Even though as a recent convert to Verizon and a happy HTC Droid Incredible owner I’m reluctant to see any new phone that makes mine obsolete or diminishes it in some way, it is nice to see that Verizon and Motorola keep trying to raise the bar with newer and more feature-rich smartphones. Case in point is the announcement late yesterday of the actual specs, release date and pricing for the next generation of Motorola DROID, better known as the DROID X.

Here’s the summary of specs for the device in a nice, easy to read list.

• Texas Instrument 1GHz Processor
• 4.3″ display with 854 x480 resolution, 400,000 pixels
• 8GB internal storage• 16 GB microSD card expansion (expandable to 32GB)
• 8 MP camera with dual flash, HD camcorder
• Integrated Multitouch keyboard, optional Swype keyboard
• 3G Mobile hotspot functionality with support for up to 5 devices, 2GB cap, $20 monthly fee
• GPS
• Bluetooth
• Wi-Fi
• Support for Exchange and Gmail for Business
• Adobe Flash Player 10.1 ready
• Android 2.1 with a “toned down” version of Motoblur

Yes, there’s no “out of the box” Flash support and no you don’t get Android 2.1 (aka Froyo) but Verizon does say they will be releasing an upgrade for both “issues” in the latter half of the Summer. So, you got that going for you if you end up getting the device, which is nice.

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DC’s animated film department has only gotten bigger and better since they took off back in 2007 with Superman: Doomsday. Each film since has done an impressive job by either retelling a classic story, or staying true to an original one shot, such as Justice League: New Frontier. Their newest venture does a little of both.

Batman: Under the Red Hood comes straight from scribe Judd Winick’s “Under the Hood” storyline from 2005. The book not only touches on the murder of Jason Todd, but the origin of The Joker, and some amazing growth of characters that we’ve loved for decades.

Much like all of the other DC animated titles, this film pulls no punches with it’s voice cast. Bruce Greenwood steps in as Batman this time, while Neil Patrick Harris plays Dick Grayson/Nightwing, Futurama’s John DiMaggio plays The Joker, Supernatural’s Jensen Ackles plays Jason Todd/Red Hood, and even Lucious Malfoy (Jason Isaacs) from the Harry Potter films gets a part as Ra’s al Ghul.

The movie looks to be quite impressive and with Winick penning the script, we expect it won’t disappoint. Check out an exclusive new clip from the movie after the jump and be sure to catch Batman: Under the Red Hood on DVD and Blu-ray July 27th.

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Apple’s iPhone has been making great strides to prove itself as a legitimate gaming platform. While many of the games for it are casual in nature, others such as Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars have shown the hardcore audience has a place on the platform as well. Activision, seeing this, has capitalized by introducing the Call of Duty: World at War: Zombies series to the iPhone.

Gameplay:

Call of Duty: World at War: Zombies II is a first person shooter using the touch screen of the iPhone. There is a dual “analog” setup with movement on the left and aim on the right. Players can zoom in by tapping the gun icon for more accurate aiming. Shooting is accomplished by tapping the screen on the aiming “analog” and grenades are tossed by tapping an icon on screen.

The controls work as well as one would expect for an iPhone. They are responsive but nowhere near as accurate as a mouse and keyboard or a control pad with actual analog sticks. Having your aiming analog act as the fire button as well prevents certain FPS standards like turning while strafing around enemies which ends up becoming more of an inaccurate zigzag attempt.

The gameplay starts out slow to let players get accustomed to the controls as a few zombies begin bashing their way past wooden barriers around the doors. Eventually, the number of zombies ramp up as well as the addition of Hellhounds. The first time I was hit with a sneak attack from two rabid Hellhounds that teleported into the room it was almost instant death.

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In case you’ve been living under a rock or, as is the case with some, just don’t care today is iPhone 4 launch day. What does that mean? Well, it means people lined up early to make sure they could secure the newest version of the infamous Apple device.

Because we like adventure and because I can’t sleep much these days I went out in the wee hours to see what the line was like at one of the local Apple stores. In this case I stopped at the flagship Apple store at The Grove in Los Angeles.

Yes, people had lined up early (in some cases the night before) and the lines were even longer when I arrived around 6AM today. Chatting with a few folks in line I discovered that the excitement for this new device is at a fever pitch and people just can’t wait to get their hands on it.

Having been in line for previous iPhone launches I can say for certain that this crowd was more enthusiastic and larger than before. It looks like Apple might have a hit on its hands with the iPhone 4. Were you really surprised?

Check out some pics of people in line after the jump. I will also post a video soon as well of the event.

