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ADMIT ONE – Movie Preview Weekend of 10/7/11

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October 14, 2011

The Lion Kind 3D slipped from the top spot last weekend only to see another kids movie, Dolphin Tale, take number one while Moneyball continues to wait its turn in the number two hole. Courageous and 50/50 also had very strong showings to round out the top 5. This weekend should be interesting though as only two big movies are coming out and so we only have two previews for you (there was no way in hell I was going to preview Human Centipede 2). Can they shake-up the Top 5 or will all the hype and publicity both these new movies have been getting be all for naught?

1) Real Steel (Buena Vista)

Ten years into the future, the sport of boxing has died and in its place has arisen robot boxing, which allows 10-foot tall metal titans to pummel each other in ways humans never could. One of these former human boxers, not knowing anything but the fight game, finds that he is not nearly as good with a control pad as when he was the one actually in the squared circle. But with a little faith from his son and a bunch of spare parts, this down-on-his-luck scrapper looks to make one last run at glory.

When I first heard of this movie, I admit that I groaned. Loudly. But the more I think about it, the more I admit it has an appeal there that might make it an actual decent movie. Or at the very least, when you describe something as Rock’em Sock’em Robots crossed with Transformers and Rocky, you have something that will interest a good amount of the viewing audience for at least its opening weekend. Starring Hugh Jackman as the down-on-his-luck boxer, this movie has a lot of entertainment potential as long as it doesn’t take itself too seriously in the end. And blows up a lot of robots.

2) The Ides of March (Sony/Columbia)

An idealistic PR man for a new presidential campaign starts to get a taste of the seedy underbelly that is the American political landscape as he and his candidate get closer and closer to election day.

With as much turmoil and debate that surrounds the American political process now, this movie, which looks to poke holes in the process and shed a little light on the flaws of our government, might make a bigger splash that we would initially think and has Oscar nods written all over it. With a star-studded cast including George Clooney as the suave new political candidate and who also co-wrote the screenplay and is directing the movie, this drama could be a sleeper to keep an eye on at the box office and could catapult Ryan Gosling into the Hollywood elite depending on his performance. Throw in dramatic powerhouses Paul Giamatti, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Marisa Tomei, and Jeffrey Wright and this movie has winner written all over it in my book.

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Pullbox #8 – 10/5/11

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With the first month of DC’s universal re-launch behind us, Marvel has decided to start re-launching some more characters of their own in response. Along with Hulk coming out later this month, we see this week the conclusion of the Schism story line in the X-Men to pave way for several new X-Men monthlies featuring two different teams. So, what series are worth continuing in the DC re-launch and what can Marvel do to draw your attention away from it? And there’s a surprisingly good indie that came out this week as well that deserves you attention so without further ado, check out the Pullbox below!

1) Marvel – X-Men: Schism #5 (of 5): As a giant Sentinel came bearing down onto Utopia, Wolverine and Cyclops’ 30-year rivalry has finally come to a head with the two of them duking it out like never before. Meanwhile, while they try to work out their differences with Wolverine stabbing Cyclops several times and Cyclops blasting off Wolverine’s face, it is the young X-Men and Hope’s new recruits who come in and save the day. With a clear moral divide now present on the island, Wolverine decides to leave for good and several various members of the X-Men decide to join him. You need to see this just to see who breaks rank with Cyclops and to set up what looks to be an awesome foreseeable future for the two new X-Men teams. The best part about this mini-series is that it shows everyone how a re-launch should really take place. Marvel has been infamous in the past for screwing them up, but this coupled with the Hulk’s re-launch, both look promising depending on how they come out of the gate with their new respective series. DC has been pretty awful as well including this new universal re-launch. Some characters stayed the same while others were completely re-written or retconned and just had me scratching my head in many cases. It should be interesting to see where the X-Men go from here, but if I were you, start here and get ready for one wild ride.

2) Marvel – Deadpool #44: Moving away from the almost somber tone that the dividing of the X-Men brings, we look to the greatest comic relief character in comics, Deadpool. Still in England, Deadpool is hot on the trail of his would be psychiatrist/stalker when he goes into her apartment and finds a frozen version of…himself. Leaving it for the time being, Deadpool , having grown a small conscience and realizing that it is his fault that his shrink is about to commit murder, for once actually saves someone he dislikes. But in the end, the doc bites the big one and that frozen version of Deadpool? It looks like it’s going to be EVIL DOPPELGANGER time next issue! Yee-haw! Sorry. I, too, begin developing extra voices in my head after reading too much Deadpool. Anyway, Deadpool is always hysterical to read and sees him in the most over-the-top, off-the-wall situations in comics. With everyone else saving the world, Deadpool can barely even save himself most of the time, relying on his healing factor even more than Wolverine does, and it is always entertaining. Again, this issue wraps up a story arc and sets up the next nicely so it would be a solid point to jump in at and the laughs you’ll get from it makes this an easy choice this week.

3) Image – Last of the Greats #1: Earth is under attack and after not heeding the warnings from beings of tremendous power, they must now go to the last one and beg for his help against an invading alien force. Simple in it’s description, but so deep in its writing and art, that this is the most pleasant shock I’ve had in a while from an indie comic. I actually had a chance to speak to the author of this book, Joshua Hale Fialkov and we both agreed that the thing that should first draw people in is the cover, especially this alternate version you see to the left. Beautiful in its simplicity while harking back to a classic in the Watchmen with the smiley face with a drop of blood on it, Last of the Greats could become something that could rival Spawn for Image’s top monthly comic in my opinion because this first issue was just that damn good. It was dark in a way you rarely see in comics and in just the first issue had enough twists and turns that it made your jaw drop and that’s saying something considering these are characters we have no history with. I’m thrilled to hear this is a monthly and that the next three issues are ready for print (again via Fialkov) because I think this is going to be something really special and cannot wait to pick up issue #2.

