This is Halloween, this Halloween!

Yes, the holiday of witches, goblins, and ghouls has arrived, and there’s a lot of great deals out there to take advantage of on this glorious day. Check out today’s offerings, including some low-priced movie rentals!

As I was compiling this list, the first “Lightning Deal” at Amazon went up, so I’m adding it quickly to the top of this post so you can see it before it runs out at 9am PST (or while supplies last before that): Zombie Bundle: Day of the Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Evil Dead II on Blu-ray.

Ghostbusters: The Video Game – Slimer Edition

First up, the Gold Box deal of the day over at Amazon is Ghostbusters: The Video Game – Slimer Edition for Xbox 360 for only $44.98 (that’s 36% off the list price of $69.99). This deal is for today only while supplies last [...]

In an announcement that comes as no surprise at all, Lionhead Studios Creative Director Peter Molyneaux confirmed that Fable III will be compatible with the Microsoft motion sensor technology currently known only as Project Natal. It has been rumored that Natal will be ready to go some time in 2010, but it’s doubtful that this third chapter in the beloved Fable franchise will require the sure-to-be-pricey addition to your Xbox 360 system.

No details were included as to how the system would apply if you play Fable III using it, but it could be really good and it could be really bad. When Natal was shown off at this year’s past E3 Expo (Click to read about E3 & watch the Project Natal demos), the demonstrations blew minds (for the most part), with Lionhead and Molyneaux’s introduction of the boy Milo as the real jaw-dropping moment. Natal was also promoted as the future of gaming, where people will be able to play all of their games with no controllers at all, using only their body and movement. In these two things is where we find the possible pros and cons. [...]

In a recent interview with GameDaily, Hollywood producer Adrian Askarieh talked video game movies in great detail. On the list, he spoke on big projects like Kane & Lynch: Dead Men, Hitman 2, and Just Cause — all of which have movies in the works.

From the very second that a Kane & Lynch movie was announced, superstar Bruce Willis was rumored to be up for one of the starring roles. It’s been a long time since these rumors started swirling, but staying nice and chaos free, Askarieh confirmed in this interview that Willis is indeed attached and confirmed for the movie, and that he will be playing Kane (the one on the left) of the duo.

He also confirmed that the movie will be directed by Simon Crane, who is mostly known for his stunt work, but who has also done a lot of Second Unit Directing and Assistant Directing. It will finally begin production in March of 2010, which is still a long ways off, but considering this thing has been coming for years now, it’s good to have an actual date. Lionsgate will be handling the distribution, and Millennium is financing it. [...]

In an interview with GameDaily, producer Adrian Askarieh talked about the Hitman series, including both the movie sequel, Hitman 2, and even more importantly, the extra-long-awaited video game, Hitman 5.

As for the movie, it looks like they’re still waiting for a script at the moment, but are hoping to start filming by the middle of next year. The question was asked if star Timothy Olyphant would be returning now that he has a new TV show (Damages) going. Askarieh explained that they would definitely want him back, but it all balances on timing. As we all know, Olyphant would have to go bald as bald can be again in order to return to the role of Agent 47, and as simple as that sounds, it could have a big effect on his show and bring complications to the table. Askarieh was also asked if the rumor that it would involve 47 losing everything and having to get it back was true, to which he replied “That’s a part of it, yes, but that’s all I’m going to say on that.” [...]

Boy, we’ve got a good one today! How many of you out there would like the opportunity to win a virtuametric ton of cool-ass G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra swag packaged up with a nifty Nintendo DSi hand-held game system? Well, if you live within the continental United States you’re in luck.

The goodly folks from whence magic arose have seen fit to grant us the aforementioned Nintendo DSi along with a copy of the new G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra DSi game, as well as a load of awesome The Rise of Cobra goodies to ply you with.

What are you waiting for? Video games, hats, posters, figures, and a surprise pack of awesome await [...]

