Marvel Super Hero Squad roster revealed

Here’s a story that fans of Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 and Spider-Man: Friend or Foe will want to pay attention to: the new game based on the new Marvel super hero inspired kids show, Marvel Super Hero Squad. THQ today announced that the full list of characters from its soon-to-be-released Marvel Super Hero Squad video game. The entire list has been revealed exclusively on Marvel.com. The roster includes such heroes as Wolverine, Spider-Man, Captain America, Falcon, Ms. Marvel, The Thing, The Hulk, Nightcrawler, Iron Man, Silver Surfer, Invisible Woman, Storm, and Thor. Bad guys include Doctor Doom, Sabertooth, Mole Man, Magneto, Crimson Dynamo, A.I.M. Agent, and Abomination. There are a total of 21 playable characters, with an additional 3 that are non-playable.

The Marvel Super Hero Squad video game, which is based on the kid friendly Marvel Super Hero Squad Show, premiered on Cartoon Network Saturday, Sept. 19.

Marvel Super Hero Squad will mark the first title in THQ’s licensing agreement with Marvel Entertainment, which is now owned by Disney. The game is currently being developed by Blue Tongue for Wii, Nintendo DS, PlayStation 2 and PSP. The game is scheduled to be available on October 20, 2009.

Disney to acquire Marvel

The biggest story of the day, if not the month of August, is Disney Company’s announcement this morning that it has agreed to purchase Marvel Entertainment. While this will eventually have a serious impact on a whole series of entertainment properties (like several cartoon series currently running on Viacom’s Nickelodeon) the real important thing to watch is the games and entertainment sector and the contracts Marvel has with companies like Activision and THQ.

The agreement to buy Marvel Entertainment includes a stock and cash transaction, the companies announced today. Under the terms of the agreement (based on the closing price of Disney on August 28, 2009), Marvel shareholders would receive a total of $30 per share in cash plus approximately 0.745 Disney shares for each Marvel share they own. At closing, the amount of cash and stock will be adjusted if necessary so that the total value of the Disney stock issued as merger consideration based on its trading value at that time is not less than 40 percent of the total merger consideration. Based on that closing price, the transaction value is $50 per Marvel share or approximately $4 billion.

Under the deal, Disney will acquire ownership of Marvel including more than 5,000 Marvel characters. Ike Perlmutter, Marvel’s Chief Executive Officer, will oversee the Marvel properties, and will work directly with Disney’s global lines of business to build and further integrate Marvel’s properties. While the boards of both companies have approved this transaction, the deal is still subject to the normal regulatory approval and customary closing conditions - and the approval of Marvel shareholders.

And on a related note, Evan Narcisse has some interesting thoughts on the deal in his latest blog post - check it out.

Marvel Super Hero Squad details

THQ today formally announced Marvel Super Hero Squad, the first video game based on the animated series, The Super Hero Squad Show, scheduled to debut this fall on Cartoon Network. Marvel Super Hero Squad will mark the first title in THQ’s licensing agreement with Marvel Entertainment, and is currently in development for Wii, DS, PS2 and PSP. The game will offer both multiplayer and single player action and adventure using some re-imagined versions of Marvel’s most popular heroes and Villains.
Set in the Marvel Universe, the Super Hero Squad is on a mission against Dr. Doom’s Lethal Legion of villains to recover the hidden Infinity Fractals; fragments of the all-powerful Infinity Sword. Each Infinity Fractal holds power and can give each character special abilities that could alter the game’s rules and playing field. The game offers 20 Marvel characters to mix and match including Captain America, Dr. Doom, Falcon, Hulk, Iron Man, Juggernaut, Ms. Marvel, Silver Surfer, Thing, Thor and Wolverine, to name a few. Players can jump into a battle arena against up to three opponents in Battle Mode, or choose to play through six campaigns based on the animated series in Adventure Mode.

For more information on the Marvel Super Hero Squad video game, visit www.marvelshsgame.com.

Gazillion Gets Ten Year Marvel MMO Deal

If there’s one golden rule in comic books, it’s got to be that if you don’t see the body (and a lot of times even if you do), they’re not really dead. So, it should come as no surprise to comic fans that the previously canned Marvel Comics MMO game has come back from that dead. And in true comic book fashion, it looks like it’ll be a brand new face under the familiar looking costume.

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Spider-Man: Web of Shadows Details

Activision revealed more details on Spider-Man: Web of Shadows, the new Spidey game being developed by Treyarch (with some help from Amaze on a few other platforms). In this new game Spider-Man has two suits that have special sets of powers: the traditional red and blue and the symbiotic black; both offer special abilities; for instance the red suit focuses on agility and web slinging, while the black focuses on beating the hell out of your foes with sheer brute force.

Whichever you use (you can switch between either on the fly) the skills you use are delivered with a new fighting mechanism that uses Spider-Man’s agility, strength, web slinging skills, the environment and objects. As you progress you earn points for both suits, which in turn can be used to customize Spider-Man the way you see fit. Depending on what style you favor, you are cheered or jeered by citizens and by heroes and villains that appear in the game.

Spider-Man: Web of shadows will be released this fall for Xbox 360, PS3, PS2, PSP, and DS. More E3 coverage here.

Activision Blizzard’s Non-E3 Line-Up

Activision Blizzard revealed its non-E3 line-up that managed to make its way into just about every one of the big three’s press conferences this week. This line-up includes Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, Call of Duty: World at War (which a colleague described as awesome - I’ll reserve judgment), Guitar Hero World Tour, Quantum of Solace (a new James Bond game) and Spider-Man: Web of Shadows.

The press conference did reveal a few surprises, like a new Wolfenstein game being developed by id Software, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, a new first person action game from Raven Software, a Luxoflux game based on the Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen film, and a game based on Marvel’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine film.

Oddly enough, Activison Blizzard’s other studios - Sierra, VU Games, and Blizzard had no announcements tonight. Weird. Check out our E3 Hub Page for the latest.

Activision Blizzard’s Fall 2008 Release Schedule

In conjunction with tonight’s non-E3 press conference (they are not at E3 no matter what you’ve seen or heard! Honest), Activision released its Fiscal 09 release schedule - which is really Fall 2008. Coming this summer from Activision are the following games:

• Call of Duty: World at Warfor Xbox 360, PC, PS3, PS2, NDS and Wii
• Guitar Hero On Tour: Decades for DS
• Guitar Hero World Tour for 360, PS2, PS3, Wii
• Kung Fu Panda: Legendary Warriors for Wii and DS
• Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa for Xbox 360, PC, PS3, PS2, NDS and Wii
• Quantum of Solace for Xbox 360, PC, PS3, PS2, NDS and Wii
• Spider-Man: Web of Shadows for Xbox 360, G4W-PC, PS3, NDS, PS2, PSP and Wii