As we learned already, the XBox One isn’t going to be backwards compatible with XBox 360 games. Personally, I don’t see this as an issue. When I got my XBox 360, I didn’t worry about playing my original XBox games on it. And any of us who were born before the PS2 rose to prominence remember the days when we got our SNES and the only ones who questioned if the NES games would still play on it were our parents. We didn’t care back then.

In an interview with The Verge, Microsoft Xbox Live vice president Marc Whitten said, “The system is based on a different core architecture, so back-compat doesn’t really work from that perspective.” As a result, the content of the XBox Live Arcade on the XBox 360 won’t be able to carry over to the XBox One. Since the XBox One’s hardware configuration won’t support XBox 360 discs, it makes sense that the downloadable content would not be supported as well.

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As we previewed early yesterday morning, the team behind Batman: Arkham Origins at Warner Bros. Games Montreal revealed an almost five minute long CGI trailer for the game yesterday afternoon. With it came the reveal of pre-order information, two new major characters and some interesting news on the voice actors.

From the initial teaser, it was already confirmed that Deathstroke would find his way into the game. It was announced today that those who preorder Batman: Arkham Origins would be able to play as Deathstroke. It will be in similar fashion to the Joker or Catwoman challenge maps of Arkham games past as well as contain two additional costumes for Deathstroke.

Additionally, the trailer reveals two characters. Black Mask makes his return to the series after a brief cameo in Arkham City. It should be noted that it is revealed in Arkham City that Black Mask was the only man to ever escape. In addition, Deadshot will be making a return to the series as well.

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After Scribblenauts Unlimited came to the Wii U with a fairly soft launch, a lot of people wondered what might be next, if at all, for the series. Aside from new puzzles, what was there really left you could do for Scribblenauts that hadn’t already been done with the customizability of Scribblenauts Unlimited? I mean, it has “unlimited” in the title. The answer of course is rather fitting, a comic book crossover.

Whenever publishers in comics are in a sales dip, they crossover a more popular character into another series to give it a sales boost. But why stop at just a Batman Scribblenauts or a Scribblenauts Metropolis? WB Games and 5th Cell took the whole DC Universe and brought it over to the Scribblenauts world in Scribblenauts Unmasked: A DC Comics Adventure. In addition to giving the powers of various DC heroes and villains to Maxell, the trailer below indicates that players will be able to actually play as various DC characters in the game as well in the puzzle solving adventure.

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Wii U owners were pleased to find that the arcade classic Pac-Man found its way to the Wii U shop just about two weeks ago. Not bad to get some excitement about a game getting close to its 33rd birthday. But yesterday, something no one expected happened. A second Pac-Man piece of news in a month popped up with an all new Pac-Man title. Pac-Man would be returning in an all new game. Namco Bandai will be releasing Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures this fall to the XBox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii U and Nintendo 3DS.

The hungry little sphere that could is coming back to 3D (with a sidescroller for the 3DS, go figure) with some new powers not yet seen before… well that’s not entirely true. From the look of the trailer below, there will be a transformative power set to the game where upon eating various ghosts, Pac-Man acquires certain abilities. Sounds a little bit like Kirby, wouldn’t you say? Well even though we only see one of these in action, there is certainly a Kirby-esque feel to the way the game looks to play.

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It’s been about four years since we last saw William “B.J.” Blazkowicz take the fight to the filthy Nazi forces in Wolfenstein. Finally yesterday though, it was announced that B.J. would be making his return in the next installment of Wolfenstein entitled Wolfenstein: The New Order.

From what we’ve been able to find out so far, Wolfenstein: The New Order takes place years after the events of the last Wolfenstein. Although B.J. accomplished his mission, something happened as he was hidden away and he has a new regime to deal with. While some Wolfenstein games have at least started more reality based, Wolfenstein: The New Order is taking the Go Big or Go Home approach right at the start. Gigantic robots with lots of weaponry look to block B.J.’s way.

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Plants vs. Zombies came out way back in 2009 for the PC and Mac from PopCap games. It would go on to be ported to iOS, XBLA, Nintendo DS, the PSN, DSiWare, Android, Windows Phone, the PlayStation Vita and then finally to the Blackberry in January of this year (also proving that BlackBerry really has no idea what they are doing). Originally titled Lawn of the Dead, Plants vs. Zombies is one of the most widely popular tower defense style games ever with a MetaCritic score of 88 to boot. So what is taking so long to get a sequel? That’s what YouTube stars like Francis and XBox community manager Larry “Major Nelson” Hyrb want to know too.

With the teaser trailer below, we finally get official confirmation that Plants vs. Zombies 2 isn’t only real but that it is coming out in July of this year. Hopefully it won’t come out during Comic Con or there are going to be a lot of very confused people trying to figure out the best use of their time. Though no actual footage is shown, it is an awesome teaser that showcases how all of us feel about the wait on this title. The one the Flickcast staff seems to relate to the most is Francis.

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Even though a majority of us here at The Flickcast use smartphones made by Apple, that doesn’t mean we only care about iOS or things from Cupertino. We also like Android quite a bit too. And when a new smartphone is reportedly ready to be announced by Google itself, we pay particular attention.

That phone is the much-discussed “X Phone.” And now we’ve got a picture (or two) of it, curtesy of gadget blog Tinthe.tn, so you can see exactly what it’s all about.

From the pics we can say that the device does look a lot like other Android smartphones, particularly those from Samsung. Not that that’s a bad thing. In addition to the pics, there’s also info about the internals of the device.

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Back in January we reported on the breaking news that LEGO Marvel Super Heroes was coming. Yes, we know it was kind of a no brainer but it was great to see it was actually happening! Now we are proud to bring the first official trailer to the Flickcast faithful.