4) DC – Swamp Thing #2: I admit that my first experiences with Swamp Thing growing up was the movies and later a short-lived cartoon. I never read the comics and so I had a very limited knowledge of the character until later in life and thought that its return at the end of the Brightest Day was one of the worst things DC had done in recent history. But maybe it is that poor rebirth penned by Geoff Johns and my cheesy childhood memories that had limited my expectations for this comic and led to my pleasant surprise that it has been pretty good. We learn more of the history of the Swamp Thing and it almost sounded a bit like the history of Spawn to be honest, but revolving around plant life. Still, Alec Holland having to face this global threat, unknown forces working against him, and the tremendous pressure for him to take back up the mantle of Swamp Thing, makes him a surprisingly deep character only two issues in to this new series. Whether you’re like me and don’t have the history with Swamp Thing or read everything Len Wein and Alan Moore wrote for the character, I think you’d be pleased with how this is going and should definitely pick this up.

5) DC – Penguin: Pain and Prejudice #1 (of 5): With Batman: Arkham City right around the corner and since The Penguin is a main villain in the game, I particularly enjoyed this comic because it gives rare insight into the character of the Penguin himself if you are unfamiliar with Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot’s rough upbringing. The ruthlessness the Penguin portrays as we see his psychological profile through the brilliant art of the book is really something Batman fans old and new will enjoy and it is nice to see this classic villain is another character mainly untouched by DC’s universal re-launch. It’s also a good comic because it is clearly a set-up for a much larger story as no Penguin story would be complete without interference from the Dark Knight. What new scheme is the Penguin working on or what is he covering up that will draw the Caped Crusader’s interest? I think this is an easy pick-up for all the Batman fans out there as true Batman fans know how underrated the Penguin can be at times as a villain and this arc looks like it might help put the Penguin back into the spotlight for a time. Proof positive to never underestimate even the runts in a litter as rotten as that of the Cobblepots.

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EGM Review: Spider-Man: Edge of Time

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One hell of a paradox

Trying to capitalize on their success with last year’s Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions, Beenox brings us now Spider-Man: Edge of Time. A new villain in the year 2099, Walker Sloan, is at the forefront of time-travel and finally cracking the fourth dimension. Working for Alchemax, Sloan uses the corporation’s mass resources for his own purposes though and constructs a time machine that propels him back into the 1970s. With over 100 years of future knowledge, Sloan pilfers many of the late 20th century’s great ideas years ahead of their conception in order to re-write history and the Alchemax company into his own image. Now, Spider-Men from two ages must work together across space and time in order to put things back the way they once were and close up the wormhole that Sloan has opened up with his time hopping.

There are a lot of good things that Beenox has done with the Spider-Man franchise to date and some of these things continue in Edge of Time. Unfortunately, they get away from two things that I feel are critical to any Spider-Man game dating back to Spider-Man for the N64/PS1: lots of web-slinging and lots of villains. With the entire game taking place inside a single building, you do a decent amount of wall-crawling, but there is not as much room as you’d like to swing and something that has been a staple I feel of all the great Spidey games of the past 10 years has been a fair amount of web-slinging. This lack of web-slinging makes Edge of Time feel more like a generic brawler whose heroes happen to occasionally walk on walls than a genuine Spider-Man game.

Also, Spidey’s Rogues Gallery is one of the most diverse in comics and is only trumped probably by Batman over at DC. So to see Beenox go from over a dozen classic villains in Shattered Dimensions to only a handful of low appeal ones in Edge of Time really felt like a punch to the gut that knocked the wind out of this game. Mind you, without giving anything away, fans of that old-school Spider-Man from the N64/PS1 will likely draw parallels to a new villain who appears in Edge of Time, but besides that fleeting moment of recognition, none of the villains featured in this game got me as excited as those from Shattered Dimensions.

Still, there is a lot of good in this game and fans of Spider-Man will likely walk away pleased with the overall experience. The story, written by original Spider-Man 2099 creator Peter David, is one of the more compelling Spidey tales I’ve seen in a while and has so many twists and turns that you’ll find yourself willingly falling further down the wormhole just to find out what is going to happen next.

Another brilliant aspect of the game is how fresh each chapter feels compared to most other brawlers out there. Bouncing back and forth between Amazing Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2099 feels like a new experience each time as they level up because their fighting styles and special powers are so different from one another.

We also see a huge upgrade with the return of the free-falling levels with Spider-Man 2099 that were introduced in Shattered Dimensions. Although you won’t be fighting any villains this time in elevator shafts and various other vertical corridors, you’ll be dodging a lot more obstacles and a new targeting reticule has been introduced that lets you know exactly where you’ll land on your current path, which makes dodging all those obstacles that much easier. No villains though may make it feel like a mini-game for some, but for me it was one of the most fun mini-games then that I’ve played in a while and are the levels I would replay the most in both Shattered Dimensions and here again in Edge of Time.

