Saints Row: The Third Turns the Insanity Up to 15

I'm been pretty excited for Saint's Row: The Third because of the hype from the "Power Trailer" but the latest footage from Comic-Con is just pure insanity. It is so ridiculous and "over the top" yet so amazing at the same time. Then again, that has been what the franchise has been all about since the original back in 2006. This is just another time where I have to let the videos speak for themselves.

Get Ready for Some Nightmares in Mortal Kombat...

The 4th downloadable character to appear in Mortal Kombat is quite a surprise as it is not someone you expect, but yet rumored. Freddy Krueger takes his claws and scares to the world of MK. I gotta hand it to Netherrealm Studios for delivering the crazy and doing guest characters right. Yeah, Kratos is not that good competitive-wise, but they were able to nail the right aspects from the God of War games in Mortal Kombat. The same thing can be said for Freddy with his sheninegans especially his awesome fatalities. Players can download Freddy Krueger on August 9 for the same price as the other downloadable characters that have been released.

Street Fighter X Tekken at Comic-Con...

Yeah yeah, people are still hyped for yesterday's Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 announcement, but there is still Street Fighter X Tekken coming and obviously there are new characters to reveal since Comic-Con is going now. Dhalsim, which was teased a week or two ago, is confirmed in as I'm still skeptical how much a problem he will be against Tekken characters because of his long limbs. Will Tekken characters be able to find a way to find Dhalsim convincingly? Let's hope so with that, but at least it is still interesting to see how matchups will fare since its not like Street Fighter IV. The other Street Fighter character revealed is actually from Final Fight as Poison finally gets to be playable in a fighting game. I gotta hand it to Ono and his crew for including Poison in as I'm sure fans are pretty happy with that. From the Tekken side, Steve and Yoshimtsu are now in the game, which are more obvious inclusions. Steve's in your face style from the Tekken games fits nicely in SF x TK as I'm pretty sure he'll be one of the best characters assuming Capcom knows how good he is in recent Tekken games. Yoshimtsu has his Tekken 3 design as his primary costume, which is fine by me as its not one of the bizarre costumes he has. This is one character I'm really curious about in this game in terms of how they are going to translate his playstyle. He can be pretty sheninegans-based as moves like the sword pole and even his suicide are in. At this rate, you might as well play as an odd ball team such as Dhalsim and Yoshi. I'm not exactly sure if the new build is at Comic-Con now since the Capcom Unity stream yesterday was still showing the E3 build because they were saving the reveals till today. Anyway, expect more new Street Fighter X Tekken stuff probably around the Tokyo Game Show in September or maybe even next month at Gamescom.

UPDATE - The new cinematic trailer is nuts! This also confirms Hugo, Cody, and Guy in the game. We might as well call it Final Fight/Street Fighter X Tekken at this rate.

Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3... Leggo!!!!

After all the rumors and the hype for the past few weeks, Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 gets announced for a November release on PS3 and 360. Fighting game fans are instantly excited for the upgraded game, but some wonder if it is too early? Personally, I believe so as vanilla MvC3 should be able to last at least a year like vanilla Street Fighter IV did before Super came out. I guess all the complaining and begging about certain characters missing, some current characters being too good, and X-Factor being ridiculous paid off for a whole new game to happen. Like Super Street Fighter IV, Ultimate MvC3 is shaping up to be a substantial upgrade being disc only and 40 bucks (no plans of a download like SSF4 Arcade Edition). Changes to current characters and even new moves for them, a HUD change (who could be weird when you're trying to figure out who to snapback), spectator mode, X-Factor changes, and new stages are just the basics for this new version, but the 12 new characters is gonna be what's really exciting for Ultimate. Ghost Rider and Hawkeye are announced for the Marvel side as versus veteran Strider Hiryu and Firebrand are confirmed for the Capcom side so far. Plus, Capcom is going crazy with alternate costumes again with pre-order bonuses like no other for costume packs at various retailers (Femme Fatale Pack for Chun-Li, X-23, Storm, and Trish along with a pack for Doom, Sentinel, Akuma, and Strider). I have been unmotivated as of late playing MvC3 and this Ultimate announcement has obviously got me on the train again. Hopefully, Evo next weekend can give us a show to remember with vanilla's only year.

Anyway, here are the gameplay clips below of the new characters...

UPDATE - Looks like Capcom leaked the rest of the new cast

Marvel - Ghost Rider, Hawkeye, Doctor Strange, Nova, Iron Fist, Rocket Raccoon

Capcom - Strider, Firebrand, Frank West, Nemesis, Phoenix Wright, Vergil

I'm happy with the Capcom choices (maining Vergil yo - hopefully not as fancy as Dante), but the Marvel choices though will disappoint some folks that wanted more returning versus characters.

Yay, a Voltron Game!!!! Oh Wait....

Voltron definitely holds a special part with my family back in its glory days of the 80s since I wasn't around yet. Today, THQ finally announces Voltron: Defender of the Universe, a new downloadable game based on the Voltron anime which you can play as the original cast. IGN has the first reveal as the game has online co-op up to five players and local co-op with only two players. From the debut trailer above, there is some variety with lion shooting sections (there's an area that makes things look like a shump) and one-on-one robot arena battles. Even though it is a downloadable game, the graphics don't look so hot at its current state. Hopefully the gameplay and the source material of having scenes from the actual anime can make up the slack for the unimpressive graphics, but considering the developer's pedigree (Ghostbusters: Sanctum of Slime and Naughty Bear), even I'm not having high hopes. Then again, it is nice that a Voltron game finally exists, but this could of been so much better. We'll see how the fan reactions are with its showing at the San Diego Comic-Con this weekend as Voltron: Defender of the Universe is currently slated for release on October 25/26 on Playstation Network and Xbox Live Arcade respectively for ten dollars (800 Microsoft Points).

My Favorite Trailer of the Year gets Dissected...

The "Power Trailer" for Saints Row: The Third gets dissected by lead writer Steve Jaros as he tells all the little details and easter eggs from the infamous clip that proved why Kanye's "Power" was the song of E3 2011.

Star Fox 64 3D is out in Japan...

Star Fox 64 3D was finally released at Japan two days ago as us Americans still have to wait till September to experience arguably the best remake on 3DS (Once again, its better than Zelda OOT 3D). The graphical facelift is pretty outstanding now that I have seen some full levels in action from Zoness, Solar, and Macbeth. The control preferences will probably be a personal thing as some would enjoy the gyroscope controls, but I think playing without them seems to be the way to go especially going for medals. The music has been also remastered for all the levels as they sound for the most part, but I wished there was an option for the old music as well. I'm not sure with the Japanese voices if they're the same as the original, but the other sound effects still sound the same though. Anyway, here's part of a full playthrough above even though the quality is not as great, but of course it can be hard to record 3DS stuff without proper equipment.

UPDATE - Here's a full playthrough of the game in direct feed quality. (spoilers I guess if u haven't even played the original at all yet)