The biggest news: Microsoft Partners with Peter Jackson. Not only is PJ producing the forthcoming Halo movie, he’s also developing a brand new game with his new Wingnut Interactive development company. In addition to the brand new game, he’s scripting a new Halo game with Bungie. A Halo game that is not Halo 3, but a brand new entry in the series.
Further, theres the long rumoured, much anticipated HALO WARS. Its an Xbox 360 exclusive Real Time Strategy game set at the outset of the war with the Covenant, back when Master Chief was actually a Master Chief of a group of highly trained SPARTAN warriors and not just a clever name. Read more direct from Bungie here.

Also, DOOM available on XBLA. Right now. Seriously. Doom 1. Full game, multiplayer, everything. Download it, play tonight.

Guitar Hero 360 is coming next year. Downloads are promised, but that white Explorer guitar is only a prototype.

For reasons unknown, Microsoft is allowing Rare to make another Banjo game.

We’ve already shown you Marvel Universe Online, but may I say this game looks like it may just cure the blues for folk like me who are bummed only 24 playable characters are in Marvel Ultimate Alliance. Let’s just hope Cryptic tries to grab hold of the X-Men Legends audience with great gameplay.

Thanks to SparkStalker for links!

Now available on YouTube, HERE is some footage from the Superman Returns video game.  There are scenes of battle with giant enemies, fights with multiple hand-to-hand opponents, racing around using super-speed, and the obligatory rescue missions – specifically one where he’s using his super-breath on a … tornado.  Weird.

What really caught my attention though is the segment, about two-thirds of the way through, clearly demonstrating the player in control of Bizarro, using his heat vision on the city.  Based on the appearance of things, it looks like we’ll finally have a Superman video game that isn’t absolute hell to play through, at the very least.  And a best case scenario might have game this topping the movie in terms of enjoyment.  Hate to say it, but it already easily does so in terms of action, in this footage alone.

Remember when Marvel sued NC Soft and Cryptic Studios, because they felt that the game “City of Heroes” included characters – and also allowed and encouraged players to create more, similar characters – that infringed on Marvel’s copyrights? Sure, the lawsuit was settled out of court long ago, but now Marvel’s making lemon meringue pie out of that lemon by teaming up with Cryptic (and Microsoft Game Studios) to make “Marvel Universe Online” – An MMO game for XBox 360 and PC using (surprise!) Marvel characters. While other articles go on and on with more discussion, analysis, and questions, that’s really all that they end up saying about it.

While this is an interesting newsbit, it raises more questions than it answers. For example:

• I can only assume we won’t be restricted to currently existing characters. While Marvel boasts a library of 5,000 characters, some of them – like, say, Turner D. Century – are simply God-awful. And yet, the issue is never addressed. Maybe we’ll just see a town full of dozens of Wolverines.
• On the technical side, they keep specifically saying it will be on “Windows Vista,” rather than simply saying “PC” in the articles and interviews. Does that mean it won’t work on XP? They won’t even hint at a release date, so maybe they don’t expect to be done until more people have Vista – or maybe not. With Microsoft, it’s really hard to give the benefit of the doubt.
• Aaaaand, let’s be honest – There’s really not a lot of information to go off of, other than it will exist in the future, they’re working on it, and they’re not allowed to say much about it. Lots of question marks, not a lot of actual info.

View the teaser trailer on Xbox Live Marketplace now, or right here.

The Ultimates 2 #12
Written by Mark Millar, art by Bryan Hitch

With all the excitement surrounding Millar’s other big book, it’s easy to forget the ever-sporadically scheduled Ultimates 2. After 23 issues and 5 years, Millar and Hitch’s run on The Ultimates finally comes to an end. What with its seemingly-random appearances on shelves at the comic shop, it’s easy to miss an issue, and with this one being the big finale (despite the big battle kind of being won last issue), I figure this is one that readers won’t want to miss.

And for those of you that are critical of the book, well hey, today’s a day for celebration for you too – The book’s over! Until the next volume anyway. So here’s hoping that Jeph Loeb and Joe Maduriera do enough to differentiate themselves from their predecessors, while still retaining the hard-hitting enjoyment and interesting characterizations that Millar and Hitch always brought to the table. (But maybe try to keep a tighter schedule though, eh guys?)

So often these Gundam games turn out to be not good.
But if you like Gundam, you probably won’t care too much right now, since at least the trailers are cool.
Mobile Suit Gundam: Crossfire will be released on PlayStation 3 next year.

wait… another Gundam game? Oh yeah, theres a completely different one for Xbox 360. Mobile Ops: The One Year War thats also being shown at Tokyo Game Show this week.

Both games are about Gundams and shooting. I can’t imagine anything really revolutionary. I think we’d all be happy if it controlled well, had decent AI, and a story/voice acting that didn’t make me want to take my own life.

This is not the Halo 3 logo, but they have revealed the real final logo. Take a look at the real Halo 3 Logo.

That Halo movie… they still making that? Yes they are. Aint it cool’s Quint put Peter Jackson in the hotseat and made him talk about producing the Halo movie.

Bungie Weekly Update‘s big story is the new podcast. I’m still listening to it, but so far the most startling revelation has nothing to do with Halo 3. Bungie’s staff composer Marty O’Donnel is responsible for the “Flintstone Kids” and “Mr Clean” commercial jingles. Wow. Just… wow.

If you feel like a laugh, read An Interview With A Cheater over at Aeropause. A Halo 2 cheater justify’s his existance. Poorly.

I just read the first Halo novel “The Fall Of Reach” this week and I’m kind of amazed I liked it. I also think it would make a better movie than the first game.
[Read the rest of this entry…]

You might have missed it, but Superman II is being re-released, re-cut using footage shot by original director Richard Donner before he got the boot from the project. While there’s a lot more to the story than that, you can read up on that on your own time. The story behind the movie is actually quite interesting, but for the purposes of brevity – and of not re-treading old ground – there’s the front box art image on the left. And while the front image is readily available in a number of places, ComicsContinuum.com has large image of the back of the box, available HERE.

You can see the listed features on the right side:

• Introduction by Director Richard Donner
• Commentary by Director Richard Donner and Creative Consultant Tom Mankiewicz
• New Featurette Superman II: Restoring the Vision
• Deleted scenes

As you can see in the small print on the bottom, Richard Donner is listed as director, and the running time will be 116 minutes, rather than the 128 minutes of the original. Since I’m not overly familiar with the original release, I don’t know what that means for us, but if nothing else, when this DVD hits, I’ve got myself an excuse to watch Superman II, which is always nice.

For the past few weeks, people have been talking about Link’s sudden change in dexterity in the upcoming ‘Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess’.  Traditionally, Link has always been left-handed, until now…sort of.  According to Shigeru Miyamoto the game was simply mirrored, flipped completely, to enhance the sword combat.  Since the player will be using their right hand to swipe, the game was originally designed to have enemies attack the player from the left, so it was easier to just flip the game’s display horizontally.  Interestingly enough, Link will be left-handed in the Gamecube version of the game, and all of the maps will be left in their original form. 

Thanks to Maxcon for the find!