken from a sleep of hundreds of years to take down “The Evil One” (or Satan, as he was called in Japan). First however, you have to restore your powers by restoring the people’s faith in you by helping re-develop their land in simulation-style segments and by destroying the Evil One’s minions via side scrolling action segments. By preforming certain tasks during the simulation levels, the Master will unlock new powers and magic. For those who didn’t care much for the simulation levels, a hidden professional mode was available which featured a high difficulty and maxed out attributes for the main character. A sequel was released a few years later which left out the simulation levels altogether, although it was still every bit as enjoyable as the first. Actraiser has already been re-released on the Japanese and European Virtual Console, so I have no doubt that it will be arriving here shortly.

A little trivia on this game: Although the game was heavy on Judeo-Christian themes, Nintendo of America policy strictly forbade content which could remotely be deemed offensive (i.e. gore and religious themes). This same policy caused the spells ‘holy’ and ‘death’ from the American SNES versions of Final Fantasy 4 and 6 to be renamed ‘pearl’ and ‘doom’.

ID is to first person shooters what Capcom and SNK are to fighting games. Not only have they practically invented the genre, their games have introduced several conventions that we take for granted today. Doom, Wolfenstein 3-d, and Quake were the top three shooter franchises for the company. While Quake didn’t have the impact on the genre that the other two games had, it still became a favorite among players, due to the fact that it’s open source code made it able to produce modifications and conversions for the game. Also, it was one of the first games to include multiplayer over the internet, and full 3-d movement. It was followed up by a sequel that eschewed the first game’s gothic textures for a more sci-fi plot, and again by a sequel that focused strictly on multiplayer combat. After reviving Doom 3 and Wolfenstein 3-d, ID dicided to bring back Quake as well, just in time for the next generation of console systems.
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In this season’s second episode the Doctor and Martha find themselves in 1599 England and meet the famous William Shakespeare. As our heroes alive in London they are excited to take in one of Shakespeare’s plays at the Globe Theatre, which is set to play a lost Shakespearian play even one as traveled as the Doctor had never read or seen and bizarre events surround it’s release.

Witches are interfering with the life of William Shakespeare and this play. When a man tries to stop it from being shown he is killed through witchcraft as an effigy of him is dunked in water, causing his lungs to fill causing him to drown. Attempting to investiage these mysterious events the Doctor shows William his psychic paper which he sees right through. The Doctor becomes suspicious of the Globe Theatre’s design and goes so far as to track down the architect who built it, who is now mad in an asylum. While interogating him a witch appears to try to thwart them. The Doctor reckognises the witch as a Carronite and says the name of their race which banishes her back to her 2 other cohorts.

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The Cohen Brothers have certainly made some good movies, and even made a few of them with John Goodman. But none so good as The Big Lebowski, and no John Goodman role is as good as Walter Sobchak.

It was with a great amount of excitement that I noticed a pair of action figures based on Walter and Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski are coming from a new toy company called Bif Banf Pow. They appear to be stylized, almost animated versions of Goodman and Jeff Bridges along with expected accessories: bowling bags, can of Folgers, and Walter’s ex-wife’s dog. At 8 inches, they’re a might big to put with some of my super hero action figures on a shelf, but The Dude should be right at home with any Sigma Six figure.

If for some reason you’ve not seen this movie, please do so. The Big Lebowski may be one of the greatest screen comedies ever produced.

From TNI

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The Snow Patrol music video for “Signal Fire,” featuring a grade school rendition of Spider-Man. It’s AWESOME. And I like the song.