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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Like all good things done by Nintendo, it’s time for special edition hardware. With the Pokemon franchise being possibly the most recognizable mobile game in the world with its original GameBoy roots, Nintendo is bringing the pocket monster flair to their behemoth (only in terms of importance, not size) pocket based console.

Retailing for a cool $199.99, the Pikachu themed 3DS XL will come with a 4 GB SD memory card and be available in limited qualities. From the look of the above image though, it may only be the top of the 3DS XL that features the Pikachu treatment as the hinge appears white, meaning the actual body of the system may be white as well.

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As much as we love Disney and a lot of the things they do like Wreck-It Ralph, even we notice that they don’t always come up with all their own concepts. Usually it is something that has been successful in the past and they put a Disney twist on it to turn it into an even bigger success. Cinderella, Snow White, Beauty and the Beast and tons more are all examples of this. So, it’s no surprise that Disney and Avalanche Software would be following the success of the toys to video game combo of Skylanders with the announcement of Disney Infinity.

Using a special hardware base accessory, players will be able to unlock new in game content and characters for Disney Infinity. Sounds familiar right? Disney Infinity will be following a model similar to that of Activision’s Skylanders franchise. Players will be able to take purchased toys and put them on a base that will read the figure and unlock characters and items in the game.

In the trailer below, you’ll see characters from Pirates of the Caribbean, The Incredibles, Monsters University, Cars, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Toy Story and more that will most likely be on the list of playable characters and toys coming out for Disney Infinity.

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Epic franchises have been doing crossovers for years. It was only a matter of time before the team behind The Lord of the Rings movie franchise took notice of the success of other film blockbusters like Star Wars, Harry Potter and Indiana Jones and how well they all did when they met the LEGO world. Not only did the toys sell, but their video games were all certified hits. LEGO The Lord of the Rings promised to again do something never before done in a LEGO crossover.

The Long

Unlike LEGO Batman and its sequel which were original stories, LEGO The Lord of the Rings took the path of Star Wars and put the entire film trilogy and its most epic encounters into LEGO form. Unlike Star Wars though, LEGO The Lord of the Rings included actual voiceover taken directly from the film. That means the most iconic scenes, though given LEGO twists and humor in many cases, have the authentic audio from the movies. Hearing LEGO Gandalf utter, “You shall not pass” to the Balrog is unexpectedly still incredibly powerful even though, for all intensive purposes, it’s a toy saying it.

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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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If you have a young male gamer in your family anywhere between the ages of 6 to 36, you have most likely heard of Skylanders. What seems like a simple adventure game takes on the addictive nature of Pokemon style in-game collection alongside real life figurines (a staple of any geek lifestyle). Skylanders Giants comes as the second iteration of what will likely become a yearly franchise for at least the foreseeable future from Activision and developer Toys for Bob that adds some new gameplay dynamics and, more importantly, a slew of new figures for gamers to collect.

The Long

Skylanders Giants kicks things off following the events of the original Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure. There is a little bit of meta going on with the story as the antagonist Kaos finds himself in our real world and sees the Skylanders trapped in toy form. After transporting himself back to Skylands, Kaos finds out about a mystical artifact that will allow him to control a robotic army and take over Skylands.

Meanwhile, the player finds out that the ancient Giants, who were the first Skylanders, have been found and they can be awakened to stop Kaos and the robotic army. Yes, it does sound like a Saturday morning cartoon but that is a part of the charm of Skylanders Giants.

Just as the story has a whimsical youthful feel to it, so does the character design. All of the Skylanders from the original game return along with eight new Skylanders and eight Giants. The designs stay in line with the different elements of the game like Life (trees), Death (skeletons), Tech (mechanical) and others while keeping the designs of the new characters original as well. The Giants are unique both in their size on-screen and in their design as well. They have a larger than life feel with the way they interact with other characters and objects on-screen.

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The madness has begun. On Sunday, Skylanders Giants was released in game and toy stores around the country. Parents waited outside on the brisk fall morning to be the first in line to get their hands on the new Skylanders Giants game as well as the horde of new figures released. After the shortages of various figures with Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure it is no surprise that parents and collector’s alike flocked to stores so not to miss out on the latest line of Skylanders Giants.

Aside from the game itself which was launched with either just the Tree Rex Giant figure for owners of the original game or the Portal of Power, Tree Rex Giant, the new Jet Vac and the series 2 Cynder for the XBox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii and Nintendo 3DS, there was a horde of figures released with waves 1 and 2. Not counting Tree Rex, four of the eight new Giants figures have been released. There have also been the releases of series 2 Skylanders (remakes of the original Skylanders), Lightcore Skylanders (classic Skylanders remodeled with pieces that light up when put on the Portal of Power) and of course the new Skylanders made for Skylanders Giants as well. They have also released the first Battle pack three pack which includes Chop Chop 2, Shroom Boom and the Dragonfire Cannon which unlocks a new Combat Arena.

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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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Not since Pokemon has a “gotta get ‘em all” mentality hit gaming like it has with Skylanders. Shipments would hit stores and be gone within a few short days. And when someone had finally gotten all the new characters for themselves or their kid, the next wave would hit. And come October, we get to do it all over again.

When Skylanders Giants was announced, details were still a little unclear as to how the classic Skylanders would fit into this new game world. Even more questions arose when the new Skylanders Starter Pack was revealed. Would players of the original need to purchase another Portal of Power and a repeat Cinder Skylander to get to play Skylanders Giants? With this latest features trailer (seen after the jump) we get all the important facts.

First off, the Starter Pack will be available for the Wii, Wii U, XBox 360, PlayStation 3 and Nintendo 3DS and will retail for $79.99. It will include Skylanders Giants, the Portal of Power, one Giant, one New Skylander and one Series 2 Skylander.

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Because we know just how important Skylanders are to both geeks and the parents of young aspiring geeks, we’ve got the reveal trailer for the latest Giant coming to Skylanders Giants and he goes by the name Crusher. Now as much as you’d expect a wrestler looking behemoth, Crusher actually more closely resembles a stone golem with a massive hammer.

Though we haven’t gotten the chance to get hands on with any of these Giants yet, we are wondering just how they will play in comparison to their smaller Skylander counterparts. Aside from the special moves like moving heavy objects and pulling islands closer together with their chains, it looks like the Giants dole out massive damage to regular sized foes based on the trailer

Take a peek below at Crusher in action after the jump.

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After being announced by Activision as the top grossing toy line of last year, people are already lining up in anticipation of the release of Skylanders’ next endeavor, Skylanders Giants. To help satiate this group of kids, parents and gamers alike are the latest character reveals from Activision from Gamescom.

Gamescom brings two New Skylanders to the mix. While we have only seen three of the eight Giants, there are still a host of the smaller Skylanders which will be making a debut in Skylanders Giants. Chill is a new Water Skylander with a doublesided spear, the ability to toss ice bricks and even throw a narwhal at her opponents. The slingshot equipped Shroomboom is a Life Skylander that can launch himself or poisonous mushrooms at opponents or set up a barrier of the same mushrooms around himself to detonate.

Check out the full profiles of both new Skylanders and the latest Gamescom screen shots after the break and stay tuned to the Flickcast for more on Skylanders Giants before its Fall 2012 release.

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