img src="http://www.edge-online.com/files/imagecache/article_homepage_large_144x108/mytheon_2_0.jpg" alt="Why Petroglyph Is Venturing Into Free-to-Play" title="Why Petroglyph Is Venturing Into Free-to-Play" class="imagecache imagecache-article_homepage_large_144x108" /br /pstrongTuesday morning, respected strategy game studio Petroglyph made the a href="http://www.edge-online.com/news/universe-war-dev-does-microtransactions" rel="nofollow"announcement /athat it is creating a free-to-play action strategy RPG named Mytheon, which will have a business model based around microtransactions./strong/p pIt's the studio's first foray into the world of microtransactions, an area that has seen only limited success in the West, at least compared with its widespread acceptance in Asia. Mytheon will rely on small virtual item purchases for revenue./p pa href="http://www.edge-online.com/news/why-petroglyph-is-venturing-into-free-play"read more/a/p

Quote: Based on the story of multi award-winning million-selling PC role-playing game The Witcher and completely rebuilt pixel by pixel for the new generation of consoles, The Witcher: Rise of the White Wolf brings the unrivalled RPG experience to Xbox 360 and PLAYSTATION 3 with a brand new combat system for thrilling dynamic action, and a new engine delivering matchless state-of-the-art visuals. The game is underpinned with the evocative and enthralling story which helped secure the original game's status as PC role-playing game of 2007, based on the mature and compelling universe created by renowned Polish fantasy writer Andrzej Sapkowski.

"The creative vision and dedication to the quality of the player experience that CD Projekt RED bring to the Witcher games is extraordinary, and it's great to be working with them to bring the Witcher universe to console gamers," said Phil Harrison, President of Infogrames Entertainment, the parent company of Atari. "Taking this brilliantly realised world to PLAYSTATION 3 and Xbox 360 gamers for the first time is a breakthrough in the development of this important franchise."

"We're thrilled to continue our great relationship with Atari, whose refreshing focus on quality fits squarely with our own, to bring Geralt and the Witcher franchise to an even larger audience - fans who expressed to us very clearly that The Witcher would be a natural fit on consoles," said Adam Kicinski, CEO, CD Projekt RED. "Console gamers' tastes are maturing; they're looking for deeper story-driven experiences that are very hard to find in today's console market. We're developing this remake based upon the compelling narrative that helped The Witcher on PC sell more than a million copies and win more than 100 awards, building everything else from the ground up to be the definitive console RPG."

Based on the universe created by best-selling Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski, The Witcher: Rise of the White Wolf puts players in the role of Geralt, a professional monster slayer who exists on the fringes of a complex society troubled by the kind of problems more commonly found on the front pages of newspapers than in a fantasy universe. Taken as a child, mutated, and trained in the arcane ways of the witchers, Geralt is a reluctant hero, who nonetheless finds himself all too frequently in the heat of battles that are not his own. In this world there is no right or wrong, only decisions and consequences.

With The Witcher: Rise of the White Wolf, the best PC RPG in recent years is being completely remade as the ultimate console RPG. The title is being developed by a core team from CD Projekt RED working alongside France-based Widescreen Games who provide their cross-platform DaVinci engine technology. For more information about The Witcher visit www.thewitcher.com and for more details about Atari's entire product line up visit www.atari.com.

When I was born 35.2 years ago, a light cone started expanding away from Earth out into the rest of the universe (Minkowski space-temporally speaking, of course). Thanks to updates from Matt Webb's fancy RSS tool, I know that my personal light cone is about to envelop the Zeta Herculis binary star system, located 35.2 light years from Earth in the constellation Hercules.

With a mass some 50 percent greater than the Sun, however, and beginning its evolution toward gianthood (its core hydrogen fusion likely shut down), Zeta Her A is 6 times more luminous than the Sun with a radius 2.5 times as large. Nevertheless, the star gives a good idea of what the Sun would look like from a great distance, in Zeta Her's case 35 light years. The companion (Zeta Her B), a cooler class G (G7) hydrogen-fusing dwarf with a luminosity only 65 percent that of the Sun and a mass about 85 percent solar, orbits with a period of 34.5 years at a mean distance of 15 Astronomical Units (over 50 percent farther than Saturn is from the Sun). A rather high eccentricity takes the two as far apart as 21 AU and as close as 8 AU.

