Throughout it’s 70+ year history, Archie Comics has done their level best to branch out and get its characters into media other than comics, for more wide-spread consumption. And through those tireless efforts, one of the most successful would have to be the various adaptations of Sabrina, The Teenage Witch. No less than four adaptations have appeared since the character’s creation, and coming in 2013, we’ll be treated to a fifth, Sabrina: Secrets of a Teenage Witch.

Not too many details about the new animated show have leaked, although Ashley Tisdale has been cast as Sabrina. When it comes to plot details, it’s definitely sounds like a re-imagining of the concept. Sabrina is still a teenage witch of course, but rather than living a relatively mundane life in the human world, this new show will have Sabrina actively leading a double life both on Earth and in the magical realm. There also seems to be more of an emphasis on the magic than ever before, as the press release specifically mentions Sabrina will be using spells to attack her enemies. Deep down, I instantly want to dislike something that changes the dynamic so drastically. Then I sit back and realize that I am not the intended audience for this program, and as such will leave it to the intended age group to decide whether it’s a worthwhile endeavor. Regardless, I know I’ll be in front of the tube with my niece when the show appears on the HUB Network next year, to have that shared experience! Further details can be seen in the press release below.

THE HUB TV NETWORK PICKS UP NEW ORIGINAL ANIMATED SERIES

‘SABRINA: SECRETS OF A TEENAGE WITCH’ FOR SUMMER 2013

Ashley Tisdale to Voice the Title Role

LOS ANGELES – The Hub TV network, a destination for kids and their families, announced today that the pop culture phenomenon SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCH will return to television in the all-new original animated series, “Sabrina: Secrets of a Teenage Witch.” Actress, singer and High School Musical star Ashley Tisdale will lend her voice to the lead character of Sabrina. Currently in production and slated to premiere in the summer of 2013, the series will feature the iconic teen character re-imagined for a new generation.

The animated “Sabrina: Secrets of a Teenage Witch” series was acquired by The Hub and produced by Moonscoop, Archie Comic Publications, Inc., DSK Group, India, Laughing Lion, and Telegael Teoranta. Writer Dean Batali (“What’s Up Warthogs,” “That 70’s Show,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”) will be story editor and Trevor Wall (“Hero 108”) will serve as director for the series.

In the upcoming series “Sabrina: Secrets of a Teenage Witch,” Sabrina is half-witch and half-human, and all super hero as she leads two vastly different lives; one disguised as a normal, klutzy high school student and the other as the top sorcery student in the magical world. When her two worlds collide, Sabrina is the only one who has the power to battle her foes, while managing to keep her magical identity a secret from humankind.

Ashley Tisdale is an actress and singer best known for starring in the Emmy® Award-winning High School Musical film series. The High School Musical series became a successful franchise, which included two television films, a feature movie, a spin-off and numerous soundtrack albums. Tisdale’s work led to a prominent voice role in the critically acclaimed animated series “Phineas & Ferb.” Additional credits include “The Suite Life of Zack & Cody,” “Hellcats,” and, more recently, a multi-episode arc in “Sons of Anarchy” as well as roles in feature films including Aliens in the Attic and the upcoming Scary Movie 5. Tisdale also runs a successful production company, Blondie Girl Productions, and their first series “Miss Advised” premiered on Bravo this summer.

About The Hub TV Network

THE HUB is a multi-platform joint venture between Discovery Communications (NASDAQ: DISCA, DISCB, DISCK) and Hasbro, Inc., (NASDAQ: HAS) with a goal of entertaining, enlightening, empowering and educating children and their families. The cable and satellite television network features original programming as well as content from Discovery’s library of award-winning children’s educational programming; from Hasbro’s rich portfolio of entertainment and educational properties built during the past 90 years; and from leading third-party producers worldwide. The Hub lineup includes animated and live-action series, as well as specials, game shows, and family-favorite movies. The network extends its content through a robust and engaging online presence at www.hubworld.com. The Hub rebranded from Discovery Kids on October 10, 2010, and reaches more than 70 million U.S. households. The Hub logo and name are trademarks of Hub Television Networks, LLC. All rights reserved.

A War on Two Fronts might well be the start of something new for The Clone Wars. The episode starts with a compelling debate about the difference between terrorists and rebels. These are shades of gray in the argument and such nuance to an issue so hotly debated isn’t something you’d expect to see in a kids show. It’s to the credit of George Lucas, Filoni, and team that they’d bring elements like this into the show.

Onderon is a planet taken over by the Separatists, making it a target for the Republic, but there is a sizable guerilla force on the planet who isn’t happy that their leaders have rolled over and joined the enemy. They’re led by a fellow named Saw Gerrera, which sounds startlingly similar to another guerilla freedom fighter, Che Guevara… Anakin goes to the Jedi council and convinces them to support the rebels, which is so logical for his character. We’ve seen Anakin, through the prequels and this series, use the most stunning leaps in logic to support bending and breaking the rules, ultimately to his destruction. Justifying the use of terrorist tactics in areas populated by civilians seems to be the direction this episode is heading and we’ll see how that goes for the Jedi who are reluctantly going along with Anakin’s plan.

Anakin brings Obi-wan, Rex, Ahsoka to Onderon with him, giving them each a chance to put their mark on the training of the rebels. Rex sports a new, non-Republic uniform that I’d love to see some members of the 501st legion rocking.

It’s important to note that the Jedi are now wearing hooded robes in the course of the episode, something that hasn’t been done before except for quick moments. The animators are proving once again how far they’ve come since the start of the show.

One thing that’s been lost a little bit in the last couple of seasons but seems to be coming back are small touches I loved. First, the humour of the droids. I might have been the only one who thought the droids on this show, voiced by Matthew Wood, were a vital tension breaker, giving us much needed laughs, but they were back to being goofy in this episode. I appreciated it. Another thing I liked that others didn’t seem to (but hopefully they’re into it now) is Anakin calling Ahsoka “Snips.”

After the initial moral question of terrorism, the driving conflict of the episode seems to be Ahsoka’s “love triangle” with Lux Bonteri and one of the other rebels during their training. It’s subtle. Which is where this episode didn’t hit home for me as well as I would have liked. There were very few surprises in the episode. They train the rebels in all the tactics they’ll need to fight the droids when they attack later in the episode.

And it’s important to note how cool the probe droids are. We can add that to the list of classic trilogy characters that appear on the show, right?

This episode really feels like act one of a set up. Until I see the rest and what this builds to, I’m nto sure I can capably say much else about how I felt about it. As a stand-alone, it was gorgeous, but a little dry.

I had the opportunity to interview comics legend Matt Wagner about his new book from Legendary Comics, “The Tower Chronicles.” You all know Matt Wagner from his years working on books like Mage, Grendel, Trinity, and with many of the heavy hitting characters in the comics world. The Tower Chronicles for Legendary is the latest step in his long and storied career.

You can read my full review of the book soon over at The Huffington Post, but even if you don’t get a chance to read that piece, you should still give this book a shot. You can pick it up at Amazon or your local comic book store. It’s drawn by the incomparable Simon Bisley and I think it’s some of his best work.

Without further ado, we’ll get to Wagner’s interview:

Bryan Young: So, as far as Legendary goes, the Tower Chronicles, this is the first book from Legendary that you’re fronting it, so I think a lot of people, well not a lot of people, but some people are cynical about it saying, “Ah, this is a big Hollywood movie company. Why is the Tower Chronicles not what the cynics think it is?