And let us know about your iPhone 4 experiences? Did you wait in line or were you one of the lucky ones who pre-ordered?

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During E3, Nintendo touted that the Nintendo 3DS would play host an amazing assortment of high quality third party titles in addition to Nintendo produced titles. One of those publishers that was announced to be working on the 3DS is Capcom with two of their premiere franchises.

Below, take a peek at the first trailer for Resident Evil: Revalations. Though these cinematics will not reflect actual gameplay, it already has lit a fire under us for the chance to finally play a Resident Evil game without the need for a multi-thousand dollar PC configuration or those ridiculous glasses.

Last year’s Resident Evil 5 in stereoscopic 3D for PC was an impressive sight to behold, but unfortunately it was not an easy barrier of entry considering the powerful PC needed to run it smoothly. Now, Chris and Jill return to the series in handheld 3D glory. If the 3DS can pull off these cut scenes shown in the trailer in 3D, consider us impressed.

Street Fighter has been a staple of the video game world for more than a decade. This past year, the series was reinvigorated with the release of Street Fighter IV. Coming to both the XBox 360 and PlayStation 3, the game was later ported successfully to a touch screen iPhone version. Now, seeing how the game could thrive in the handheld market, Capcom is bringing it to the 3DS with the tentatively titled Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition.

The screens below show some of the Street Fighter favorites like Ryu, Cammy and Guile taking it to each other, though sadly we can’t show it to you in its full 3D glory.

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The Western genre has plenty of subgenres. There’s deconstructionist Westerns, post apocalyptic Westerns, spaghetti Westerns, classic Westerns, and so on. I’ve found you can also split the entire genres into two character categories — the young gunfighter, or the aging lawman / gunfighter.   It seems to me that you don’t see a lot of the latter in the heydays of the classic Western — the 1940s and ’50s — but as the stalwarts of the era aged, we started seeing more elegiac  tales come into vogue.

While John Wayne and Gary Cooper still maintained their crackling or saintly demeanor in movies like The Train Robbers or Vera Cruz, the stories still reflected that they were a little older, a little slower, and much grayer.  Movies such The Professionals and Lonesome Dove or even the recent Appaloosa spend a fair amount of plot wistfully thinking about the good old days.

Sam Peckinpah’s Ride the High Country falls in the same vein. Aging lawman Steve Judd (Joel McCrea) is hired to escort a shipment of gold from a mining camp. The film gently pokes fun at his age (he’s utterly bewildered by the modernizing town) and the townsfolk are pretty blunt about it. He has a great reputation, but is he too old for the job?

By chance, Judd meets up with his pal Gil Westrum (Randolph Scott) who works for dimes as a gunfighter in a circus sideshow.   Westrum agrees to lend his gun to the mission, and brings in a young partner named Heck Longtree (Ron Starr) to assist.  What Judd doesn’t know, however, is that old age and circus living have changed Westrum for the worse.

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Hard to believe it’s not even a month before San Diego Comic-Con, the annual pilgrimage to the city by the sea for all lovers of comics, movies, TV and everything in between. We’re going to be covering the show in a big way this year and have already started giving you some good information about it.

To continue that trend, we’ve got information about Fox TV’s plans for the event. The network will have a big presence at the Con bringing eleven shows and many of the stars stars from those shows for panels and press events.

Some of their talent scheduled to attend include David Boreanaz, Matt Groening, Seth MacFarlane, Molly Shannon, Katey Sagal, Ron Perlman, Patton Oswalt, Seth Green, Stars of Glee, Terra Nova, Futurama, Cleveland Show, American Dad, Bob’s Burgers and Neighbors From Hell. A pretty impressive list indeed.

Click through for the full press release detailing Fox TV’s schedule. Comic-Con in San Diego runs from July 22-26.

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Good news, everyone! Yes…I have to start off every Futurama story with that exclamation. Why? Because we’re only hours away from season premiere of Futurama on Comedy Central. It’s been a tough battle since the days of Fox, but the show creators Matt Groening and David X. Cohen fought hard, made a few DVD movies, and are now back on the air with a full season.

There are plenty of questions that we fans expect to get answered in upcoming episodes, like what happened to the Fry and Leela love story, or Bender’s foree in the League of Robots. Luckily, Comedy Central has put together a special Q&A with Cohen and Groening to answer a few of these questions before the one-hour premiere.

Take a look at the interview after the jump, as the two discuss topics like Fry’s middle name, and what ever happened to Kiff and Amy’s babies. Be sure to catch the hour-long season premiere of Futurama on Comedy Central this Thursday at 10pm/9pm Central.