Hercules is of course named for the Greek hero, Heracles. Next up is Delta Trianguli, another binary star system, in about two months.

Last week, I dropped by the PlayStation.Blog to find out what you wanted to know about Ubisoft’s new release, Prince of Persia. And to my excitement, there were well over a hundred questions about the first Prince of Persia game on the PS3. I took the time to answer some of the most interesting questions regarding everything from combat to the game’s new art style. Thanks for your support, and don’t forget that Prince of Persia is available today!
Charliesdad asked: Wondering how you addressed the balance issues from earlier entries in the series. For example, Sands of Time was amazing, but going back to it recently the combat wore thin after a while (especially in the first big group fight) to be followed by long stretches of almost no combat. Does the new game fall on one side or the other or is there a middle ground that you all shot for and hit? And Demo tomorrow? Maybe?

• First, one of our main goals in combat was to make every fight grandiose and meaningful, to make every encounter feel more epic. Thus, we decided to make the new combat system a duel mode in which every enemy has special attributes, a unique personality, cool moves, and his strengths and weaknesses. Having one enemy to fight at one time gave us much more possibility to push this encounter to the limit. Every enemy is as strong as the Prince and will seize his chance to use the environment, his corrupted abilities to counter every mistake the player makes. Every enemy has a background and their own personal objectives that will help push the story forward. Also, there are multiple combat moves and these will take some time to figure them all out and access the most spectacular combos. Using your glove, Elika, your sword and acrobatics, players will be able to combine those to create some breathtaking moves. This new combat system is not meant to be button mashed, but instead requires timing, strategy and the right combo depending on the situation. Also, many quick real-time mini-games where the player has a little fraction of time to react will keep the tension high. The battle system uses some dramatic camera shots that make every fight feel even more epic. Battles will take place usually before saving a fertile ground and pushing away the Corruption. There are different challenges before healing a fertile ground, one might be an acrobatic challenge, a puzzle, a fight and a lot of them are mixes of them all.
  Sorry, there are no demo plans at this time.

KingBroly asked: What’s the framerate like on the PS3 version? I’ve heard this game employs the same engine as Assassin’s Creed, and the framerate on the PS3 version of that…not so good.

• Fluidity of control and animation quality are hallmarks of Prince Of Persia games. We would never ship a POP title unless we were confident the player could fully appreciate the movement of the Prince in acrobatics and combat and – simply put – framerate hiccups get in the way of that. They break the </p> We have some of the most talented PS3 engineers at Ubisoft working for us on POP (and Ubisoft has now made quite a few PS3 titles) and I can assure you the performance on the PS3 is the same as the 360 – a solid 30fps throughout the game.

narde15 asked: are their any trophies?

• POP does indeed ship with trophies from day one.

FeaturePreacher asked: Will the prince be able to use different weapons besides the sword that is seen in gameplay videos?
AND
Will the prince be able to level up his combat abilities? I hope the prince has a long list of combat combinations. Does he?

• We want the player to feel like the Prince is an adventurer with a lot of experience already – he is an acrobatic warrior who has already been through and seen a lot. As such it made sense to us that he start out this adventure with all his abilities unlocked. Elika, on the other hand, evolves in her abilities as the game progresses, unlocking new magical abilities. What is important to us is that the player still feels a sense of progression and development because the « duo » of the Prince and Elika are certainly evolving as you play.
  Finally, simply because the Prince has access to all of his abilities from the beginning of the game, doesn’t mean the players will know how to use them all. If it is your first time playing POP, don’t expect to be able to pull off the 14 hit combos and complete long uninterrupted strings of acrobatics without pausing - you’ll evolve towards that in time as you get more comfortable with the game systems.

SantanaClaus89 asked: Ever since The Sands of Time this series has been in a downward spiral. What if anything has been done to take the series ”back to its roots” so to speak?

• In POP Sands of Time trilogy, the innovation was the Sands of Time. We felt the need to find a new innovation for this new chapter:
  • Open-ended structure
  • New combat system
  • New artistic direction
  • Role of the secondary character, Elika
  But you can also rest assured we’ve also kept the core fundamentals of what made the Sands of Time trilogy great.
  • The balanced mix of acrobatics and combat
  • Excellent visuals
  • Highly detailed character and story
  • Highly responsive controls
  • 1001 night’s universe / fantasy elements
  As you read this some reviews will have already hit online (IGN scored PoP 9.3, for example). One of the best compliments that any reviewer has given us so far is that we’ve recaptured the magic and mystery that made the original Sands Of Time so great.

narde15 asked: are you working on a prince of persia, playstation home space? will you consider one in the future?