Jordan Mechner and John August posted a cool little video on their blogs recently. The video is a collection of clips from Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time that were specially edited together back in 2003. The purpose of this was to convey his vision of what a movie version of the game should be like, and was used in his pitch to Jerry Bruckheimer and The Walt Disney Company. Most just paint a picture with their words when making a pitch, but Mechner figured what better way to paint a picture than to use key elements from the actual game, and he was right — Bruckheimer bought the pitch and six years later, the movie is set for official release on May 28, 2010.

Mechner is the creator of the Prince of Persia video game series and August is best known for his work as writer on Tim Burton movies like Big Fish, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Corpse Bride. The duo wrote the script for The Sands of Time movie together. [...]

Back in July, it was announced that Sam Raimi would be directing the long-rumored movie adaptation of MMO powerhouse, World of Warcraft. This along with Spider-Man 4 presented two gigantic and time-consuming projects for the Evil Dead and Drag Me To Hell director, and it is still uncertain which will be coming first.

It was first assumed that the WoW movie would be based on a spinoff novel that was written within the game’s world called Arthas: Rise of the Lich King, but it is now confirmed via an interview with MTV that the movie will be an original story set in the world and involving its characters. It was also confirmed that the movie is being written by Saving Private Ryan scripter Robert Rodat and that it will likely be simply titled Warcraft.

Turning a game like Warcraft into a movie is probably about as difficult as it could be to turn a game into a movie. Being an MMO, there is a story, but the game is never-ending and the story isn’t the selling point, so you have to pick and choose what you want to use and construct a story out of these countless elements, settings, and characters. The challenge becomes even greater knowing the track record of video game based movies, as we all are well-aware of, so the mountain for Raimi is large. [...]

Nintendo announced last month that it would be lowing the price of its highly popular Nintendo Wii game console by $50.

So, right now, the Nintendo Wii is available for only $199!

Nintendo said they felt like many potential users were priced out of the gaming experience with the original $250 price, which has been the cost since its release in 2004.

Nintendo will also release New Super Mario Bros. Wii on November 15; it’s available for pre-order now. Amazon has a special right now where you get $10 off a future video game purchase when you order New Super Mario Bros. Wii.

New Super Mario Bros. Wii will be the first Mario Bros. game to accommodate four players at the same time [...]

Remember the actor who did the voice work for World of Warcraft’s Death Knight Gnome, Dino Andrade? [Read: Conversations with GoD: World of Warcraft’s Death Knight Gnome Speaks] It turns out he’s also lent his voice talents to another dark, evil, and more menacing video game character — The Scarecrow in the new Batman game Arkham Asylum.

Andrade is no stranger to the video game world as his voice has also appeared in Call of Duty (PSP), Guitar Hero (DS), and Skull from Scott Kurtz’s PVP animated series.

Below is the Arkham Asylum trailer, which ends with flashes of the Scarecrow saying “Poor Little Bat” along with some convincing cackling…

Dragon*Con 2009 has come and gone now, but the goodies may just never stop. We really spoil you kids.

Today comes another harvest of mini-interviews composed of course by Doug and Rob, and featuring some more of the convention’s best in show. As we all know, conventions like this one are mass gathering points for those who simply love to dress up as their most-favoritest of geeky characters and walk the floors proudly. So who better to have a little chat with, I ask thee? No one, that’s who!

In this installment, we’ll meet two interesting folks. First up is Loxida Delude, the fittingly geek-named hairdresser from Tennessee who’s all dolled up as a Night Elf Druid. She’ll share her convention experience and her gaming vices us. Next up will be a young man who is attending the convention with his mother and father, and claims to be dressed as a character from the game Kingdom Hearts 2, though I kind of think he’s a closet Twilighter and actually dressed up as Robert Pattinson. That hair puts wild to shame [...]

