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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The Amazing Spider-Man was a divisive film. Some people thought it was a fair reboot that rejuvenated a popular, if tired, franchise. While others felt a resounding hollowness from a, seemingly unnecessary, reboot of a franchise that was still reasonably healthy. Despite the mixed reception from the Spider-faithful, the film made gobs of cash and a sequel is fast approaching.

We thought we had a good handle on the villainy of ASM 2 with the assumed inclusion of Norman Osbourne and Jammie Foxx as an unorthodox Electro set to conflict with the web-head. However a surprise twist to the film’s rogues gallery might just have been uncovered via a Hollywood Reporter scoop:

Paul Giamatti is in talks to join The Amazing Spider-Man 2 as the villain known as The Rhino… The Rhino first appeared in Amazing Spider-Man #41in 1966 as a thug from a Soviet Bloc country who wore a superhuman suit that made him invulnerable while giving him superstrength and superspeed. It also had a deadly horn on top.  

What What What?

This film is certainly heading into some bold and interesting directions. Not only is the one-two punch of Rhino and Electro rather random, but the actor choices the casting department targeted for these roles are either brilliant or completely nutter-butter.

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Like much of the news in the gaming world, this bit was broken to everyone through Game Informer. Despite the fact that a print magazine is getting exclusives still amazes us, it is still exciting news none the less. It looks like Traveller’s Tales is already well underway to make the LEGO Marvel franchise a reality with the official announcement of a LEGO Marvel Super Heroes game.

Spider-Man. Hawkeye. Wolverine. Hulk. Magneto. Iron Man. Thor. Loki. Deadpool. Magneto. Captain America. From the looks of the early footage from Game Informer behind the scenes at Traveller’s Tales, it looks like this full list will be getting the LEGO treatment. It is worth noting that all these guys have already had LEGO figures made and there is potential for hundreds more Marvel characters to be brought into this brick world.

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For almost every Spider-Man fan under the age of 30, Mary Jane Watson has been the primary yin to Peter Parker’s yang. So it was a bold move by Sony and Marc Webb to go back to Spider-Man’s first love, Gwen Stacy, for The Amazing Spider-Man. A move that properly introduced a character whose ultimate fate might be as important to the web-slinger as Uncle Ben’s murder was.

With the Spider-Man reboot a general success, Sony wants to move quickly on a sequel. Variety is reporting that things might be getting sticky for Parker’s new/old flame with casting rumors of a new prominent female character:

It looks like Mary Jane Watson is back in Peter Parker’s life, as “The Descendants” star Shailene Woodley is in early talks to play the redheaded love interest in Sony’s “The Amazing Spider-Man 2.”… Character breakdowns have gone out to talent agencies, and Electro is rumored to be one of the villains the filmmakers are considering for the next installment of the hit comicbook franchise.

Shailene Woodley is a fine actress, and even though she probably looks a bit young to be Garfield’s Mary Jane, she is one of the better choices for the role. If you are going to skew younger, at least you get the one ABC Family actress that has award nominations and discernible talent. It is sort of like finding another Anna Kendrick among the Twilight muck.

Also note that it looks like Electro might finally be getting his time to shine in the sequel, and it looks like Peter’s best friend Harry Osbourne is also going to make an appearance in the sequel.

Check out a more spoiler heavy prognostication for what the Mary Jane rumors mean for Emma Stone’s Gwen Stacy after the jump.

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Activision announced today that The Amazing Spider-Man would be making its way today to the digital storefronts for XBox Live, the PlayStation Network and Steam for digital release. The XBox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of the game will be sold for $59.99, while the PC version will be going for $49.99. As much as we loved the game (check out our review here), at this point it may be smarter to bargain hunt as many stores have likely reduced the price on the boxed copies of the game.

What does excite us though more than the announcement of these games going to digital release (because let’s face it, every game that is worth anything does it eventually) is the announcement of four DLC packs for The Amazing Spiderman that go live today too. There are going to be four separate DLC packs going up today for roughly $3.00 each as well as a bundle of all four at a discounted $10.00 price.

Most exciting about these Packs (all detailed below) is that they aren’t just new missions for Spider-Man. They instead give new characters to play as in addition to new methods of gameplay. In the Rhino Challenge Pack, players will be running through Manhattan breaking everything in sight. The Oscorp Search & Destroy Pack allows players to play smart phone games resembling classic titles like Space Invaders.

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Look at the stack of comics in your room, the long boxes you have in storage or the trades sitting on your bookshelf. Think hard before you answer. Who is the one character you have felt the most genuine emotional connection to since the first time you picked up an issue off the spinner rack all those years ago?

Now we know this isn’t going to apply to everyone. Some readers may have shared a similar tragedy or suffered a similar injustice to a particular character. But, for the most part, a character that has shared more moments with the reader than any other is Spider-Man. But why is that?

