After a small hiatus, the Monday Freeview is back bringing you the best and worst of free entertainment in all shapes, forms and sizes. Today we look at the mobile app, Marvel Puzzle Quest: Dark Reign. First off, thanks for staying timely Marvel.

Dark Reign as a status quo happened between 2008 to 2009. But since it has been plastered in every Marvel book over the past month, I figured it was worth a shot and gave it a download. As you might have guessed from the name, the Marvel universe is put into the gem matching world of Puzzle Quest though there are some dramatic differences due to the game’s free to play nature.

Puzzle Quest focuses on playing out combat scenarios using the Bejeweled method of lining up three, four or five gems of the same color in a row. In Puzzle Quest, these combinations deal damage according to the player’s choice in character. The gems also tally up and can be cashed in by the player for various attacks, again determined by who the characters on the board are. Each side can have up to three characters and wins when the other side is knocked out. After a match, experience in the form of ISO’s is distributed and various unlockables can be won as well, encouraging a player to repeat the same battle multiple times.

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So as previously mentioned, yesterday was the new release for Skylanders SWAP Force. As expected, it was not a cheap endeavor. One special edition Starter Pack, one Adventure Pack, one Battle Pack, four SWAP Force, three Lightcore and one standard Skylander later and my tally between Gamespot, Toys R Us and Target had hit the $250 mark. Now, I am not complaining. I bring it upon myself and I enjoy it. That’s what the appeal of Skylanders is. Combine a video game with the ongoing geek desire to collect things and you have an addicting formula. And that’s why we have a fantastic unboxing video for you to check out to check out and help decide which Skylander SWAP Force starter set to get yourself.

There is one piece of the Skylanders formula that does get a little frustrating though. To access all of the game’s content, it does require you to purchase real world products. To play through all the areas that are travel power based, you need eight different SWAP Force characters. Granted, two come with any Starter Set you buy but that leaves six more to go at $13 each, and at launch there are still two modes of transportation not yet available as only six of the sixteen are available so far.

Now I understand the arguments that they are releasing them in waves to keep up demand and all that, but my problem lies with content being locked. The other argument that this is to keep players coming back later and maintain replayability. Let’s be clear, (gravelly old man voice, “Get off my lawn”) back in my day we went back to games often even when there was no such thing as expanding shy of a sequel.

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In what could be considered a pretty unpopular and controversial statement founder of Atari Nolan Bushnell says that he thinks Nintendo may be shoot themselves in the foot. Freshly behind Nintendo’s recent Nintendo 2DS announcement, Bushnell spoke to the BBC during the Campus Party developer event and gave his thoughts on Nintendo’s place in the market.

Bushnell stated, “”I don’t think handheld game-only devices make sense anymore. Not when you have an iPod or an Android microtablet.

“When it comes to the console market, I think the market is truncating. Nintendo always had a soft spot for young people–they sort of did the 12-and-under pretty well, and the other guys did the 12-and-over.”

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Living now on the west coast, I am used to waking up, checking my email and being greeted by new and interesting (though sometimes expected) pieces of news. Yesterday, I woke up to an email that was far from what I could have imagined. Along with The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD Bundle which is a great play to try and get people to purchase a Wii U by remaking a legacy title and presenting it as something new, Nintendo also announced the Nintendo 2DS. That’s right. The 2DS.

Now at first glance, it definitely sounds ridiculous. The Nintendo DS was a success so it spawned the Nintendo 3DS which brought 3D to handhelds. Even after a shaky start, Nintendo was able to pull it together and make the system a success. And now they announce the Nintendo 2DS. It will be a fixed unfoldable design and play the 3D content exclusively in 2D. What? Why take away one of the key features of the 3DS by removing the 3D?

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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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At a minimum of $300 a pop, hitting sales of 400,000 units is nothing to sneeze at. That means that in the first week Nintendo was able to earn a MINIMUM of $120,000,000 in sales off the newly launched Wii U. Factor in that some percentage of these consoles sold were the $350 Deluxe Edition means they the number may be actually be closer to $130,000,000. But how does that compare to console launches in the past?

