The funny thing is that movie games have a pretty terrible reputation in the gaming world. Most are quickly put together knock-offs of what could be considered a full game that depend upon riding on the fame of the established franchise. But back in 2004, Spider-Man 2 based off the Sami Rami take on the franchise changed all that.

Without reliance upon the movie, Spider-Man 2 as a game was just good. It was a great movie game, a great super hero game and most importantly a great Spider-Man game (considered the best of the character up to this point). But ten years later, the game and movie franchises have both gotten a reboot and that’s not always a good thing.

The Long…

First let’s talk about the story of The Amazing Spider-Man 2. While I applaud the writers trying to separate themselves from the movie slightly be adding in a whole new subplot connecting the scenes between the movie as previous games often do, the beats in this one just feel off. The early beat that introduces the game’s main antagonist also directly messes with the whole Uncle Ben story and what happens to Ben’s killer. It feels about as accurate to the character as Superman killing in Man of Steel.

Since The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is headed to theaters in spring of 2014, it isn’t much of a shock that its gaming counterpart will be coming out around the same time as well. From what we’ve heard so far from the folks at Beenox and Activision who revealed the trailer at New York Comic Con is that it will release for the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, XBox One, XBox 360, PC, Wii U and Nintendo 3DS.

As you’ll see in the press release attached below, there isn’t mention on a split development between the current gen and next gen systems which leads one to believe that the PlayStation 4 and XBox One versions may be just slightly better graphics but with no real change in the gameplay.

In the trailer, you’ll also notice a new villain that doesn’t match up to any characters yet announced in the movie. Half way through, you’ll see a very light skinned character, similar to that of a gang member. with tattoos on his body and his face wrapped in a scarf of some sort.

You then see a second similar gang member attack another character who is holding a kukri style machete. These may be just some gangs that Spider-Man encounters in the game, or this scarved character may be one of The Amazing Spider-Man movie style analogs of an existing character like Carrion.

I went for the tacky pun. I had to. Chris doesn’t let me put enough puns on the Flickcast. And it’s Zatanna. You really can’t expect me to post a story about her in any way shape or form and not mess with it at LEAST a little bit. So now that I have gotten that out of my system, let’s get down to business: Zatanna is coming to Injustice: Gods Among Us.

Though appearing in a number of comics such as Hawkman, Batman, Green Lantern and The Atom alongside the title heroes starting in 1964, it was more than a decade later before she was offered membership into the Justice League. The crux of her early appearances revolved around the search for her father, magician Giovanni Zatara. Unlike most magicians though, Zatanna actually possesses legitimate magical ability because of her mother Sindella, who is Homo magi. Staying true to her father’s profession, Zatanna’s costume resembles that of a Playboy bunny combined with a magician’s tux (though the New 52 version only wears that costume on stage).

Normally, we are too busy to be able to come back and do reviews on DLC for game,s but as you saw in my recent review of the Deadpool game, I really enjoyed it and was looking for a reason to go back. That reason came from a download code for the Merc with a Mouth map pack.

For $2.99 on the PlayStation 3 or 240 Microsoft Points on the XBox 360, players can download two additional maps for the game’s challenge mode along with two new costumes. Spoiler alert: This DLC pack was actually a preorder bonus from Gamestop upon the original Deadpool release so if you already did that, then you probably don’t need to make this purchase… or read this review… so… sorry!

So first off, let’s talk about costumes. For some reason which isn’t ever really discussed, the costume options are only available in the Infinite mode which is a wave based level of the challenge modes. Still not entirely sure why these special outfits are only available in the challenge mode when it is just a skin swap over the character so keep that in mind if you didn’t go through (or like me just didn’t spend a lot of time) in the Challenge mode. The D-Pooly costume resembles Deadpool’s selfstyled MC look while the X-Force outfit represents the grey and black from when Deadpool joined up on Wolverine’s black ops team… but they are only available to the challenge mode.

Like we originally said, the Martian Manhunter made his way to the cast of Injustice: Gods Among Us yesterday in the form of DLC. The first character not released as a part of the Season Pass, J’onn J’onzz as he is also known was released for 400 Microsoft Points over XBox Live and $4.99 on the PlayStation Network.

For the most part though, not many people know the full story behind the Martian Manhunter or even just how much power he holds. Luckily, Netherrealm studio has released a quick video to help bring people up to speed on those very important details of the Martian Manhunter that you chan check out below.

As it is discussed in the short, the Martian Manhunter has not only the strength and speed to go toe to toe with Superman but also owns a host of other unique powers that make him even more of a wildcard in battle. The ability to phase, turn invisible and shapeshift coupled with his abilities to read and even rewrite memories puts the Martian Manhunter in to a class of his own as a total wildcard in a fight.

When someone can attack you in so many different ways, how is someone able to prepare a defense against it? That is going to be the challenge for all Injustice: Gods Among Us players as the Martian Manhunter enters the fray for the first time in his new DLC pack.