Last month, we learned that Steven Spielberg himself was in negotiations to pick up the dead Halo movie project and develop it himself (Read: A Beacon Of Hope Emerges For The D.O.A. ‘Halo’ Movie & Its Name Is Steven Spielberg). Whether this means the movie will ever finally be made or not remains to be seen, but it is exciting for those who are dying to see this happen. We first got a glimpse of what a movie version of the mega-hit game would look like when District 9 director Neil Blomkamp filmed his own live-action version as a promo for Halo 3, but unfortunately, a huge estimated movie budget killed that project off. Now, fittingly, for the release of the spinoff game Halo ODST, a new director in Rupert Sanders has made yet another live-action promo, and it looks pretty fantastic.

Blomkamp proved that a budget was really no issue if you spend your money wisely — he made District 9 look like it cost $115 Million when in fact it only ran $30 Million. [...]

Batman: Arkham Asylum
Genre: Action-adventure / Beat ‘em up / Stealth
Rating: ESRB T for Teen / VSC 15
Publisher: DC Comics with Warner Bros & Eidos Interactive
Formats: Xbox 360, Playstation 3 & Windows
Release Date: August 25, 2009 (U.S.) & August 28, 2009 (Europe)

The prison guard jerks The Joker’s arm as he leads him off to his familiar cell in Arkham Asylum. As The Joker looks back over his shoulder at Batman, he trips and falls to his knee.

When the guard leans down to help him up, Joker takes the opportunity to quickly headbutt the guard as he stands up, sending him reeling. Before anyone can react he leaps up and wraps his cuffs around the guard’s neck from behind. Batman beats on the reinforced glass separating him from his nemesis as he kills the helpless prison guard.

When The Joker hears the guard’s last gurgling attempts at breathing, he gets in his punchline… “Choke’s on you!”

This scene sets the whole tone of Batman: Arkham Asylum, and I think someone may have been pumping Joker gas into my living room, as I had a silly grin on my face the whole time.

The Caped Crusader has been striking fear into the hearts of the Gotham City underworld for the past 70 years, and yet all of the criminals pale in comparison to The Joker — often seen as the Yin to Batman’s Yang, this being reinforced by Alan Moore’s Batman: The Killing Joke published back in 1988 [...]

The ups and downs of turning the instant classic video game BioShock into a successful film adaptation are continuing right along. It’s being reported that Universal has chosen Juan Carlos Fresnadillo to replace Gore Verbinski as director on the movie.

Excitement encased the world of geekdom when it was first revealed that Verbinski would be directing the water-heavy BioShock after his impressive water work on the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy. Verbinski actually stepped away from the proposed fourth Pirates flick in order to helm the challenging video game adaptation. When a swelling price tag ($160 Million) saw the project placed on the back burner in order to figure out a new, more cost-friendly attack strategy, it became apparent that shooting in an overseas location might be the best option. Verbinski, having other projects going on, was unable to meet the scheduling demands, and thus, stepped away.

Now that Universal has a new director, it’s fair enough for those who were thrilled for the movie to regain excitement. Myself, being a massive fan of BioShock, am going to withhold reaction for the time being. [...]

Peter Molyneaux, Creative Director for the Microsoft owned Lionhead studios, was in Germany recently and made the announcement of a little game called Fable III.

Anyone who loves the games knew that a third game would be coming eventually, but with four years between Fable and Fable II, this is pretty exciting news. And not only was the game announced, Molyneaux stated that it would be released for the holiday season of 2010. Yes, that’s right, Fable III will be out (barring any push-backs) one year from this Christmas!

While this announcement is thrilling to fans such as myself, details of the game are few. Then again, any details at all this early into development are a treat in and amongst themselves, so we shall take whatever we can get our greedy little gamer hands on.

Click on over to read a quote from Peter Molyneaux and to get a brief idea of what Fable III will be like. [...]

Blizzard Entertainment launched a site for Cataclysm, the third expansion for their World of Warcraft MMO game, which features a preview of things to come.

Two new races will make their debut in this expansion: the former slaves of jungle trolls on the Isle of Kezan, the Goblin race and Worgen, a race of feral wolf-beasts whose origins remain steeped in mystery.

The site has new screenshots and information about the new races in regards to the two main factions in the game, Alliance and Horde [...]

