This week, JC & WallE get into it with their thoughts on the recent trailer reveals for The Last of Us, Fortnite, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, The Amazing Spider-Man and Transformers: Fall of Cybertron. JC also gives his final edition of The Long Grind focusing on The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim. Don’t worry though, the Long Grind will return in 2012 with new epic games to discuss.

The Topic of the Week this week is a very special one. A few weeks ago, the Bitcast crew talked about realism in games. This week, JC had the honor of sitting down and talking to a member of the United States Marine Corps who was involved in the conflict at the Battle of Fallujah in late 2004, considered to be one of the harshest battles in modern warfare history. This marine shares his perspective on gaming, movies and television  and how it relates to his experiences. We thank this individual for his time, his service and for sharing his experiences with us.

For their Now Playing, JC gives some insight in the recent Voltron XBLA release as well as how Christmas shopping reminded him of his time playing Dead Rising while WallE talks Madden 12. The duo even gives some not so subtle hints on what games they wouldn’t mind getting for Christmas.

Don’t forget to tune in next week for the Best Games of 2011 show and make sure to follow everyone on Twitter including @theflickcast, @thebitcast, @thejohncarle & @JWWallE. Finally, don’t forget to subscribe to The Bitcast on The Flickcast iTunes feed.

The Amazing Spider-Man is one of the biggest upcoming movies of 2012. As anticipation continues to grow, Sony has unveiled the official website for the new web-slining blockbuster. Most noteworthy on the site are a series of new stills and a synopsis that promises more Spider-Man films in this new universe.

“Like most teenagers his age, Peter is trying to figure our who he is and how he got to be the person he is today. In his journey to put the pieces of his past togetherhe uncovers a secret that his father held… a secret that will ultimately shape his destiny as Spider-Man. This is the first in a series of movies that tells a different side of the Peter Parker story. On July 3rd, 2012, the untold story begins.”

The movie is going to be a very important step in the evolution of the comic-book movie. Up to this point comic book movies have generally held to the Hollywood rules of modern franchises, but one of the aspects of the comic book medium that keeps these characters relevant for so long is their ability to adapt and evolve on the fly. Even if that means rebooting a character that is still incredibly popular.

If The Amazing Spider-Man is a hit than we can see studios more willing to allow new filmmakers a chance at established characters with out waiting for the character to grow stale in it’s current style. The movie is set to hit theaters July 3rd, 2012.

Saturday night, Spike TV held its annual Video Game Awards show which, as promised, gave the first looks at some huge trailers for 2012′s gaming landscape.

Naughty Dog gets to step away from their blockbuster Uncharted series to work on a new IP titled The Last of Us. This new title takes a different approach from the recent string of zombie / infected scenarios where it looks like it can be a game of stealth and horror mixed together. It isn’t a world like Dead Rising or Left 4 Dead where the creatures flood the street and makes the possibility of combining the stealth and horror genres pretty intriguing.

This has the possibility of becoming a fantastic PlayStation exclusive franchise. The trailer for The Last of Us is definitely one of the great surprises from the VGAs this year.

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One of the hardest villains in Spider-Man’s rouge gallery to visualize on film is going to get his time to shine next summer. After years of teases in the Raimi films, The Lizard will finally be front and center in a movie. So naturally his appearance is going to be very important to sell the character. They have shown off the scaly monster at Comic-Con this year, but not everyone could watch that footage, and only blurry images and video can be found online.

We now have a pretty good look at the character, or more appropriately his design. SpiderMedia has posted concept art that showcase his rather unique appearance. The Lizard looks like a giant, man-size reptile, so from that respect the design does what it is supposed to do. On the other hand, this looks more like a goomba from the Super Mario Bros. movie, so the jury is still out.

Those who might doubt the validity of the concept art can rest assured that officially licensed PEZ dispensers have also been seen. ComicBookMovie has pictures of the dispensers depicting the new Spider-Man and his reptilian foe. It is clear that the mold of the Lizard is more than similar enough to the concept art to give credence to both.

You can see both images after the jump.

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What would a day at Comic-Con be without a lot of news and announcements? Well, a pretty boring day for sure.

Fortunately, we won’t have that problem today because hot on the heels of the first teaser trailer being released, we’ve now got the first teaser poster for The Amazing Spider-Man (courtesy of the fine folks at First Showing). That’s right, it’s a teaser poster which, much like the one for The Avengers, doesn’t really reveal all that much.

