Hello, everyone, Budgetron here.  I have just returned from the 5 day assault that is Comic con and all I have to say is, amidst all the craziness on the floor, I had one moment stand out above all the rest.  And oddly enough, that moment seemed to have taken place in 1988.  I don’t know what asshole at the event that stole Doc Browns patented flux technology, but I’m glad he did.  As most of you can tell by the title of this post, I am here to tell you of the awesome glory of Capcom’s Mega Man 9!  Just so you know how much awesomeness you can be prepared for, here’s the box art!

Now, for any of you bots who played the original back in the day, you realize how awesome this art is, but even for me, the unmitigated retro-ness of it all was not enough to ease my fears.  You see, I have been burned before by a “going back to its roots” style of game called “New Super Mario Bros.”  I felt it was fun the first time through, but the developers forgot what was fun about the old ones, while simultaneously trying to convince us that’s what they were trying to recreate.  The dev team on NSMB forgot the fun that comes from dying a lot and finding the secrets on your own (I hate how all new games treat its players like morons, “here it is, here’s your secret level,  look there!”).  I sold my copy of NSMB quickly after one play through.  So, needless to say I was hesitant to even get my hopes up about Mega Man 9, much less be crushed to tears after playing the demo.

I am here to let you all know it is time to rejoice!   I played through 2 sets of lives and never passed a level.  Now, granted, I was surrounded by other people and felt rushed, but I really do feel that this game is just as fun and difficult as the Meg Man games of the past!  I had a lot of fun, got knocked into pits by birds dropping eggs, fell off of disappearing platforms into an empty abyss, and even missed out on a big energy pill because it got stuck under the floor (bad collision detection included)!  It was so fun playing it, and I am super excited to play a hard platforming game again.  Capcom really seems to have knocked it out of the park, and everyone playing it and watching around me were happy with the product as well.  Yes, we have grown up as an industry, and the graphics have gotten sleeker, but make no mistake, the gameplay is there and your eyes will soon forget it’s looking into an 8-bit time warp, but your brain will feel like a kid again.

As an added bonus to thrifty robots everywhere, this game will be available on wii ware, and that means it’ll probably be 5-10 bucks.  Hooray for cheap thrills.

Just recently Telltale Games and Aardman announced that they would be releasing Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Adventures.  They released a Teaser Trailer you can see it here.  This game is game is supposed to play like it’s an Episode.

Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Adventures will combine the rich and imaginative storytelling the quirky inventor and his faithful canine sidekick are known for with the critically-acclaimed writing, fun gameplay, and unique TV-style format Telltale has pioneered. Assuming the roles of both Wallace and Gromit, players will spend each episode exploring a vivid world, assembling intricate contraptions, and getting the duo out of the sticky situations they frequently find themselves in. The new trailer, artwork, and additional information about the series can be found at www.telltalegames.com/wallaceandgromit.“Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Adventures extends our vision for delivering new kinds of entertainment to everyone who enjoys a good story,” says Telltale’s CEO and co-founder Dan Connors. “Wallace & Gromit has a long history of entertaining people of all ages, and the world Aardman has created is rich with humor and storytelling possibilities. Our team has been enjoying the process of adapting this series for new audiences, and we look forward to reintroducing it to long-time fans in the episodic format that Telltale has been innovating.”

Sean Clarke, Head of Marketing & Licensing at Aardman, adds: “Wallace and Gromit are much-loved characters with cross generational appeal who will work perfectly in this kind of game-playing environment. Telltale is a leading producer of interactive gaming and we are delighted to partner with them on this exciting new project.”

Telltale’s new series is one of several upcoming Wallace & Gromit releases. Later this year, the characters will return to TV with an all-new and original Aardman short entitled “A Matter of Loaf and Death.” DVD compilations of the duo’s best shorts to date are also coming soon from Aardman.

As long as this game is funny like the Movies or Shorts this game should be worth playing at least once.  This isnt’ the first time a TV/Movie has gone in to games to finish or add to there stories Futurama is an example of this.  And if you ask me it’s great news that they are releasing new episodes of Wallace & Gromit as well.