Throw in hysterical mid-level dialogue between the two Spider-Men because of a psychic link they have through the wormhole and the relationship between the two becomes a fast growing bond that is enjoyable for the player on a lot of levels. The dialogue is also very strong because Spider-Man 2099 is played by Spider-Man: The Animated Series star and Spider-Man Noir in Shattered Dimensions, Christopher Daniel Barnes, and Amazing Spider-Man is played by Spectacular Spider-Man star and Ultimate Spider-Man in Shattered Dimensions, Josh Keaton, which only makes it feel all the more authentic for diehard Spidey fans.

All in all, Spider-Man: Edge of Time is a good game with a couple of flaws that keep it from being elite. The game play would have been perfect if Beenox could have shoehorned in some web-slinging and some more villains, but everything else is up there with some of the better Spider-Man games of the past in terms of combat and plot. The game may also be a little short in the grand scheme of things, clocking in at just under 10 hours for me, but with a bevy of collectibles and costumes to unlock, there is enough reason to come back to this a couple more times if you’re a diehard Spidey fan and is worth checking out at least once for the more casual fan.

SUMMARY: A lack of web-slinging and villains knocks this worthy Spider-Man tale down a couple of pegs in terms of a game, but should appease many Spidey fans out there overall.

  • THE GOOD: Great plot, great action
  • THE BAD: Not enough villains or web-slinging
  • THE UGLY: My head exploding after trying to understand time-travel as explained by Spider-Man 2099

SCORE: 7.5

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Hands-On: Need for Speed: The Run

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Baby we were born to run

Your body violently jerks into the side paneling as no seatbelt known to man could hold you down from the G-forces you generate as you whip around hairpin corners while flying down a two-lane mountain road somewhere between Denver and Detroit. All the while you’re trying to control a 750 horsepower monster engine and keep all four tires pinned to the gravel as you try to split the difference between an oncoming tractor-trailer and the Porsche 911 Carrera S that is just ahead of you and weaving back and forth to keep you from passing in your Ford Shelby GT Super Snake. You think you get the timing right. You shift into a higher gear. And then you floor it. As horns blare, sparks fly, and paint is lost forever to the road behind you and the driver side door of your competition, you finally move into 78th place in the race for you life.

Sound pretty exhilarating? Well, that description above is hopefully going to describe nearly every moment of Need for Speed: The Run when it drops in November and from the several stages we got our hands on at an EA event in Vegas, it was all that and more. The Run marks the 18th game in the Need for Speed franchise’s history, but is the first to take place in the real world and the stakes have never been higher. You play as Jack, a street racer down on his luck and who owes a lot of money to a lot of the wrong people. Jack’s last chance to pay everyone off and come out on top is to win “The Run”, an unofficial, illicit, underground street-race that spans the entire length of the USA, starting in San Francisco and ending in New York City, with the winner being awarded 25 million dollars. More than enough to make Jack’s problems go away and maybe enough left over for him to start new. But there are a lot of people who don’t want to see Jack win. From law enforcement in various cities Jack will have to drive through along the way to a bevy of rival drivers including some lovely ladies whose physical appearance were based of Sports Illustrated swimsuit models, Jack will have his work cut out from him.

As in traditional Need for Speed fashion, events will force Jack into many different cars including some classic American muscle cars, refined exotics, and high-tuned street racers. Unlike in previous games though, for the first time you can actually step out of the car for short quicktime segments that bridge the narrative gap of how Jack gets from car to car and continues the race. We did not actually get to play one of these events and remained in our car for our particular demo, but we’ve seen them in action before and as we are constantly reassured that they take up less than 10% of the game, we feel we can live with this device for the sake of what is shaping up to be the deepest and most compelling plot Need for Speed has ever put out there.

Aside from the overall race where you will try to overtake dozens of opponents, there is also some race variety dropped in at various points to try to keep the game fresh, like pitting you one on one against a rival as you try to avoid an avalanche caused by an unknown faction firing a grenade launcher into the mountain you’re driving along, or racing between toll booths in a checkpoint like fashion. Mind you, the overall objective is still to end up in first by the time you reach New York, but the only way you’ll do that is if you pass every race and traverse easily the largest series of tracks a Need for Speed game has ever featured.

And rivals and checkpoints aren’t the only challenge you’ll face as I found out in my demo. My biggest challenge came in oncoming traffic on smaller country roads. Trying to pass a series of exotics while big rigs, mini-vans, and other vehicles are roaring down in the opposite lane provides a challenge of timing that needs to be seen to be believed and may have you racing a bit dirtier than you’d expect as sometimes bumping an opponent out of the way is a lot safer than trying to shoot past them through a gap barely big enough to get a bicycle through never mind your Pagani Huayra.

The overall most satisfying aspect I came away with from our demo of The Run though may be the controls. Although they have less of an arcade feel than Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, they’re still very responsive and easy to pick up and just jump into a race with. And with a “rewind” feature that allows you to pick up at various checkpoints throughout the race should you find yourself more of an expert at crashing and burning than handling tight corners, the game is forgiving enough to make it appeal to even the most casual of race game fans.

But what about replay-ability? Once you finish this massive looking race campaign, what would make you want to do it again if you do fall into that more casual category? Well, one thing that did transition over from Hot Pursuit has been Autolog, the social competition functionality for the Need for Speed franchise. You may finish the campaign first amongst your friends, but by participating in Autolog and uploading your best section times, you can see where your friends smoked you and vice versa and maybe even why they had a better overall time. You can even upload race ghosts so that you can actually see how your friends did it and you can feel like you’re racing directly against them even if you’re in a different time zone, work a different schedule, or just are plain never on when they are.

