There has been a wonderful recent trend of classic game franchises that were dormant being given new life with current generation updates. The most recent franchise to get a respectful update is the PC classic MechWarrior.

MechWarrior was a high water mark in PC gaming in the ’90s, offering incredible game play and even better graphics. Back in it’s heyday, no consoles could compete with the graphical power of the top tier PC games, and as such MechWarrior was very much a gamer household name.

Obviously things have changed, and the once proud franchise has almost all been forgotten. That is until the brand new MechWarrior Online releases later this year. The game boasts inedible graphics and real time giant robot physics (if there can be such a thing), meaning over-heating, terrain, weather, and gravity are all going to be factors you must contend with.

At the recently concluded Game Developers Conference, the first game play footage of the new game was revealed. It looks like a nostalgia sandwich wrapped in a shiny, next-gen wrapping. Just watching the game play footage harkins back to a bygone time in PC gaming. First-Person robot destruction still looks like a blast.

Check out the new footage after the jump.

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Everyone knows that Wednesday is new comic book day. While picking up your new issues consider looking at some of the trade paperbacks and hard covers of past issues and story lines. But which ones should you choose?

That’s why every Tuesday, The Flickcast will recommend a collection of comics that are just as good, if not better, than the issues you are currently buying. Books that deserve to be read, and bought the next time you walk into your local comic book store.

“The hardest part is that I’m 83 years old. I do a great
Jack Benny, but no one really gets it anymore.”- Atomic Robo

Atomic Robo is a comic I have enjoyed reading for some time now. Every chance I get to recommend it to someone, I do and this was the book that started my love for it.

I was wandering through my local comic book shop. I knew that I wanted to buy a book, and I also knew that I didn’t want more of the same. I needed something different, something a little crazy, and something with some humor. Then, it appeared!

Its simple cover was filled with a robot with glowing blue eyes looking like it was seconds away from pounding in the heads of some crazier robots. How could I not buy this book? From there, I have read everything Atomic Robo, and you should too. Start with this Trade Paperback Tuesday pick, Atomic Robo and the Fightin’ Scientists of Tesladyne.

Atomic Robo is the story of the same-named robot that was built by Nikola Tesla in 1923. He has lived through the 20th century, had crazy adventures, and now has adventures with a team of action scientists! How can you not read a book with that description?

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Not many comic books improve with their second issue. Generally, writers and artists put everything they got into the first. First issues want to catch the readers with their debut so that they stay around. Most of the time the second issue of a comic book series is all setup. It’s usually the quiet reprieve from the action before the build-up to the climax that is still a couple issues to come. Atomic Robo is not like that at all. In fact, Atomic Robo: The Ghost of Station X #2 is better than the first issue!

In my review of the first issue, I was very positive of the entire series of Atomic Robo, and for good reason. Atomic Robo is rarely a book that you can predict. Generally, it fires at all cylinders at all times, throwing jokes, action scenes, and crazy science concepts at you that make you re-read pages over and over. That’s exactly what this second issue does.

Atomic Robo: The Ghost of Station X #2 begins right where the first issue left off. Robo just got a face full of explosion, he’s unconscious, and he’s beginning to fall to the Earth. Hats off to the writer and artist team of Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener for crafting one of the most exciting comic sequences I have seen in a long time. The pacing of Robo’s fall through the atmosphere is pure brilliance.

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For those who thought this weekend would be a relapse into the mid 1980s with the Footloose remake and reboot/prequel of The Thing, they should have taken into account how awesome gigantic, fighting robots are.

That’s right, after receiving mixed reviews for the first week of the film’s release, Real Steel managed to steal the #1 spot once again, bringing in $16.3 million for the weekend, and a total worldwide gross of $73.8 million so far. Not totally unexpected for a movie starring Wolverine, Evangeline Lilly, AND robots.

Taking the #2 and #3 spots this weekend were the send-offs to the 1980s. Paramount’s Footloose pulled in $16.1, just inches behind the #1 spot, where as the prequel/reboot venture of The Thing from Universal managed to underwhelm audiences and only make $8.7 million.

