New Spider-Mans Abound

The first photo showing the look of the new Spider-Man film coming 2012 was released today. It shows actor Andrew Garfield walking down a dark alley, looking very beat. There are a couple of things to point out about the suit. First, I’ve heard a lot of complaints about the look of the spider on the chest. To me, the suit looks to be damage in a fight, and we can see bloodied scratches on his face to support this. We also know from reports that The Lizard will be a villain in the film, so these battle scars could be from an encounter with him. Also, if you very carefully, you’ll notice small bumps on his wrists, which could possibly suggest the presence of mechanized web shooters.

Some other Spider-Man news came today. Activision announced that Beenox, developer of Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions, will be in charge of the publisher's future Spider-Man titles. Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions received fairly good reviews, so its my hope that Beenox will good as well, if not better, on future Spider-Man releases. Many might complain that no Spider-Man game will live up the open-world gameplay of Spider-Man 2. I personally have not played Spider-Man 2 or Shattered Dimensions yet, but from what information and footage I saw of Shattered Dimensions, it looks like they handled the idea of four different Spider-Mans pretty well, this coming from a long-time Spider-Man fan that still has his comics somewhere in storage.

I’ve Been Saying This All Along

THQ revealed their new company logo today. Brian Farrell, THQ President and CEO, said the new logo, “epitomizes the change, innovation and creative growth that are the cornerstones of the new THQ.” This might be considered marketing talk by some, however, it’s true. THQ is setting themselves to go up against the big boys in the industry and they are going about in the right way: building strong brands with great games.

DC Universe Online Launch

It’s been more than five years since I played a game by Sony Online Entertainment. My last encounter with SOE was Star Wars Galaxies and their introduction of the New Game Enhancements. I’m not going to get into why, but suffice to say it was less then stellar. So why am I interested in an SOE game now?

The Silver Screen is a Little Less Silvery

This post was supposed to come a few days after Christmas, after I had saw Tron: Legacy and re-watched the original Tron. Between family and the holidays, things got pushed back. But I’m finally able to get some time to tell you my thoughts. This isn’t so much of a review as it is just an observation and what I’ve come to know.

Back to the Future: It’s About Time Review

Back to the Future: Episode 1 - It’s About Time
Developer: Telltale Games
Publisher: Telltale Games
Genre: Point-and-Click Adventure
ESRB Rating: T for Teen
Platforms: PC, iPad and PlayStation 3 (TBD)

In my last post, I said would be posting a review of the first episode in the five episode series of Back to the Future by Telltale Games. I posted this thinking that games almost always are released on the Tuesday of the week. Half-way through the day, I realized that Back to the Future wouldn’t be released until Wednesday, December 22 (the next day). So that afternoon, I went and saw Tron: Legacy with my brother. I will be posting a review of the film sometime during the weekend after the Christmas festivities, but I’ll also be using that time to watch the first Tron, a film I haven’t seen in over 10 years.

It’s a Christmas Miracle

The Holiday Steam Sale just went live today, and I don’t think its hyperbole to say that every single game is on sale. The sale runs until January 2nd, but you can find new daily deals each day. Here is a list of today’s featured games:

2010 VGA Picks

The list of nominations for this year’s Spike Video Game Awards was released today. After going through the list, it really reminds me of how much of a great year in gaming its been. While there are some obscure nominations (Danica Patrick as Herself in Blur for "Best Performance by Human Female”), generally all the nominations I agree with. So while these might not become actually winners, they are who I would choose.

Sometimes I wish I was a Console Gamer

I love being a PC gamer. The number of reasons why PC gaming is superb is more than just a handful, as opposed to what console gamers might suggest. Mouse and keyboard support is the most precise control on any system. The ability to switch DPI on the fly for sniping is invaluable. An analog stick on a controller just doesn’t match. High resolutions and true HD gaming are a standard for the PC. While consoles of this generation are just now approaching 1080p, resolutions of 1280x1024 and higher have been a staple of PC gaming since the early 2000s. The fact that resolutions range as high as 2560x1440 nowadays shows how far ahead PC gaming is in terms of computing power and graphics. The modding community is a strong sub-culture in PC gaming. Fans of many games have taken their existing architecture and used them to create new maps, weapons, items, or entire new games. Counter-Strike originally started as a mod for Half-Life, and it grew into a full fledge title. The number of mods that can be found for Unreal, Quake, Half-Life, Left 4 Dead, StarCraft, Fallout, and many more games show that while the shelf-life of a title is finite, the modding community can extend it’s prevalence to near infinite.

The Best Parts

So after pouring over the 72-page transcript of yesterday’s Supreme Court case of Schwarzenegger v. EMA, a couple of things surprised me. As much as I’ve feared what could be a worst-possible-situation, the Justices seemed to hover on the side of reason and common sense rather than protectionism. The Justices also seemed to be much more familiar with the games industry and the games within than the California lawyers were. Over the course of the hour proceedings, it showed that some of the briefs filed by organizations, such as the ECA, did have a favorable effect for the case. I wanted to highlight a couple of quotes that I think standout and sum up the oral arguments. These are direct quotes taken from the case transcript which can be found here.

New Firefall Trailer Shows the Future of Free-to-Play

A new trailer was released earlier today for the upcoming free-to-play game Firefall, which was first revealed during PAX 2010 back in September. Developed by Red 5 Studios (awesome name for a development house), the game is a combination MMO persistence with FPS features. Red 5 Studios was founded by Mark Kern, former World of Warcraft team lead back in 2005. While not much is known about gameplay, Red 5 has said that the game will feature, “large, open-world cooperative campaign that can be shared with hundreds of other players as well as a competitive multiplayer component that incorporates things like ladders, tournaments, clans and leagues.” The art style is similar to that of the hit game Borderlands, using a mixture of cell-shading and stylized art to create a feeling one might find in comic books. While the free-to-play in past has been overrun with second-rate games, the trend has shown that AAA titles can use the same business model, and Firefall is just another example of this.Firefall will be available for PC sometime during the fourth quarter of 2011.