Matt Wagner: Well, any of those cynics probably don’t know my work then. I’m a very well established comic book creator, 30 years of experience in the biz, and I don’t have a single movie adapted from my work yet, so that has never been my aim. I don’t write stories that are movie pitches. And I will say that from the very beginning, both Thomas Tull, the owner of Legendary Entertainment and Bob Schreck, editor in chief, presented that to me as well that it would be great if someday we branch this off into other media, but that’s not our initial concern. Because, the very fact is, it’s impossible to branch off into other media if we don’t deliver a kick ass product at the beginning. You can’t build a 20 story building if you don’t have a great foundation at the base of it. So, I never ever write, this is gonna sound weird, I never ever write considering my audience. I write what’s gonna thrill me and what I’m having fun with, and I write what I feel is narratively sound, and narratively resonant and emotionally engaging, and thrilling and fun as well. So certainly, those cynics can look at the project with those jaded eyes, but hopefully once they read it, if they actually read it,they’ll see that we’re doing our damndest to deliver a really great comic book story that has a vast scope, kind of an epic saga that’s very core, but also has a main character that is tough and bad-ass and yet has a very distinct and overwhelming humanity buried underneath all his tough guy exterior. And that’s kind of the whole point of the story that as we go along, John Tower is a character very much shrouded in mystery and as we go along, little by little, the veils and layers of his mystery start to unpeel, and we dig into the humanity at the core of his character.

BY: It’s gorgeous book, for one, it looks really good, it’s a really fun read, there’s imagery in it that’s going to stick with me for a long time, particularly that owl coming out of that lady’s mouth.

MW: I will say that was a cool idea that Simon just rendered the hell out of that thing, it just delivered on all fronts.

BY: But that central mystery of the character seems to be what’s driving that cliffhanger. It’s enough to keep me thirsty for more.

MW: Yeah, good! that’s our goal

BY: You’ve raised more questions about about him than you’ve answered, and I see that it’s the first of 800 pages of comics, you keep saying, but how much through this first arc are we going to get into the characters and still going to be …

MW: I’m a big believer in not spilling all your narrative guts right off the bat because part of the thrill of good storytelling is to keep the reader intrigued, but at the same time, you can’t leave them dangling on a hook all the time. You have to keep dishing more information so that people can make connections, make theories. So certainly in the second issue, we get a little bit more, in the third one, a little bit more. I will say that at the end of the first four volumes, which is the first book, no, all the questions are not answered at that point, but part of them are, and certainly enough to make you want to come back and follow John Tower through the second book, but here again what I do is kind of weaving these puzzles that hopefully keeps the reader intrigued enough to want to come back and also delivers on the fronts they enjoy.

One of the big troubles, just to refer to another narrative like this in recent popular culture was the tv show LOST. I thought LOST got lost. It set up too many mysteries for itself and then neglected to answer all of the mysteries, but you can rest assured at the end of the Tower Chronicles, all of the questions will be answered everything will be crystal clear as to who is he and why he does what he does. You mentioned in the first one there that there’s this definite sense of mystery. One of the feelings you get is maybe hunting down monsters isn’t really his goal. It seems like he does it, but it seems like there’s an ulterior motive, and what is that? When you have these bad-ass, tough-as-nails characters, like Batman, or Clint Eastwood’s whole roster of film heroes, you usually find that underneath that tough, dour exterior, there’s a very passionate soul at the center of all that, and usually that passion has been disrupted or enflamed or fractured in some fashion that drives them to very desperate ends, and certainly we’ll find that’s the case with John Tower as well, and the question is, what situation led him to this stage in his life.

BY: It’s certainly a fascinating question. Switching gears a little bit, can you describe the difference and sort of the work process here versus, say your more creator owned stuff like Mage, or how is the creative process you’ve …

MW: Well, luckily, I kind of started out the opposite of a lot of my contemporaries, like Frank Miller or Mike Mignola in that I started in the indies first and then eventually branched into working with the big guys on projects like Batman and such, so it’s the only way I’ve ever known to work on things. I’m the boss of the narrative ship, and I don’t book a whole lot of editorial interference, and truthfully, working with Bob Schreck, who is the editor in chief of Legendary and has worked with me since the very earliest days of ComiCo he trusts me and knows me enough just to back off and leave me alone.

Occasionally there’s a comment like ‘Hey, have you considered this?’ but working on John Tower here, I might as well be on Grendel. I’m absolutely in control of the ship, and part of that is the respect that comes from having a career as long as I’ve had.

You know, people just kind of let me go, but I’m involved in every stage of it too. I see every stage of the pencils, I approve every page of the inks, I see every stage of the coloring, the lettering, I mean literally everything. And I know no other way to work on these kinds of projects because that’s how I started out. It’s not like I’m working for a corporate ship here, even though I am. They want a pure, undiluted creator vision, and that’s what they get from me.

BY: Simon’s work hasn’t necessarily been the most long running. How do you convince a guy like that to come on board with a book that’s as massive as this sounds like it’s going to be?

MW: As you pointed out there, this will be the longest sustained narrative Simon’s ever done. I guess we’re just lucky that the story appealed to him enough from the beginning. The way he came on board was that two years ago, at the San Diego convention, we were having the initial launch panel for Legendary, and of course their first project was Frank Miller’s Holy Terror book, and that was already finished and there was plenty of art to show, but Tower Chronicles was slated to be there next and first all original, newly generated project as Holy Terror had been under production for years, but we didn’t have any art to show, and of course, that’s what you want to show. So we had my story outline and some original scripting, but we didn’t have an image yet. So Bob Schreck had worked with Simon back when he did covers for Hellblazer, Bob was an editor at Vertigo still, so he contacted Simon just to do a publicity painting, here just give us a character shot, and Simon just completely nailed it, just absolutely right in every regard. Captured the atmosphere, captured the ferocity, captured the mood and mystery and the sense of adventure. All in a single image, and that’s so tough to do. And so we really kind of got our hopes up and asked him if he would consider drawing the whole thing.

And of course, when we started, we weren’t quite sure whether he would end up drawing all three books, but now that’s the direction we’re going because he just so fits the material, that we really can’t imagine anybody else drawing it. The entire series is kind of a genre masher; in thatwe have a costumed adventure, but not everyone’s a superhero, there’s a dark, gothic fantasy and there’s bits of horror, and Simon just handles all of those aspects really, really well. And in fact, he has said to me, ‘God, this feels like you’re just writing it, just for me. You’re just delivering for me, all the stuff I like.’

And I will say, there’s probably more sequential and expository work than he’s done before, but, God, he’s cooking right along on it. I’m done with the first 2 books of 4 volumes each, so I’m 500+ pages, into the scripting, and he’s just wrapping volume 3, so he’s 200+ pages into the art, so at this point, we’re definitely in sync, and it all seems to just be flowing beautifully, easily. As a writer/artist, this is one of the greatest thrills you can possibly have. I get pages in from him, and I’m just like ‘holy shit!’ that just looks better than I expected. I described what I wanted it to look like, but he just took it and knocked it a little farther up the creative ladder and made it so, so, so much better than I could have hoped for. That’s just the best you can hope for as a comic book writer.

BY: So you’ve lived in this world for a long time, and people are finally going to start wading into that world, so this release must feel huge.

MW: Yeah it does, at the same time, just this weekend, finally got the printed copy for the first time, so I went to bed and read it the other night, and it was so strange because my narrative sense is so much down the road from where the beginning is, that it was strange to go back and reread the beginning, but as you said, we’ve got a great start here. What’s really thrilling for me is that my feeling is that every single volume just gets better, the story gets better, the art gets better, Simon and I get better as a team. I just really think this is going to carry people, narratively, into a very exciting place. And again, that’s the best I could hope for as a storyteller.

BY: It’s absolutely gotten me on board, and Legendary seems to have spared no expense with the printing. I received a copy a few days ago, and I was actually kind of startled by how great it looked and how well they put it together.

MW: That’s something I can actually comment on. Thomas Tull, from the very beginning, wanted everything that came out of Legendary comics publication roster as being of champagne quality. He wanted everything to just look fantastic, to deliver the best writers, the best artists. So the initial idea was for everything to be published as an OGN, which in the comic book industry biz means as an Original Graphic Novel, as opposed to serialized in the monthly comic book format. And certainly, with Holy Terror, that was easy to do because it was already all done and there was already an existing publicity buzz about it because Frank had been working on it for ten years or so.

With this, both Bob Schreck and I, well we couldn’t really do that with this because we had a brand new character, complete unknown, to the reading public, and in this economy, especially, you can’t be asking people to shell out $30-$35 for a maybe on something that they might like, or they might not like. And so we convinced them that we don’t have to do it as a monthly comic, we can do it in the prestige format so everyone gets a nice chunk in each installment, and we can dress it up with really great paper, we can do the flapped covers, we can do embossed foil on the cover, we can still dress this up and be a very classy, quality product, and yet still offer it in a serialized version to make it a little easier on the buying public. And I think we got that, and I am very pleased with the way it looks.