• We are not currently working on a Prince of Persia home space but we might consider it for future games.

DeforMAKulizer asked: What made you guys ditch the realistic style followed in AC and trying out for the new water color style? And which game was hard to code for… AC with its realistic graphics? Or maintaining the water color feel in PoP?
Thanks! Can’t wait to go back to the PoP series =D

• We wanted to embrace the fantasy nature that defines every Prince of Persia game. The ‘Photorealistic’ artistic direction that is seen in so many games right now did not fit in well with the magical world we were exploring with this game. We wanted to try something new and the ”Illustrative” art style really represents our vision in this game – to make it feel like a storybook.

chaosatom333 asked: I am disappointed that U guys didn’t include any time-shifting powers.
They were awesome. Why did u guys do that?

• That mechanic started to feel old to us – it had been copied in many other games and had lost some of its uniqueness. Elika is our new sands of time and I think she more than makes up for their absence.

chaosatom333 asked: How long in production have u guys been?

• Three years, start to finish.

chaosatom333 asked: How long is the game relatively speaking? like 12-16 or less. Something like that. How much platforming is there? The more the better imo.
Fights are nice too.

• An average player will probably take around 12-15 hours to finish the game if they do the bare minimum needed to complete it. If you take the time to learn all of the backstory of the characters (through our ODD system) and collect all of the lightseeds (to get all of the trophies) I think you can certainly expect more in the range of 18-20 hours.
  In terms of the breakdown between acrobatics and combat, it is hard to say for sure due to the open structure of our world. Certainly, though, there is the potential for you to spend a lot more of your time doing acrobatics then combat.

narde15 asked: how big is the world of prince of persia? will their be side quests?

• It’s quite big. It will take you some time to travel from one end to another. Also, It depends of the path you take to make your way around. Additionally our world features a lot of vertical gameplay, taking you up to some dizzying heights to survey the world down below you as you progress through your quest. The size and height of our world certainly gives it a massive sense of scope.

Munkeh111 asked: What percentage of the game is combat? I am hoping for a high percentage of platforming!

• It’s hard to say for the exact percentage but you will spend more time platforming than fighting that’s for sure. Collecting all the light seeds will definitely make you spend hours exploring the world, platforming and using your head to figure out how to get to that light seed! There are many combats as well.

lifeRPGs asked: What are Ubisoft’s plans for the after-PoP?

• I’d be drawn and quartered if I gave away those secrets. Just a few days ago I saw an advanced prototype of an incredibly top-secret game and was floored with how cool it looked and felt. While I watched it being demoed I was furiously taking notes for ideas to draw inspiration from on my next game.

CrimsonFox13 asked: Beautiful art style. I’ve never played a Prince Of Persia game before, although I’ve always been interested. The beauty of this game captivated me. The game reminds me of Team ICO games. There’s a beautiful landscape with platforming involved, like the Team ICO games, and you’re traveling with a woman, just like in ICO. Did you draw any inspiration from either or both of the Team ICO games?

• Team ICO is definitely an inspiration for us and both Shadow Of The Colossus as well as ICO were games we played extensively during the development of POP. Team ICO consistently proves that videogames can be so much more then ”just” a form of entertainment – they can enlighten, teach, and make us feel. I welcome any and all comparisons to the incredible development talent of that studio.
  It was very important to us, though, that our game be incredible accessible and action packed, too. We were not creating a game just for those players who like ”art” in their games. We have spectacular acrobatics, incredible combat and a rich story. In many ways we consider games like Burnout influential as well in their immediate accessibility – you pick up the controller, press a few buttons, and right away spectacularly rewarding things occur. This was very important to us in the development of POP.

farmer_steve asked: For somebody who has never played a Prince of Persia game, how would you explain the experience? And what do you think is the main draw to it?

