Hot Topic, who previously had a number of Sailor Moon shirts on sale, as reported by Powet, has lots of new products on sale including a full on Sailor Moon Halloween costume.

The costume itself looks kind of cheap, but that cheapness is mostly relegated to the locket, tiara and hair covers. If a cosplayer used a locket toy and spend some effort into making more high quality versions of those cheap parts, they could put together quite a costume!

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I’ll never forget when my brother and I unwrapped our Playstation that Christmas morning 15 years ago. Amongst the cables and controllers was a disc featuring previews of several games. PLAYABLE previews of several games. This was important as all three of the games we got were fighting games (Tekken 2, Mortal Kombat Trilogy, and Street Fighter Alpha 2) and it being the holiday, it would be a while before we would increase our collection. That was okay, because the demo disc we got held wonders beyond imagination. Playable demos of King of Fighters 95 and ESPN Extreme Games, and videos of Jet Moto and Twisted Metal 2 were among the discs’ many hidden goodies. There were also several hidden codes, and you could even listen to some tracks by putting the CD in your player. Another memorable disc came with an Official Playstation Magazine issue that I picked up the summer after my freshman year in college. It contained Threads of Fate, Deception 3, and X-men Mutant Academy. I ended up buying most of the games featured on the disc. Since the early days of disc-based gaming, a demo disc has been one of the best ways to sample games before thier release.
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The Transformers Collectors’ Club revealed the first club exclusive figure for 2012; Runabout. Runabout is the partner of Runamuck, the club’s 2012 free membership exclusive. If you sign up to be a member by March 16th, 2012, you automatically get Runamuch for free as part of your membership. You also have the option to buy two other figures as a member of the club. Today’s announcement is the first of those two figures. Runabout will be put up as a preorder sometime in the Spring along with another as yet to be revealed figure.

Announcement and bio after the jump.
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Yes, this is online right now, but it may be removed entirely in the near future. This is an extra on the Thor DVD. Its got Clark Gregg as Agent Coulson, and fills in some story between Incredible Hulk, Thor, and Avengers. And Iron Man. Apparently we can expect more shorts like this leading up to Avengers.

Another short titled “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Thor’s Hammer” in also expected soon.

After the jump, see Joss Whedon talk about making Avengers.
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Time Crisis was, and is still a trendsetter in the Arcades. Along with it’s polygonal graphics (which were pretty cutting edge at the time and still hold up well even to this day), the game also added a key innovation to the light-gun genre: the Duck Pedal. When you pressed the pedal, you popped out from under cover ready to take on enemies. When the pedal was depressed, you hid behind a nearby object where you could reload. However, each section was on a strict time limit, so you couldn’t hide underneath forever. When you played the game with another person in the game’s sequel, they played on another screen that was hooked up to the arcade cabinet, and they saw the action from a slightly different viewpoint. This was in contrast to two people looking at the same screen and being forced to take every bullet shot at them like other light gun games have done for years. Time Crisis Project Titan was a PlayStation-exclusive entry in the series. Playing as Richard Miller of the V.S.S.E, you fight to clear your name for the attempted assassination of Cuba’s President. The game contains the series’ signature duck and hide action, and you can even hide in different places by shooting the yellow arrows while the player is hiding. Oh yeah, and if you didn’t get it with the original PlayStation port of Time Crisis, TCPJ comes with a guncon for PS1. Of course it’s painted in a day-glow orange color so police won’t recognize it as a real weapon. Although TCPJ’s graphics were a bit dated at the time compared to the rest of the series, the game is still a fun light gun shooter with a gimmick that’s still clever even today.

20 years before Michael Bay tried his hand at Transformers, another toy line crossed the line into live action. Masters Of The Universe is an honestly well done movie starring Dolph Lundgren as He-Man and Frank Langella as Skeletor. Really, for a movie made with 1987 technology, it packs some pretty good action and visual effects. Its short comings are not unlike most 80s action movies: silly plot, some hammy acting, and a lot of posturing.

We’ve recorded a commentary track for this movie intended to be played in sync with the DVD. The DVD is available for less than $5 on Amazon right now. We’re going to release the show on August 31, 2011, and it will be available in our archives here. This is the first time we’re doing this, but it won’t be the last! We’re giving you a couple weeks of advance notice so you’ve got time to order the DVD or dig your copy out of storage or whatever you need to do. In the mean time, dig the teaser video posted above.

One of the surprise announcements out of SDCC 2011 for Mattel was the discontinuation of DC Universe’s distribution to retail in the form of connect n’ collect/build-a-figure waves. No more build-a-figures would be offered at retail and instead the line would shift to more popular character selections shipped on a unique schedule. That left a hole for MattyCollector.com to fill by selling the figures of characters the line had not yet gotten to along with the more obscure character selections that tend not to do well with retail, but are popular among collectors.

  

In theory, this wasn’t a bad idea. Mattel set up a 9 month subscription that would feature nine monthly figures starting in April of 2012. There would also be three quarterly oversized figures and one club exclusive oversized figure as well. The latter, of which, would be decided by online fan poll based on a selection of revealed characters including, but not limited to, Black Lantern Swamp Thing and Shaggy Man.

The linch pin of this subscription, though, was that a specific number of subscriptions would need to be sold to make it viable. Mattel setup a thermometer to keep track of the relative number of subscriptions on MattyCollector.com to give people an informed view of how close they were to the goal.

Read more about the state of the subscription after the jump.
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Back in the 90s, there was a little known game called Barkley: Shut Up and Jam. It had it’s high points, but really, it was a little more than a rip off of NBA Jam, which was released a short time before. It got a sequel which was just as forgettable. Years later, a group of developers known as ‘Tales of Games’ used a copy of RPG maker to create a sequel. Instead of another NBA Jam clone, this sequel would instead be a role playing game about one of the greatest ballers in the sport. Oh, and according to it’s creators, the game’s story is canon.
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