Finally, the indie comedy The Big Year, starring Jack Black, Owen Wilson, and Steve Martin just squeaked into the top 10 with $$3.3 million. Hard to believe the film made that much considering the complete lack of a marketing strategy Fox made for it.

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Atomic Robo is the comic book that everyone should be reading.  The book stars an atomic powered robot that was built in 1923 by Nikola Tesla, and has dedicated itself to saving lives, grand adventures, and SCIENCE! With a description like that how can you not read this book?

This is the sixth volume of Atomic Robo, and while jumping into the sixth volume of anything can be scary, each volume of Atomic Robo is self-contained. Making each story accessible and enjoyable to all. After reading The Ghost of Station X, I can guarantee you are going to rush to your local comic book store to buy the other volumes.

To get you interested in this series, we have a preview of Atomic Robo: The Ghost of Station X #1. Here’s the scoop on the book directly from our friends at Red 5 Comics.

There are two kinds of people. Those who love Atomic Robo and those who haven’t read it yet. What’s that? You don’t want to start on the sixth volume? Well, GOOD NEWS! Every volume is stand alone. BOOM. You can start with this one and know what’s going on from page one. KA-BOOM. Then go back and read the other volumes in any order. THWACKA-BOOM. Oh, a plot? Okay, fine. Astronauts are stranded in a deteriorating orbit, and it’s up to Atomic Robo to save them in a race against the laws of physics!

Look for Atomic Robo: The Ghosts of Station X #1 to hit store shelves on September 7, and check out the preview after the jump.

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Since the arrival of affordable and professional level video editing and effects equipment, it’s become more and more common for a small fan film on the Internet to have as good or better visuals (and often a story) than many of the big Hollywood  films we usually see. That case is clear once again with the new short film Robots of Brixton by Kibwe Tavares.

The film takes an interesting look at a futuristic (and not very optimistic) world where robots not only rule, but have the same hardships as humans.

With some of the most unsettling and gorgeous visuals we’ve seen in a some time, Brixton runs a short 5 and a half minutes. However, that time will go by fast and once you’re done, you’ll want to watch it again.

Check out the full synopsis and short itself after the jump.

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We like trailers here at The Flickcast. We especially like them for movies featuring robot that fight. No, I’m not talking about yet another Transformers sequel.

Instead, DreamWorks has released a new trailer for Real Steel, an upcoming film directed by Shawn Levy and starring Hugh Jackman. Yes, it does feature robots fighting only these robots weigh 2000 pounds and look human.

It’s not all about the robots, however, as it centers on Hugh Jackman’s struggling fight promoter who thinks he’s found a champion in a discarded robot. Along the way he also develops a relationship with his estranged son.

Real Steel will hit theaters in October of next year. Until then, check out the first trailer after the jump.

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In a world of constantly evolving tech, SyFy’s Eureka stays ahead of the game. The writers seem to have an unending amount of innovations up their sleeves. Between the giant robot spiders, A.I. in the house of tomorrow, and cloud sculpting devices, the scientists at Global Dynamics are kept pretty busy.

That makes double for their new director, Douglas Fargo, played with an affable, geeky charm by Neil Grayston. Just like Fargo, Neil is curiouser than a cat when it comes to gadgets.

The Flickcast: What do you think of the future technology on Eureka that has actually come to pass?

Neil Grayston: I’m always blown away. Sometimes it’s funny if you look back at the first season, some of our “high-tech gadgets” have already been surpassed in the real world a billion times over. It’s like we were really on top of that, someone was really thinking back there. I like looking back and seeing what we maybe thought of before hand and then what the real world was actually leaps and bounds (developing). It’s kinda cool knowing what real scientists are doing and what they’re actually making up.

FC: Do you ever have trouble with the highly scientific, technical lines on the show?

NG: Those are the lines that I usually will…like sometimes I’m going to admit, I cheat, I have my little sides and I cut out just the little technical lines and I make them as small as possible and I hide them in my wardrobe so that you won’t see anything. And then just before a take I’ll just look them over.

I’m fine with the dialogue and the back and forth, but am I going to say a pulsating ionsphere photostar or is it a photographic pulsar ionsphere? You know it’s those little things that I can look up on Wikipedia forever and forever. Fortunately, the Wikipedia entries are written by people who know what those things mean.

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