The new game staring everyones favorite neighborhood Spider-Man has premiered at WonderCon and has been released online! From the storyline it looks like we will getting a tale centered both around the present Peter Parker Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2099. The story was penned by Peter David (The Incredible Hulk comics, and Aquaman comics) and is set for a fall release.

They say this game isn’t a sequel to “Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions”, however from what I see in the gameplay it is very similar. Take into account I played very little of “Shattered Dimensions” (a little past the Kraven level), but I did not enjoy it mostly due to clunky controls. Let’s hope this will be better!

Listen to SuperGeeks and maybe Thomas and Jeff might have a take on it! What do you guys think of it?

-Reid Ackerman

Hope you guys enjoy the episode. Be sure to send Wayne emails telling him how much you want to hear him in future episodes so we can get back to cranking out GeekiN episodes.

Gone are the down on the streets chasing the bad guys as in Batman Begins and Rise of Sin Tzu. Gone are the frustrating controls of Dark Tomorrow. Instead Rocksteady has created a stealthy action game out of Arkham Asylum.

The story is simple: Batman is escorting The Joker into Arkham for what seems to be the last time. As they descend into the gloomy atmosphere, there is an explosion. The Joker breaks free and begins to release all of Batman’s previously captured foes. With no exit and countless enemies against him, Batman must enter the belly of Arkham to capture once and for all those who would destroy him.

The following is the gameplay footage of Arkham that shows off the new Splinter Cell-like gameplay.

The game is slated for release in June.

Source: Gamespot.com

Amazon.com Video Games (Starting at 3am EST for most of these)

Animal Crossing City Folk w/ WiiSpeak bundle (Wii) – $39.95
Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway (Xbox 360/PS3) – $17.95
Dead Space (Xbox 360/PS3) – $29.95
Fallout 3 (Xbox 360/PS3) – $39.95 [Friday Only]
Fallout 3 (PC) – $29.95 [Friday Only]
Call of Duty: World at War (Xbox 360/PS3) – $49.95 [Friday Only]
Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII (PSP) – $14.95
Far Cry 2 (Xbox 360) – $49.95 [Friday Only]
Far Cry 2 (PC) – $29.95
Guild Wars Eye of the North (PC) – $9.95
Heavenly Sword (PS3) – $19.95
Infinite Undiscovery (Xbox 360) – $18.95
Left 4 Dead (PC) – $19.95
LEGO Batman (Xbox 360/Wii) – $29.95
Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe (PS3) – $39.95
Pure (Xbox 360/PS3) – $29.95
Resident Evil 4 (Wii) – $9.95
Resistance: Fall Of Man (PS3) – $14.95
Soulcalibur IV (PS3) – $39.95 [Friday Only]
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (Xbox 360) – $39.95
The Last Remnant (Xbox 360)- $39.95
Too Human (Xbox 360) – $19.95
Wario Land: Shake It! (Wii) – $29.95
Xbox 360 Wireless Controller – $29.95

Amazon Movies (From 5am to 2pm EST)

DVD New Releases Under $10, Blu-ray Hits Under $15, Entourage Seasons 1-3 at $9.99 Each

Walmart.com

Xbox 360 Thanksgiving Bundle – From $288

• Your choice of Xbox 360 console
• Additional wireless controller
• 1-yr Xbox LIVE Gold Subscription
• 2 games included with your console
• Your choice of an additional game

DeepDiscount.com

Buffy the Vampire Slayer – The Chosen Collection – $81.59

…adding more as I find them and get them typed up

Included in the Fallout 3 content, is the following:

• Operation: Anchorage. Enter a military simulation and fight in one of the greatest battles of the Fallout universe – the liberation of Anchorage, Alaska from its Chinese Communist invaders. An action-packed battle scheduled for release in January.
  
• The Pitt. Journey to the industrial raider town called The Pitt, located in the remains of Pittsburgh. Choose your side. Scheduled for release in February.
  
• Broken Steel. Join the ranks of the Brotherhood of Steel and rid the Capital Wasteland of the Enclave remnants once and for all. Continues the adventure past the main quest. Scheduled for release in March.