• The first Prince of Persia game was created in the late 80s by Jordan Mechner and has become one of gaming’s most well-known franchises. Prince of Persia is a game with a balanced mix of acrobatics, combat and puzzle solving set in a fantastic Persian world where you control The Prince, the most agile warrior of all time as he Runs, Jumps, Flips and Fights his way towards saving the world. All the games are inspired by the 1001 night’s universe and feature an epic storyline with strong character development.

luckettx asked: How many language tracks have been recorded for the Blu Ray release of this game in Europe?

• English, French, Italian, German and Spanish. There are other localized versions (one Dutch, another Polish, another Russian) but the main version will have those five languages on it.

Yuriki93 asked: Does this game have anything story-related to the previous games?

• No, nothing that will affect the main narrative. We put in a few tongue and cheek references (hint: pay attention to the ODD system) but just as a ‘nod and a wink’ to the hardcore fans. We are telling a new story within the ”Book” of Prince of Persia.

SomethingClever asked: From where did you draw inspiration from (games or other) in this iteration of PoP Some of the big reactions to date have been about the voice of the Prince. What led your team to choose such an American sounding voice actor, and was there any concern over people associating that voice to Nathan Drake?

• The choice of Nolan North (Nathan Drake) as the voice of the Prince is entirely intentional. When we were designing the character of The Prince and trying to identify his personality, the two characters we returned to most often were Han Solo and Indiana Jones. Both, of course, played by Harrison Ford. Nolan North showed in his characterization of Nathan Drake an uncanny resemblance to Indiana Jones both in terms of tone and delivery. We thought it particularly appropriate given the heavy influence of these characters in the writing of The Prince that the voice actor we use be one who manages to capture the essence of the influencing characters deeply.

zombiefriend asked: oh also i just remembered is PoP going to have subtitles? i rly hope so b/c i have hearing loss and i wasnt able to fully appreciate ACs story like i wanted to

• Prince Of Persia, like all Ubisoft games now, is subtitled in all languages.

PlasmaGlory asked: I know that your philosophy with Elika was to make someone that would never hold you back, so what’s to stop someone from just hiding in a corner and mashing the ”Elika Button”?

• It wouldn’t help much to just tap the Elika button in a corner. The game requires you to use all of the Prince’s abilities combined with Elika in order to be effective. Whenever you need Elika’s Help, she is there to do so, but only if you are doing something as well (ie: fighting, in the middle of a jump, etc).
  Standing in a corner and mashing the Elika button will just summons a compass power over and over again – not much help in defeating the guardians of Ahriman.

jazzyrider asked: what additional items are packaged with the limited edition versus the normal package?

• Collectible Limited Edition packaging
• An exclusive look at the making of Prince of Persia
• A Prima digital mini-strategy guide full of developer’s secrets
• A digital art book
• The original soundtrack scored by master composer Inon Zur

sainraja asked: I am looking forward to this but how similar is this to Sands of Time?
Sands of Time was magical! I loved every minute of it. I thought the story was put together very well. It was the Uncharted of last generation! I can’t to try this out but I am hoping it will give me the same feeling that Sands of Time did.

• We consider POP to be the spiritual successor of Sands Of Time. We invested a lot of time and energy into trying to ensure that the sense of magic, wonder and mystery that was so special and unique in SOT was reproduced in this new POP adventure while still bringing some strong visual and gameplay innovations to the series.
  In terms of your passion for Uncharted, let me simply say I share your enthusiasm. Uncharted for me was an incredible game because it was so much more than the sum of its parts. I have a hard time putting my finger on the one feature of Uncharted that stood out as my favorite while I was playing, but as soon as I finished I wanted to start over from the beginning and play through again. It is easily one of my favorite PS3 games to date.

Dark_Vincent asked: Will there be different difficulty levels?

• The game has just one difficulty level, but the challenge certainly progresses as you play and (hopefully) get more comfortable with the mechanics. New traps are released, more corruption infects the world, and the enemies unlock new abilities and combos.

TripOpt55 asked: Hey, I can’t wait for this game. Here’s my questions: Does the game autosave (or how does it save)? Can you create multiple save files?

• POP features a ‘save anywhere’ system. No matter what you are doing, you can create a save (new save or overwrite – there is space for 10 save game slots). We don’t save the exact location, though (ie: if you are in the middle of the air and save, when you load you won’t fall to your death) but rather the last stable platform you were on. Don’t worry, though, these are never very far apart.

