This game is the sequel to 2002’s Freedom Force, which is one of the best games inspired by comic books without actually being based on one. The game featured a wide array of characters, RTS-style controls, and a look right out of a 1960s Jack Kirby comic. You fought against an assortment of weird communism-worshiping villains inspired by the Silver Age of comics. The game was also modable, allowing players to add in new characters, missions, and campaigns to the experience. In 2005, Irrational Games released a sequel containing even more comic goodness, and this time, it took gamers to the golden age of comics, and Freedom Force fought against the evil of the Nazis.
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I’ve always been a fan of 3D technology. Being a huge fan of the show The Bots Master and of optical illusions in general it’s a concept which always fascinated me. With such juvenile movies as Spy Kids and Shrek being the main 3D movies in theatres lately I was excited to hear that Harry Potter, a movie which was actually paleteable to me, had 3D in it. Excited, that is, until I actually got to see it.

I went to see the movie in Imax and though the 3D was only for the last 15 minutes or so of the movie it was so bad that I would have gladly watched the movie on normal film to avoid the crapulescence. It uses stereoscopic 3D using glasses with differently coloured lenses, meaning everything looked like it was flickering and there was almost always an after imagine on the right and left of objects, due to the fact that the movie was not in black and white so that even if it was colour shifted to be visible through one eye, there was still a shifted image for the other.

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Yes ladies and gentlemen the Wii finally gets another firmware update today, bringing the system up to 3.0U. The primary accomplishments of this update? A fairly major overhaul to the Wii Shop Channel and a clock on the main screen. Hey it’s not exactly loading games off an SD card, but we’ll take what we can get. For anyone curious about the Wii’s new abilities, we’ve got the full list of known changes after the jump.

(Thanks to NeoGAF poster EphemeralDream)
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In 1999, Capcom’s Flagship Studios was still riding high off the success of Resident Evil. They were gearing up to release not only the third game in the franchise, but also Dino Crisis, a survival horror game in a similar vein. The game was good, but it’s slow pacing and control scheme basically regulated it to being Resident Evil with Dinosaurs. Taking the criticisms to heart, Capcom released this sequel the following year which not only gave the series its own identity, but made it into a fast paced enjoyable action game for Playstation 1 games not yet ready to make the jump to the next generation. In fact, this game was a lot better than most of the Playstation 2’s launch lineup. After this game, no one would confuse Dino Crisis with Resident Evil again.
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In 2004, there were 3 big first person shooter games; Doom 3, Halo 2, and Valve’s Half Life 2. Of the three, many gamers consider this to be the best, and for good reason. The game is second to few in terms of graphical quality, story telling, gameplay, and capability for modding. Built on a modified version of the Havok physics system, a large part of the game’s appeal is simply picking up objects laying on the ground and throwing them at people. A weapon known as the gravity gun allows players to use the physics system to make anything into a weapon. Players take control of series protagonist Gordon Freeman, as he is awoken from stasis nearly two decades after the end of the original Half Life. He emerges into a world overrun by the combine. Joining up with a resistance group, Freeman has to fight back against all odds, battling head crabs, police officers, and alien creatures with a large variety of weapons.

As mentioned before, another part of this game’s popularity has to do with the modding community. There are several mods ranging from new deathmatch maps to full game conversions. One of the more popular mods, “Gary’s Mod” allows players to simply spawn objects in a sandbox environment just to play around with the physics system. Another mod is an attempt at recreating the popular N64 game GoldenEye. Of course when you’re through with the main game, there is plenty of more material coming to keep fans occupied. Episode 1 was released this year, continuing Gordon Freeman’s quest. This fall will see the release of Episode 2, along with the source engine based Team Fortress 2 and Portal. Xbox 360 and PS3 gamers can grab a special “orange box” containing the main game, as well as all the extras mentioned above. Whichever way you decide to get it, don’t miss out on the chance to play one of the best FPS games ever.

System Requirements
Processor: 1.2 GHZ or better
OS: Windows 98 and higher (including Vista)
Internal Memory: 256 MB RAM
Storage: 4.5 GB
Graphics: DirectX 7 or greater
Internet connection required for verification
DVD-ROM drive (unless obtained from Steam)

The studios and ComiCon really ought to provide official versions of these teasers online. But, if Shakycam is what I get, Shakycam is what I’ll take. Here is Jon Favreau’s Iron Man, starring Robert Downey Jr as Tony Stark.

Sorry guys, the video got taken down. I had a backup bookmarked on another site, but that one got taken down too. I’ll keep looking!”

As many of you may know, Otakon 2007 was last weekend in Baltimore – surprisingly early for the con. A bunch of the Powet crew were present to witness the awesome glory and crazy mayhem that was the largest anime convention on the east coast. Though visual documentary on the convention for us may be a bit on the slim side, I did manage to have enough footage (both my own and a few snippets donated) to put together a small video-tour of the convention.

It also documents just how big a bunch of nutty geeks we here at Powet are.

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WhySoSerious.com has the trailer. No footage, but there is spoken dialog from Bruce and Alfred followed by another voice…

We also get the full Police Report on the Joker’s Death. Yeah, death. Whats this all mean? Your guess is as good as mine. See you in December.

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