I figured that it would be fun to do some mini-reviews on some of the items I picked up at Botcon this year.

Grapple was an interesting item that I picked up mid way through Saturday. My intent was to purchase the Transformers Reveal the Shield (RtS) Solar Storm Grapple. I have a policy of sticking with the American versions for the most part. I am not much of a stickler about variations in color schemes so the cheaper choice has been my traditional choice. The biggest variance between the two version is the United (Japanese) version has an orange head while the RtS (American) release had a black head. The orange head is ‘anime-accurate’, as the kids say these days. It also differentiates him a bit more standing next to Universe Inferno. The RtS version’s black head is actually faithful to the original toy, so that version does have a basis in “reality”.

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Global Warming, Climate Change, or whatever you want to call it, is a great source of controversy. There are many who believe that it is a very real possibility and a serious threat. On the other side, there are people who believe that Global Warming conspiracies are part of an anti-corporate/anti-christian conspiracy to raise taxes and give power to big government. U.K-based Independent developers Red Redemption seem to be on the former side, and have produced the game Fate of the World, a successor to thier 2006 browser game Climate Challenge.
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Yesterday DC Comics announced that this September they will be relaunching all their super hero comics and renumbering them starting with #1 issues. In an interview with USA Today they revealed that there will be a total of 51 first issues released in a five week period.

The details aren’t fully revealed at this point, but this relaunch appears to be a reboot of the entire DC universe and will have new costumes and stories that will be more accessible to new fans.

The relaunch will start on August 31st, and DC will be release just two books that day: The final Flashpoint issue and the first issue of a new Justice League series by Geoff Johns and Jim Lee.

Another huge part of this announcement is that all of these 51 new series will be available digitally on the same day they are released in print, which makes them the first of any major comic pulbisher to do so.

Read the full press release after the jump.
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Since the alphabet is the building block of our language, the Powet Alphabet is the building block of what makes us geeks.

Rocky Balboa has Apollo Creed. Superman has Lex Luthor. Wolverine has Sabertooth. Batman has the Joker. 50 Cent has Ja Rule. Tupac Shakur has Biggie Smalls. Barack Obama has Sarah Palin.

If popular media has taught us anything, it’s that every hero worth their salt has an equal, but opposite adversary to fight, and so it was for Spider-man. A simple mistake made sometime ago would come back to bite him in the ass in a major way. Not only would this mistake spawn one of the greatest Spider-man villains ever, it would lead to the emergence of a second, along with even more extraterrestrial nightmares.
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Hey, so the game has been out for 9 Months. There are still a lot of people who have not made the trip to Reach.

Microsoft has never released a demo for a Halo title (with the exception of the RTS spin-off Halo Wars), so seeing its boldest and most recent chapter suddenly get some free play is kind of unexpected!

The demo is a nice vertical slice of 3 of Reach’s game modes: Campaign, Multiplayer, and Firefight. The campaign is a portion of “Long Night Of Solace” which you saw in the E3 demo last year. Only about half the chapter is included, but thats well over a half hour of play on the ground and in space. You’ll also be able to play multiplayer on “Powerhouse” which has a wide variety of weapons on the ground and lots of high and low combat. Finally, Firefight on “Outpost” will pit you against wave after wave of aliens until the timer runs out, or you finally run out of lives.

You can download the demo from your Xbox 360, or queue it up on xbox.com.

If you like it, go ahead and buy the game. You won’t be disappointed. I purchased on day one and still managed to put another 2 hours into the game this morning. There are two downloadable map packs for sale, but I’ve seen dozens of maps made by the community and they’ve all been offered for free and included in regular online play, so even if you don’t buy the professional maps, you’ll still have something new to look at almost every time you play.

Fans of all things good and pony filled were disappointed to learn that the hit show My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic received ZERO Daytime Emmy nominations this year. Another show on Hasbro’s network “The Hub”, Transformers Prime, received a total of 6 underserved nominations.

It’s becoming more and more clear now that even amongst Transformers fans, who one would imagine would be predisposed to like a Transformers show, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is a much more beloved and popular show.

Why would such an objectively superior show get ignored in favour of a fairly uncompelling run of the mill Transformers series? One that no fan would mention if asked to count their favourite Transformers shows on one hand? A show that replaced a fan favourite superior version and completely failed to live up to the precedent? Well it’s an awards show. If these idiots ever got it right, that would be the real surprise.

So ignore the Emmys, because they suck, and this is just another fine example. A well deserved Emmy win is as unexpected as a show accurate Applejack hat.

With the current revamp of Mortal Kombat surpassing all expectations of sales and quality, it was only a matter of time before the original ‘trilogy’ was re-released.

Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection, as revealed by Warner Bros today, is going to be a single $10 download in Xbox Live or PSN that will include the original Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat II, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Previously, Midway released UMK3 on XBox Live and MKII on PSN, but with that publisher out of business both games have long since been removed from the storefront.

The games are said to be the original arcade versions, enhanced with online play, leaderboards, and achievements/trophies. Graphics are not expected to be revamped, only upscaled to HD.

Rumors of the collection surfaced a few months ago, originally pegging the collected games at $39.99 on a Playstation 3 exclusive disc. While you won’t have another disc for your shelf, its hard to complain about getting the collection at a quarter of the price of the rumors!

Full press release follows.

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Another part in our KEEP PLAYING: Mass Effect 2 – Romance series!

Tali isn’t just the first non-romance character from ME1 to get the romance treatment in ME2, but her story takes us further into the lives of Quarians, and teases about what’s behind those masks. Do we ever find out? Read on!

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