Zankantou asked: What motivated your team to take the franchise into a radically new direction artistically?
How did you guys come to the conclusion that this new installment should be not, or loosely, related to the previous trilogy in the last generation of consoles?
Is your team considering using this new artistic engine for future games as well?

• In terms of the art direction, we wanted to do something new, something unique. Most of our favorite games – the ones that stand out in our minds years after playing them – had unique visual styles that did not try to emulate reality. Additionally, as I said above, we felt a more fantastic artistic direction would mesh well with our fantasy universe and story. Finally, we wanted to take the incredible concept art and illustrations that our teams created as reference material and do them justice by creating the tools and technology needed to make our game look like the illustrations – a highly detailed painting brought to life.
  In terms of why we left behind the old trilogy, we felt the story of the Sands Of Time had been told and it was time to move on. We had never planned to continue to tell the story of the Sands of Time Prince forever, and the universe of Prince of Persia has so much potential for other themes to explore. By creating a new Prince, on a new adventure, we’ve added a wealth of material to the Prince of Persia universe to potentially explore in future games.
  
  Finally, I believe very strongly in the artistic choices we took for POP and sincerely hope that this Illustrative style is used again at Ubisoft moving forward. Of course I don’t have any specific details, but I think it safe to say that the response has been positive enough that we’ll likely be returning to this stylistic choice in the future.

More...

pOne of the lead writers on the upcoming MMO iDC Universe Online/i has revealed that the game should be ready by late 2009, early 2010./ppa href="http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars/2008/12/02/dc-universe-expected-to-see-light-in-early-2010"Read More.../a/p

pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2008/12/voyager.JPG" width="414" height="527" align="left" hspace="4" vspace="2"/NewerTech's new Voyager is being billed as the world’s first “Quad Interface” SATA I/II Hard Drive Docking Station with support for FireWire 800/400, USB 2.0, and eSATA for 2.5" or 3.5" drives up to 2TB. /p pBasically, that means you can enjoy plug-and-play access to match your level of performance. It is also completely hot-swappable, so users can change drives while their computer is already running. At $100, it seems like a pretty decent buymdash;but if you can do without Firewire, a USB + eSATA a href="http://gizmodo.com/5027818/lightning-review--brando-multi+function-hard-drive-dock"Brando HDD dock/a with 4 card reader ports can be had for $79. /p blockquotepNEWERTECH ANNOUNCES VOYAGER –/p pWORLD’S FIRST “QUAD INTERFACE” SATA HARD DRIVE/p pDOCKING STATION/p pTurns Any 2.5" or 3.5" SATA I/II Hard Drive up to 2.0TB into an External Drive/p pMac PC Plug and Play Ready - Boot and Swap Drives /p pDecember 2, 2008, Woodstock, IL mdash; Newer Technology, Inc. (NewerTech®) http://www.newertech.com, the leading developer of PC, Macintosh®, iPod®, and iPhone® performance upgrades and accessories, today announced NewerTech Voyager, the world’s first “Quad Interface” SATA I/II Hard Drive Docking Station with support for four interfaces: FireWire® 800/400, USB 2.0, and eSATA. NewerTech Voyager turns any 2.5" or 3.5" Serial ATA (SATA) I/II hard drive up to 2.0TB into a fully bootable and hot-swappable external drive solution. /p pEasy Convenient To Use /p pUsing Voyager is so simple: just insert any standard 2.5" or 3.5" SATA I/II hard drive (up to 2.0TB) into Voyager’s compact docking base and select the fastest of the four interfaces supported by your computer for read/write data speeds of up to 3.0Gb/s. There’s nothing else to install or configure. Voyager saves users the time and inconvenience of installing a hard drive into a computer or using an external hard drive enclosure with limited interfaces and slower speeds. /p pPlug and Play Hot-Swap Ready /p pWith the most interfaces available on the market, Voyager provides Plug and Play ease of use for a fast external hard drive solution that works with both Macs and PCs. In fact, Voyager is so easy to use, that combined with today’s low cost of hard drive storage, users can think of a bare SATA I/II drive as being as convenient to use as a flash memory card, with the same instant access benefits and the addition of huge storage capacity gains. In addition, Voyager is completely hot-swappable for consumers wanting to move multiple drives at will while their computer is on and running. Its unique design and drive eject button makes inserting, using, and removing SATA I/II hard drives a safe and effortless procedure. /p pIdeal Solution for Storage Archives /p pThe ideal solution for storage archives, professional photographers, videographers, and other hard drive storage archivers will no longer need multiple drive enclosures and power supplies for every archived hard drive. “Whether consumers want to re-task an older swapped-out hard drive, need to access multiple drives, or want to add big capacity, low cost external storage capacity to their desktop, Voyager is able to travel any computer user’s data universe needs with ease,” said Grant Dahlke, NewerTech’s Product Manager. “Its design and ‘Quad Interface’ functionality offer high speed ‘slide and swap’ hard drive read/write performance and convenience never before available.” /p pNewerTech Voyager Features: /p p· Supports all 2.5" and 3.5" SATA I/II hard drives up to 2.0TB/p p· "Quad Interface" for maximum system compatibility and data transfer rates/p p· Data transfer rates up to 3.0Gb/s (300MB/s)/p p· Push button drive eject for safe hard drive removal/p p· Hot-Swap functionality for fast access of multiple hard drives/p p· Weighted base and non skid rubber feet for stable operation/p p· 2-Color Status LED: left side blue for power on, right side flashing red for disk activity/p p· Compact design: measures 5.28" x 3.70" x 2.68" inches and weighs 1.35lbs without drive/p p· Whisper Quiet operation - no cooling fan needed/p p· Plug and Play with Macs and PCs/p p· All interface connection cables included/p p· RoHS Compliant/p p· One year warranty /p pNewerTech Voyager is priced at $99.95 MSRP and is available immediately from NewerTech’s exclusive distributor, Other World Computing (OWC®), at www.macsales.com, as well as through the retail channel. Voyager includes all its supported interface connector cables and an auto-switching power supply for worldwide compatibility./p/blockquote p[a href="http://www.newertech.com/index.php"Newertech/a]/p br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=d1f5a15fead41d81a6c64159d2dd66c6p=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=d1f5a15fead41d81a6c64159d2dd66c6p=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=d1f5a15fead41d81a6c64159d2dd66c6" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=9bxs1nxe"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=120" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=UAxKzZDl"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=TNZ0EJKk"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=TNZ0EJKk" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=9FKx177w"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=9FKx177w" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~4/O1F2ePwUfWU" height="1" width="1"/