BY: With the cover, was that your idea, or Bob Schreck’s to get Jim Lee in for that very striking cover, which for a lot of people, is gonna be that first window into John Tower?

MW: Thomas wanted to stride deeply into the comic book market. As I said, they’re on a learning curve, in many regards, but they wield a lot of muscle, and he just wanted to go for the best cover artist, his favorites and also the industry favorites. Jim had turned in some sketches, and wasn’t quite hitting the introductory dynamic power; he was getting a little too arcane with the character, a little too deep in the psychology of the character rather than just a great BOOM, introductory image. So I actually jotted, since I’m an artist too, I jotted down a quickie thumbnail layout and said, ‘Here, take it in this direction.’ And of course, Jim being Jim, delivered a gorgeous rendition of my very primitive sketch. I think that fully captures our character really well, this moody adventurer standing on a bible of trussed up monsters. And of course, we have Alex Ross on the second cover, so I guess from both your last questions there, the summation is that Legendary puts their money where their mouth is; they’re delivering quality on all fronts.

BY: For someone who has a built a career as equally a writer and an artist, I can see your name associated with a book across the board, as a cover artist, as an interior artist; at this point in your career, do you prefer this sort of arrangement where you’re just writing, or do you still like to go back and draw everything from the ground up? Where do you feel like you’re the most comfortable.

MW: I’m comfortable with both; it’s apples and oranges for me . For the last couple years, I’ve been writing more than drawing, but that’s by no particular design, I just kind of fell into that. I will be back to drawing, I still have the third volume of Mage to do, that’s probably next on the horizon for me after this. With all of my projects over the years, I’ve had both situations where it’s my one man show, on Mage, and then on the various projects I’ve done for DC like Trinity and the Dark Moon Rising Batman series I did. And then I have a situation like Grendel which is sometimes I write and draw it, and sometimes I write for other artists. To me, it doesn’t really make any difference, I’m just happy telling stories. And I like playing with other people, and I like playing by myself. I’m really good at deciding ‘this is one I need to draw’, or ‘this is one I’m gonna have fun with somebody else drawing it’. And in this case, I can’t rave enough about how Simon is the perfect artist for this book.

BY: It really shows. It really is a gorgeous book across the board. I hate coming into interviews like this and it’s like, ‘Wow, I really loved the book’ but this book really hits you right between the eyes. It’s that perfect mash up of enough intrigue and mystery to keep you going, the art just looks great, the coloring and inking works together, and it’s in a really nice format. I was really surprised when I sat down and read it.

MW: I’m totally thrilled to hear that! At the same time, I absolutely stand by ‘it only gets better’. The story only gets better, it gets more engrossing, more emotionally involving, more exciting, and I get better at figuring out just amazing things for Simon to draw. This is just one of these projects that, from the creative end, just feels like it climbs and climbs and climbs.

BY: Is it frustrating on some level that you guys have risen to a certain altitude and the stuff you’re putting out is the baseline?

MW: No, because we know the rest is coming. No, it’s not like we weren’t very happy with the first volume when we did it, but then — that first Beatles album is fucking great, and the second one was better and the third one was better, etc etc. So no, I don’t feel any frustration. Again, like I said, I’m always just all about the story and all about the creative process, and there’s just no downside to the fact that I get more satisfied with every step of a project, and that is certainly the case.

BY: That’s not a bad way to be; isn’t that the dream? Is there anything you think  I might have missed or anything you’d like to add?

MW: No, I think we covered most of the good stuff. Again, I’m pretty sure our release schedule is every 2 months, but again, it’s a 68 page volume every 2 months, and I’d have to check with Legendary, I’m not quite sure what the gap between book 1 and book 2 is, but we’re well ahead, production wise, on the schedule, so once this train leaves the station, it’ll hit every stop on time. I know that’s another bit of cynicism from people in this industry where a new company, new project launches real great and then just stalls production wise, and that’s just not the case in this instance.

BY: That’s encouraging to hear. There’s a lot of X factors there, yeah it’s a new company, this is the longest thing Simon’s ever done, but seeing you guys out as far ahead as possible.

MW: A big factor here, is I want to give credit to Bob Schreck as well. Bob and I are just old time pros; we know how to do it. We’re not young frivolous start ups, and we know how important it is to comic book shops, especially, that they get their product on time.

BY: Absolutely, absolutely. Well, it’s been a pleasure talking with you, and I’ve enjoyed your work over the years and I look forward to the rest of the Tower Chronicles.

MW: Thanks, man!

This past week Arse-bot and I had the awesome opportunity to speak with Frank O’Connor of 343 Industries. Frank is a really great guy and we had a lot of fun. We talked Halo 4, Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn, and bit about 343 Industries:

Chris: So Frank, you are Franchise Development Director at 343. What is a normal day like for you and what does that role entail?

Frank: There isn’t a normal day, because it entails so many different things. Last week I was in most countries in Europe doing a press tour showing off the game and just being a spokesperson. But most of my real proper job is crafting stories and a universe in and around the Halo game franchise. That can be anything from, in the case of Forward Unto Dawn sort of the inception and creation of that product and the story, all the way to working with our writers and narrative director on our video game. Of course the extended franchise: the action figures, and skateboards, and you name. It is all a business that all has to be run and all has to be appropriately and correctly tied into the rest of the universe all in the service of the game.

What was your specific involvement with Forward Unto Dawn?

Helping craft the idea in the first place with Matt McCloskey, one of our business directors, and helping to coalesce a small kernel of team for the thing to snowball around. It had been 5 years since the last numbered Halo game, and you know, that’s most of the life of a new hardware platform, the 360 in this case. We knew there were a lot of people curious about the Halo universe, and were going to be curious about it, and we wanted to give them a piece of fiction and a piece of story that could tell them a little bit about the Halo universe without being intimating and without being too gamey. The 2nd half of it was kind of an organic evolution of conversations that we’d had about our live action TV commercials for the big game launches. The fans love those. We made some shorts with Neil Blomkamp and fans loved seeing the Halo universe brought to life. Those two ideas sort of met in the middle and we decided to make a TV show. It was as vague and organic sounding as that sounded.

After production of Forward Unto Dawn was complete, what was your first reaction to seeing the Halo universe brought to life in such a cinematic way?

I mean, we had seen it a little bit with working with Neil Blomkamp on the shorts with Peter Jackson back in the day before the movie kind of went away. So I’ve seen this stuff lots and lots of times and it never ceases to amaze me. I think the really interesting thing about this product is that we’ve done all these vignettes and they never had any real narrative content, they were moments. It was like, this is an action moment in the life of a Spartan, or this in action moment in the life of the Warthog as it were. That’s cool and its great to see that stuff, but its not satisfying in terms of having an actual narrative arc. So the exciting for me was really the first day of work with Todd and Aaron Helping, the screenwriters, as we modeled through what the story was going to be and what these characters were going to be, and we started to realize we had this germ of a really amazing story.

Obviously fans have been hoping for a full length feature Halo film, and Forward Unto Dawn seems like it will certainly scratch that itch, but do you think this will be as close as we will ever get to a full length studio Halo movie?

No, we obviously own the full rights to Halo as a franchise. There’s really nothing stopping us from doing that other than bandwidth and timing. One day if all the stars align and the right script and the right director and everything is there, then sure we’d absolutely love to do it, but there’s no plans at this time.

Spartan Ops has been likened to a TV series. It sounds really unique and exciting. Has it been difficult to approach and plan missions for it that could have possibly been saved for Halo 5 and 6?