Also, new content was announced for Fable II as well. Obviously, being an Xbox 360 exclusive game, this will also be limited to the Xbox 360. There will be two DLC packs released in mid-december. One of them will be free, but beyond news that you will need to download the DLC in order to continue playing co-op with someone that has the paid DLC, not much else was announced. The other DLC will run 800 microsoft points ($10 USD), is titled “Knothole Island” and will include to following content:

• Embark on 3 unique quests set in 3 unique dungeons.
  
• Unravel the mystical secrets of the resurrection shrine.
  
• Try on a whole new range of outfits and look like an armoured knight, an assassin, a barbarian or a leather-clad biker, among many others.
  
• Brandish 6 new weapons.
  
• Dozens of unique potions that will drastically alter your appearance.
  
• Customise your weapons the way you want with the new augment tool and a whole new array of augments.
  
• +50 additional leaderboards.

Is the content worth the additional cost? Will it add a significant chunk of time to the already arguably long experiences? Will gamers shy away from DLC announced a mere month after the game is released? There are still many questions left unanswered. Hopefully in time, they will find promising answers. But in the meantime, I’ll use this space for an excuse to post the nice looking but slightly unfulfilling new trailer for Batman: Arkham Asylum:

Tuesday (Nov. 11)
Call of Duty: World at War (DS, PC, PS3, Wii, 360)
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 (360)
Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts (360)
Mirror’s Edge (PS3, 360)

Thursday (Nov. 13)
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (Mac, PC)

Saturday (Nov. 16)
Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe (PS3, 360)
Shaun White Snowboarding (DS, PS2, PS3, 360, PSP)
Shaun White Snowboarding: Road Trip (Wii)
AC/DC Live: Rock Band Track Pack (Wii)
Animal Crossing: City Folk (Wii)
Guitar Hero: On Tour Decades (DS)

Monday (Oct. 20)
Dead Space (PC)
Midnight Club: Los Angeles (PS3, 360)
Wii Music (Wii)

Tuesday (Oct. 21)
Fable II (360)
Far Cry 2 (PC, PS3, 360)
BioShock (PS3)
Spider-Man: Web of Shadows (DS, PS2, PS3, PSP, Wii, 360)
Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia (DS)
Crash Bandicoot: Mind Over Mutant (PSP)
Eternal Sonata (PS3)
Star Ocean: First Departure (PSP)
The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon (DS, PS2, PS3, Wii, 360)

I can tell you that I’m already well on my way to falling in love with Fable II. Also, for those of you with only a PS3 to game on, be sure to give some consideration to BioShock and Eternal Sonata. Both of which have shown up on the 360, and I vouch for them. Good times to be had there.

Sorry to those of you that was hoping to see the sequel to the smash hit Barbie’s Horse Adventures show up on the list, but I had to cut it off somewhere. Still, that’s out there if you are interested in seeing Barbie have adventures with her horse. Apparently, they are having a riding camp this time. I’m sure that will be a Game of The Year contender for sure.

It only get crazier from here out, too. Next week will see LittleBigPlanet, and the week after is Gears of War 2. But let’s take it one week at a time. What have you picked up, or plan on picking up?

However, while Perpetual held the licenses for a Star Trek MMO, we never got more than really ambitious promises and a few pieces of concept art. Everything that the company said about their forthcoming title sounded good. Too good, in fact. Players would be set to work on a ship in which every station could be controlled. One player could play a navigation helm, while the other manned the weapons. Still another could be the communications officer. And if you didn’t have the people to operate the ship, an AI officer would take over those stations. Sounds pretty hard to program, right? So, it came as no surprise to me when after waiting so long to hear something about the game, it was suddenly canceled.

Out of nowhere came Cryptic Studios. Yes, the same Cryptic Studios that made the previously mentioned City of Heroes. The same Cryptic Studios that sold off City of Heroes, began working with Marvel and Microsoft on a Marvel MMO for the 360, and when Microsoft suddenly decided MMOs don’t work on the console they became the developers on a new Superhero MMO based on the Champions pen and paper RPG system. It turns out that the former baby developer now has the funds to snap up the Champions franchise (They now own the Champions name, system, etc.) and grab the Star Trek license. That’s likely the result of making bank from selling the mostly successful City of Heroes to the publisher of the game, NCSoft.

