Image courtesy of Rockstar: Meet the newest member of Liberty City’s most wanted list, Johnny Klebitz, AKA you.

Just when I thought it was safe to put away my Xbox 360 copy of Grand Theft Auto IV for good and concentrate on my other obsession, that venerable bastion of gaming journalism USA Today reports that Rockstar Games has announced a street date for the first of two new downloadable episodes for the game. On February 17th, the episode, entitled “The Lost and the Damned“, will be available for download on the Xbox Marketplace. No price has yet been announced. Read the rest of this entry »

Marvel announced today that Robert Downey Jr. and Don Cheadle will be appearing in Iron Man 2 as well as 2011’s Avengers movie. Downey Jr. will be reprising his role as Tony Stark/Iron Man, while Don Cheadle will be replacing Terrence Howard as James “Rhodey” Rhodes. Director Jon Favreau will also be returning for Iron Man 2 and will be an executive producer on Avengers.

I thought Terrence Howard did a nice job as Rhodey, but I’m a big fan of Don Cheadle (check out “Devil in a Blue Dress” if you haven’t seen it. ), so I’m excited to see this change. It’s looking like we’re going to get to see quite a bit more of the character in the sequel, including him suiting up in the War Machine armor.

Portal: Still Alive is hitting the X-Box Live on Wednesday, October 22. It will contain 14 new exclusive maps, in addition to the complete original game. If you’ve somehow missed playing it the first time around, this is your chance to grab a new and improved version.  Everything in Valve’s Orange Box was great, but Portal was above and beyond.  It blended platforming and first-person-shooting with one of the best-paced and most emotionally compelling storylines in recent videogame history. I have the original and I may still buy this expansion just for the extra few levels.

Lots of news lately on the cinematic front for D.C. Having fallen behind cross-town rival Marvel in the movie game, D.C. seems determined to catch up. They’ve got several films in various stages of development currently. Here’s some of the latest happenings on a few. Read the rest of this entry »

Thor, courtesy of Marvel Comics

Variety is reporting that actor/director Kenneth Branagh (Henry V, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets) is in discussions to direct Thor, the next Marvel Comics movie to hit the big screen in 2010. Branagh wouldn’t have been my first pick to helm a Thor movie, but then I wouldn’t have picked Jon Favreau to direct Iron Man (out on DVD today!) and he rocked that.  So I guess a good director is a good director regardless of the genre.

I’ve never been a big Thor fan (more of a Beta Ray Bill guy), but if they do it right, I can see how this movie could own. For all of its faults, The Incredible Hulk nailed one thing that no super-hero move had done before: the scope and feel of a comic-book fight scene. The climactic clash between The Hulk and the Abomination was pitch-perfect. Replace those two with the Odinson fighting the Absorbing Man, the Wrecking Crew, the Destroyer or even a rampaging Hulk and you’ve got box office gold right there.

I’ll pass on paintings, skip sculptures and miss mosaics, but THIS is the the kind of art I can get behind! As reported by the BBC, a group of french street artists called La Machine, constructed and piloted a 50 foot robot spider through the streets of Liverpool. In my opinion 1.5 million pounds is a small price to pay for for such a sweet art installation such as this. I wonder how one goes about getting a job as a pilot on that thing…

Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Flash video.

Wrath of the Lich King box art from Blizzard

November 13! Lock the door, take the phone off the hook, stock up on food and mana potions! After torturing their loyal fans for almost a year now, Blizzard gave an official date for the release of Wrath of the Lich King, the next expansion pack to the hugely popular  MMPOG World of Warcraft.

Not so suprisingly, this news comes just before one of WoW’s only real competitors, Warhammer Online goes live on Thursday. While a bit of a transparent marketing ploy, it’s also understandable that Blizzard wants to keep their almost 11 million subscribers (and the nearly $100 million dollars a month they bring in) focused on their product and not a rival’s.

Warcraft’s previous expansion, The Burning Crusade, allowed players to travel through the fabled Dark Portal to the Orc homeland of Draenor. This time around players will be returning to Azeroth and heading for the frozen climes of Northrend.

As indicated by the title, players will meet up with the undead legions commanded by the former fallen paladin (boo to snooty paladins!) Prince Arthas, now the massively powerful Lich King. Some of the new features will include an increased level cap (80), new mounts, new talents, player-controlled siege weapons (at last!) and a new crafting profession. Best of all however, there’s even a new class, the Death Knight, a dual-weilding, necromantic death-dealing fiend. So now, I pretty much know where my free time for the next year is going.

Several news outlets, including Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, are reporting that director Sam Raimi and star Tobey Maguire are close to signing up for more Spider-Man movies. Sony reportedly is looking to shoot Spider-Man 4 and 5 back-to-back next fall and release Spidey 4 in May of 2011. Zodiac writer James Vanderbilt is working on the screenplay. Read the rest of this entry »

Wired.com has just put up a pretty cool display of some comic book tattoos. As a proud owner of a comic book tat myself, I couldn’t help but be impressed by some of them. Check ‘em out for yourself and see some impressive art in a new way.

Blizzard has unveiled the opening cinematic for the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King, the second expansion pack for the wildly popular World of Warcraft. Blizzard has a reputation for putting together incredible videos for their games and this one doesn’t disappoint. So if you know any WoW fans (and with over 6 million accounts world wide, chances are you do) point them towards it and watch them drool in anticipation. Unfortunately, there’s still no release date, but the smart money says that we’ll have it before Christmas this year.