So, if you like supermodels, fast cars, and you’re looking to get behind the wheel of a super car but are a few hundred thousand dollars short, you might want to look into Need for Speed: The Run and get ready for the race of your life when it drops in mid-November.

PARTING SHOTS: It has been a long time since I’ve been this excited for a racing game and with all these new features, a compelling original story, and a whole new twist on the idea of underground street racing, Need for Speed: The Run looks like it could easily be the most exciting game in the franchise to date.

So what do you guys think? Are you pumped up for The Run or is it just another racing game? Do you think the quicktime events will take away from the game even though they are such a small part of it? And what about Autolog? Will this make you want to come back to this more and compete against your friends’ times, or is it a waste of time? Let us know with comments below!

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EGM Review: X-Men: Destiny

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A new child of the atom

I think it’s every geek’s dream to develop superpowers in some way. And so like moths to flame we are drawn to games where we can not only play as our favorite heroes but can craft our own personal character in the universes we have come to enjoy through various forms of media. So as a diehard X-Men fan, I was particularly stoked about the release of ­­X-Men Destiny.

Based in the X-Men universe, this is an original story line inspired by, but having no direct tie-in to, the ongoing monthly comics from Marvel. You play as one of three new mutants attending a peace rally in San Francisco as the relationship between human and mutant grows more strained by the day. After an apparent attack on the crowd by Magneto causes panic to spread amongst the crowd, your powers manifest as you attempt to defend yourself. As you learn about your newfound abilities, you’ll uncover a conspiracy that will shake the mutant world to its very core, all the while you make and break alliances with both the X-Men and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.

The anticipation I had for this game’s release was soon replaced by disappointment. The best way I could describe how X-Men Destiny was that it felt incomplete. The game is riddled with glitches, has an inconsistent checkpoint save system that sometimes places saves right on top of one another or places them at opposite ends of levels and makes you replay the whole thing over if you die, and the plot, quite simply, is just too damn short for a proper X-Men game, no matter how well written it may be. I beat the entire thing, on the hardest difficulty, in less than eight hours.

I was also displeased with the three character stories and power choices we were forced into. Instead of letting the player truly craft a character they could relate to, you are forced into one of three outlandish protagonists and follow their story as it unfolds. Since many action/adventure games actually do this, it’s not the concept that bothers me, its the fact that the game tries to sell itself as an RPG that gives you a lot of choice and this is simply not the case. And to make matters worse, the few choices you are given are so spread out throughout the game that you never reach your full potential until the very final level of the game. And again, this goes back to the length of the game. Just when you seem to start hitting your stride with whatever powers you were pigeonholed into, it ends.

Mind you, there are some positives to X-Men Destiny. The plot, written by X-Men: Legacy writer Mike Carey, is worthy of the X-Men universe and features cameos or the chance to fight alongside many of your favorite characters while taking on classic X-Men threats. Whether you choose to be good and trade quips with Iceman against the Purifiers or be bad and burn stuff to the ground with Pyro in a U-Men bunker, when the game has you working with your favorite characters on the missions, you actually feel, albeit briefly most of the time, like an X-Man.

The audio was also very good as the music helped set a mood worthy of an action game and the voice acting was superb. Nolan North, better known as Deadpool in most other X-Media, came on to do Cyclops and surprised me as the stoic and steadfast leader of the X-Men. Include other voice over royalty like Phil LaMarr as Gambit and Forge, Yuri Lowenthal as Nightcrawler, Jason Marsden as Iceman, Fred Tatasciore as Juggernaut, and Steve Blum returning to reprise Wolverine and the voice over work in this game is as good as any other cast of X-characters represented in animation or other games.

Still, as good as it felt to fight alongside some of my favorite comic book heroes in this game, there are just too many shortcomings to make X-Men Destiny as special as many of the characters it features. My recommendation is that the game is worth a rental, but is only worthy of purchase by the most diehard of X-Men fans who will play through it several times, despite the glitches, and try to collect the several dozen collectibles featured in the game.

SUMMARY: Short, glitch-riddled, and lacking the choices of a true RPG, X-Men Destiny falls short of the high expectations of most X-Men fans and should only be checked out by the most forgiving of souls.

  • THE GOOD: Fighting alongside many of your favorite heroes from the comics
  • THE BAD: A surprising lack of choice given to the player for an RPG
  • THE UGLY: A lack of polish shows up often considering how short the game is

SCORE: 6.0

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Pullbox #7 – 9/29/11

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Although a lot may have come out this week, much of it wasn’t nearly as strong or enjoyable as I would have preferred. And surprisingly, an indie easily topped my list of everything that came out this week. But once you see what it is, I’m sure most of you will understand. So without further ado, here is this week’s Pullbox!

1) IDW – Ghostbusters #1: Being nearly 20 years since they’ve had their own monthly, Ghostbusters #1 is the response to the huge popularity of inconsistently published one-shots and mini-series featuring the boys in gray by IDW. And now that it is here, this first issue does not disappoint with plenty of references that die-hard fans of the movies, cartoons, or video games will likely understand while still having them face off against some pretty pesky poltergeists. Opening with a dream sequence in which Ray Stantz is having a nightmare about previous adventures, which features a humorous cameo by the ghost of John Belushi that may or may not be hinting at a third movie as well as what could have been as he was originally supposed to play Peter Venkman before his unfortunate passing, this first issue hints at old problems still lurking out there in the shadows, while the Ghostbusters must concentrate on the here and now of other paranormal threats in and around Manhattan. All I can say is that if bustin’ makes you feel good, then this is a clear must have this week.

