Welcome to the Powet Top 5, where we explore the top (and bottom) 5 items we think are relevant to any of a variety of topics that span the imagination. Sit back, read, and respond.

In 2006, Hasbro unleashed Transformers: Classics. Featuring heritage characters re-imagined with modern technology, the line was an instant hit with collectors. Now, 6 years later, the idea behind the Classics line has been revisited again and again, with homages to vintage characters popping up everywhere. Today, we’ll take a look at 5 of the best updates to these classic characters!

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As we all know, Halloween is this month, so instead of doing one big long horror themes Lost Classics/20 GOTW at the end of the month, I’ll do several smaller $20 GOTW each week of the month and throw in a horror themes Lost Classic and Maximum Letdown as well. This is the first of several horror themed 20GOTWs each week of this month. Most of them will be indie releases, but if you want a good scare, check them out! This week’s game is Zaratustra Productions’ Eversion, an innocent looking platformer, or at least it starts out that way. The Lovecraft quote at the beginning of the game and the developer’s warning that this isn’t for kids should cause some alarm.
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The original Voltron cartoon was a childhood favorite for so many of us growing up. For some, it was their introduction of large robot fighters in general, to be accompanied by several others of the time. As with the general 80’s English dubbing of the Japanese GoLion series, Voltron was still rife with action, drama and mecha being the crap out of each other, as well as featuring characters that may have fit a couple of eventual stereotypes but still had personality.
Years later, we dealt with the supposed sequel series, Voltron: 3rd Dimension, whose main purpose wasn’t so much as to continue with the storyline and development that the original series left off with, but rather to simply show off how “unique” it was by being completely 3D rendered and computer generated. The plot and characterization suffered in turn, even though several of the voice actors from the original series had returned to reprise their characters. (Oh Michael Bell, you will always be my first audible animation love)

So after that disappointment, and over a decade going by, when Nickelodeon announced a new cartoon dubbed “Voltron Force”, it was a glimmer of hope for a lot of us oldschool fans. And for the first few episodes, it held the promise of erasing Voltron 3D’s disgrace and forging the path to continue everything as they had been with the original series. However, after the first half of the first season, you might start to notice some things that don’t really add up, or certain inconsistencies start piling up and can no longer be ignored in favor of compromising “Oh, it’ll get better, I’m sure”.

Not so much.

Spoilers, FYI.
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I’m a huge fan of Ben Folds Five. Caught them by accident on a side stage at Lollapalooza in 1996 while waiting for The Ramones and went on to see them live eight more times before they disbanded in 2000. They reunited last year and will release their 4th album, The Sound Of Life And Mind on September 18, 2012.
And now to talk about the above clip. The music video for the first single “Do It Anyway” has been produced in cooperation with Chris Hardwick and Lisa Henson, heir to Jim Henson productions. It features the return of another long dormant band, Fraggle Rock. Out of production since 1987, Fraggles have made sparse appearances in Muppet productions over the last decades, thought a feature film remains in pre-production at the Weinstein Company since 2005.
The combination of a beloved band and beloved children’s show is nothing new. In fact, Jim Henson Productions made a video pairing The Muppet Show and Weezer in 2002. Still, the effort is warmly welcomed, as this heralds the return of a band and a TV show that has only been in reruns for most of my adult life.

Can anyone explain why Anna Kendrick was in this video?

Welcome to the Powet Top 5, where we explore the top (and bottom) 5 items we think are relevant to any of a variety of topics that span the imagination. Sit back, read, and respond.

Thankfully, Eat, Pray, Love never received a video game adaptation (well, none that I know of anyway). If it did, I'd like to think of it as a game with a focus on stealth, cover, rpg-like stat building, and metroid style exploration. Kinda like Bioshock meets Metal Gear Solid, except Nora Roberts was writing the plot instead of Hideo Kojima. Oh, and there would be co-op and multiplayer of course.

Movie adaptations are the junk food of the gaming industry. Yeah, they taste good and kids can’t get enough of them, but they just aren’t good for you. Most gaming adaptations fall prey to the same problem: developers rush to have them out in time for the movie’s release so they can cash in, and they spend more development resources on recreating the film than implementing proper gameplay mechanics. Thus, while that video game based on this year’s summer blockbuster might move huge units within the first few months after it’s release, it’ll be regulated to bargain bin shovelware status by this time next year, and often times before the dvd hits stores. However, there are several games that have managed to not only avoid this problem, but they became classics in their own right, doing justice to the movie they were based on. Here are 5 of the best.
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A couple of weeks ago at Fan Expo in Toronto, City TV held an advanced screening of the premiere episode of J.J. Abrams’ new TV series “Revolution”. This episode was directed by Jon Favreau, actor and director of movies such as Swingers and Iron Man. As I was not asked to sign an NDA I’ve gathered some thoughts on it and tried to keep spoilers to a minimum but if you’re still not looking to read on I’ll just say that I enjoyed the first episode despite some minor issues and that I’m willing to give the show a chance, hoping it doesn’t become horrible.

I original wrote this review almost two weeks ago but I dragged my ass on posting it for so long that you can now watch the first episode on the NBC web site so forget my review, just go watch it.

The premise of the series is simple and can be inferred quite easily from the trailer. Something, we’re not told what, happens which makes the power go out and then 15 years later we’re shown the world which now exists. This pretty much happens right away as only a short few minutes are shown at the onset of the episode and then quickly this event occurs, and we immediately begin to follow the real flow of the story of this post apocalyptic future world.

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Last week’s Lost Classic was based on a Disney license, so here is another one. Maui Mallard was one of the last good platformers of the 16-bit era. As it was released during the final days of the era, it was largely ignored on the SNES and Game Boy and the Genesis version only saw a European release.
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Yet more great Kickstarter gaming news! So a back earlier this year, I produced a retro review of “The Great Giana Sisters”, a game from the Commodore 64 and Amiga days of gaming that was notorious for being one of the earliest Super Mario Bros. clones in existence. The review mentions a recent remake of the game for the Nintendo DS that, while imaginative, some fans believed fell short on paying proper homage to the original’s fantastic music and unique charm.

Unbeknownst to me, a Kickstarter was established by independent developers, Black Forest Games, under the name “Project Giana”. With the idea firmly cemented in their brains, they set to work with the goal of making a truly innovative remake of Great Giana Sisters that would help to not only bring back the spark of the original game, but hook players that may not have cared for the DS revamp. What the Kickstarter originally didn’t really make clear, but thankfully writer Audun Sorlie at Destructoid managed to lay all out on the table with his interview with BFG, was that original game composer Chris Huelsbeck was along to help with the project’s soundtrack, along with DS-version composer Fabian Del Priore co-producing and metal-chiptune maestros Machinae Supremacy along to help out.

With a playable demo currently available to try, and a ton of goodies for those who pledge to the fund, (the very first tier gets you the game for PC), “Project Giana” is shaping up to be one of those Kickstarters that again appeal to the childhood gamer in so many of us. (Now that we’re adults with larger budgets than our weekly allowances) Whether it make it’s 150K goal within the August 31st deadline or not will be determined these next few days, but if it does, it will be another testament to the growing idea of resurrecting similar older games through the power of the gaming community.