The official website of Spider-Man: Web of Shadows, seizecontrol.com posted the full trailer for the game. The website is actually really cool, you should definitely check it out if you haven’t already. Personally, I think this game has the potential to be epically awesome and I can’t wait to check it out! Check out the full trailer below!

Spider-Man: Web of Shadows hits store shelves on October 21st on all platforms!

New York City has been invaded and only Spider-Man can save it.Control everything. “Spider-Man: Web of Shadows” gives you an unprecedented level of gameplay choice, including, for the first time, control over the game’s direction and outcome. Choose how Spider-Man fights, which powers to upgrade, who in the Marvel Universe to fight with or against, and the fate of New York City itself.

Choose wisely…

This Week their were 3 games released 1 WiiWare and 2 Virtual Console.  As usual we will start with WiiWare games.

WiiWare
Pong Toss—Frat Party Games (JV Games, 1-4 players, Rated E for Everyone—Mild Language, 800 Wii Points): Pony up—it’s Pong Toss time. Compete against your friends or the computer in this ultimate party-game favorite. Play on a regulation table with up to four players. Make consecutive shots for the Fireball bonuses and Roll-Backs as you or your team try to dominate the table and reign as Pong Toss champs. In Speed Pong, up to three challengers can compete at the same time. Speed and strategy are the keys to this fast-paced game. Jack up your opponents by using a slew of power-ups that will slow them down. The first one who sinks the last cup wins it all. Be fast. Be furious. Be victorious.

This game doesn’t really interest me because if you have the Wii then you pretty much have the best Ping-Pong(Tennis) game on Wii Sports.  But I’m sure it has a bit better functions,  Just like I would expect that the new Mario Super Sluggers will be better in minor ways compared to it’s Wii Sports counter part.

Next are the Virtual Console games.

Virtual Console

Chase H.Q. (TurboGrafx16, 1 player, Rated E10+ for Everyone 10 and Older—Drug Reference, Mild Violence, 600 Wii Points): This is a different style of racing game in which you attempt to catch criminals by chasing them and ramming their cars off the road. Playing as two cops from the NYPD special “CHASE H.Q.” unit, the first half of each stage involves you maneuvering your unmarked car in a heated chase, followed by an action sequence in the latter half. Once you reach the target vehicle, you flip on your lights and siren, and then try to stop the culprits by repeatedly colliding with them. Use your different gears wisely as you make your way through streets and around corners, and be careful not to hit objects or other cars, or you’ll lose speed. Also at your disposal are turbo units for temporary extra speed and ramming power.

Chase H.Q. is a old school Driving game that you had to Catch the bad guy.  I wouldn’t recommend this game because it seems as though you might as well be playing a better game such as MarioKart (Wii version or any other version for that matter.)

The last game that came out today was Art of Fighting 2

Art of Fighting 2 (NEOGEO, 1-2 players, Rated T for Teen—Alcohol and Tobacco Reference, Violence, 900 Wii Points): Released in 1994 by SNK, ART OF FIGHTING 2 sees 12 characters compete for the title in the toughest fighting contest of them all: King of Fighters. Each character has a range of deadly techniques in his or her arsenal, and players must use these lethal techniques to fight their opponents. As in the original ART OF FIGHTING, however, using a deadly technique lowers a character’s mental-energy gauge. For this reason, players must use these techniques carefully. Meanwhile, players can taunt an opponent to exhaust his or her mental energy, and even suppress their opponent’s techniques if successful. This type of mental-energy offense and defense gives ART OF FIGHTING 2 a uniquely enjoyable spin on the fighting-game genre. Further adding to the strategy required to win, an attack will become stronger or weaker depending on exactly when the button is pressed. And even if a player is thrown, defensive action is possible with the timely press of a button. All of this adds up to an intense and nail-biting fighting-game experience not found anywhere else.

As always these games are good but their are so many choices of Fighting games that it comes down to which ones you played most as a child.  I don’t remember this one all too well but if your into 2d fighters then I’m sure you’ll want to add it to your collection.