No, in fact one of the really cool things about Spartan Ops is that, you know when you are playing the main Halo campaign, let’s say it takes a player 10 hours to go through, we can’t control the pace of either the narrative or the gameplay experience because 10 hours is too much to expect most people, and there will be people that do it, but you can’t expect most people to sit down and play it for 10 hours. So you can’t really predict the holistic experience, whereas if you are making a movie or TV show, a movie is an easier metaphor, if you are making a movie and its an hour and 45 minutes, you know where the beginning the middle and the end is you can really kind of use music and drama and story to manipulate the viewer’s experience, right? With a video game you can’t really control it to that discreet level of detail. This actually gives us the ability to do that both with the episodes of story that accompany Spartan Ops, but actually also the missions. We knew that we could make a mission, let’s say 15 or 20 minutes long, we know where the lows and highs are going to be in that and we can craft, actually a fairly different type of campaign experience even though its similar to the co-op campaign in the main game, we can actually control the pacing in a much more accurate way. So it does have a really different feel to it.

Let’s talk a little bit about multiplayer. Last week Ragnarok, which is a remake of the fan favorite Valhalla from Halo 3, was revealed. Why was this map chosen and what was the process like for recreating it?

Valhalla was obviously a fan favorite. It was really suitable for a lot of different elements of the whole Halo sandbox and that’s obviously true of Halo 4. One of the main reasons to pick Valhalla this time was because of the way the Spartans move in Halo 4. Its not a big deal for players in most other video games, but its a big deal for Halo players, is that now every single Spartan has sprint. The weird thing about Valhalla is that even though its quite a long map, once you have sprint it meant we were able to make it really really multipurpose. It totally worked for vehicles, but now it actually works for on-foot combat as well. Of all the remakes that we could have considered it gave us the most flexibility for the most different types of gameplay and that’s the reason it was picked.

Nice, I’m really excited for it. Another exciting thing on Ragnarok is the mech, Mantis. How does that work?

Its very powerful. Its very slow. Like everything in the Halo sandbox its about sort of empowering the player, but keeping things nice and balanced. It is armed with a machine gun, a missile launcher, and a stomp move where you can basically run up to Spartan or a vehicle and stamp on it and destroy it. Of course that’s balanced with it being a lumbering, noisy, mechanical object so its not horrifically overpowered. In fact one of the most satisfying things to do in the game is to carjack the Mantis and yank the occupant out of the little pilot’s wheelhouse.

When you stomp a vehicle or a Spartan is there a medal you get specifically for that?

I believe there is actually. I think that we will be revealing the medals in the upcoming weeks, but yeah I believe there is a special something for proficient Mantis users.

Awesome. Tuesday morning Ryan over at IGN and 343’s Kynan Pearson revealed a new multiplayer map called Abandon. What can you tell us about the map’s location and unique look?

Oh my god, I do not have a good time on that map at all. Its definitely one my weak points. When maps have a lot of verticality my 42-year-old twitch reflexes get killed. Its like most of the maps set on obviously an alien world. Its overgrown and in ruins. Actually its funny, a lot of the maps that we have in Halo 4 are very new, sterile, clean spaces because its this living Forerunner world so this is one of the rare instances were you are going to things that are really overgrown and sort of decrepit.

Yeah its got a really unique look from what we’ve seen.

Yeah and it works really well for close quarters combat so if you are using things like the Scattershot, there’s loads of ways to surprise people. Its got lots of sort of honeytraps where you think “I’m going to go there” and people can lay in wait for you.

You may not be able to answer this yet, but what new additions and improvements can we look forward to in Halo 4 and Halo Waypoint in terms of stats tracking and will there be a developer API?

We aren’t going to expose a developer API at least in the immediate term or at launch. Its definitely something we think about for the future. There will be significant upgrades to all of Waypoint’s current functionality in time for launch and a little bit before.

My group of friends and fellow bots here at Big Shiny Robot really got into Bungie Pro and rendering film clips to show off cool things we did. Can we expect a similar feature?

We will have more information about video rendering and other features of that kind closer to launch. Sorry, I know you hate those kind of answers.

Can you tell us about a key moment during development that you thought was really cool or interesting?

You know, its not really a moment, but there was a point where there were literally 9 members of 343 Industries and we were being tasked with taking over the entire Halo universe, we suddenly had this realization that we were going to have to grow from 9 people to almost 300 by the time we shipped. It was sort of terrifying, but maybe in the first couple of interview loops we started to realize something which was that every single person that came to interview for the job was a Halo fan. Of course it makes logical sense, but its not something you are thinking about when you are trying to poach people form AAA studios and trying to bring them to Seattle from different parts of the world. That turned out to not only one of the easiest parts of that challenge, and it wasn’t easy at all let me be clear about that, but it actually gave us some of the best opportunities because for all the people who were Halo fans and knew what made Halo cool and knew what was special about Halo, they had all these techniques and perspectives and abilities that they were able to bring from the other studios and from the projects that actually helped us grow and evolve the game.

So Halo 4 went gold about a week or so ago, congrats on that by the way, what does it feel like at 343 and how is the team reacting?

Thank ya. Its weird because there’s a few more parking spaces and people are of course off crunch more or less, but there’s still little segments of team. I mean to your point earlier the Waypoint guys are working on getting the website and the backend stuff ready for launch. We’re still working on Forward Unto Dawn doing final color correction and VFX for the last couple of episodes. We’re doing all of this launch activity and marketing stuff and for some of us we just keep going. I’d like to say there’s a huge sense of relief but not for me, not quite yet. I think the team is really, I think they’re really elated about the project, I think they are rightfully proud of the game. I think that they are really sort of pleased and proud at how they’ve come together as a team and as a family. To grow that quickly, to grow from 9 people to 300 people in 3 years and build a game and come out of that process with what we hope is a great game and a really sort of happy, successful, collaborative culture is way more than we could ever have hoped for when we started this.

The sense of camaraderie and team spirit that is gathered from places like Twitter and forums is just really awesome. It seems like everyone is really tight tight-knit there.

Yeah. I think that was part of the process of having to grow so quickly I think actually worked in our favor because you know we had this shared passion and it was all Halo, Halo, Halo. Then of course you get to know each other as colleagues and friends and it seems artificial from the outside but from the inside it felt, it really did feel like family.

One more question then Arse-bot has one. As a fan of Halo what are you most excited for?

I honestly, this is no word of a lie, every day I go back to my house and I have a recumbent bike in my basement gym, which is all creepy, and I get on the bike and I play Reach every single night. I play various multiplayer modes. So I’m excited just as I was to move from Halo 3 to Halo: Reach, I’m excited to move from Halo: Reach to Halo 4, and to just get a fresh new multiplayer experience for my workouts. I always burn more calories when I’m losing, because I can’t rage quit really, because I’m on a bike, so the worse I do the more calories I burn, and luckily I’m very bad at the game.

Tyson: You had kind of touched on this a little bit when we were talking about the map Abandon. My friends which includes Chris who is conducting the interview, and some of the other guys who run our site, we get together, we played Halo: Reach, we played Halo 3, we’re big into hopping online, getting a squad together, and just trying to tear things up. We all have a different style of play. I’m kind of the running gun type, we’ve got friends who hang back and snipe, we’ve got the guys who go for the vehicles. Could you describe your play style? How do you play the game and how would you describe your Halo style?

So you actually brought up a really brilliant point about Halo, which is that its not monolithic. I mean obviously you have role players in Counter Strike, but my experience in Counter Strike is that everyone is some sort of genius at killing me. Its a very sort of specific game and game style that you play depending on the mode obviously but there’s always the same feel. Halo players are really not monolithic. They do tend to be role players. I’m great at, I’m not great at a lot of things, but I’m a good driver, and I’m excellent at sneaking and getting flags. Right? I can’t hold a territory, but I can get a flag when a good team is otherwise occupied. Those are my skills. One of the cool things about Halo 4, and I think that people tend to think of the career progression as a way to get more power, but it doesn’t really empower you, what it does is it empowers you to create a player that maps to your style. A good vehicle specialist for example is going to be able to customize his character to be not only better at driving, but to be rewarded for being a good driver. That’s what its really about. Its about customizing your character to suit your style of play, rather than to simply make your character more and more and more powerful as you grow. Its more about about giving your more fine tuned controls over doing the kinds of things that you like to do and we hope that that promotes really interesting dynamic and teamwork. Other than that I’m a pretty decent SWAT player. That’s about it.

