Believe it or not, this actually exists — in Japan. Back in 2008 Konami released a first person “on rails” coin-op entitled simply Castlevania: The Arcade. The game lets you play as a whip-wielding Belmont, a Witch, or a gun-toting Eastern wanderer and makes use of a motion-sensing light-wand for attacks. Players then swing it at enemies or pull the trigger depending on their character of choice in order to vanquish the monsters. Sounds pretty awesome right? As if that weren’t enough to sell you on it, Konami threw in a soundtrack of arranged music from previous games in the series. Sadly, the arcade machine was never formally released in the United States, and though Wikipedia mentioned something about a European release back in 2009, I haven’t heard any reports of it showing up. Hopfully with the recent boom in motion-related gaming, Konami might have a change of heart and port it to a console.
Back in August, Michael showed us some rather expensive Star Wars Episode IV wall art — a massive 9 x 15 foot replica of the original Star Wars Episode IV movie poster. As awesome as it is, the $255 price tag seemed a bit much. Thankfully, the guys over at ThinkGeek seem to have a solution, and while you give up some footage — their wall art is only 10.5 by 6 feet — the $149 price tag is a much more reasonable. The art is supposed to be easy to apply and shouldn’t be very hard to remove should your signifigant other decide to complain. Now if only they’d make one for Empire Strikes Back. Read more…
Posted by Tim Sheehy on Nov 16, 2010 in Videogames
There has to have been countless iterations of this game over the years but it’s looking more and more like Pac-Man Championship Edition DX may be the best to date. Scheduled for release via Playstation Network and Xbox Live!, this sequel features multiple game modes, and gameplay tweaks such as slow motion, bombs and a new type of ghost. Much like the original Pac-ManChampionship Edition released back in 2007, the visuals are stunning, clean, and colorful. If you haven’t seen for yourself, check out the video above. Pac-ManChampionship Edition DX is scheduled to release sometime this week. Read more…
I don’t have very fond memories of the Men in Black films. I’m not sure if it was the campy PG humor, saturation or excessive use of CG, but something about the films always left me wanting less. The first time around, it wasn’t because it was a terrible movie. In fact, I actually liked it until I had to watch it more than once. The sequel, on the other hand, was pretty terrible. Everything about it, save for the excessive CG, felt rushed — as if the producers couldn’t wait to capitalize on the oil they thought they struck. It would also seem that I’m not alone in my opinion. But why, then, would we need another sequel? Read more…
One of my favorite things about the original Mobile Suit Gundam anime series was that it really brought to life the idea of L5 space colonies which were envisioned by Gerard K. O’Neill in the 70s. Shown above is a fan made video of what modern Tokyo would look like inside one of these space colonies: Read more…
Posted by Guest Author on Nov 15, 2010 in Comic Books
Drinking at the Movies by Julia Wertz
Similar to The Fart Party Volumes 1 and 2, Julia Wertz shares an autobiographical account of her life in comics. This volume is about her settling into life at New York City, over a year’s period, separated with season’s markers. As a New York native myself, I found myself nodding my head to some bits that she points out, such as points about the food, neighborhoods, bums, and weather. Though I have no personal experience of her experiences in San Francisco, I find myself quite curious, since San Francisco is a city I have never visited, but heard things about. Read more…
Posted by Guest Author on Nov 15, 2010 in Comic Books
Sparky: The Life and Art of Charles Schulz by Beverly Gherman
Most Americans should have heard of the Charlie Brown character or even if they don’t know the comic, should know of Snoopy. He is quite a well known beagle, merchandised and branded in many other countries. The story of Charlie Brown inspired a musical, cartoon, and tons of merchandises. Still this entry is not about the merchandises or products that are available. I still bet a lot of people would be interested in reading about the creator behind the famous Peanuts comic strip. His name is Charlie Schulz, or as friends and family referred to him as Sparky. Read more…
The Dune remake that was supposed to be headed to theaters may be so much sand in the wind after all. Deadline reports that Frank Herbert’s estate has issued an ultimatum for Paramount to announce production dates for the film by spring 2011 or they’ll lose the Dune license. This is hardly the first trouble the remake has seen — it’s been through two or more directors already, and one iteration was already completely scrapped, as seen in old concept art. If Paramount does end up losing the license, with hundreds of thousands of dollars already paid in optioning and pre-production funds, that money is basically sandworm food. Read more…
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” goes the old saying, so it only makes sense that Harry Potter and his friends would be able to make an easy transition from contemporary fantasy to hard sci-fi. Kathryn Hudson cooked up this variation on the Potter theme, making Harry and his school pals the crew of the ISS Griffin, fighting against the Slytherin Alliance and the alien lord Voldemort. My only complaint, besides the misspelling of “Ginevra,” is that Ron looks handsome. What the! And an earring? How very un-Weasley. Read more…
Surprising no one, Todd McFarlane’s upcoming Spawn animated series on MTV will continue to be “adults-only programming.” The original Spawn series, which won two Emmy awards, functioned pretty much the same way — lots of violence, gore, language, and sex — so it’s a relief that MTV has essentially given McFarlane free reign to, in his words, “keep doing what I’m doing.” There’s no ETA on the new series, but even with that in mind, it’s a small miracle it’s happening at all, with legal troubles having put new Spawn properties on hold for the past decade. Hopefully this’ll be comeback worth going through hell for. Read more…