Let’s just say, I wasn’t disappointed. When I found out the Ghostbusters booth had a playable demo, I knew where I’d be spending a good portion of my time.

Up front were two laptops to sign up for news coverage (spam). But, the reason to do so was to get a free shirt, laniard, Ecto-1 license plate, and Stay Puft Marshmallow flavored Lip Balm. Seriously cool stuff.

The demo starts off in front of the New York City Library. You, Ray, Egon and Winston stand on the stairs to the Library as a crowd cheers your names. After taking it in for a few seconds, the boys in grey gather around one of the statues up front. They whip out their PKE meters and start scanning. The statue then explodes and two ghosts go flying into the library. The chase is on.

I’m not going to give you a play by play of the rest of the demo. If you want to watch it, Gamespot has a pretty sweet video with Ryan French talking about the game. I’m just going to go over a few highlights.

• Ryan told us they scripted the game so that every 15 feet something funny / fun / or scary would happen. Like in the movie, when you expect something scary to happen, you’ll end up laughing. When you expect to laugh, you’ll end up getting scared.

• In the game, Ray tells Egon he wishes Venkman was there to see help catch the Library ghost. This raises the question, where is Venkman? Did he quit? Is he back on tv with his psychic show? Maybe he ran away with Dana? Or perhaps it didn’t work out with her, so he’s the fallen hero? I dunno.

• The panel for Ghostbusters was cancelled due to a “scheduling conflict,” according to the guy in charge. He said it was their fault, but not his fault. He wasn’t very clear. So instead of having to sit through a panel, he just filled me in on the multiplayer. Probably one of the more exciting tid-bits. With the PC, Xbox and PS3 versions, you’ll be able to link up with 3 friends and playing exclusive co-op missions. You’ll meet up at the firehouse where Janine will take calls and send you out into the field.

There’s still lots more info coming in for the game. I’ll post more as I get it.

I went to the comic-con this year for two of the five days, but I got to see some good panels, and got some insight on some projects that I was interested in.

I was about 10 minutes late for the first panel I went into, it was for the movie “Push” all I want to say is that, what I saw of it,  it didn’t look that good. But I only saw one clip that somehow felt like the matrix, and heard Chris Evans talk about why he likes acting.

They cleared the stage, and Alex Proyas came out, for his movie “Knowing“. This movie stars Nicolas Cage.

(Thank god he wasn’t there. Two years ago I saw him there for Ghost Rider, and he is such a doped out rock star using narcissistic quotes such as “This is the part, I was born to play” and “I am Johnny Blaze”)

The trailer for this movie doesn’t look completely bad, but there is a frighteningly bad cliffhanger question that makes me worry a little bit. Alex Proyas talked a lot about the movie, and how that he focuses on quality over quantity when it comes to making movies. I am semi-excited to see this, but only because I trust Alex Proyas as a director. After the trailer, and talking about the movie they opened up the floor for a Q&A (There were only three people that wanted to ask him questions, I was one of them and the other two didn’t seem to know who he was.), I asked about his involvment in the possible Silver Surfer movie, and he confirmed that he was not going to be directing it.

The third part of this particular panel was for a new movie coming out called “Twilight” and so I left.

There were some cool things on the floor, the Warner Brothers booth had a full size owl ship from the set of Watchmen and Marvel had the Iron Monger.

The Capcom and Konami booths had some games I was really excited to try (but didn’t get to) Megaman 9, both of the new Castlevania  releases, and a giant Street Fighter 4 tournament area.

There didn’t seem to be as many costumes this year, but there were definitely some winners……….

I went to another panel with Jim Lee, Mike Mignola, Robert Kirkman, and Grant Morrison, They had some interesting things to say about the differences in comic book storytelling, and Movie storytelling. Mike Mignola had a bit of advice for people trying to get into comic books, which was not to create a character or do a book that you would not want to do forever, don’t do something you don’t want to do unless it is for a paycheck.

