Movie News

Look, you all know that I’m an Encom employee now. I posted my badge here. This might be shameless self-promotion for the company I’m now committed to, but hear me out. The big man Alan Bradley showed up earlier this evening in San Francisco to announce a title that I’m sure you’ve all been waiting on for some time.

Acclaimed director Paul Verhoven (Robocop, Starship Troopers) looks to have his eyes set on a new project and it’s an adaptation of a video game.  Speaking to MTV, Verhoeven commented that his next film would be based on a video game set in 1914.  The project reportedly has flavors of Indiana Jones and Alfred Hitchcock, which to me sounds like an awesome combination.

There are some things that should just be left untouched when it comes to remakes and/or video game adaptations. In the past developers and license holders have been rather wise when it comes to bringing classic pieces of literatures or films to the world of gaming. Aside from the mixed bag that was Dante’s Inferno and crap projects like turning the Steve McQueen classic “The Great Escape” and “Reservoir Dogs” into PS2 games, things have been generally fine.

When compared to their video game counter parts the live-action Resident Evil movies haven’t been that great.  There have certainly been a few cool scenes but for the most part they’ve failed to really capture the essence of the games.  Despite not being faithful to the source material, each RE film has done well at the box office.  And when a film does well that means it’ll get a sequel.

At TAF 2010 ShogunGamer had a chance to sit down and chat with Hiroshi Kumada. You may recognize his name from a long list of projects such as: Co-Producer on Afro Samurai: Resurrection, Vice President of International sales at Gonzo, and Licensing department at the same company. He has his hand in a widely growing international market. His experience and expertise in the Anime realm makes him a hot commodity; coupled with his latest production experience.

Welcome to ShogunGamer's Coverage of the Tokyo Anime Fair 2010. This year rather than sending the smartest most knowledgeable member of our staff to cover this world wide event, they sent me.

This is not such a bad thing, as it opens up a great opportunity for our members. If you'd like a certain interview conducted, a picture taken, or some memorabilia grabbed email me at Michael-Sean@shogungamer.

A little while back Corey and Ian teamed forces to fell the Arcade Aid challenge. Arcade Aid was a viral game for the Flynn Lives series of advertisements promoting Tron: Legacy. For those of you out there that completed the challenge, you would have been prompted to enter in some information and a picture for your employee badge. Well, mine just showed up in the mail today. I thought I might share with you all what you get for completing Arcade Aid.

As you may have guessed from my most recent S#!t You Want entry, I’m a fan of the Scott Pilgrim series. It’s probably one of the best original graphic novels to have come out in years. It’s a blend of romance and video games unparalleled in even today’s age. That’s why when I say you need to check out the teaser trailer that just dropped; I hope to hell that you all do!

Back in the PS2 era Midway revived the classic arcade game Spy Hunter. With spy action goodness and a cool theme, the game was received well and two solid sequels were released.  Of course due to the success of the game a movie was planned and Dwayne Johnson (aka The Rock) was attached to star and get behind the wheel of the Interceptor. But after the film attempts crashed and burn Midway released Spy Hunter 3, a terrible game combining 3rd person action with driving elements which starred Dwayne Johnson.

At this point I think we can just drop all hope that films based on video games will be good. Hollywood now has its bulls eye of creative bankruptcy on Kane & Lynch, which itself could work well as a film.  For a long time actor Bruce Willis has been rumored/attached to play Kane while names like Mickey Rourke and Billy Bob Thornton have popped up for Lynch.

After last week’s amazing Arcade Aid game we have another piece of Tron goodness. These behind the scene photos from Tron Legacy may not be as impressive as earning an ENCOM badge, but they’re still rather cool.  The bts images are from a set visit Disney held (no, Shogun isn’t big enough to be invited) where members of the press were privy to see the making of the film.

Earlier we posted about the awesome TRON Legacy viral game Arcade Aid, which challenged users in a test of famous game knowledge with this unique pixel-image puzzle. Some people were getting stuck on a few of these brain teasers, so we've whipped up a full solution guide and blank version of the map. Which makes a pretty sweet poster!

At this point it’s safe to say that most of us, if not all of us, are hyped for TRON Legacy. Slick visuals, buttery beats from Daft Punk and the continuation of one of the most original sci-fi stories ever, has many people (especially me) hyped for the film.  Even though the movie is still nine months away, that doesn’t mean you can’t have your TRON fix now.

After  being teased with a dazzling concept video we finally have our first proper look at Tron Legacy, the sequel to 1982’s Tron, a film that most sci-fi and video game geeks love the hell out of.  While a bit on the short side the trailer isn’t short of dazzling images as it shows us our first look at the revamped Recognizer, the new Disc games, Clue 2.0, a brief look at Michael Sheen’s David Bowie-esque nightclub character and most importantly the glorious Light Cycles.

It doesn’t seem like it but in two months the comic book action antics of Iron Man 2 will be out for all of us to see. Maybe it’s just me but there doesn’t seem to be an immense amount of hype or anticipation for the latest exploits of Tony Stark and friends. That’s not to say that people don’t think the movie will be good but it just boils down to everyone not seeing enough of the film since the media blitz hasn’t yet begun.