So what, you may ask? Another day, another developer. Well, I’m here to tell you that Cryptic is talented group of developers. Jack Emmert knows what he’s doing, and he surrounds himself with like minded individuals. Developers that go out of their way to make a quality product, talk to the subscribers of their game about their vision, and really leave their heart and soul in their game. It is because of that vision that I can no longer stomach a Sony Online Entertainment MMO. With it’s shoddy animations, and buggy gameplay, SOE games (Such as Star Wars Galaxies, Everquest, and the upcoming DC Universe Online) don’t hold a candle to Cryptic’s quality work.

That’s not to say that Cryptic doesn’t have it’s own problems. One of the reasons I ended up leaving City of Heroes is that the "give the gamers what the need, not what they want" motto became more of a an excuse for being stubborn about critical elements of the game (Like the difficulty vs reward system, for instance). Often, suggestions that were made in the Beta phases of the game were fought for long periods of time before the developers finally would realize that they were good ideas and implement them. That constant frustration of seeing a system that could be so much more finally got to me, and I left the game.

However, Star Trek Online gives users a new reason to be excited. A title from a quality developer that has learned a lot of hard lessons, believes in delivering a faithful experience, and is possibly one of the only developers that "gets it" from the fan perspective. One of the first articles up concerning Star Trek Online talked about how many of the developers grew up watching the many versions of Star Trek. That alone is what it is going to take to make a game that actually works.

Speaking of actually working, the game does. That’s right, after months and months of hearing pipe dreams from Perpetual Entertainment, we actually have a working Star Trek MMO. And this comes only a week after first hearing about the title. Cryptic already has a functioning game, and they did that all on their own. They received no assets from the now defunct Perpetual (Because apparently they didn’t have much at all).

The best part of hearing about the game, is that we will be able to see some actual gameplay footage this Sunday. Cryptic is having an event is Las Vegas this Sunday at 1:30 PST. But for those of us that will not be able to attend, they are also broadcasting the event on their website, StarTrekOnline.com. We will be able to check out for ourselves how the game is set in the future from the last movie, and how players will be able to begin the game as a captain of a small Starfleet or Klingon ship.

I’ll be watching, and hoping for some more juicy details. I have a lot more faith in this title behind the capable hands of Cryptic. Here’s hoping that I am not disappointed. If you are craving more details, check out STO’s website, or read the article that the Associated Press has put out concerning some of the features of the game.

Fallout 3: Exclusive DLC for Xbox 360 (In addition to PC)

Resident Evil 5: Online Co-op is included. Friday, March 13th 2009 release date

Fable 2: Release date October 2008. Online Co-op confirmed.

Gears of War 2: Ride a Brumak, 5-player co-op streaming enemy mode online, but story-mode apparently only 2 players. Release date November 7th

Xbox Dashboard Face Lift: Completely re-designed dashboard. Mii-like avatars. 8-player party system used to play games, chat, share photos, and share netflix (!) movies. Lots of clothing and accessory options. Apparently partially designed by Rare. Release date: Fall 2008

XBL Arcade/Primetime: 1 vs. 100 (Avatars, win real prizes, blah blah), Geometry Wars 2, Galaga Legions, Portal: Still Alive (Exclusive to Xbox 360. New Challenge mode, same single player game), South Park (Nothing really shown. Just that it was a South Park game), Uno Rush, Original Banjo Kazooie, Original Star Ocean, Primetime = Game shows like 1 vs 100

Netflix: Exclusive to Xbox 360. Netflix subscribers will get the option of streaming movies to their Xbox 360 for no additional fee. May be shared with people in your Live Party (See Xbox Dashboard Face Lift). Doubles the number of Xbox Live content pieces available.

Scene-It Box Office Smash: Sequel to succesful Scene-It game for 360. This time with Online play and downloadable content to expand the game with. The way it should have been done to begin with. Uses Avatars.

You’re in the Movies: Weird Xbox Vision Camera game. Act out scenes based on the mini-game’s criteria. Ala – Swat at bugs as they appear on your screen. Then when you and your friends get through a game, it takes those recorded scenes and makes them into a cheesy B-movie that had nothing to do with your mini-games. Hillarity ensues.

Banjo Kazooie/Viva Pinata: Showed a couple trailers. Still looks nice. Viva Pinata allows you to scan cards to bring in new Pinatas via the Xbox Vision camera.

Guitar Hero World Tour: REM track pack exclusive to the 360. Eagles is exclusive to Guitar Hero. Metallica is releasing some of their new songs on GHWT and GH3.