An attendee stood up in the panel and let loose on Jim Lee for not finishing the All Star Barman and Robin series fast enough. Mike Mignola jumped to his defense with the point that when he was working for DC with deadlines all his art sucked, because he was just trying to get it out there to fast, but now he does Hellboy when he wants to, and he always makes sure it is his best work before giving it to people. Jim Lee apologized but made it known he is going to give quality work, he also said that the Allstar Batman and Robin series, is going to be 20 issues, it sounded like he was joking but he predicted that it would take 5 years to get 2o done.

Robert Kirkman was asked a question about if his new position as a partner at Image was going to interfere with his work, his reply was that he thinks his work is going to get better because he is going to focus fully on his creator owned books from here on out, and that he is not going to write any more Marvel books, although there are a few series that he is going to finish out before completely dropping Marvel, and he said that his scripts for those are already turned in.

Stay tuned for Part Two which will post tomorrow, where I give rundowns of the Watchmen and Spirit Panels.   Also, we talk about the Vertigo Panel and some cool info about Fables.

Konami Announced at E3 that there were going to be 2 new Castlevania games coming out in the near future.  One of them is going to be for the Wii called Castlevania: Judgment the other is For the Nintendo DS called Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia.

Lets start off with Judgment.  This game is a new style for the Castlevania series it’s a 3d Fighter similar to Virtua Fighter or Tekken.  With little Castlevania quirks like the items dagger or the cross.

(Click on Images to enlarge)

Castlevania Judgment Product Overview

The battle between good and evil continues with Castlevania Judgment, the first Castlevania title for the Wii. Castlevania Judgment brings together the many generations of heroic vampire hunters, including the fearsome Belmont clan, as well as Dracula’s most formidable allies, and pits them against one another in the first Castlevania fighting game ever created! Choose sides from a collection of 14 battle-tested warriors in a clash of epic proportions that will span the depths of time.
Features

• Select from many of your favorite characters from the last 22 years of Castlevania games
• Characters designed by the famous manga artist Takeshi Obata
• Stunning characters and 3D environments rendered beautifully on the Wii
• Battle across several stages with environmental elements you can use to your advantage, including objects to pick up and throw
• Engage in head-to-head battle via Wi-Fi connectivity
• Connect with Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia (DS) to unlock special items

This game doesn’t really sound very good in principle but I am interested in trying it at least.  So at this point I’m looking foreword to seeing this game develop a bit more before saying it’s not worth getting.  But a Castlevania Fighter does sound a bit iffy.  This game is slated for a Fall 2008 release.

Now on to Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia this is on the Nintendo DS.  This game seems really similar to the GameBoy and Nintendo DS Castlevania titles that Konami has been releasing.

Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia Product Overview
Following on the success of Dawn of Sorrow and Portrait of Ruin the legendary Castlevania series is back on the Nintendo DS. This time you play as a member of the Ecclesia, an organization that has sworn to defeat the evil forces of Dracula. Use the brand new Glyph attack system which has more than 100 different combinations to battle Dracula and his minions throughout 20 explorable areas. Take part in side quests and collect items to power up your character in the next great Castlevania game produced by Koji Igarashi.
Product Features

• Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia features intense side-scrolling action game play as you quest to collect elements that will help you battle against Dracula
• Explore all-new outdoor areas from the forests to the ocean
• Compete head-to-head via the Nintendo DS Wi-Fi Connection
• Sell and buy items and equipment you have found while playing with other players utilizing Nintendo DS Wi-Fi Connection
• Utilize multiple abilities and attacks simultaneously with the all-new Glyph attack system
• Replay more than once to discover multiple endings
• Connect to the upcoming Wii version of Castlevania Judgment for special unlockable items

This game looks awesome so far,  and if it’s anything like the current DS Castlevania games it’s going to be amazing.  This game is planned for an October 2008 release.  I’m definitely going to say this game looks worth buying as of this point.  Although i’m a very pro old school style Castlevania so my opinion might be a little skewed.

Sony and Capcom has announced the release of an upcoming animated feature film to be released straight to DVD chronicling the events following the highly successful (and fun) Resident Evil 4. With a release date sometime before the year is over Resident Evil: Degeneration pairs up Clair Redfield and Leon S. Kennedy for the first time since their first appearance in 1998’s Resident Evil 2.