Attendu par tous les aficionados de la série, Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe ne fait clairement pas le poids face aux cadors de la baston 3D.

a href="http://adage.com/smallagency/post.php?article_id=132946"/aA strange truth about the agency business is that it#039;s very difficult to define productivity. An hour on Twitter may lead to a breakthrough idea. Half a day storyboarding a concept may yield nothing useful. pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/YweRHpxBwPP55xPOCPKotMfhzAA/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/YweRHpxBwPP55xPOCPKotMfhzAA/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/adage/complete/~4/1UVQxTVTZrw" height="1" width="1"/

C'est à l'occasion d'une interview accordée à notre confrère MTV que Geoff Johns a annoncé que le MM...

It's official. Justice League is dead in the water. The last man standing, director George Miller, has dropped out and the film goes back Warner Bros archives -- something I imagine to be similar to the warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Reportedly, Miller told an Australian television audience that Warner Bros wants "bigger stars" in the Justice League movie, and that he believes it will be recast. That's not at all surprising, considering the way the world is wetting their pants over Warner/DC's super competitors, The Avengers, which is probably going to be nothing but A-List. What studio wouldn't look at the line-up for Justice League Mortal, where no one compares to Robert Downey Jr., and say "Thanks, but no thanks."

Honestly, I don't know if there can ever be a Justice League movie. Correct me if I'm wrong (and I know you will) but what JLA fans want is exactly what Marvel is doing with The Avengers -- a bunch of solo character movies, establish the universe and the continuity, and then launch a superhero team extravaganza. They want good actors of the appropriate age, not a bunch of young and pretty things. They want it to be a solid effort, not something hastily thrown together for a late summer cash grab -- which is all Justice League Mortal seemed to be. (No offense to all involved, but hey, we're on the outside looking in here.)