Lips: Microsoft’s answer to Playstation’s Singstar. Looks like mostly pop/hip hop. Duffy performed live, and didn’t seem to be able to follow her own song in the game. Mics pulsate with light, and are motion sensitive for bonus points when you dance. Also, you can hook up your MP3 players to sing along to "any song in your collection".

Rock Band 2: In addition to the previously announced backwards compatible DLC for RB2, the songs from the original game’s disc will ALSO be backwards compatible. So you can copy the game’s songs to your hard drive, and play them from there. Also, the official track list is out now. And apparently there will be a 20-song pack available for download for free at the game release. Supposedly songs that wouldn’t fit on the game. 104 or so songs total. Also, AC/DC is exclusive to Rock Band.

Last Remnant: Dated for November 20th, worldwide.

Final Fantasy XIII: Coming to Xbox 360 (In America only, perhaps) on the game’s release date. This is in addition to the PS3, not instead of.

Sorry if I missed anything. A /LOT/ happened today.

Read More for live updates.

1:42pm – XBLA gets exclusive Fallout 3 DLC. That’s pretty big.

1:46pm – Resident Evil 5 features online co-op. Could be cool. Looks a bit rough to me.

1:47pm – March 13th (Friday), 2009 Resident Evil 5 release date.

1:50pm – Epic. Fable 2 starts with you being crapped on by a bird. Online co-op confirmed. You can bring in any friend by walking up to glowing orbs in the game, and inviting the orbs. A bizarre. October release date.

1:55pm – Gears of War 2 trailer looks pretty awesome. And BTW, Cliffy B has the best name in the history of names.

2:01pm – You can ride a Brumak? Interesting. November 7th release date. No 4 player co-op (Stick with 2 players), but there is a 5 player co-op mode that involves taking on wave after wave of enemies.

2:04pm – Sweet. Took them 30 minutes to get to the circle jerk portion of the presentation. That’s an improvement. G4 claims a big announcement is coming at 2:08pm

2:07pm – NBC Universal is a new partner for content. Is that the big announcement? God I hope not.

2:09pm – Xbox Live guy is on now. We’ve had rumors of some big XBL news. Will we get some here?

2:10pm – Xbox 360 will be completely reinvented through software. Oh dear God. Avatars. Gag me. Still. This is huge news, for better or worse. The dashboard interface will completely change this year.

2:13pm – Your avatars will have cool clothes. I see ridiculous DLC for clothing.

2:17pm – 1 vs 100 … oh, yay. /sarcasm

2:19pm – Geometry Wars 2. Pretty cool looking.

2:21pm – Portal: Still Alive, exclusive to XBLA. Hell yeah.

2:23pm – SWEET! Netflix teaming with XBL. At no additional cost, you get to watch your streaming videos on XBL. AND, you can share you movies with your live party!

2:26pm – Banjo Kazooie trailer. Woo hoo. That game looks so fun. And viva Pinata 2

2:29pm – Original Banjo Kazooie on XBLA. And more Scene-It. Arg! I can’t keep up. Scene-It will have DLC this time. And play on live. The original had neither.

2:33pm – Some cheesy movie making game starring the vision camera. Weird.

2:42pm – Guitar Hero World Tour has an exclusive REM pack for the 360. Plus, the Eagles and someone else is exclusive to the Guitar Hero franchise.

2:44pm – Long rumored singing game called "Lips" is confirmed. Sing along to any song in your collection.

2:45pm – Duffy, singer of Mercy is singing Mercy, on Lips. Very bizarre. She keeps singing it different than the game has it :P

2:46pm – Now onto Rock Band 2. Talking about it’s limited exclusivity. This is a really long Press Conference.

2:53pm – Rock Band 2 will support Rock Band 1’s disc content! Sweet!

2:55pm – Square Enix president on stage now…Showed all the games we knew about.

3:00pm – Square president comes BACK on stage for a big announcement….Final Fantasy XIII!

3:06pm – That’s it folks. I have to say….best Microsoft Conference I can remember. HUGE stuff announced. Not all of it great, but all of it was huge.

*EDIT* Keep Reading for new images!