For older readers, Peter Parker is one of the most identifiable because we have grown up with him. Whether you started reading Spider-Man in high school days, his Empire State University days, or his young adulthood, writers have given us the chance to see a character grow and mature as he comes of age. Thor has always been an ageless god.

Captain America has always been the guy who was from World War II who just hasn’t physically aged. But not Peter Parker. Peter had to balance a social and scholastic life in addition to being a hero. He had to worry about finding a job and paying rent. He didn’t get to just sit back in a mansion with the Avengers in the early part of his career.

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Remember the big splash The Avengers made at the box office all those weeks ago? Remember how it seemed like the biggest most ridiculous opening ever? Well prepare for some deja vu next weekend.

In advance of the release of The Dark Knight Rises, only the fourth Ice Age ventured as a new release this weekend. Headlining a rather stale weekend as movie goers brace for another massive release.

Ice Age: Continental Drift raked in a solid $46 Million in its opening weekend. The number is neither impressive or disappointing, it just sort if is. These sorts of sequels make money based on the current franchise good will, and apparently Ice Age is holding steady.

Swinging into second place is The Amazing Spider-Man with an estimated $35 Million. It is really hard to label that number a disappointment, but given how much money the previous films made this reboot is lagging behind.

Still you have to chalk this up as a win for Sony despite the knee jerk comparison reaction. The reboot so close off the heels of a successful trilogy is still making a ton of money. Especially compared to other comic book movies not starring the web-slinger.

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After Batman: Arkham City last year (which was up for Game of the Year here on the Flickcast) set the bar so high for super hero video games, it took a special kind of hero to get us pumped for the next big thing in super hero gaming. And while the movie-tie in (another stigma this game was forced to overcome) doesn’t set new bars for comic book games, it does bring back some of the best things in Spider-Man gaming of the past ten years to give players the Spider-Man experience they have grown to love and crave.

Gameplay

How many times can you swing through a digital New York as everyone’s favorite webslinger before it starts to get old? Last time we checked The Amazing Spider-Man was the fifth time a full virtual Manhattan was available to players to traverse over the course of a Spider-Man game and yet somehow Beenox has managed to find a way to not only keep it engaging but also has added elements to make it even more exciting. In The Amazing Spider-Man, there is an element of speed in the way that Spider-Man travels from one location to the other both in the visual design choices and in the addition of the “Web Rush” feature.

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When it was rereleased on XBox Live Arcade three years ago, Marvel vs. Capcom 2 was the hottest title for fighting game fans, even nine years after its release. What came next was the most hyped fighting game in recent memory with Marvel vs. Capcom 3. It’s no surprise that Capcom would take the popularity of the franchise as well as the recent publicity of Marvel because of the success of the Avengers and release two of the games that started it all.

Coming in September of this year to both the PlayStation Network and XBox Live Arcade is Marvel vs. Capcom Origins, a two for one deal with both Marvel Super Heroes and the first Marvel vs. Capcom. Before the X-Men crossed paths against Street Fighter, Marvel pitted its own heroes and villains against each other in Marvel Super Heroes. After the crossover success of X-Men vs. Street Fighter though, Marvel picked its heaviest hitters and brought them against Capcom’s all-star lineup in Marvel vs. Capcom.

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With The Flickcast’s review copy of The Amazing Spider-Man in transit, we can’t wait to get our hands on it. Early reports mention that the team at Beenox has captured the magic of web swinging through NYC that was missing from Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions and Spider-Man: Edge of Time. Throw in the new costume designs, a Stan Lee preorder bonus and new takes on some of Spidey’s classic villains and you have the makings of a movie tie-in title that bucks the trend and actually delivers. If Spider-Man 2 was able to do it, why can’t this rebooted Amazing Spider-Man do the same?

In the trailer below, we get a big peek at the villains and encounters surrounding them. Black Cat’s story looks to be more of an antagonistic one although there is a brief flirtation seen if you look closely enough. The Rhino appears to be the barreling powerhouse we expect, just like the Scorpion gets quickly dispatched as he often is in the comics. We even catch a glimpse of the nature of the relationship between Spider-Man and the Lizard. In the trailer you can see Spider-Man trying to poke the Lizard with some sort of injection, presumably some kind of cure based on the history of the two characters (including their current story arc in the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man).

Take a look after the jump and stick to The Flickcast next week for a full review of The Amazing Spider-Man, out now on XBox 360 and PlayStation 3.

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A man who’s shown his love for both the geek world and Spider-Man is Bruce Campbell. From cameos during the Sam Raimi trilogy to his narrative roles on previous Spider-Man video games, Bruce is probably the second most logical choice for a voice actor to appear in The Amazing Spider-Man game other than Stan Lee himself.