*Laughs*

Again I’m 42 and often we’ll go play MLG players and I think they expect because I work on the game that I’m going to be good, not great, but at least good, and they’re very pleasantly surprised when they absolutely destroy me.

Tyson: Well you know, we’ve had discussions too about its not always about the win necessarily. Obviously we all love to win, and there’s always some friendly trash talking going on, but sometimes its just about how close the game is. We’ve had talks about this with some of the other first person shooter games how it seems to be really off balance, but with Halo it seems like you guys have really been able to fine tune it to where even if you are losing, you get matched up with a group where its like “Gah, you know we lost but that was an awesome match.”

Its a combination of the way the game’s interior systems work and TrueSkill and obviously the way matchmaking playlists are split up. But you are right in Halo it tends to never be a complete blowout unless someone on your team quits and that’s one of the reasons we added join-in-progress is to ameliorate that problem and keep those games balanced. You’re absolutely right, I don’t feel bad if we lose 50 to 48, in fact I feel pretty good about that. That’s one of the hard things in game design is that for competitive play to be satisfying, you can’t always win and you can’t always lose so it should really be about how you performed on that day and that moment and that should be where the satisfaction comes in.

Tyson: I can tell you right now we get a lot of satisfaction from Halo games, and we are huge fans, and we appreciate all the work that you and everyone at 343 has put in. We’re really excited for Halo 4 and we’re looking forward to Forward Unto Dawn as well. We appreciate you taking time out of what I’m sure is a busy schedule to talk to us today.

Absolute pleasure. Thanks so much for your time guys, seriously.

Halo 4 comes out November 6 and the first episode of Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn is out today on  Machinima Prime and Halo Waypoint! You can check out our review of the first episode here!

Leading up to the release of Halo 4 on November 6, installments of the web series Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn will be released each week on  Machinima Prime and Halo Waypoint. Last week, Senador Kooch and I had the pleasure to speak with John-117 himself, Daniel Cudmore! Cudmore is no stranger to playing a hero – he’s Colossus for God’s sake! – and now he is the man under the helmet portraying Master Chief in this anticipated web series.

We had the opportunity to chat with him a bit about what it was like playing the iconic character and what we can expect from the series:

Tyson: Hi Daniel, this is Tyson and Chris with Big Shiny Robot! dot com! How are you doing?

Cudmore: Good Tyson and Chris! How are you guys doing?

Fantastic! We are really excited to talk to you, we are huge Halo fans.

Right on!

So let’s just jump into things here. Can you tell us a little about Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn and how it’s going to tie into the upcoming release of the game?

Yes, totally. It’s really is a stand alone live-action series that really kind of starts at the beginning with the humans and their surviving, and then also the Covenant are involved. And it’s the story of a young cadet at Corbulo Academy just trying to find himself and who he really truly is and what he wants to be when it comes to the military, and it kind of goes along from there.

So we have to ask the obligatory question; Are you a gamer? Do you play Halo, have you played any of the past Halo games at all?

Yeah, funny enough there are certain games I will play. I bought an Xbox a long time ago and my girlfriend at the time, who is now my wife, she bought me a Halo game -I think it was Halo 3– and that was really the only game, it’s funny how this sounds, it’s really the only video game that I actually played front to back. The rest I’d play for half an hour and then I’m kind of bored with it.

In the Halo 4 [series] that’s coming up, the main character from Forward Unto Dawn is Thomas Lasky, the guy who Master Chief interacts with the most. In Halo 3 and all the other games, a lot of how Master Chief is portrayed is by how he interacts with the other characters and the situations around him, can you tell us how Master Chief is defined a little further in Forward Unto Dawn through his interactions with Lasky and the events in the film?

Right, his interactions are very specific. And unbeknownst to Master Chief he really inspires the young Thomas Lasky with his heroism, with Master Chief’s just sheer determination to do his job and unbeknownst to him he just really inspires him. The interactions are really there, they are more or less between Master Chief trying to save these kids really.

Master Chief is obviously, in the video game world, an extremely iconic character. So what was it like getting into the boots of Master Chief?

It’s intimidating man! It’s a funny character in the fact that everyone who plays the gamebecomes Master Chief, so I think each person who plays the game has their own idea of who they think he is besides the fact of what’s been created in these great video games. So, for me it’s just really trying to – I just did research on him, I wanted to research what the fiction was that’s been written about where he kind of came from, and what training he’s had and that kind of development to kind of get and idea of who he is and what he does. And obviously just watching as many different things I can of what has been created, whether it’s been video games or advertising or what not – just kind of get a feel of how he walks, how he moves, how he shoots a gun, and he does all those sorts of things. So, trying to get as much info as possible and not totally screw it up for all the fans.

It’s a lot of pressure!

Yeah, I think it’s more now since I’m done with it. I think at the time I was just kind of “Alright, let’s do this job!” And now I’m like “I hope it’s right!”

Now you’re just waiting for the fan reaction, right?

Yeah, exactly, I mean I’m either going to be beloved or I’m going to be maimed.

So, you mentioned a big part of the video games is that the player takes on the role of Master Chief. So did you kind of get an opportunity to as you were in the Master Chief suit interact and maybe ad-lib a little bit with your interactions with the set and with the people on how you would maybe react if you were Master Chief?

A bit. I mean there was a plethora of experts there all the time, so when I saw something and I thought this could work a different way I always had such a great Halo encyclopedia of guys around me to tell me “No, this probably wouldn’t happen, that would happen, this would happen.” So, yeah I mean there’s always – as an actor you always kind of interact and interpret a scene differently than another person would, so there would be things where I’d be like maybe I can change it or ad-lib, but I didn’t do anything that strayed too far from who he is. I think I just had such a great group around me that knew pretty much everything there is to know about this world so that helped a huge amount.

I bet! Was there anything, I mean you obviously have had many other movie roles previous to this – you were Colossus. Was there anything different that you had to do when you’re in the Master Chief suit? Was there anything you did to prepare differently for this role as you have maybe have for any of your previous roles?

I did take some military firearms training when I was in L.A. which were kind of cool, so I got to shoot live rounds – I think they were the M4 Carbine guns on this sort of obstacle course and got used to really firing the guns properly and moving properly with them. But, besides that it’s tough because you’re in the suit and whenever you’re wearing a suit you’ve kind of got to over act in a way so that it translates better on film because slight movements don’t really work in suits, you have to kind of be larger than life. But then at the same time I’m acting through the mask with these other actors, so that itself has to be just normal acting, you can’t be over the top, you can’t be campy, so I’m kind of counteracting, going against everything, like everything is kind of off and weird because little bits are huge and big, but the acting and the voice and everything is normal, so it was a strange kind of place to be.

So, when you’re in that suit – I mean, we’ve read that the suit was made so that you could obviously move in it and it wasn’t so stiff, but what was it like wearing that suit? How long did it take to get into it, and be perfectly honest when you answer this: Did you feel like a total badass?

[Laughter] You know, 100% of the suit was made over by Legacy in L.A. and it was amazing because it was a 3D model of my body, so it’s to the exact specifications of who I am and my shape. The under suit was a sort of thicker rubber, it sort of felt like you were with a really, really tight wetsuit on and then the pieces all go over the top. It added some weight and some restrictions so you just had to – everything was exaggerated with movement, you just kind of had to push that much harder. So after, you know, five hours is fine, but when you’re on the eight, ten hour sort of mark on a shooting day you really start to feel it, and you’re just sweating constantly. It’s definitely a unique thing, but I mean the first time I put the suit on it was just raw rubber and plastic and it was all black, it was one of those moments whenever I look in the mirror and I’m like “How could you not feel badass?!”

[Laughter] That’s awesome! Aside from the suit, we’ve kind of covered all that, what was production like on a film like this? Was it any different than any other films you’ve been in before?