2) Marvel – New Avengers #16.1: With Fear Itself, Spider-Island, and several other large events going on in the Marvel universe, the long-term fallout of previous events like Norman Osborn’s reign as the world’s top cop have yet to be fully explored. Until now. After rotting on Ryker’s for some time, the backed-up legal system finally has gotten around to Norman Osborn’s trial for his crimes against humanity. Due to the nature of this case and the fact that Osborn’s H.A.M.M.E.R. organization still has cells out there, the Avengers have been called into escort Osborn to his day in court. But even with all the planning the Avengers had set up in terms of a security detail, the crafty Osborn still finds a way to elude them and sets up the Avengers for a world of trouble in the future. With long term ramifications for this Avengers team and a chance for Brian Michael Bendis to really let Spider-Man shine as Osborn is traditionally one of his villains, this looks to be the only book in the “.1” series that is more than just a one-shot adventure as it looks to set up at least the next few issues of the regular monthly series. Punctuated by great art from Neal Adams and any fan of this monthly up this point should pick up this “.1” as we look ahead to the future of the New Avengers.

3) Marvel – X-Men Legacy #256: As Rogue, Gambit, Frenzy, and Magneto try to rescue their comrades, Havoc, Polaris, and Rachel Summers from a space station that is in a deteriorating orbit and ready to crash into a star, their problems are confounded when Rogue loses the teleportation abilities she had temporarily acquired to get her team there. Although the middle of an arc, this is still a decent jumping off point because it reveals a new enemy and establishes new problems for the small band of X-Men it affects. This is also a great issue to pick up because finally, after being trapped on the outskirts of the galaxy, this arc, when resolved, will hopefully bring Havoc, Polaris, and Rachel Summers back into the fold of the main X-Men and end their galaxy gallivanting ways as these powerhouses have been ignored for too long after their war with Vulcan, Havoc and Cyclops’ third and forgotten brother. X-Men Legacy is just another book in the long line of X-books to have been released in past months that has me saying that anything involving the X-Men right now is probably the best thing going in comics right now.

4) DC – Teen Titans #1: Yet another book in DC’s “New 52”, Teen Titans #1 has one of the more interesting dynamics we’ve seen in the new universe as it has characters who have been largely unaffected by the re-launch, like Tim Drake, a.k.a. Red Robin, now teaming up with some of his best friends like Wonder Girl, Superboy, and Kid Flash, that all act like they don’t know each other and have never worked together since they’ve all been re-imagined. It is moments like these that make me really question titles that revolve around teams when doing a re-launch because it loses a lot of the original flavor and changes the characters in ways that are not normally for the better. On the other hand, this book also brings back the men from N.O.W.H.E.R.E., a Grant Morrison original who only made several appearances on New Earth before being mostly forgotten about. Their purpose is to destroy all that is considered “unnatural” in the world, including many super-heroes and villains, and they have taken aim now at the team that will become the DCU’s new Teen Titans. Can the re-imagining of these once lesser villains as a bigger threat keep this new Teen Titans in my pullbox for long? Or will my disdain for the re-invented Wonder Girl, Kid Flash, Superboy, and others force me to give up on this comic? We’ll have to wait and see, but this first issue is worth picking up just incase.

5) DC – Green Lantern New Guardians #1: Unlike Teen Titans #1 and many of the other books in the DCU, Green Lantern New Guardians #1 spends a couple of pages re-telling Kyle Rayner’s story of how he became a Green Lantern, before throwing him right back into the action from where he left off when the re-launch happened. Patrolling Earth and the rest of Sector 2814, Kyle realizes something has gone terribly wrong when rings from other colors of the spectrum have left their original hosts and all flown to him. Now with the entire emotional spectrum looking to be represented by Kyle, other ringbearers from their respective spectrums are out for blood, as they don’t care why Kyle has those rings, only that they want them back. Although it takes place primarily on Earth, the comic still has that cosmos-exploring feel that makes the Green Lantern comics so exciting. With all the ringslinging that is due to take place in the coming months, I think this has been the most exciting Green Lantern comic so far in the “New 52” and is a must have for fans of the most junior member of Sector 2814’s Honor Lantern Guard.

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Pullbox Issue #6 – 9/21/11

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September 22, 2011

There were a lot of issues that I wanted to put on my list this week, but then after reading them I was disappointed and had to fall back onto some old standbys to get me through. So as much as I like to mix it up and try to give a variety of monthlies and one-shots, I ended up picking the next issue in some series’ I’ve already featured because even though I grabbed a couple dozen comics this week, including a lot of DC #1’s, these are my five best overall stories.

1) DC – Red Hood and the Outlaws #1: So this one came a little out of left field for me because I haven’t been the staunchest of Red Hood supporters, but from the get-go this comic sucks you in with a lot of action, throws in some spectacular art of Starfire coming out of the ocean in the middle, and then leaves you with a cliffhanger mystery ending. This comic screams pick me up and I got to love a writer and artist who both agree that the best part of their first issue together was the above panel because it was my favorite as well. My friends and I several years ago came to the conclusion that the three hottest chicks in comics were She-Hulk, Mystique, and Starfire (no particular order) and this comic shows that we were at least correct on that last one for sure.  Seriously though, this comic has such awesome potential and the three characters are such stark contrasts to each other, but play so well together that every page written by Scott Lobdell was a joyous read and combine that with the great art by Kenneth Rocafort and I’m sold on Red Hood and the Outlaws. Only question will be, can they keep it up?