Mock-ups from the design team in response to questions about themes and stuff:

VAMPIRES BEWARE: BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER HIGH-KICKING HER WAY ONTO DS FOR THE FIRST TIME

Milton Keynes, July 11th – 505 Games today announced a deal with Twentieth Century Fox Licensing & Merchandising to unleash an official new game based on the world-famous Buffy the Vampire Slayer franchise, exclusively for the Nintendo DS.

Currently under development by Romanian studio Beast, Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Sacrifice combines third-person and first-person gameplay to create an experience like nothing else on Nintendo DS. The stakes are high for players as they take on the role of Buffy to seal the re-opened Hellmouth in an original story penned by Rob Deshotel, a writer from the TV series.

This action-packed 3D survival horror game sees Buffy using a range of special weapons, powerful spells and martial arts to take out vicious vampires and demons. In addition to these enemies, players also come across recognisable characters from the show, including Spike, Angel, the Master, the First Evil, Caleb and, of course, the Scooby Gang.

“This is a fantastic opportunity for 505 Games and we’re working extremely closely with Fox to ensure this is the definitive Buffy the Vampire Slayer experience,” said Rowan Tafler, Global Brand Manager, 505 Games. “Buffy’s return to videogames is great for long-time fans of the franchise and we hope the huge market reach of the Nintendo DS will help to create new fans too.”

Elie Dekel, Executive Vice President Twentieth Century Fox Licensing & Merchandising added, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a franchise that continues to excite people around the world. Although there are no new productions of the series there is an enduring legacy that lives on through syndication, comic books and video games like these. We’re sure DS players are going to love this version.”

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Sacrifice will be available exclusively throughout Europe on Nintendo DS November 2008.

Key features:

• Play as Buffy the Vampire Slayer through 24 levels using a third person camera.
• Unlock and use more than 20 types of unique Slayer weapons.
• Fight more than 12 different level bosses and sub-bosses, including First Evil, the boss of all bosses.
• Play “Challenge Mode” in first-person for fast-paced action and an increased difficulty level.
• Solve puzzle missions to unlock new areas.
• Collect spells to increase Buffy’s supernatural and physical abilities.
• Explore 12 dynamic environments and search for up to four hidden ones.
• Use breakable objects located within in all environments to battle demons and vampires.
• Unique story set after the climactic seventh season of the TV series, written by Rob Deshotel, one of the original writers of the TV series.
• Explore locations from the TV show, including Sunnydale High, the Bronze and the Hellmouth.

A majority of the week’s events will happen on Monday and Tuesday, as the biggest surprises of the convention generally happen amongst the formal stage presentations (And even then, the majority of the news will likely come from the console makers’ shows).

As such, in order to allow for a majority of the news from the show to take place before we record (You know, so we can actually discuss it), we are going to have to hold off on the E3 Discussion episode. We apoligize to anyone that would’ve been available on the original day, but will now miss the show. However, it’s just about the only way of doing it properly.

The E3 Discussion episode of GeekiNput will take place on Wednesday, July 16th at 8pm EST/5pm PST. The remaining GeekiNput shows will not be effected by this change of schedule, and will continue to record on Mondays.

We hope everyone understands and can still make it.

Rock Band 2 has just been made official. Releasing in September on the Xbox 360, with the other consoles recieving the game "later this year". In addition, IGN has an excellent interview up with harmonix over at their site. Check it out. Some of my favorite bits from the article:

The most important question. Will Rock Band 1 DLC be playable in Rock Band 2?

Dan Teasdale: Yes. We’ve been developing Rock Band as a music platform from the start. All of the songs that you’ve purchased so far (and will be able to purchase in the future) are instantly playable and fully supported in Rock Band 2. We’ve even added some cool new features that let you play your DLC in different ways, which I think people will be very excited to get their hands on.

…

"Rock Band 2’s instruments will not disappoint. Like I mentioned before, our philosophy here is to innovate, then perfect. Along those lines, we’ve been able to take all of the feedback we’ve received to make quieter, more realistic, and more reliable instruments."

…

"Rock Band 2 has the strongest playlist we’ve ever assembled, and I think fans will be blown away not just at the spread, but also at the caliber of acts we’ve attracted."

…

"We’ve taken almost everything people have asked for in Rock Band and added it to Rock Band 2, as well as including some "first time ever" features."

More details will be released at E3 this year. Join us July 15th for GeekiNput’s live discussion of all the E3 events, including Rock Band 2!