That’s the thing you start thinking about because right now webisodes and web series are so much in their infancy, but I sort of feel that’s the direction that things are going to go. So everything you kind of see is people doing it in their backyard with a very limited budget, but a big imagination, so you kind of see them and the production value’s not there because they don’t have the money. So, whenever something like this comes along you think “Oh, it’s a webisode, it’s kind of going to be this lower budget thing and it’s just going to be scrambling to get this thing together.” but the production value on this was like any film or TV show I’ve worked on. It was very high, everyone was unbelievable, and from what I’ve seen -image-quality wise- it’s going to be really cool, it’s going to be feature-quality.

Very cool, we are definitely looking forward to it. So you have done some stunt performing roles, did you get to do any of your own stunts in the full get-up, and did any of that help you land this part at all?

Yeah, first part of the question, I did everything, every stunt that the character does in this thing I did. It was definitely – you know you find that landing on your back a lot of times will come close to knocking the wind out of you, when you have sixty pounds extra on top of you you feel like a small child lands on top of you at the same time. So I definitely had some days in the morning when I wasn’t walking quite as as briskly as I was before. And at the same time just the fact that I have done a lot of stunt acting has really helped in me getting the role. Like you said, you needed someone that could do everything in the suit and be the right size and be the right height and I just happened fit into there.

The big thing about Master Chief is that his face is never revealed. Did you have any reservations or anything about just essentially being the guy behind the mask for this whole film?

Yeah, as an actor you always have those feelings, you’re like “I’d rather be playing characters where I am kind of more out there, I’m not hidden.” Especially when you’re trying to move forward because someone is going to want to look at your past work and you’re in a suit, you can’t even see yourself. And then you kind of really think about the character and the universe this is a part of and it’s kind of almost impossible to say no to something like this, it’s just so cool. Like I said, when I got into that suit I was like, “Man, this is awesome!” And yeah, there are some moments where you’re like “If I could only just take the helmet off…” but it really kind of would ruin the project, it would ruin the whole thing because that just never happens, right? There’s a bit of both, but at the end of it I was pumped that I got to play the character.

With Halo 4 we are starting into a new Halo Trilogy as far as the video games go and 343 Industries has taken that over as the new caretakers of the Halo franchise, and part of what they are saying is they want to reach new audiences with the video game and Forward Unto Dawn is definitely them attempting to do that, so do you think this film is going to play a big part in that, and how does it feel to be adding to that to bring Halo to perhaps a new generation and a new realm of fans aside from the hardcore gamers?

When you look at just this project that we were working on, Forward Unto Dawn really is just a full feature that stands on its own, and with that the whole marketing ploy with this is to see how this can look on film, and for fans who just have no idea, they don’t know – well I guess not fans, but people who just really don’t know about the video game, they can sit there and they can watch it and they don’t even need to know the video game, it’s really all self-explanatory and runs just like a great sci-fi movie. And then hopefully that will kind of get them going more “Hey, there’s a whole other background with sci-fi books and also a plethora of great video games.” So if you want to jump in to that then it’s somewhere they can just walk into it, and they don’t feel like they are just going to go into the video game and feel like they have no idea what they’re doing.

Did you get a chance to play Halo 4 at all? Did they let you get hands on with the game to prepare?

When I was down at Comic Con I played sort of like – they had I think just a couple of missions and small pieces for everyone to play and I got linked up with the guys who pretty much play it every day and test the game. So I’m going against these guys, and I was like literally walking two feet and dying and then coming back to life and then dying again, and then coming back to life and dying again and I don’t even know where I’m getting shot from and these guys are just laughing, howling the whole time. So, the quality of the game was amazing.

[Laughter] You have our sympathies! We know how that goes! Chris, who’s helping me with this interview, we have an obligatory question [from his wife] we have to ask. She is a big Twilight fan and we understand that you play Felix who’s from the Volturi in Twilight. So, she wants to know who you think would win in a fight between Felix and Master Chief.

Oh man! This is going to get me hated by one side of fans! I think it’s got to be Master Chief, man. Yeah, I mean, he’s got guns, and he’s got the armor and he’s bigger and stronger, so I mean, I think Felix would be going down pretty quickly.

Awesome! That’s pretty much all we had for you Daniel, we appreciate you joining us. Just to kind of wrap things up, what’s a final thought you’d like to leave with the fans of the Halo series on why they should be excited for Forward Unto Dawn and something you’re the most excited about with the film.

I just think as a stand alone movie with this huge, vast universe that we can kind of pull from, what the two brothers, the Helbing brothers, wrote and what Stewart Hendler directed us on and the young actors we got and the quality of it, it’s just going to be such a cool, exciting project that I know a ton of people have been waiting for and it’s not going to disappoint. And I think that’s the great thing about it, you know, again, just the quality and how cool this is going to be from what I’ve seen, it’s badass, and Master Chief’s in there having a good time.

Well Daniel, thank you so much. We are really looking forward to checking out Forward Unto Dawn, and just best of luck to you and all your endeavors man, I mean, you’re Master Chief now so congratulations!

Well thank you very much, I appreciate it.

Watch for the interview soon on our iTunes feed, and be sure to check out Daniel Cudmore being a badass as Master Chief in Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn on  Machinima Prime and Halo Waypoint! You can check out our review of the first episode here!

I had the opportunity to have an early look at the first episode of the Halo web series Forward Unto Dawn so here’s my thoughts on it. For those that don’t know, Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn is a live-action web series set in the Halo universe and will feature Master Chief and other characters that will appear in Halo 4. It takes place at the start of the human and Covenant war and leads up to the events of Halo 4. The series will be initially released weekly as individual episodes and will also see a Blu-ray and DVD release on December 4, 2012, which after seeing this first episode I’m likely to pickup. Both existing Halo fans and people unfamiliar with the Halo universe should be able to watch and enjoy it as it is meant to stand on its own. I love the Halo universe so I hope that it acts as a great way for new fans to jump in and share the experience.

I don’t want to discuss the plot much or spoil any of the story so I’ll just touch on it here. The opening was probably my favorite part and gave me pretty good nerd chills. It seems to take place somewhere close to the start of Halo 4 and implies some pretty cool things about how the game might begin. It then quickly jumps back in time. The first episode follows Thomas Lasky and sets up some of the story. He is a cadet in a military training program and seems to be struggling with the morality of the decisions being made around him and the direct orders he is given.

This first episode is somewhat uneventful, and Master Chief has yet to make an appearance, but I’m OK with that. I’m just glad we are able to see the fidelity and get a taste of where this is going without being overwhelming. I imagine that the Chief will be making an explosive entrance to save the cadets or something. That is to say, it’ll be an exciting introduction.

Do yourself a favor and watch, or rather listen, with headphones at minimum. The sound is phenomenal. Voices are clear, loud, and strong. Weapons sounds are realistic with a nice punchy sound not unlike the new audio sound direction for Halo 4. The music is great and sounded distinctly Halo at one specific part where the camera takes you on a high flyover above a dirt road. Definitely watch with sound from something other than your standard laptop speakers as the sound design and extra bass from nice speakers really added to the experience for me.

There was previous talk about the preview footage not looking quite right on various sites and forums. I feel confident in saying that the final version looks damn awesome. I feel that shots are framed quite well, the locations and scenery look great, and the effects of editing and polish show. More importantly though, it looks and feels like Halo. I always worried about what a live action Halo show might look like from a military or civilian perspective, and I wasn’t sure in my own head what that would look like, but I feel that Forward Unto Dawn nails it. The military base looks futuristic with some familiar Halo structures, and one very familiar and tall structure just outside. A Pelican can even be seen flying above the base. While the living quarters of the cadets looked fairly cold and barren, the smooth metallic surfaces of the walls, floors, and bunks felt appropriate for Halo. The cadet’s helmets feature an electronic heads up display that looks very similar to the HUD in Halo games, including the radar with red dots for enemies. Muzzle fire from the famous Halo assault rifle is bright and flashy. Orange glowing holographic screens make a showing in a few scenes and their sections are flicked and dragged around with the motion of the operator’s hands, reminiscent of both Human and Forerunner terminals from the Halo games. An awesome full size vehicle makes a brief appearance, one I can’t wait to see in action in later episodes. The only think that felt off were the suits the cadets wear. The helmet looks very plastic like and oversized making the actors wearing them appear smaller than they are. The chest, shoulder, knee and foot pieces also seem very plastic like and very loose fitting. They don’t quite look right, but perhaps its due to the young cadets being in training and maybe the armor sets are not battle-ready. I will say that their overall shape and look is very fitting and looks very similar to what the marines in Halo games are wearing.