2) DC – Nightwing #1: I think part of the reason why I disliked Dick Grayson so much as Batman was that it stepped out of character for him too much. He was trying to be Bruce Wayne and fill that shadow and just when he might have been starting to turn that corner, he goes back to being Nightwing. After reading this comic though by Kyle Higgins, I can say without a doubt that was where he should always have been. Dick is back to being the jovial, do things his way, screw up with a smile and Higgins’ writing pulls it off as if the character never missed a beat and there was never that year when he was Batman. I also like the prospect of new villains being introduced as it can help Dick to become his own character again much like when he first took the Nightwing mantle. Also loving the Batman Beyond-esque red logo to show that the character has changed somewhat from his time as Batman. Definitely a must pick up as in terms of the Bat-family, it feels like things are starting to get back to normal.

3) Marvel – Uncanny X-Men #543 (Fear Itself Tie-In) – I don’t think there was any way I could not feature this issue after reading it. Colossus has taken the power of Cyttorak away from the Juggernaut, with help from his sister Illyana, in an attempt to weaken the Juggernaut enough in the hopes that fighting magic with magic will be enough to save San Francisco. How Colossus describes his mindset once he is empowered by Cyttorak gives brand new insight into both his character as well as that of the Juggernaut’s after so many years and to see Colossus, the X-Men’s gentle giant some would say (or at least powerhouse), so easily bent to the will of Cyttorak and his hunger for chaos is a sight to behold. This also opens up so many new paths for Colossus and Juggernaut as characters once Fear Itself ends that we could really see the X-Men turned even more on their head with Schism wrapping up soon as well. Once again, this is proof positive why any comics featuring the X-Men are must reads if you’re a Marvel fan.

4) Marvel – Heroes for Hire #12 – I’m going to admit it was a toss-up between this and Daredevil this week as my second Marvel title. I’ll probably get to him next month, but I wanted to feature Heroes for Hire because I feel it’s a book that isn’t getting a lot of love, but is a lot of fun to read. You never know what heroes are going to show up and it offers Marvel a chance to feature several heroes who may have become buried in recent years due to all the major events going on. For example, this issue features Stingray and Silver Sable. Next month though could feature Spider-Man and Big Bertha or Punisher and Squirrel Girl for all we know. And the same goes for villains as it’s also already featured Fantastic Four classic villain Puppet Master in its opening arc. It’s this unpredictability combined with the solid writing to work all these characters in to make this a worthwhile read. And since next issue will be the Fear Itself tie-in, I feel this a good standalone issue to jump onto the series bandwagon if you haven’t already.

5) IDW – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #2 – Again, there were some other indie comics that caught my eye this week including some Star Wars titles, but the best book I picked up hands down was the next issue in the new TMNT. We see Raph’s legendary friendship with Casey Jones begin to develop as well as via flashback see how Hob the Cat and the Turtles all mutated. The flashbacks interestingly enough also foreshadowed the appearance of the Foot Clan at some point down the line. We also learn that Raph is suffering from amnesia, and although we can speculate why from the flashbacks, not everything may be as it seems as the other turtles are continuing to look for their lost and wandering brother. I’m really loving the old school art and hard lines seen in most panels and seeing the turtles in their old school universal red bandanas still brings a smile to my face as most people from my generation think of them in the more widely recognized purple, blue, orange, and red that were used to differentiate them beyond just their weapons and fighting styles and you know this move to go old-school has Kevin Eastman written all over it. Any child of the 80s must pick up this book, period.

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Batman: Arkham City Hands-On Preview

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Oh, it’ll be a hot one in the ol’ town tonight!

Riddle me this. How do you top one of the most critically acclaimed games of all time while appeasing one of the more rabid comic fan bases to have ever existed. Answer: Batman: Arkham City. At least that’s what the folks at Rocksteady are hoping, but from what I’ve seen in some hands-on demos, I don’t think they have much to worry about now that we’re less than a month away from launch.

So what exactly have they done to make this game so much better than Arkham Asylum? Well, how about more villains, more heroes, a larger open-world, more gadgets, and the return of Kevin Conroy as Batman, Mark Hamill as the Joker, and Paul Dini as the script writer? And that’s just scratching the surface.

What I first noticed with my hands-on demo though was that I surprisingly started playing as Catwoman. Many people feared this addition when the announcement was made that you would play as her, but after clearing a room full of thugs with her before cracking a safe, rest assured fellow Bat-fans that it feels good. She has a faster and lighter feel compared to how Batman moves while also falling into the same control scheme of mixing attacks with well-timed counters. It also fits in with the early plot of the game as the cat looks to help the bat in his war on Arkham City’s inmates before she is captured by Two-Face.

Once I donned the cape and cowl though, the whole game literally changed in terms of perspective and feel as I was moved to a Gotham rooftop and although some of the guys from Rocksteady were encouraging me to go do mission objectives, I had a spectacular time just gliding from rooftop to rooftop and using my bat-line to pull me up when I miscalculated the length of a gap. When they say this world is five times larger than the last, they meant it as Gotham felt almost intimidating in its size and scale. It was this fear of being consumed by the nooks and crannies of this massive digital megalopolis that I concurred with the prodding of our PR handlers and headed into a building.

