Thor and Captain America game development continues

As part of this week’s financial results Marvel Entertainment confirmed that games based on the upcoming Thor and Captain America movies are in the works at Sega. While this is not particularly fresh news it does show that development - in whatever stage it is in at this points - continues to push forward. A formal announcement about the games was made in April of 2007 by Sega.

The Captain America game is tentatively set for release in July 2011, while the Thor game will be released at right around the same period in the summer. We’ll see.

Sega has not had the best track record with the Marvel license. See our Iron Man review for an example of this. I’ll give you a hint: it might be a blood bath.

Warner Bros. forms DC Entertainment

Batman: Arkham Asylum has sold almost two million copies in less than a month, according to published reports. This kind of success with a DC comics-based game is one of several reasons that Warner Bros. is creating DC Entertainment, a brand new company dedicated to taking care of DC Comics properties. The new division will be headed up by Diane Nelson, the current president of Warner Premiere. Warner Bros. says that this new division will attempt to find the full potential of DC related products including games, films, television and other media.

Naturally this is a good idea given that Disney now owns Marvel Entertainment and will no doubt be doing its best to bring popular Marvel franchises to multiple fronts including TV, movies, comic books, and naturally video games.

PSP to get digital comics reader, content from PlayStation Network

Sony Computer Entertainment announced at the Gamescom event in Cologne, Germany today that the PlayStation Portable will be getting a digital reader that will allow PSP owners to enjoy a huge library of Digital Comics from Comic book companies including Archie, Image and leading comic publisher Marvel Entertainment. The digital reader service will be launched with Digital Comics this December in select countries, the U.S, and regions in Europe with other PAL territories to follow in 2010.

The new Digital Comics service will offer hundreds of classic and new comics from PlayStation Store to your PSP GO!, which can be read page by page or frame by frame. Some of the comics and graphic novels you can expect to see at launch include Marvel Entertainment‘s Spider-Man, X-Men and the Fantastic Four, from IDW: TRANSFORMERS and Star Trek and in partnership with iVerse Media, brands like Archie Comics, and Image Comic’s Proof, while other content will include graphic novels, comics from a variety of local publishers and the latest underground hits. More titles will arrive on PlayStation Store with monthly content updates.

Introducing the wonderful GameComicDaily

If you are a fan of web comics (be sure to check out Experience Points, Backward Compatible, You Are Dead and the rest) then you’ll want to check out this excellent web comic aggregation site called GameComicDaily.

Besides carrying our daily and weekly comics, the site offers feeds for dozens of other great strip like Penny Arcade and PVP. Check it out at the link above.  They carry our comics which means that they are pretty damn awesome already.

Dead Space Extraction debuts at Comic-Con

EA’s Visceral Games and Image Comics have released an all-new comic based on Dead Space Extraction, the prequel to Dead Space for the Wii. The Dead Space Extraction comic reunites renowned illustrator Ben Templesmith and writer Antony Johnston with the game’s dark and mature fiction. This one-time special issue comic follows the successful partnership for last year’s Dead Space comic mini-series. The comic will be on store shelves in September 2009 for SRP $3. A limited edition version of the comic featuring exclusive cover art will be available for the special price of $2 at the EA Comic-con booth (#5123).

Ben Templesmith and Antony Johnston will be at the booth signing the special issues on Thursday 3-4 PM and Friday - Sunday 1-2 PM. Fans of Dead Space will also be able to purchase other Dead Space merchandise such an Isaac Clarke Unitology figurine, iPhone skins, and Dead Space art books. Players will also have the chance to play the game at the EA booth. The Dead Space Extraction development team is participating in the “Art of Making a Horror Video Game” panel on Friday, July 24th at 6 PM in Room 2.

Dark Horse, BioWare team for Mass Effect comics

BioWare and Dark Horse Comics have teamed up for a new comic book series based on Mass Effect, its popular sci-fi action RPG. In Mass Effect: Redemption, the story takes readers through the events leading up to Mass Effect 2, which opens with galactic hero Commander Shepard mysteriously missing and left to fight for survival. What unfolds next will expose readers to new locations, aliens and extended storyline in the Mass Effect universe. Mass Effect: Redemption is scheduled to launch in January 6, 2010.

The Mass Effect: Redemption story is written by Lead Writer Mac Walters at BioWare, who is also the script writer behind Mass Effect 2. The comic is scripted by John Jackson Miller (Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic, The Invincible Iron Man) and drawn by Omar Francia (Star Wars Legacy). This first four-part series explores the “exotic and dangerous future Milky Way of Mass Effect,” revealing new locations, aliens, and enemies.

Mac Walters and Omar Francia will be autographing a Comic-con exclusive Mass Effect signing card at the Dark Horse booth (#2615) on July 24th at 4:00pm - 5:00pm at Comic-Con International 2009 in San Diego, CA.

Mass Effect: Redemption issue 1 hits comic shop shelves on January 6, 2010. Mass Effect 2 is scheduled for release on Xbox 360 and PC in early 2010.

City of Heroes: Going Rogue Announced

NCsoft announced the development of City of Heroes Going Rogue, the first major expansion for the City of Heroes franchise since the launch of City of Villains in 2005. Going Rogue hopes to open up the worlds of Heroes and Villains to both sides for the first time using an alignment system. This will be possible by creating a new parallel universe known as Praetoria, which is governed by Tyrant, the evil incarnation of the game’s main protagonist, Statesman.

The new alignment system will encourage players to explore the shades of gray by allowing hero characters you become villains and vice versa. This means that the archetypes restricted to each region will be able to take on missions in the Rogue Isles and Paragon City. Clearly marked missions, in addition to behaviors and decisions made by the player, will move a hero’s or villain’s moral compass, which could eventually change the hero’s or villain’s alignment. Going Rogue will also introduce two primary new fictional characters representative of this alignment shift in the game’s lore: Maelstrom, a pistol-wielding hero gone rogue, and Desdemona, a demon-summoning villain who has been redeemed.

NCsoft will share more details on Going Rogue in the coming months. The biggest challenge I see is in balancing these missions to work with a whole new set of archetypes. How will the various Paragon City missions be affected by an archetype like the Mastermind? It will be interesting to see how it all works out. In the meantime, check out the FAQ ripped from the official City of Heroes page, after the break.

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