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Petroglyph, the warmongers behind both Star Wars: Empire at War and Universe at War, this morning revealed details behind the studio's next project, Mytheon, which publisher True Games Interactive describes as a "micro transaction game that...." Hey, where are you going?

Using the myths of Ancient Greece as a foundation, the free-to-play game promises to blend the "best" elements of action, role-playing and strategy with a "heavy emphasis" on combat and collecting. Additionally, Peter Cesario, the director of product development at True Games, tells Big Download that future expansions will "eventually branch out to several unique and interesting mythologies from around the world." Until then, players can look forward to grinding towards the Golden Fleece in Fall 2009.

Petroglyph reveals 'online microtransaction game' Mytheon originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 02 Dec 2008 12:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

 

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Attendu par tous les aficionados de la série, Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe ne fait clairement pas le poids face aux cadors de la baston 3D.

div align="center"a href="http://news.bigdownload.com/2008/12/01/emotiv-epoc-brain-wave-pc-controller-delayed-until-2009/"img vspace="4" hspace="4" border="0" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2008/12/emotiv_mind-control-headset.jpg" alt="" //abr / div align="left"Not so long ago, in the cold, frosty month of February, a href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/20/emotiv-to-make-control-games-a-reality-by-christmas/"we heard/a about mysterious headgear (an update of a href="http://www.engadget.com/tag/ProjectEpoch/"Project Epoc/a) that, if worn, could be used to do stuff like play insanely simple video games (emphasis on insanely). We also heard that this USB unicorn of the gaming universe would be ready by "Christmas" -- whatever emthat/em is. Well, according to emBig Download/em, who spoke with a PR rep from Emotiv, the device has been delayed until "sometime" in 2009. The reason for the delay? The company wants to "make sure" the device works "as planned." Glad to hear it -- since we weren't interested in it as a fashion statement alone.br /br //div /divpFiled under: a href="http://www.engadget.com/category/gaming/" rel="tag"Gaming/a/pp style="padding:5px;background:#ddd;border:1px solid #ccc;clear:both;"a href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/02/emotivs-epoc-mind-controlled-device-delayed-till-next-year/"Emotiv's Epoc mind-controlled device delayed till next year/a originally appeared on a href="http://www.engadget.com"Engadget/a on Tue, 02 Dec 2008 11:34:00 EST. Please see our a href="http://www.weblogsinc.com/feed-terms/"terms for use of feeds/a./ph6 style="clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"/h6a href=http://news.bigdownload.com/2008/12/01/emotiv-epoc-brain-wave-pc-controller-delayed-until-2009/Read/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/02/emotivs-epoc-mind-controlled-device-delayed-till-next-year/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to this entry"Permalink/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.engadget.com/forward/1388580/" title="Send this entry to a friend via email"Email this/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/02/emotivs-epoc-mind-controlled-device-delayed-till-next-year/#comments" title="View reader comments on this entry"Comments/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/TtXqDxDMEFSxH1p3bLgflvJnE2M/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/TtXqDxDMEFSxH1p3bLgflvJnE2M/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/engadget?a=Jo2nUwN9"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/engadget?i=Jo2nUwN9" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/engadget?a=Q1YSe2Bw"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/engadget?i=Q1YSe2Bw" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~4/0GCU0JHPYm0" height="1" width="1"/

Not so long ago, in the cold, frosty month of February, we heard about mysterious headgear (an update of Project Epoc) that, if worn, could be used to do stuff like play insanely simple video games (emphasis on insanely). We also heard that this USB unicorn of the gaming universe would be ready by "Christmas" -- whatever that is. Well, according to Big Download, who spoke with a PR rep from Emotiv, the device has been delayed until "sometime" in 2009. The reason for the delay? The company wants to "make sure" the device works "as planned." Glad to hear it -- since we weren't interested in it as a fashion statement alone.

Filed under: Gaming

Emotiv's Epoc mind-controlled device delayed till next year originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Dec 2008 11:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I took at look at some of the highs and lows of DC Special a while back, so I thought that it was only fair to do the same for a Marvel series. If Marvel Premiere this was started as a try out title, they certainly gave their initial characters pretty long auditions. Granted, Adam Warlock only had two issues before moving on but Doctor Strange and Iron First were given 12 and 11 issues, respectively.