In the Amazing Spider-Man, Bruce voices the Extreme Reporter. The Extreme Reporter serves two roles in the game. First, it gives Spider-Man a friendly antagonist. Unlike Rhino, Puma or Iguana, the Extreme Reporter isn’t looking to killer the friendly wall crawler. He is however looking to capitalize on the newfound fame of the rookie hero.

Secondly, the Extreme Report gives a somewhat logical reason for the existence of the game’s various challenges. While most events in games are story driven, various super hero games have random and often unexplained time trials, races or various other “gamey” occurrences that players just accept. Now, there is a reason behind these random challenges as well as someone players they feel they can gloat to when they defeat them.

Check out the full behind the scenes interview with Bruce Campbell as he talks about the Extreme Reporter, Spider-Man and Stan Lee. The Amazing Spider-Man hits shelves tomorrow for the XBox 360 and PlayStation 3. Stick to The Flickcast for a review too coming soon!

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I know. I’m sorry. I had to. Usually puns are the worst but with Stan Lee involved, I feel like there is a little leeway. And don’t judge too much. After watching this trailer, you’ll be making spider puns all the way to your preorder for The Amazing Spider-Man too.

As we all know, the film with possibly the most pressure on it this summer because it falls between The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises is The Amazing Spider-Man. Luckily for Spidey though, there is nowhere nearly as much pressure on the movie tie-in game. Why?

Because Beenox has produced two high quality Spider-Man games over the last two years and they are going back to the formula that revolutionized super hero gameplay by bringing Spidey back to an open New York City. But Spidey isn’t coming by himself.

When pre-orders began for The Amazing Spider-Man, fans of Spider-Man and comics in general were granted an experience like they had never been given the opportunity to before… to play as Stan “The Man” Lee. And luckily, Stan has gotten a drastic upgrade to his physical capabilities.

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After a two game hiatus since Beenox took control of the Spider-Man franchise, the webcrawler is returning to New York City with the tie-in release of The Amazing Spider-Man. It’s what fans of the series have wanted. As much as a linear experience has helped with the storytelling of the previous two Beenox games, it prevented them from capturing the true feel of the best games of the character’s past. Swinging through an epic metropolis at breakneck speeds is what being Spider-Man is all about.

In the developer diary after the jump, The Amazing-Spider-Man’s executive producer Brent Nicholas walks us through some gameplay footage that shows just how exciting Beenox’s take on swinging through the city is. One thing they point out is how the camera draws in closer to Spidey during his swings and drops as a way to show how fast the player is falling. Hopefully this won’t affect the ease of swinging through because of the limited view.

This trailer also gives more perspective on the Web Rush.  Using the web rush ability, players are able to more accurately travel through NYC by deciding where their lines will actually be shot instead of just depending on the game to choose for them.

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With the Amazing Spider-Man hitting theaters very soon, things are ramping up fast for the movie tie-in game as well. The Amazing Spider-Man game though doesn’t look to tie in closely to the story of the movie as we are yet to see any images of the Lizard, Captain Stacey or Gwen Stacey. Instead, the game exists in the same world as the film, most likely after it’s events and not concurrently like other Spider-Man film games have done in the past.

This will most likely lead to a more impressive narrative rather than the shoehorned one often given when games try to fit too tightly to the movie’s major plot points. This trailer for the Amazing Spider-Man gives us three new character reveals. The first seen is Vermin. Unlike his comic counterpart, this version of Vermin appears much more rat-like including a tail. Our main hint that this is Vermin in the game is the hordes of rats seen running around on-screen during his encounter with Spider-Man.

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Thus far, Beenox has proven their love of working on the Spider-Man franchise between Spider-Man: Edge of Time and Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions. Between the alternate versions of Spider-Man and the original takes on some of his villains, Beenox has shown a deep understanding and respect for the character. Now, they face a new challenge with the tie-in to the Amazing Spider-Man movie. While some major points of their story are often dictated by the events of the movie, Beenox has chosen to open the world up to players much like the previous developer Treyarch had done but has taken steps to improve on their much beloved formula.

In previous titles when a player shot their web, players were forced to let the game instinctually choose an appropriate target for them to sling off of. This was also the case in combat where the foe most often closely centered in the screen became the default target for Spidey to aim at. Now, Beenox has decided to give this control to the player instead with the feature they call the Web Rush for the Amazing Spider-Man game.

Using the Web Rush, time slows down for players, presumably to represent Spider-Man’s hyper-fast reflexes like it was seen in Sam Rami’s Spider-Man film where Peter Parker dodged the bullying of Flash Thompson. During this slow down, players are given all possible targets on screen where they can aim themselves. This can be a great resource for strategically setting themselves into different combat situations.

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