I’m just going to lay this right out on the table per an observation I’ve made over the years: if you’re not into the old west and the western genre that’s known so well in the movies, then you’re probably not going to be too fond of the string of western style games that have been making their way to our video game consoles. But if you’re like myself and absolutely adore anything set in that quintessential old western setting with some great music backing it up, then this review is right up your alley.

Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood is the follow-up to 2007’s Call of Juarez. The game is a prequel story about the McCall brothers, Thomas and Ray, and their desertion of the Confederate Army to help protect their family. When home becomes just too dangerous, they take their younger brother William, and the trio set off toward Mexico to search out a treasure of legend. As with any story that involves stubborn characters, especially brothers, greed and jealousy find their way into the mix and Thomas and Ray need to find a way to work together or die just another victim to the ruthless old west. [...]

Wow. That’s really all you need to know.

Since the sport of mixed martial arts has exploded onto the scene and pretty much completely over-shadowed it, it’s tough to find things to be excited about when it comes to boxing today. Every once in a while a fight comes along with fan favorites like Manny Pacquiao, Floyd Mayweather, and Ricky Hatton — but aside from that, boxing has become a mostly unappealing spectacle. Fortunately, the cats over at Electronic Arts know how things are done when it comes to their sports games, and that’s no different when it comes to Fight Night: Round 4, which is now the best boxing video game ever made.

The Fight Night franchise has always offered up great boxing games — the best since Mike Tyson’s Punch Out!, to be precise — that fans have loved, even with some kinks here and there. One of the best thing about video games, though, is that many of them get better with new installments. This is because developers can take the good and the bad feedback from their previous games and build from that until they reach perfection. And so far, Fight Night: Round 4 is about as perfect as boxing games get…for now. The scary thing is knowing that they will probably keep finding ways to get better. [...]

To briefly recap on the story so far as we know it: Neil Blomkamp — director of the upcoming District 9 — was the first to attempt bringing Halo to the big screen. He even went so far as filming a live-action short video for Halo 3 promotion, and to show what the popular video game world could look like in live-action without any budget at all. The videos were great and the project was eventually put in motion with Peter Jackson acting as producer, but sadly, it became apparent that the budget would be way too large, and the Halo movie was put down Old Yeller style.

It really didn’t look like this movie was ever going to get made, but we all may have assumed a bit too soon. IESB is reporting that Steven Spielberg himself may be the man to pull this project from the cold grasp of cinematic death and breathe that sweet, sweet life back into it. The news was confirmed multiple times that Spielberg is currently in “active negotiations” to develop the Halo movie himself. [...]

A new Marvel MMORPG is in the works, according to job listings seeking developers for the project that’s officially titled Marvel Universe Online.

This is the first specific mention of a “616″ universe game since plans to create a Marvel MMO got scrapped in 2008 and subsequently turned into Champions Online from Cryptic Studios.

News of a new Mighty Marvel MMO shouldn’t come as a huge surprise. It’s obvious that the organization has wanted to get into the MMO business for quite some time. The development company who published the job listing, Gargantuan Studios, is part of a Gazillion Entertainment who signed a 10-year deal to produce Marvel video games back in March [...]

An updated version of DCU Online — DCUO — pre alpha demo was available to all attendees at the San Diego Comic-Con, showing vast changes to the version shown at the event during the previous year. Some of the more recognizable features plucked elements from both World of Warcraft and City of Heroes, yet adapting them to improve the user experience, at least in concept, anyway.

It’s impossible to know until a beta version is released since so much of a good MMO (Massively Multi-Player Online) game relies on the entire experience. The developers seem to understand this concept and they’ve done a hell of a job integrating the 70-plus year history of the DC Universe into the recognizable elements of an MMO. I’ve listed a few notable occurrences from the revised demo at Comic-Con…

High Level “Instances”
It’s nearly impossible not to refer to the epic battle areas of an MMO that requires a load screen as anything but “Instance” — as they’re called in WoW [...]