I must admit that I am not one that is great at critiquing acting. I felt the actors did a great job playing the parts and I am interested in learning more about the characters. A few insults were thrown around and their banter definitely made them feel like fresh young cadets.

Halo fans will love Forward Unto Dawn, but anyone should be able to watch, especially those that like sci-fi. Its not over the top and everything feels grounded. Prior Halo knowledge isn’t necessary, but for fans there’s lots to pickup on and its right at home in the Halo fiction.

I found myself watching with a giant grin that didn’t let up. The ending implies some awesome stuff is about to happen, and I’m excited to see where the series goes. This is Halo live-action done right and I can’t wait for more.

You can catch the first episode of Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn today on Machinima Prime and Halo Waypoint.

“In the early days of the western United States, a masked man and an Indian rode the plains, searching for truth and justice. Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear, when from out of the past come the thundering hoofbeats of the great horse Silver! The Lone Ranger rides again!”

It’s been hinted at for a while and oft-delayed due to budget concerns, but tonight Disney finally unveiled the first trailer for the upcoming (Summer 2013) Lone Ranger movie. Truth be told, there is not to much to glean from this early teaser. You do get too see some footage and a voice-over from Johnny Depp as Tonto. Surprisingly  there are only a couple of scenes with either him or Armie Hammer as the Lone Ranger. If I were to base this movie on this teaser, it’d actually look like the train is the star!

Seriously though, I’ve always been a fan of the Ranger, and as long as Disney and director Gore Verbinski keep true to the Ranger’s code, it should be pretty enjoyable. I’m kind of holding out hope that the last scene will take place in the 30’s where the Lone Ranger’s son Dan Reid is relating the tale to his son Britt, who is then inspired to be the Green Hornet, but that’s just my fanboyishness coming through. At any rate, it’ll probably be better than Cowboys Vs. Aliens!

“>httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vz0PUiPexVQ

Back during the San Diego Comic-Con, I got a chance to chat with Stan Sakai about his upcoming collaboration with Mike Richardson, 47 Ronin. We also talked about Akira Kurosawa and future plans for Usagi Yojimbo (which I think sounds amazing.)

He’s been one of my favorite comics creators for as long as I can remember, and he’s one of the nicest men I’ve ever had the pleasure of interviewing to boot.

The first issue hits comic book stores on November 7th, you’ll want to add it to your hold now. Here’s the official description from the solicitation:

Among the best-known tales in Japanese history, the legend of the 47 Ronin and their epic mission to avenge their disgraced master epitomizes the samurai code of honor. It has been said, “To know the story of the 47 Ronin is to know Japan.” Retold through the ages, the legend at last comes to comics in a meticulously researched and beautifully illustrated miniseries from Mike Richardson, Stan Sakai, and editorial consultant Kazuo Koike! Recounting this sweeping tale of honor and violence in all its grandeur, chapter one details the tragic incident that would seal the fate of Lord Asano and set forty-seven of his vassals on a years-long path of vengeance.

And, without further ado, here’s the interview:

Stan Sakai: I’m Stan Sakai, I’m the creator, writer, artist of Usagi Yojimbo. I’ve been doing doing Usagi for, going on, 28 years now, and along the way, I’ve received a number of awards, such as a few Eisners, I’m also nominated this year for outstanding series and best lettering for the Eisners. It’s been translated into more than a dozen languages, toys, all kinds of stuff.
Bryan Young: One of the things that I noticed reading the book, I absolutely adore, because it feels like I’m watching a rabbit in a Kurosawa film.

SS: Yes, yes.

BY: You know, I wanted to know, what’s your favorite Kurosawa film?

SS: Oh, Seven Samurai, definitely.

BY: Seven Samurai?

SS: Yes, don’t even have to think about it.

BY: Ok, that was an easy answer.

SS: Seven Samurai and Yojimbo, is wonderful, and I got to see the funny ones, and he’s just very powerful. It was a unique experience. I have his autograph.

BY: Was this before you started Usagi, or after?

SS: You know, I think just after I started.

BY: Yeah, that must have been incredible.

SS: It was, it was, ‘cause I, I’ve idolized his work for years, ‘cause I’ve been in film for such a long time. Most of my storytelling is taken more from film than from comic books. The pacing, the direction and just the overall compositions and things. I’m influenced more by film than comic books.

BY: And I think that comes across in the books. As far as 47 Ronin, what can you tell me about that, and how is that going to affect Usagi’s schedule?

SS: Well, Mike Richardson has been working on the script for an idea for the 47 Ronin for about 25 years, and he approached me and said if we could put Usagi on hiatus for awhile, then we’ll do a 5 issue 47 Ronin story that will be reprinted as a graphic album, and I grew up knowing the 47 Ronin story. Basically, the Lord Asada was ordered to commit seppuku, which is ritualized suicide because he drew his sword in the shogun’s palace, and he drew it against another person, Lord Kira, and he, the shogun, also confiscated his lands and pretty much disbanded the entire clan, all his samurai became masterless, ronin, and it took them about 3 years, because they were being followed and scrutinized, and it took them about 3 years to gain their revenge against Kira, and it’s one of the most pivotal most well known stories or incidences in Japanese history, and I grew up knowing it, even from grade school, so when Mike approached me to do the story, I said, Oh of course, so Usagi is on hiatus right now, while I’m finishing up the story.

BY: And how far into that are you currently? (Note, this was as of 7/12)

SS: I’m just inking the second issue right now. Even though I’ve been doing stories about Feudal Japan for years, there’s still so much research that has to be done for this because, the clan crest has to be correct, locations have to be correct, things like that. It’s a lot more in depth research than even I’m normally used to.

BY: So you’re making sure it’s as historically accurate as you can get?

SS: Partly, because we have a technical advisor, Kazuo Koike, who is the creator of Lone Wolf and Cub, and he’s acted as technical advisor, and it’s, what can I say? It’s working with one of the great legends of comics and manga throughout the world.

BY: That sounds like you’re having a lot of fun working on it.

SS: I am, I am, and Mike’s scripts are great, they’re easy to follow, and he’s open to ideas that I may have, such as, I would say, ‘well I don’t think it should be this way’, or ‘let’s make it this way’. Or ‘you have him reading, you have this person reading, let’s have him writing something because he is reading in another scene here’, or ‘if you want a greater impact, let’s do it this way rather than that way’. He’s very much open to it. He says it’s collaboration, but it’s his words and things, but he more than welcomes me to have my own input into the stories.

BY; What sort of movies, Kurosawa or otherwise, are you looking to for inspiration on 47 Ronin?

SS: Well, all his samurai movies, especially, even from Who Treads on the Tiger’s Tail, which is one of his more obscure ones, to Yojimbo and Sanjuro , and Ran, I love the sweeping epicness of Ran.

BY: And then what’s going to happen to Usagi when you come back?

SS: Well I want, the plan right now, is that I’ll start working on Usagi towards the end of this year, 2012, and I want to come back with a 6 issue mini-series. Because I want to do something, very — different. Basically, it will be Usagi and War of the Worlds, with Martians and tripods, and what would happen if Martians had sent a scout ship to feudal Japan 200 years before H. G. Wells’ War of the Worlds, and we’ll have tripods against giant samurai armies in armor, and ninja versus the aliens and all kinds of stuff.

BY: That sounds amazing.

SS: But it won’t be historically accurate!

BY: No, no, not at all, but that was actually another of my questions. Are you going to do more in the Space Usagi?

SS: There is one final Space Usagi mini series I would like to do, but I want to concentrate on Usagi for a while, and after the mini series, I want to continue the numbering of the regular Usagi Yojimbo series, and basically pretty much pick up where I left off.

BY: That’s great, thank you very much.

SS: Thank you.

Can you imagine? War of the Worlds playing out in the pages of Usagi Yojimbo? That sounds so fun to me. And the possibility that we’re getting more Space Usagi makes me happy.