It was here that much of the last game began to flood back to me as I perched high above a room filled with Two-Face thugs. As I listened to Big Bad Harv rant and rave, I began planning how I would take down the room full of foes. Once Two-Face had moved on, it was time to make my move and as I leapt from the perch and onto my first victim, I found that a couple of key additions had been added to the combat.

The first is the ability to use items and gadgets without breaking your combat flow at all. Throwing batarangs and detonating small packets of explosive gel to help dictate where I wanted my foes to go so I could get the largest combo possible all while countering, kicking, and punching others in my nearby vicinity made it look like Batman was moving almost like water through the group as every movement made perfect sense and optimized my combat experience like nothing I had ever seen.

The next addition to combat actually came on the side of the low-rank villains I was facing as their A.I. has improved greatly from the last game as they picked up pipes and chairs for weapons and trash can lids or broken car doors for shields. Enemies also would occasionally throw these weapons at you and now Batman could catch them in mid-air and use the item’s momentum to hurl it back to its original chucker or into the face of a different enemy in Batman’s vicinity. All in all, what was already probably the best action/adventure combat system in gaming looks like it took the next step forward and kicked it up a notch.

But I was far from finished as a sniper shot pierced a window and we got to play with Detective Mode once again as Batman begin tracing the trajectory and calculating just who could have fired the shot. We soon tracked down the location and was met by an unexpected fan-favorite, Harley Quinn. She warned Batman to stay out of the Joker’s way as he had big plans for Arkham City.

I was paying more attention to how Harley said things than what she said though. For those who are unaware, this is a rare time where Harley Quinn is being voiced by someone other than Arleen Sorkin. Luckily it is voice over veteran Tara Strong who Batman fans may know better as Barbara Gordon/Batgirl from Batman: The Animated Series or even maybe as Raven from Cartoon Network’s Teen Titans. It was definitely different though as Sorkin’s ditzy but dangerous was replaced by a slightly more serious and seductive tone by Strong. This could work as supposedly with the Joker nearly incapacitated from his high exposure to the Titan formula in the first game, Quinn has had to step up her game for the sake of her ailing puddin’, but hardcore fans might be taken aback at first. Still though, she is in the hands of the man who created her in Paul Dini so I have faith that the character will rise above it all in the end.

Speaking of the voice cast though, a superior job was done by all involved so far from what I heard in terms of many of the villains and heroes. Of course, Kevin Conroy, also of B:TAS fame returns to play the Dark Knight and Mark Hamill, in what he has stated as being his last time doing it, returns to play the Joker. On top of this, the hardest working man in video game voiceovers, Nolan North, shocked me when I found out he was playing the Penguin of all characters, but he did an alright job with it. Doing a bit of a cockney accent definitely helped as I don’t think his Nathan Drake voice would have worked here. The Penguin’s dark and twisted design this time around is also something that needs to be seen on a screen to be believed as his classic monocle has been replaced by a beer bottle that was jammed into his face and smoking cigars and cigarettes all those years has left him with an advanced voice box. Beautifully twisted and dark indeed.

I’ve also been really impressed with Maurice LaMarche as Mr. Freeze, best known as The Brain from Pinky and the Brain, Egon in The Real Ghostbusters, and, well, he’s basically had one role or another in every major cartoon of the past thirty years. Although only seeing him in trailers, I wanted to mention what an awesome touch I think Maurice is bringing to the character in the few lines I’ve heard and I thought it was a stroke of genius by the sound guys to make him sound so normal when he has his helmet open, and so mechanical when he closes it up.

With our demo all but done, so many questions were answered, but even more were popping into my head. How deep does the conspiracy go? What does Batman do to disprove to Hugo Strange that he and Bruce Wayne are one and the same? What unannounced villains will rear their head? How will the fights against the likes of Mr. Freeze and the Riddler go down? How will displaced villains like the Penguin from the Iceberg Lounge and Black Mask from Sionis Industries affect the landscape? Will we get to drive the Batmobile?! What will happen to the Joker in the long term?! I’m getting amped up just thinking about it! All I know for sure is that we here at EGM are going to be covering this game like a Kevlar glove with triangular fins so you had better stay tuned to our coverage here for more on this Game of the Year contender. Same Bat-EGMNow.com time, same Bat-EGMNow.com channel!

What are you all looking most forward to about Batman Arkham City? What other questions do you still have about the game? What has you most excited about the game’s release? What unannounced surprises do you think they have in store for us? Let us know with comments below!

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EGM Review: Burnout Crash!

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Originally Published: Sept. 20, 2011, on EGMNOW.COM

Sunday drivers not allowed

It’s always a risky proposition to turn a minigame into its own standalone title—Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D springs to mind. These are intended to be side courses to the main menus of the games themselves. But what if you took that side course and really pumped it up so that next time we saw it, the game really could stand on its own? Well, with Burnout Crash!, that’s exactly what the folks at Criterion and EA have been able to accomplish.

The premise of the game has always been a simple one: You drive a car into oncoming traffic or a busy intersection and attempt to wreck as many other vehicles as you can with one well-placed T-bone or head-on collision. As other cars fail to swerve away from your magnificent display of twisted metal, glass, and plastic, your score increases—and, hopefully, you build up a traffic jam reminiscent of the end chase scene of The Blues Brothers. If too many cars continue on their way without crashing, though, you lose.