Fortunately, we’ve already seen quite a bit with the teaser trailer so the lack of info on the poster isn’t all that much of a problem. At least this one is a bit better than the one for The Avengers which, to be honest, it pretty boring.

In case you’ve forgotten, The Amazing Spider-Man is directed by Marc Webb. It stars Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Rhys Ifans, Martin Sheen, Sally Field, Irrfan Khan, Denis Leary, Chris Zylka, Campbell Scott, C. Thomas Howell, Julianne Nicholson and Annie Parisse.

It hits theaters on July 3, 2012. That’s plenty of time for some much better posters and for Webb to convince us Garfield was the right choice for Peter Parker.

Check out a larger version of the poster after the break.

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Over the last couple days an unofficial bootleg of the new The Amazing Spider-Man teaser trailer has been making its way around the Interwebs. We waited to bring you the official, real one so that we could put it up and not have to take it right down again.

Anyway, it’s here and for the first time we get to see Andrew Garfield in sort of action as Peter Parker and his alter ego, your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. Reaction to the teaser has been mixed around The Flickcast offices (especially where Garfield is concerned) but still, the teaser is pretty good and does help convey some of what it must be like to have Spider-Man’s powers.

It also delves more into the character moments of the upcoming film, which is probably due to director Marc Webb’s background and his stated desire to make a “smaller” film. Sadly, it is still an origin story even though it seems to be told in a different, yet very familiar to almost anyone alive, way.

Obviously, we’ll have much more time to judge the film as its release gets closer. Meantime, check out the new teaser after the break.

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Reboots are all the rage these days. Ever since Chris Nolan and David Goyer rebooted the Batman franchise 8 years after we got the first taste of rubber nipples, studios have been all about rebooting series that have either run their course or were never good to begin with.

That’s exactly what Sony Pictures has in mind when they couldn’t come to an agreement with Raimi, McGuire, and the rest of the cast/crew of the original Spider-Man trilogy. Now, Sony has charged 500 Days of Summer director Marc Webb to turn The Social Network‘s star Andrew Garfield into our new favorite neighborhood Spider-Man.

A lead like that and a director who has no real experience working on a superhero project is enough to worry most fans. However, a brand new batch of photos from the set have arrived thanks to EW, and they are pretty pleasing to a fan’s eye.

Web shooters? Check. Blonde Gwen Stacy? Check. Denis Leary as a do-gooder cop? Double Check. These images are more than enough to get us excited for the upcoming film, we just can’t wait to see how they look in motion with a trailer due any day now.

Check out the full gallery of images after the jump and expect to see more from Sony’s Amazing Spider-Man next week at Comic-Con International. The film is currently set to hit theaters July 3rd, 2012.

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Well fans, it’s official. The name of the upcoming reboot of the Spider-Man franchise is The Amazing Spider-Man. After a long bout of speculation and rumors, Sony broke the news today and  we can now at least put that question to rest.

But wait, there’s more. As if finding out the official title isn’t enough, Sony also decided that today is the day to release an official photo of the new web slinger as well. In this photo we get our first good look at Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man and from the look of things he’s been hitting the weight room since playing Facebook Co-Founder Eduardo Saverin in The Social Network.

Before this photo there had been speculation about the full Spider-Man costume as well as how the web shooters were going to be portrayed in the new film. Well, from the photo we can clearly see the shooters are mechanical in nature and, at least to us, the mask looks pretty good as well.

As you may already know (especially if you’re reading this site) the film stars Garfield as Spider-Man/Peter Parker and Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy. It also features Rhys Ifans, Denis Leary, Campbell Scott, Irrfan Khan, Martin Sheen, and Sally Field and is directed by Marc Webb. Look for it to be released in 3D on July 3, 2012.

Check out a larger version of the new photo after the jump. Okay Spidey fans, what do you think of this?

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Even with the holiday today comics will still come out this Wednesday, so don’t worry. This week, as they usually do, the folks at marvel have some brand new books to share with us. Of the new releases, we’re particularly excited about the latest Uncanny X-Men, a new Captain America, Dark Avengers #13 and Wolverine Weapon X.

Be sure to check out previews of covers for some of these comics after the jump.

Comics On-Sale:
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #618 (GNTLT)
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #618 QUINONES VARIANT (GNTLT)
AVENGERS VS. ATLAS #1
AVENGERS VS. ATLAS #1 HARDMAN VARIANT
BLACK WIDOW & THE MARVEL GIRLS #3
CAPTAIN AMERICA #602
DARK AVENGERS #13 (S)
DARK WOLVERINE #82 (S)

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