Back in 2006, the original Wii clocked in sales of 600,000 units in its first week on shelves. That’s a 200,000 unit differential. The Wii U’s launch was more in line with the PlayStation 3’s launch which was also in the 400,000 range that same year showing that the Wii U may be more of a core gamer system as opposed to the mass appeal that the Wii had to non-gamers.

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There are two known facts about The Flickcast’s gaming division (a.k.a. the Bitcast):

1. WallE and I love video games.

2. WallE and I cannot wait until Wreck-It Ralph hits theaters.

So it only makes sense that we would be following the news on the Wreck-It Ralph tie-in video game. Now while we all know that movie tie-in games run a high risk of not living up to expectations for the film, or for games in general, there is a shed of hope for Wreck-It Ralph. After all, it is a game… based off a movie… that is based off of gaming. What could possibly go wrong? Well, don’t answer that as we have seen many a project that should have been a layup go wrong.

In the new teaser trailer, we take a quick look at Wreck-It Ralph but don’t get the opportunity to see his gameplay so that is what leads us to speculate. What is Wreck-It Ralph going to be like? Players have already been given the opportunity to play browser based versions of Hero’s Duty and Sugar Rush on the Wreck-It Ralph movie site as well as a Fix-It Felix iOS game.

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One aspect of LEGO games that has always stood out was the central hub location where players would go in and out of missions. Originally, this was a small location of only a few rooms that chapters could be explored by entering. This was the primary setup for LEGO Star Wars and LEGO Indiana Jones. More recently, LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes changed this format with an open world Gotham for players to traverse and go into story missions when they saw fit. Now, Traveler’s Tales needs to switch up for the format again for LEGO The Lord of the Rings.

While it made sense in LEGO Batman’s world for the caped crusader to be able to travel around Gotham at his whim, that just isn’t the case with the tighter narrative that needs to be told during The Lord of the Rings. Even in LEGO format, The Lord of the Rings needs to have a clear beginning and ending location that players can’t just skip to. As anyone who has watched, or especially read The Lord of the Rings, it isn’t the destination that mattered to the story as much as it was the journey that got the heroes there.

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Now it’s no secret that the Flickcast team are fans of the original G1 Transformers as well as Highmoon Studios’ work on the franchise with Transformers: War for Cybertron and Transformers: Fall of Cybertron. And when we have all seen the blockbuster abomination from Michael Bay, that doesn’t mean we are closed off to a reimagining of the robots in disguise. Most recently, this has come from Transformers Prime on the Hub network. And with all toy franchises, it was only a matter of time before a new game would be launched for it coming from NowPro.

The Flickcast has shown both the reveal of the game as well as the first gameplay foodtage for Transformers Prime: The Game. Now following the announcement that Transformers Prime: The Game will be a launch window title for the Wii U, we get to take a peek at some of the story for what Optimus and the rest of Team Prime are going to encounter. In the trailer after the jump, a new weapon is revealed that Megatron is intent on powering up to unleash devastation upon the Autobots and the rest of the world.

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One of the most intimidating prospects for a game developer may be the chance to work on a franchise they grew up loving. There is so much pressure put on themselves to uphold the high standards they set because they don’t want to let down themselves, other fans or the creators of it. But it also gives great opportunity for talented teams to make something special that can stand alongside other creative works associated with that franchise. Traveler’s Tales is one of those teams that has shown both love and respect for everything from Star Wars to Harry Potter in the LEGO universe and are undertaking the formidable legacy of The Lord of the Rings in their next game.

When you look at LEGO The Lord of the Rings at first, what you may notice first is the world going on behind the characters. There is a blend of both picturesque landscape combined with scenics from the films created out of LEGO. Much like they did with LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes, LEGO The Lord of the Rings will have a large open world format with side quests for players to take part in instead of just following the story of the game.

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