The film takes place entirely in an airport revolving around a bio terror attack that Clair happens to be at. Leon, who is now a specialist in counter bio terrorism is called in to resolve the situation. The animation looks extremely impressive and it should prove to be a very entertaining film.

Marvel has released the teaser trailer for Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2: Fusion and you should do yourself a favor and check it out.

While Marvel had this to say about the game:

“Looking for details? Characters? Storyline? Gameplay? Release Date? Sorry, friends, that’ll all have to wait! Enjoy the teaser trailer and keep checking Marvel.com over the coming months for more “Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2: Fusion” news and goodies!”

Activision has been a little more open with some information and revealed that there will be 24 playable characters in which Iron Man, Fantastic 4, Venom, Green Goblin, Spider-Man, Hulk, Captain America, and Wolverine; and since the plot seems to revolve around a global assault around Latvia so you can assume Dr. Doom will be there.

From what I can tell from the teaser I believe the “Fusion” subtitle comes from a new ability to combine character’s powers for new moves and upgrades.

The first game kicked a lot of ass and I am looking forward to the sequel, which according to a few unconfirmed sources will contain elements from Civil War. More information to come over the next few months as it is released!

During E3 Nintendo announced some new hardware one of which was WiiSpeak.  It is intended to be released this holiday season.  The first game to utilize this new accessory is Animal Crossing®: City Folk.  This game is a pretty basic looking game, and it looks a lot like any number of Sims games.

Animal Crossing: City Folk
If life were an endless vacation, what would you do? Go fishing, collect shells or watch fireworks with friends? Build a snowman, exchange presents with family or decorate your house for the holidays? Take a trip to the city, go on a shopping spree or visit friends from all over the globe? In Animal Crossing: City Folk, life moves at a relaxed pace, but the world brims with endless possibilities.

•  There’s always something new to do. In the living, breathing world of Animal Crossing: City Folk, days and seasons pass in real time, so there’s always something to discover. Catch fireflies in the summer, go trick-or-treating on Halloween or hunt for eggs on Bunny Day. If you’re in the mood for something a little faster paced, take a bus to a new urban city area that’s unique to Animal Crossing: City Folk. There you can catch a show at the theater or check out the sales at Gracie’s boutique. But if you don’t show your face back home for too long, your neighbors will miss you.
•  Up to four people from your household can live and work together to build the perfect town. Design clothes and patterns, write letters and post messages on the bulletin board for each other, or invite up to three friends to visit your town using Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection. With the new WiiSpeak microphone, it’s like you’re all in the same room. The microphone sits atop the sensor bar and picks up the conversation of everyone in the room to encourage a more inclusive experience.
• Express your personal style. Customize your town, your house and yourself by collecting bugs, fish, fossils, art, furniture, clothes and accessories. You can also go to the salon in the city to change your hairstyle and get a Mii™ makeover. Plus, if you design clothes in the tailor’s shop, animals will wear them and maybe even bring them to other towns.

I’m not too much of a fan of the Animal Crossing series, but to tell the truth I haven’t given it much of a chance.  The game it self didn’t really interest me, but the WiiSpeak accessory got me check the game out it. the game looks like it could be a fairly fun game.

The idea of connecting via Wi-Fi to friends and family, being able to talk to them with the WiiSpeak function sounds pretty cool. From my understanding of how the WiiSpeak works is you hook it up to your Wii via USB, place the reciever on your Sensorbar and it will pick up all of the talking in the room.  I’m also fairly curious if this accessory would work on a computer or on the PS3.

All in all Nintendo keeps  coming up with new accessories for everyone to buy with very few games to use them with.  A couple of examples are the Zapper, and the Wii Balance Board.  That’s not to say they couldn’t make really cool games for those accessories, It’s more that no company has yet.  I would think a good FPS with the Zapper and Balance Board would be awesome, but that would be a big risk for sales.  i.e. the company making said game would have to expect everyone to either have both accessories or to go buy them for that game.