In the trailer below, check out the first official look at LEGO Spider-Man, Thor, Wolverine, Hulk, Iron Man, Deadpool and Black Widow who will be amongst the “more than 100 memorable characters to choose from, each with their own unique powers and abilities, players are in for a brick-smashing adventure”. Those actual gameplay isn’t shown, one can assume it will probably be similar in style to that of LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes. The trailer also gives a pretty good indicator who one of the game’s big bads is going to be.

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In two weeks, EVE Online takes the next step into cross-platform play when it will officially be launching DUST 514 on to the PlayStation Network. On May 14th, CCP Games will be releasing DUST 514 for free to the PSN as a part of EVE Online’s extended universe. After ten years of building the world of EVE Online in the half spreadsheet economic simulator / half space combat genre, the PC based game world is going to expand to the PlayStation 3 console with FPS combat.

To help explain how the connection of the two titles, CCP Games has put together an amazing trailer explaining the back-story of the Immortals. Make sure to check it out after the jump. In addition, CCP announced a Collector’s Edition entitled EVE: The Second Decade which boasts in game and physical items to help contribute to the full EVE Online and DUST 514 experience.

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The little tower defense game that could keeps on trucking with the official announcement of the sequel to Defense Grid set for 2014. Way back in 2009 during Comic-Con, I got the chance to get hands on with the original Defense Grid before it went to XBox Live Arcade.

Though not being a tower defense guy, I couldn’t stop playing (until the game beat me into submission). Then with the “You Monster” DLC pack that put even more levels, but this time with a Portal theme, at my disposal, I was hooked again.

During our Kickstarter Watch, we put a spotlight on Defense Grid in hopes of helping Hidden Path reach their goal that would eventually lead to the release of Defense Grid 2. Though the million dollar goal wasn’t hit, this bit of news was released yesterday:

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After the recent sad news with layoffs happening at High Moon Studios following the completion of the Deadpool game which is set for June 25th release for the XBox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC, there was a PR blip that went out late yesterday getting into detail with the Deadpool preorder incentives. Obviously, the team behind the Deadpool PR is still working hard at keeping Deadpool at bay when he gets his hands on their press releases.

Below, you’ll be able to check out the list of presale incentives from GameSpot and Amazon for those who are picking up this Marvel merc at the budget price of $49.99. Make sure to check out all the new screens below as well!

intimidated invited Activision Publishing, Inc. and High Moon Studios to make a video game starring Marvel’s most Marvel-ous character, me. And you being a gamer of unquestionable good taste wish to pre-order that game. Well I say bravo – you deserve some awesome rewards for putting your trust in Deadpool.

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When people think of Bethesda right now, two things come to mind. Fallout and the Elder Scrolls. So when a video surfaced today on Vine from Bethesda Softworks featuring a spinning LP and barbed wire, it isn’t an unfair assumption to think it may be related to Fallout. After speculation quickly popped online about The Moonlight Trio and George Shackley LP as well as the flashes of Johann Sebastian Bach (who was featured on the Fallout 3 soundtrack) and Air on the G String from the gaming press, Bethesda VP of marketing and PR Pete Hines replied on his Twitter account that this wasn’t the case.

Obviously this isn’t a new Oblivion since the online title is already announced an on its way. But what could it be? The first option is Project Zwei, which is a survival horror game being published by Bethesda under the development of Resident Evil designer Shinji Mikami.

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Back in February we revealed that the leader of the Yellow Lanterns, a.k.a. the Sinestro Corps, would be taking one of the roster spots in Injustice: Gods Among Us to act as the opposition to Hal Jordan, the Green Lantern. It only made sense with NetherRealm Studios working on the game that you’d need a yellow Scorpion to counteract the emerald Sub-Zero.

So it ended up being a huge surprise when yesterday a new video emerged that shed some light into Hal Jordan’s story when he saw… himself.

In the latest trailer released this week, check out Hal Jordan vs. Hal Jordan as the man who has found himself at one point a member of pretty much every Corps wearing both the green and yellow as he takes on himself. As you’ll see from the trailer though, this isn’t just a reskin for a fantasty match. This looks to take place within Hal’s actual story during Injustice: Gods Among Us as both Hal and his Justice League compatriots react to what is happening.

This just adds to the already interesting mythos that is being associated with the game as it sees both Superman and Lex Luthor on the same side and a clone of Hal Jordan attacking himself.

Check out the full trailer after the jump.

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Yesterday morning, the news broke the news that Disney would be shutting down LucasArts, which they got as a part of their acquisition of the Star Wars purchase last October for $4.05 Billion dollars. Back when the sale took place, LucasArts immediately put a freeze on all hiring and announcements.

There were also reports that both Star Wars: First Assault and Star Wars 1313 would be canceled with the closure of the studio. It is estimated that about 150 people would be affected by the layoffs.

Later in the day, gaming magazine Game Informer got the following statement from Disney regarding LucasArts:

“After evaluating our position in the games market, we’ve decided to shift LucasArts from an internal development to a licensing model, minimizing the company’s risk while achieving a broader portfolio of quality Star Wars games.

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Last year on April Fool’s Day, Mimobot jokingly announced a Jar Jar Binks styled thumb drive in their line of Star Wars related storage accessories. Luckily, this was only a joke as it was revealed that they would not be taking it to the manufacturer. Everyone had a good laugh with sighs of relief.

But apparently there was some negative backlash over Jar Jar’s false Mimobot. And it wasn’t PTSD for those who contemplated bombing the Mimobot factory. It was from people who were actually disappointed that it wasn’t really happening.

It seems 500 people (which is our best guess since the Jar Jar Mimobot will only have 500 produced) made enough of a fuss to get Mimobot to create a thumb drive of the Gungan nightmare. After all, why would they risk making more Jar Jar Binks Mimobots than they believed they could realistically sell?

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