If 47 Ronin sounds like your cup of tea (and if you’ve read this far, I’m assuming it is) check out these pages from the book.

Fall marks the arrival of many things I love. Pumpkin Spice lattes, long sleeve plaid shirts, and the beginning of the NHL season. Well guess what jerks! You probably ain’t getting any hockey. So you I you want to be involved in the world’s fastest sport while drinking pumpkin spice lattes and wearing a sweet long sleeved plaid shirt you should march down to your local electronic game distribution house and pick up NHL 13. If no one else is going to win Lord Stanley’s Cup it might as well be you.

I have played ever incarnation of the EA NHL franchise since 1994. The systems on which I played them have all come and gone but the excitement for the new release has never left. I’ve had my hands on NHL 13 for about a week now and I have to admit that EA has set the bar insanely high with this release. I have made a quick write up concerning the bad, the good, and the indifferent of Electronic Art’s latest puck fueled offering.

The Bad

Heaven forbid EA release a title without one thing going wrong. Last year it was the near game breaking bug that caused NHL 12 to freeze at the beginning of every third period of an online versus match. This is an issue that to my knowledge, they NEVER addressed. Gamers were forced to do a manual install and deletion of certain files just to get the game to run properly.

This year, the major boner occurred with the Game Stop pre-order codes. These codes allowed you access to one Gold Pack of player’s cards every week, for 13 weeks. This is a huge deal. The Hockey Ultimate Team feature is very popular amongst online players and to not have your bases covered for such a huge incentive is just lame. It’s been out for nearly 8 days my STILL doesn’t work (white people problem). EA addressed the issue on their forums on launch day. No information other than “Yeah we know” has come to light.

A small glitch that’s affecting a few players is what’s being called the “Attack Glitch”. When a player is behind the net at the same time a player is within the crease, a small striped box appears in the attack zone. It’s nothing that stops the flow of play it’s just damn distracting. I’m going to wait until Friday to see if an update gets put out that fixes this. If not, I will return my copy for a new one and see if that solves the problem.

The Good

Last year’s game was all about puck control. Using your analog stick to direct all things stick handling, pushed the game to a whole new level. This year is all about speed. By pushing down on the left analog stick, you now control the speed of your skater. NOT ALL PLAYERS ARE CREATED EQUAL! If the opposing team’s attacker is a speed freak then he is going to blow past the slower defense. However, this also makes him susceptible to poke checks and being knocked off balance. You definitely sacrifice control for speed. If you give the analog stick a quick push your player will make a quick sprint and pick up the pace of his sprint for the first few strides. If you hold the stick down longer, the player hit’s a mad dash into the attack. There’s no more stopping on a dime and instead the player can make a quick turn back towards the play. Depending on your speed, prior to your change in direction, determines how sharp of a turn you can make. If you’re hauling ass and you try to pop a 90 degree cut, your player will mostly likely spin out and fall over like someone doing a dizzy bat relay. This goes for players with and without the puck. It’s a big step for the game to make and it does it very smooth and effectively.

Aside from the ability to sprint EA has raised the bar with how goalies react within the game. The franchise has always wanted their goalie animations to look fluid and realistic. Unfortunately the emphasis on appearance caused the goalies to be super predictable. It used to be very easy to skate the puck down one side, allow the goalie to make the move toward you, and then quickly fire it back across for a one-timer. NHL 13 offers goalies that are soo self aware that I now thoroughly believe SKYNET will be the death of us all. Goalies no longer appear to be on a track and instead seem to be making their own decisions based on where the puck is, how many attackers are in their line of site, and how is the puck being played in the attack zone. You can get a goalie out of position, but it’s going to take some time and creativity to really sneak one by them.

The puck is more alive now than it ever has been. Handling a piece of 1×3 rubber on a frozen plane of water isn’t easy in real life and it’s not easy here. The puck will take crazy bounces, hit dead spots in the boards, and get misdirected just like it would if you were really out there trying to beat Iceland in the Goodwill Junior Games. That’s a D2: The Mighty Ducks Are Back reference. Quack….Quack….Quack. Gordon Bombay. Charlie Conway.

My favorite addition to NHL 13 is the ability to play the puck off of the goalie’s pads. Previous games had the goalies giving up few rebounds. Most likely a shot would get caught with the glove, or directed off to the side of the net and away from the play. In NHL 13 you have the ability to take a hard, low shot directly at the goalies pads and because of the adjustments to how the puck moves, you can position yourself and your teammates to drive the rebound home. This works great in a 2 on 1 situation where you can’t make a pass. Direct a slap shot to the low, far side pad and hope your other attacker is there to get it. It doesn’t sound like a huge deal to people unfamiliar with hockey. To those in the know, this is a real strategy that teams utilize all the time and one that I always hoped EA would incorporate.

The Indifferent

The hits are more realistic. Unless your player is tearing ass across the rink and lands a blindside check, you’re not going to get the rag doll slams that you would have last year. Hitting is a big part of the game sure, but it’s more about gaining position than destroying a dude against the glass. NHL 13 does a good job of making sure not every check looks like a career ender. It doesn’t add or take away from the game play it’s just a neat adjustment.

I don’t know if it’s something I just never noticed or if it’s something the developers fixed but all the arenas look more true to life. I’ve spent many a nights in the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville and when the game displays the arenas in in-game cut scenes you can definitely see the attention they paid to making the game as realistic as possible.

Like I mentioned before, these yearly installments are the only reason I own a console. Other games are merely time killers or things I play between long stints of me yelling at my TV because I out shot some 12 year old 35 – 10 and they still beat me 1-0. My neighbors have twice banged on the floor because they don’t seem to understand that I play for keeps. They have ZERO room to talk. Every time some first person shooter comes out my apartment building sounds like a Gaddafi sponsored BBQ. Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go lace up.

Gamertag – Patrick 3009 . PLEASE add me and play me. All my friends play Madden or Call of Doodie.

When Nintendo announced the WiiU Launch Date and pricing, they also unveiled a few other things. The title for Platinum Games entry onto the console was one of the biggies. The Wonderful 101 looked to be pretty funny from the video shown at multiple conferences, but the airstream showed me what it was truly capable of.

Imagine if you will being able to recruit any citizen in the city to your cause, your groups “superness” being so influential that they themselves will don a mask and begin fighting crime by your side. Your group has 2 methods of attack at their disposal, method 1 is your standard punching and kicking where your group en mass will dive at opponents, option 2 is a little more complex. The player will draw a shape on the wii U tablet signifying the attack they’d like. You can draw an “L” shape to give the leader a giant gun, a horizontal line to turn the entire group into a sword, or circling everybody up turns them into a big angry fist. These moves of course require energy, and that energy is gained by smashing baddies with normal attacks. Your group also has a dodge button “RT” which turns the group into a sort of snake that then dives over the attack coming at them. That is a basic rundown of the combat system, it’s pretty simple to begin but definitely unfolds as you level up your team, and get further into the story line.

The circle brings a fist!

While recruiting citizen’s there are certain ones that become “SPECIAL HEROES”, the good folks at Nintendo wouldn’t go into too much detail on exactly what the heroes do, but having them seems to unlock content, and make your team more powerful.

I find it tough to describe the game play exactly, but the closest comparison I could find was Marvel Ultimate Alliance meets Pikmin. Your heroes combine to fight together, and they definitely have combo attacks, but they travel in a pack very similar to the creatures in Pikmin, and unlocking different heroes that add new abilities to your crew allow you to progress further. My biggest surprise was how fluidly the game controlled through the touch screen and analog stick. The tablet control fell into my hand like any controller would, and it wasn’t challenging to reach to the touch screen and draw the desired shape, before returning to my normal buttons. It also saves the previous shape drawn, so if for example, the fist is your thing, you can simply press the super power button and the fist will form up, you would only need the touch screen to change attack styles.

If this game makes it out at launch, I imagine it will be one of the top seller’s. Among Indie games and DLC, which are looking to be the biggest category for the first few weeks. Nintendo hasn’t given us any specific details as to which titles will be available in just over a month, but this one will be here before the end of March 2013.

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