Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles will get another crack at the big screen next spring, when Warner Bros pictures releases a new 100% computer animated movie based on the foursome’s orignal comic outings.
Though Imagi Animation Studios is promising a gritty Hong Kong action movie, the film’s already headed for a PG rating and its unlikely 4Kids or WB will dish out the killer Ninja Turtles stories from the first volume of the Mirage comics. I mean if they wanna send the Turtles into space and chop off Shredder’s head, thats cool with me. I just don’t think its gonna happen.
Link: IMAGI INTERNATIONAL, which has no animation to speak of as an example. Kinda weird for an unknown studio, eh?

Oh yeah, Ubisoft has tied up rights for the video game, ending Mirage’s long standing deal with Konami. No details announced yet, but if past Ubisoft games are any indication: expect the game to have online support and find a way to use every single button the controller.

During the early part of the PS2’s lifecycle, the original Timesplitters emerged as a FPS game which would quickly challenge the norms of the genre.  It was designed by Free Radical, a studio made up of programmers who had worked on Goldeneye and Perfect Dark for Nintendo 64, so there was already a lot going into it.  It featured some innovative weaponry, a plot spanning several time periods, numerous multiplayer modes, and most of all, a map maker.

A few years later, a sequel came out for all current generation systems.  The stages were bigger, there were even more crazy weapons and multiplayer modes, and the map maker’s functionality had been expanded to allow players to create story mode missions.  It was yet another class expierence,  but still something was missing: online play.

Last year, EA took control of the licence, and released TImesplitters Future perfect.  The series now has a cohesive plot, and the levels are much more multi-faceted.  You play as Cortez as he jumps through different time periods hoping to trace the origin of the timesplitters.  In each period he teams up with a different assistant character as he completes his objectives.  More importantly, the series was online for the first time, and players can create maps to upload and download to and from the internet (except the gamecube version).  This includes storymode missions as well.  In fact, I have a few uploaded to Xbox live under the gamertag “screwfacecapone”.  Even though this is a conclusion to the series, hopefully Free Radical can create more innovative FPS titles on the next generation systems.

Botcon.com has posted official images of the next exclusive for this year’s official Transformers convention. We have seen many pictures of this figure on ebay and elsewhere surface for the past couple months, but here it is finally in official paint scheme.

 

You might remember the previously announced figures, but if not here’s whats official so far:

• Optimus Primal
• Dinobot
• Cheetor
• Rhinox

Unofficially we’ve also seen:

• A repainted Cybertron Defense Red Alert with remolded head as Megatron
• A repainted RID Windshear with remolded head as Waspinator
• A repainted energon divebomb that could be Terrorsaur

From this it seems pretty obvious we’re not just getting a maximal set of figures, but we can only speculate on that for the time being until things play themselves out.

Also, I was pretty disappointed that news of Rattrap’s revealing was not trickled through the email list of the Collector’s Club first. If I’m paying an annual US$40-60 membership, I expect news like this to be given to the members first and not have to find out via another news site, especially where the club and convention are so tightly coordinated.

Ain’t It Cool News comes through with another spoiler picture from the set of Michael Bay’s Transformers movie.

Seeing Brawl, the Decepticon police cruiser was cool. Seeing part of Bumblebee’s robot mode was cooler still.

But we all want to see Optimus Prime. Theres a picture of the truck after the jump. Prepare yourself. Just take a deep breath before clicking, and clear your thoughts of anything you might have thought Optimus Prime would look like.

If you want to take your time, look at some footage from the always vapid E! channel’s set visit.

[Update on 7/13/06 with more info after the jump]
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Toys R Us stores in Canada have a sale this week, from Saturday July 8th to Friday July 14th, on Gameboy Advance games. Buy 1 game and get another of equal or lesser value for free. The sale does not apply to stores in the United States. This is a great oppurtunity for you to get those games you’ve wanted but have put off buying.

Naturally the selection is not the best but with this kind of deal it’s worth checking out.

Thanks to “Wonko the Sane?” for pointing the sale out.

The surprising success of this hit from last year (as well as the failures of 25 to Life, FInal Fight Streetwise, and many others) proves that not everyone who plays Grand Theft Auto plays it for the sex and violence, but for the way it implements it’s open world design.  Pick one of three mercenaries, each of which with thier own special talents, and blaze across North Korea in an attenpt to dethrone a dictator, capture the deck of 52, stop a nuclear strike, and get paid beaucoup dollars while doing it.  You take missions from 4 different factions, playing each side and staying on good terms with them to gain special advantages.  The Russian Mafia for instance, gives you access to the “Merchant of menace” website where you can purchase weapons, vehicles, and anything else you need in your missions.  The main draw of this game is the ability to blow up pretty much anything standing.  You are also free to go about the missions however you choose.  Pandemic, this game’s developer is also behind another solid open world sandbox game, “Destroy all Humans”.  A sequel is also on the way, for PS3 and hopefully Xbox 360.

It seems the organizers of SDCC have put up a panel description that pretty much tells us one way or another what will happen to the popular line now that its in Hasbro’s hands. Here’s the description:

2:00-3:00 Hasbro/Marvel: Marvel Legends. Spider-Man Origins. Superhero Squad and much more!— Find out what it’s all about at the first Hasbro/Marvel panel ever! Jesse Falcon from Toy Biz joins Hasbro team members Billy Lagor, Randy Shoemaker, and Brian Wilk. Don’t miss this opportunity to see a sneak peak of what Hasbro has in store for their spring 2007 Marvel line. Room 8

You may remember Jesse Falcon from an interview we linked to here. Hopefully we will get more than just news and see some prototypes or designs of some sort. I also wouldn’t complain about a slightly less skewed Spider-man to Villain ratio in any Spider-man lines they are working on.

via

Tags: Marvel, Marvel Legends, Spider-Man

Comments (2)

Last weekend was not only an American holiday, but it was also the GI Joe Collectors’ Convention down in New Orleans. Since there was plenty of coverage, I thought I’d try to pull together what I could from different sources and put it all in one place for your reviewing pleasure.

After the jump you will see all my findings. Enjoy.
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