I’m not here to talk about any of those runs as those characters are very well known and have been spotlighted a million times. I’m here to talk about the more obscure one, two and three-shots that popped up over the final 30 or so issues of the title. I don’t have room to comment on every issue or characters (in fact, there so much good stuff that I’ve spread it over two installment) – so my apologies if I’ve missed one of your favorites.

Let’s start with the Liberty Legion, a two-parter linked into the Invaders series. Now, I love the Invaders stuff, but these two issues were truly the first signs that Roy Thomas’ obsession with Golden Age heroes was possibly an illness. Nobody needed these heroes to return and the Heroes vs. Heroes angle was so clichéd by the mid-70s. You’ve got a couple of decent Kirby covers, but Don Heck’s pencils and flattened terribly by Vinnie Colletta’s razor-thin inks.

Woodgod has become somewhat of a cult favorite over the years, and the cover simply screams 70s camp. The thing is, it’s a pretty decent concept – basically a mash up of Shelley’s Frankenstein and Stevenson’s Dr. Moreau. Bill Mantlo provides evidence of his fertile imagination and the Giffen/Jansen artwork is quite nice. Sure, there are lots of great Woodgod jokes out there, but this is a pretty decent issue and it would be nice if her were more than a footnote in the Marvel Universe.

Next we have Monark Starstalker, one of Howard Chaykin’s many anti-heroes. I actually really dig this book – Chaykin shows that he has his own vision and creates a very believable future. His layouts can get a little confusing and it’s a bit talky at times, but there’s a lot to like. Bounty hunters make excellent characters if you can get them unwillingly entangled in some righteous cause (see Han Solo). Chaykin was getting there with Starstalker and it’s too bad this wasn’t given more than a single issue. As the years pass by, I’m more and more impressed with Chaykin as auteur. There’s also a lot of great Gil Kane influence in the artwork.

We’ve got more Chaykin with issues #33 & #34, The Mark of Kane, as Roy Thomas does what he does best: adapt Robert E. Howard stories. The first issue is a real treat, introducing us to Solomon Kane and his rather intriguing adversary; Le Loup. I’m a suck for adventure stories set in the past so they’ve got me hook, line and sinker. More Kane influence here; and Chaykin really shines. The second issue is much weaker, but I’ve got a thorn in my side about stories that take place in ‘savage Africa’ – too much voodoo hoodoo. These two are worth picking, especially since Thomas does a nice one page overview of Solomon Kane’s pulp history.

Do I have to talk about 3-D Man? I do? Oh well, I guess it’s a fun read if you are in the mood for comics that represent the nadir of Marvel in the 70s. Once again, Roy Thomas tries to convince readers that the past is better than the present with very lackluster results. The problem is that it’s takes itself too serious be enjoyed as just silly fun. Thomas’ earnestness as a writer can be his Achilles’ hell at time. I’ve met Jim Craig a couple of times and he seems like a nice guy, but his artwork has really never done much for me. A few years ago, I audited a very awkward exchange between Thomas and Craig at a convention. Craig was suggesting to Thomas that they should work on a 3-D Man re-launch. Thomas’ response indicated that he thought it was a character whose best years were behind him. I’m not sure he ever had any ‘best years’.

The history of Moench & Ploog’s Weirdworld is actually quite ‘weird’. This series started in the one-shot black and white mag, Marvel Super Action (the super expensive one with Frank Castle on the cover), a single issue here at Marvel Premiere, 3 issues in the color mag Marvel Super Special and then onto Marvel Fanfare (I think). I’m not exactly the biggest fan of all things elvish, but this is pretty decent stuff as it really doesn’t take too much from Tolkien (but that’s some smooth marketing). I’d actually suggest that you track down the Marvel Super Special issues (that’s a mag I’ll be profiling at some pointed), as the artwork is very interesting (an airbrushing over John Buscema pencils). Marvel probably should collect all of these stories just to appease the handful of fans knocking themselves out trying to put together a collection.

Stayed tuned for Part 2 as well get a dose of Daleks, Pinkertons and the KKK!

For more fun talk about all thing ‘classic comics’, drop by my blog: Seduction of the Indifferent

Please send along any comments to Scottshouldbegood at yahoo.ca

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• At December 2, 2008, suedenim wrote:

  Did Roy Thomas figure out how to indulge his Golden Age obsessions more smoothly when he did All-Star Squadron, or ...

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