The Microsoft E3 presser just wrapped up, and it was pretty obvious that Microsoft is pushing their Kinect peripheral in a big way. The jewel in the Kinect Crown was Kinect Star Wars. You can check out the trailer below, and I’ll dash your hopes afterward.

Looks pretty amazing, am I right? Well, at the E3 event they had a live demonstration of the game, and sadly, the trailer is pretty deceptive. The game looks exactly like it does in the trailer, but when not gussied up in trailer form, its performance is rather lackluster. Everyone wants to be able to swing a lightsaber and just freaking own people with the Force. This game will deliver on that promise, if you can get around a delay between your motions and the action on screen. It was probably too much to ask for real-time battles, but they aren’t even close here. The combat was extremely slow as well. In Episode I, those rolling Battle Droids were incredibly fast. In this game, you can just walk behind them to stymie their assault. The greatest indignity is that the voice command. It’s hard to be a stealthy Jedi when you have to yell “Lightsaber On!” to activate the Jedi weapon of choice.

While this is a great disturbance in the Force, all hope is not lost. The game isn’t due out for a while, and backlash like this is the best way to let developers know they have some kinks to work out. I remain cautiously optimistic, seeing as the game looks quite nice. Time will tell if Kinect Star Wars will become a Jedi Master or stay an inexperienced Padawan of a game.

As some of you know, Swankmotron (Bryan Young), has two books coming out next week and we’ll be giving away a copy of each of them here this week.

The first, Lost at the Con, has been called Fear and Loathing at Dragon*Con.

Lost at the Con tells the tale of a drunken political journalist and his dangerous assignment to a sci-fi/fantasy convention. It’s a blend of fictional Gonzo journalism and geek culture in a way that is sure to please audiences inside and outside the geek community.

The second, Man Against the Future, is 17 science fiction, horror, and fantasy short stories by our fearless editor.

You can preorder print copies of both (and they’re both available early on the Kindle here and here.)

We are giving a copy of each book. All you have to do is send an email to editor (at) bigshinyrobot.com by Friday, June 10 at midnight with the subject line “LOST AT THE CON!” For an extra chance to win, be sure to spread the links to the official websites for the books: www.lostatthecon.com and www.managainstthefuture.com and tell your Facebook and Twitter followers to check out the books and maybe even encourage them to buy copies.

If you don’t win, we would highly recommend you buy copies of the books anyway.

Microsoft doesn’t present at E3 for about another 15 minutes, but anyone visiting who was visiting xbox.com around 7:30 MT this morning may have caught a glimpse of what they will be presenting – including Halo 4!

For a brief moment this morning the xbox.com was giving a recap of what Microsoft “had” presented at E3 and on that page was a mention of Halo 4!

When clicking the link though, visitors were just directed to an error page and then xbox.com was shortly reverted back to a page not containing any of this information. In short though, it looks like we will be hearing about Halo 4 at E3 this morning! (Kotaku)

You can keep up to date with all the E3 goodness, including a liveblogging of Microsoft’s E3 presentation by Zombietron right here on BSR!

I love the resourcefulness of comics fans. Thanks to some creative URL manipulation, 6 more (as yet unannounced officially) covers from DC’s massive relaunch have surfaced! When the first wave of these new books were shown off, I was happy to provide my commentary, and I will now as well. This time around, take things with a grain of salt, since these books haven’t been officially announced (except for Batwoman) the creative teams aren’t known. Also, a cover artist does not necessarily mean they are working on the interiors of said book. With that in mind, here they are!

Detective Comics #1 by Tony Daniel

Yup, it looks like they’re really relaunched Detective Comics with a new #1. The Joker looks a bit more deranged than usual (if that’s even possible at this point). Something interesting (to me) is that the way the Joker’s face is positioned it is evocative of the face of Fu Manchu from the original Detective Comics #1.

Swamp Thing #1 by Yanick Paquette

Given recent developments in the DCU, returning Swamp Thing and John Constantine to the main line from Vertigo, this book was probably inevitable. I don’t have a ton to say about Swamp Thing, but his new status quo from Brightest Day could make for an interesting take on the character.

Catwoman #1 by Guillem March

The majority of the leaked covers are Bat-titles. I really enjoyed Catwoman’s last ongoing, so here’s hoping that this new one can reach those same heights.

Batwoman #1 by JH Williams III & W Haden Blackman

Not much to say about this oft-delayed, highly-anticipated title other than “Finally!”

Nightwing #1 by Eddy Barrows

Of all of the leaked titles, this one has me the most interested. We can’t be sure who this Nightwing is, Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, or someone else entirely (money on Jason). If nothing else, the new costume is very striking visually. I can’t wait to find out who’s writing this one.

Who Batman #1 by Greg Capullo

Lastly, we have the new Batman #1. Who knows if Capullo is going to be doing interiors as well. Also, what’s up with question mark-shaved head Riddler? Also, depending on which Batman this is, the costume doesn’t seem terribly different from what we’ve seen in the past. He could going trunk-less like Superman, but the shadowing makes it difficult to tell.

Well, there you have it. another taste of what’s to come from the “new” DC. What do you think?

via Comics Should Be Good & DC Women Kicking Ass

I’m actually kind of excited to see this movie.

Not because it’s going to be good, but because of how spectacularly bad the previous movies were and how this one is going to top those in every way. And we’re going to see all kinds of crazy stuff. In this trailer alone we get a hint of the crazy sex that almost kills Kristen Stewart’s character… And the pregnancy that inevitably ends with a vampire-toothed C-Section….

