This week, your friendly local comic book shop is taken over by the battle of the big summer events. Both Marvel and DC have issues featuring their big summer blockbuster stories this week.
DC’s offering is part four of the Trinity War in Justice League of America #7. Meanwhile, Marvel kicks off its big summer miniseries with the return of Thanos in Infinity #1.
If you’re looking for something from a publisher other than the big two this week, I’ll give you a debut and a conclusion to keep your eyes open for. Video game fans might be interested in Halo: Initiation #1. And the Doomsday.1 miniseries wraps up with Doomsday.1 #4.
How far can nostalgia carry a game? Perhaps more importantly, what matters more when evaluating an updated version of a classic game: How it stacks up by today’s standards or how it stacks up to the original game?
I feel as though that’s the problem that faced many reviewers when they evaluated DuckTales: Remastered. Some evaluated it on its own merits by today’s standards and some compared it to the NES classic. When I first checked MetaCritic, it was literally split down the middle with half evaluating the game compared to the original and the remainder evaluating the game on modern platformer standards.
I’m kind of glad that I haven’t received a copy from Capcom because I’m not sure how to best critique an HD remake of a favourite of everyone who grew up with an NES. From the looks of it, the critics can’t agree how to rate DuckTales: Remastered either.
A number of high-level competitive StarCraft II players have publicly stated that they haven’t been paid their prize from the finals of IGN Pro League 5 which took place last December.
While I was watching last weekend’s StarCraft II regional finals with tens of thousands of other people, hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of people were watching the biggest even in the history of eSports.
DOTA 2’s world championship, The International, saw the win and a $1.43 million first-place prize go to Alliance after an epic winner-takes-all match to close out the best of 5 final.
With the recent news that the Mars One project had over 100,000 people apply for the one-way trip to the red planet, maybe now would be a good time to look at the logistics of actually making the trip to Mars.
Space physicist, Martin Archer, explains how humanity would be able to make it to Mars with current technology but also details the dangers that astronauts face when making an interplanetary journey.
Apple fans, mark your calendars. AllThingsD say that their sources tell them that Apple is planning its next big announcement on September 10th.
The expected big news to come from this year’s big iPhone event is Apple launching a lower-priced iPhone 5 to compete with some of the lower cost offerings running Android and Windows Phone without selling year-old models at a marginally lower price.
Warner Bros. is reportedly looking for an actor in his 40s to play Batman in Batman/Superman (AKA Man of Steel 2). [Hollywood Reporter]
I trust that proper Doctor Who fans aren’t worried about the casting of Peter Capaldi as the 12th Doctor. Just in case you still are, it turns out that Capaldi wanted to run the official Doctor Who fan club back when he was a teenager. [Digital Spy]
It’s not just Americans who are having their email searched by the NSA. If you’re sending an email into America, it’s being read too. [New York Times]
One of the devs working on the upcoming indie title Road Redemption talks about how games go wrong in development using the specific example of Ride to Hell: Retribution. [Road Redemption]
Sebastian Moss lets you in on a little secret about VG247. They have a terrible internal policy about sourcing which undermines the real newsbreakers and would seem to favour their parent site, Eurogamer. You already know what I think about the state of gaming journalism. Glad to know I’m not the only writer concerned. [PlayStation LifeStyle]
If you’re a fan of the North American StarCraft II scene, now might be a good time to worry. Yesterday, Major League Gaming co-founder and CEO Sundance DiGiovanni tweeted that MLG’s November championship event in Columbus will not include a StarCraft II tournament.
As a result of this move by MLG, there are no major SC2 LAN tournaments held in North America.
As part of their corporate policies, Microsoft has mandated that they can’t go more than a few weeks without doing something to annoy their current and potential future consumer base.
So August’s early frontrunner for Xbone move of the month is Microsoft confirming that users will only be able to use the Xbox One’s ability to record gameplay if you are an Xbox Live Gold member.
Wait. What?
No, that’s not a typo or a joke, I think. Third installment in the Dead Island franchise, to be called Dead Island: Epidemic, will not be a co-op first-person shooter but will instead be Deep Silver’s entry into the Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) genre.
et geekera 