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Last week, we brought you some of the logistical updates for San Diego Comic-Con 2010, important info for folks attending this year’s Con. This week we’ll be updating you a bit more in that department while previewing some of the more interesting pre-con announcements to cross our desk. Let’s get started, shall we?

SDCC has notified us that additional hotel rooms are now available in the Mission Valley area. Click here to view the specific hotels along with valuable shuttle route information you’ll need to know if you’re staying in this area. The expanded shuttle route will service hotels in the Mission Valley and Shelter Island and will run from 7:00 am to 8:00 pm from a location near the Omni Hotel (at the foot of L Street in downtown San Diego). After 8:00 pm this shuttle route will originate from the Convention Center front driveway.

In addition to the new shuttle routes, SDCC has expanded their bag check program so you won’t get stuck packing your swag around all night just because you didn’t want to return to your hotel to drop everything off. Checking your bag will run $2, however remember that bags cannot be left overnight.

If you’re interested in taking a load off, stop by the official location near Hall A and underneath the escalator in the lobby of  Hall E, on the ground floor level of the Convention Center. The bag check schedule for 2010 is as follows: Wednesday, July 21 2:00 pm—9:00 pm; Thursday, July 22—Saturday through July 24 7:00 am—2:00 am; and finally on Sunday, July 25 7:00 am—5:00 pm.

Be sure to hit the jump for important info on early badge pick-up at the new off-site location, details on off-site events in the downtown area during Comic-Con 2010, and some details on exclusive collectibles available on the show floor!

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This week Chris and Matt get down to business with all manner of new topics, observations, questions and discussions. Among the items on the agenda this time around are the new Green Hornet trailer, the Dr. Strange movie and who should play the character, a bit more talk about E3, Jason Momoa as Conan, M. Night Shyamalan’s new “secret” movie and a whole lot more.

The boys also made some picks this week including Matt’s pick of the book The Man Who Heard Voices: Or, How M. Night Shyamalan Risked His Career on a Fairy Tale and Chris’ pick of the Brian K. Vaughn comic Dr. Strange: The Oath.

As always, if you have comments, questions, critiques, offers of sponsorship or whatever, feel free to hit us up in the comments, on Twitter, at Facebook and MySpace or via email.

With several comic book publishers, including Marvel, already heavily invested in the digital comics space, it seems DC has now decided to get into the world of digital publishing as well. Today the company and its parent Warner Bros. announced it would partner with digital comics platform comiXology, and in a separate deal PlayStation Network, to begin offering comics in digital form to consumers.

In addition, the company will offer a free an application to read comics on iPhone, iPod and iPad devices. This application will launch today and be available in Apple’s iTunes Store.

Some of the comics that will be available digitally include classic DC, Vertigo and Wildstorm titles such as Batman: Hush, Green Lantern: Rebirth, Fables: Legends and Exiles, Planetary: Legends, Exiles: All Over the World and more. In addition, The Justice League: Generation Lost mini-series will be available via both platforms day and date with each issue’s printed release.

Pricing for the digital titles will be tiered from $.99 to $2.99 an issue. Check out the full press release for the announcement after the jump.

So, now that DC has entered the digital space along with Marvel and other publishers, what will this mean for comics retailers? Will we soon see the end of comic book stores?

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In the US, there are only two major names in professional wrestling. WWE and TNA. And while Ring of Honor is working its way to become a closer third, it just can’t match the major production budgets that WWE and TNA produce. But wrestling doesn’t revolve just around America. Japan and Mexico each have their own wrestling companies with fans maybe even more intense and fanatical than their American counterparts. And in Mexico, there is nothing bigger than Lucha Libre AAA.

Lucha Libre AAA: Héroes del Ring brings together some of the biggest names in Lucha Libre for a six sided action packed wrestling experience. The game sets itself apart from WWE and TNA games by focusing more on the intensity and athleticism of Lucha Libre instead of the story focus of WWE and TNA.

For those not familiar with AAA, there is a surprisingly large number of recognizable faces there for American pro wrestling fans. Most fans of WWE and WCW will remember the names and faces of men like La Parka, Konnan, Psicosis, Vampiro, Juventud Guerrera and current TNA wrestler X-Pac. In addition, AAA has built itself a stable of well known wrestlers that are Mexican equivalents to John Cena and Triple H. Some of these include Electroshock, Cibernético, Dr. Wagner, Jr. And Teddy Hart (nephew of wrestling legend, Bret Hart).

Lucha Libre AAA: Héroes del Ring is being published by Konami and will be released on August 9th on the XBox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii and Nintendo DSi platforms. After the jump, check out the E3 trailer and let us know what you think!

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