But so much more’s been added to this fleshed-out incarnation: Special features and score multipliers make this feel almost like an insane version of pinball, where you actually control the ball and the bumpers are crashing into you. By using your Crashbreaker power, which causes an explosion to emanate from your car after causing enough destruction, you can also break up a pile or carefully use other cars near you as projectiles to keep cars from escaping—and keep your score, represented by how much damage you’ve cost in terms of dollars, flying into the millions. Also, as your score increases and more and more cars become disabled, you can unlock special powers depending on the stage. Whether it’s a chaotic meteor shower that can wreak havoc or a flash blizzard that can really pump up your skid bonuses, the carnage-causing possibilities are certainly plentiful.

The big question, then, comes with whether Criterion keeps the game from getting repetitive. The fun factor’s evident from the second you grab the simple controls—the A button uses Crashbreaker, while left joystick moves the car, and that’s it. Burnout Crash! might not have all the answers, but Criterion certainly made a solid attempt, and plenty of players will probably find enough reason to come back for lots more. Six themed locations with three intersections each offer a lot of mayhem, but the game also includes three modes to keep the experience fresh: Road Trip, Rush Hour, and Pile-Up. Road Trip’s your standard game where you try to wreck a certain number of cars before five are able to escape your fiery, gasoline-fueled path of destruction. Rush Hour gives you a 90-second time limit to cause as much chaos as possible before one fantastic explosion at the end. Pile-Up sees you trying to build the biggest pile-up possible to maintain a massive multiplier that comes into effect when no other cars are coming. Then, your objective is to make as much of the world continuously burn as possible. The game also offers a feature called Autolog, where you can directly see the scores of friends who’ve played the game—and issue challenges to them to try to beat your high scores. This classic arcade feature may be just enough to get the adrenaline pumping for you competition junkies out there, and it could be the saving grace that makes this a downloadable title you keep coming back to.

Despite all this, I personally did find that the game got repetitive after some time, and it isn’t something I see myself playing for long stretches of time, even though it felt great to blow up so much stuff in short spurts. Also, the Kinect controls are completely unnecessary. For a game that relies on two buttons on a standard controller, jumping up and down to activate my Crashbreaker was irritating, and the five seconds of steering I needed in the beginning before my first crash didn’t give me the control I felt with a gamepad. Still, Burnout Crash! is a slick, easy-to-pick-up-and-play (with a controller), adrenaline-fueled funfest that, when combined with bright colors, a cheesy game-show-style announcer, and some kickin’ tunes, has enough to definitely be worth your 800 Microsoft points or $9.99 on PSN.

Summary: That rare, properly fleshed-out experience spawned from a minigame—and one that’s well worth your money.

  • The Good: Autolog adds a competitive factor not seen in many games like this.
  • The Bad: Finds a way to make unbridled mayhem repetitive at times.
  • The Ugly: Kinect controls on the XBLA version. So unnecessary.

SCORE: 8.5

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Shadow Complex 2 ‘Largely Designed’?

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Cliffy B talks Shadow Complex 2, ChAIR clarifies

THE BUZZ: Cliff Bleszinski let loose in an interview with Gamasutra that Shadow Complex 2, a sequel to the 2009 downloadable smash hit Shadow Complex, a side-scrolling action/adventure game akin to old-school Metroid with a conspiracy theory twist, “is sitting there, it’s actually largely designed, we just need to find a partner to help us finish it so we can bring it to market”. EGM spoke with ChAIR representative Laura Mustard in regards to Cliffy B’s statement and this was her response:

“Regarding the recent Shadow Complex 2 rumors, there’s nothing new to report. As ChAIR creative director Donald Mustard has said in the past, following the release of Shadow Complex, ChAIR did some really great design work on Shadow Complex 2 before shifting gears to develop Infinity Blade as the iOS market was quickly emerging. Given the tremendous popularity of Shadow Complex, there’s a ton of interest in a sequel and plenty more we’d like to do in that universe. We’re confident we’ll re-visit when the right opportunity presents itself.”

Epic president Mike Capps has also gone on record previously stating pretty much the same thing while also acknowledging how risky a business move it was to move ChAIR off of a proven franchise like Shadow Complex and into a new realm like iOS. Although it has clearly paid off with Infinity Blade being a huge grosser in the iOS market and as Bleszinski pointed out in the Gamasutra interview, they were looking for a flagship product in the iOS realm to begin with and thought it would have been more work to port the original Shadow Complex over.

EGM’S TAKE: Most of this may be old news, but the thing that catches your eye and has caused this maelstrom of buzz surrounding the statement is ‘largely designed’ and the fact that Epic is looking for a partner. Assuming Bleszinski means a publishing partner as clearly between ChAIR and Epic the development side of things shouldn’t be an issue, the real question is why hasn’t Microsoft, publisher of the first Shadow Complex, jumped all over it knowing how well the first did or why hasn’t Sony thrown their hat in the ring to try and steal a jewel away from Microsoft’s dominate Xbox Live Arcade? If the game is ‘largely designed’, how much longer must we wait before one of the two comes to their senses for Shadow Complex 2 to be available for download? Of course, and this is just speculation on my part, there must be other factors involved keeping this from moving forward. Or they could be holding off until just the right time to announce it, like since Gears 3 is now out of the way, maybe a Summer of Arcade 2012 slot?

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