Seriously… This might be in the running for one of the worst films ever made, but it will make so much god-damned money it’s crazy.

So, without further ado, here is the trailer for Twilight: Breaking Dawn – Part 1:

Well, the forces of the Scarab certainly want to keep Captain America down! Not only do they get into an all out brawl with the Star-Spangled Avenger, but they make sure he falls down a rocky shaft! Then, just to add insult to injury (serious injury, Cap had to have broken a limb o two in the fall), they drop a humongous weight down the shaft after him to finish the job. Never has a cliffhanger been so thorough and seemingly inescapable! You’ll have to watch chapter 7: Wholesale Destruction to see how Cap gets out of this scrape!

Wasn’t that exciting! Well, wasn’t it? Well at any rate, this is where I usually add the supplemental material for each episode, but I actually don’t have anything for this chapter. What I do have is a bit of history behind the serial itself. I have to give a Shoutout to commenter Bill who pointed out that the supposed reason that Captain America is so out of character in this serial is because it was never meant to be a Cap serial at all! This may have been originally intended as a serial starring the Fawcett Comics character Mr. Scarlet! It makes sense to me, Republic had already made two other serials with Fawcett characters, namely The Adventures of Captain Marvel and Spy Smasher. Also, in his civilian identity, Mr. Scarlet is a District Attorney, much like the serial’s rendition of Captain America. The speculation further goes on to say that Mr. Scarlett had been losing favor with readers and was relegated to back-up features. I can personally confirm this. Mr. Scarlet used to be the cover feature of Wow Comics, but was quickly superseded by Mary Marvel. To my knowledge, he never had his own solo title. While I can’t confirm this story, it’s extremely plausible. For comparison’s sake, here’s a comparison shot of both characters’ first appearances. Until next week, Keep Em’ Flying!

I loved the original Hex Nano Watch Band. I used it every day at work wandering around the office and the only drawback that I could see is that I didn’t have access to the pin connector. Well when Hex came out with the Sport band they solved that problem. With a slightly slimmer band and ventilated design the Sport band has an opening for the standard Apple connection that allows you to connect your charger, FM Modulator, or other accessories. I have been using mine with the Nike + system when I go running and its been really nice to have it all in one little package. Routing the headphone cables up my sleeve I don’t have to worry about tangles and I can set up my workout and be on my way with a minimum of bulk which was my big problem with a lot of the arm bands and other work out accessories. Other than that port this is still the same basic design. The Nano pops in and out very easily and I think the biggest improvement is the smaller band. The original Hex band seemed a tad bulky at times, but I usually wear thin watches instead of the trendy giant ones the size of dinner plates. The band is $30 from shophex.com and comes in 5 different colors. If you like the added functionality of having your Nano serve as your watch and want to use it with Nike + or any other accessories I highly recommend it. 

Hot on the heels of their announcement for day and date release for digital comics, DC hits us with more big news. For those of you that want to get your comics in digital form, for easy on the go reading, but still want to collect the physical copy for your collection you will be able to. When Justice League #1 by Geoff Johns and Jim Lee comes out on August 31st you will have two ways to buy it at your local comic shop. The first will be just the regular physical copy, which is an oversized issue that will sell for 3.99. The second will be a polybagged issue that will include a code for a digital copy of the book that will sell for 4.99.

John Rood, EVP Sales, Marketing and Business Development for DC is quoted as saying “As we continue to expand our readership and make our titles more accessible to readers everywhere, we’re excited to provide our comic shop retail partners and their consumers with multiple formats of JUSTICE LEAGUE in one convenient place.”

For the first four weeks the digital and physical copies of books will share the same price. After that the digital versions will drop down to 1.99 per book. Also announced on DC’s blog, The Source, we are told that after the first oversized issue the price will drop back down to the standard 2.99.

Source: DCU The Source

Entertainment Weekly has announced that Eliza Dushku will be lending her voice talents to an animated motion comic series, titled Torchwood: Web of Lies,  that will run alongside Miracle Day. Also lending their voices to the animated series are John Barrowman and Eve Miles as Captain Jack Harkness and Gwen Cooper. Writing the series will be Jane Espenson, whose former credits include Dollhouse, Battlestar Galactica, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

The series will run across 10 three minute episodes. The first episode will be released before Miracle Day premiers on July 8th. Each episode after that will be released the day after the Miracle Day episodes air.

There has been a ton going on with these movies lately, mostly casting and of course the shots of Katniss that should calm down fears about her not being the right skin tone/hair color/even race. The newest news is that the books are going to be split into 4 films. This makes a bit of sense to me, the books all seem to have two very separate parts to them and the games could take up quite a bit of time. I’m curious as to how they will split these up as they could very easily over lap the books endings instead of cutting off just as they do. And of course the trend in Hollywood is to bleed every last cent out of every franchise and make as many sequels as possible even if the movie doesn’t merit one in any way so we should be happy they are only doing 4 and not 6 I guess.

As far as casting goes, in the past couple weeks Lenny Kravitz has been cast as Cinna, Woody Harrelson as Haymitch, Elizabeth Banks as Effie Trinket, and Donald Sutherland as President Snow. I think these all work pretty well, especially Donald Sutherland. I think he can pull of the creepiness of President Snow very well. I’m no fan of Woody Harrelson but I still think he can do a pretty good job. So what do you all think? Will it suck or will it rock?