Back in the N64 days, Perfect Dark was the shooter that was second only to Goldeneye and that’s probably because it was from the same developers but was a brand new IP that didn’t have the cache that something like the James Bond brand brought to the table. A generation later when the XBox 360 launched with Perfect Dark Zero alongside it and helped hold fans over until Halo made its leap to the generation.

Later in 2010, five years after Perfect Dark Zero was released, there was an XBox Live version of the original Perfect Dark. What other reason could there be for the rerelease of a classic title if not to promote a new one? And then in August of 2013, Rare said they had new ideas for a Perfect Dark game that involved the Kinect (keep in mind this was before the lackluster reception of the Kinect on the XBox One). Since then… nothing.

Last month right before Comic-Con, Loot Crate released one of their best crates with a phenomenal Villains crate that included a totally original and exclusive Joki shirt alongside, amongst other things, a pair of Deadpool socks. It was going to be pretty hard to follow that up. But who better to show up the Villains than… the Heroes.

This month WallE and JC put their physical prowess to the test in an effort to capture a bunch of items based off of some of their favorite childhood heroes along with an exclusive Pop made just for Loot Crate. As some of you have seen in past crates, WallE and JC have an addiction for the little guys and battling over an exclusive one could possibly end their friendship and Whiskey & Waffles as we know it.

Hot on the heels of Comic-Con comes the next unboxing in the Loot Crate Wars series. For July and August, the guys at Loot Crate have created a two part crate. First, July kicked things off with Villains as its theme which started with an awesome super foe themed trailer on Loot Crate’s own YouTube channel. In it is some of the baddest of the bad as you’ll see in the unboxing video below.

Most notable of the Crate (while still trying to keep the article spoiler-free-ish) is a special variant comic for a number one that just came out from Marvel. Loot Crate’s subscriber base has gotten so big that just by putting it in the July crate, they literally doubled the preorders of the book.

At Comic-Con in San Diego we got the opportunity to take a closer look at the latest additions to Skylanders with Skylanders Trap Team. While we had already gotten a peek at the title, there were still some awesome announcements behind the game along with some great insight from the designers as well.

First came the announcement of the Skylanders Trap Team Dark Edition Starter Pack. Like last year’s SWAP Force Dark Edition, the set will come with some special dark paint variants of characters. Unlike last year’s though, there will be only three new Trap Team members without any sprinkling of classic characters.

It will also come with a new Portal of Power which will have a new feature in addition to a new look, the ability to use Traps to capture villains in game and use them while playing. The Dark Edition will come with a limited edition over sized trap allowing players to capture Chaos.

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.

Yesterday, Microsoft dropped what they were hoping would be a bomb, but has truthfully only ended up being a cause for more contention in the console war. After about six months of being outsold by the PlayStation 4, Microsoft has announced they will be releasing a Kinect-free version of the XBox One. Hitting shelves on June 9th, this will be just in time for the E3 frenzy and most likely hope to capitalize on new titles being announced at E3 bringing more popularity to the system. It will also drop the price to $399.

Instead of people being happy about the new lower price, the negative backlash came. Sony fanboys decried the move as desperation. While it can be said that Microsoft did need to do something to put the console on even ground with the PlayStation, it wouldn’t be an act of desperation.

Microsoft listened to the feedback and instead of dropping the price and losing money due to cost, they removed the big elephant in the room that was associated with that higher price point. Had they kept the Kinect and dropped the price or dropped the Kinect and lowered the price below the $399 mark before Sony had enacted any price drop at all on the PlayStation 4, that would have been an act of desperation.

“Let’s Play” videos are all over YouTube. You can’t make it through the site without a horde of Let’s Plays. Because of this, the Whiskey & Waffles team decided they needed to get some going as well.

Check out their first in a series with the release of Trials Fusion.

Only a few weeks after Disney decided it was time to shoot a volley in the smart toy war by introducing the Avengers to Disney Infinity, Activision has fired back with a premiere for the latest Skylanders sequel. Again, focusing on innovation with gameplay implications, Skylanders Trap Team is coming to systems in October.

As you’ll see in the trailer below, Skylanders Trap Team introduces a new element to the series. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out this means traps. But it isn’t just a matter of trapping defeated foes. This game encourages players to take those villains and use them for good. Boasting 60 new Skylanders and 40 trappable villains, this could be the largest release of Skylanders to date.

It’ll be interesting to see how the traps work but it the trailer hints that specific traps work on specific enemies which means to catch them all, you have to buy them all too. How they are packaged will be interesting though. Skylanders may come paired with a trap or maybe a trap pack will be created with four or five traps sold together. Regardless, Activision has just renewed their license to print money.

Taking a cue from the designs of Pacific Rim, The Art of Titanfall shows the titans as less than beautiful pieces of hardware that feel like lumbering hulks meant to take a beating as well as delivering them. With only three basic units, there is a great balance in diversity and design of each titan. During the fast paced battles of the Titanfall game, it’s incredibly challenging to try and notice these details but the art book allows you to really appreciate it from the pulled back perspective.

The Art of Titanfall does an awesome exploration of the maps as well. Though not giving a full breakdown as if it was a strategy guide, The Art of Titanfall allows a player to again appreciate the care put into each map that they’d never get to during the heat of battle.

Our apologies for the hiatus, but the team at Whiskey & Waffles is back for 2014 and ready to kick things up to the next level. For the new year we are bringing gameplay footage to Whiskey & Waffles for the first time and expect more of it moving forward. For our introductory gameplay, WallE and I are going head to head in the Loot Crate War for the month of February with the theme: Warriors!

For those new to Loot Crate, it is a monthly subscription service that sends a box full of themed geek goodies. This month’s crate revolves around Warriors, with the most popular warriors in the geekspace right now being the Bravest Warriors on Cartoon Hangover. But without spoiling it (since that defeats the purpose of our video), I will tell you there are more Warriors tied into the contents of the box rather than just the Bravest Warriors too.

These kids today have it too easy. Back in our day there were certain aspects of being a gamer you just had to deal with. Polygons could be maxed out on screen. You’d have to use your imagination to see what the little collection of blocks represented. And one thing we all knew was that if you made it into the beta testing phase of a game, things were bound to be broken. But that was to be expected. A beta wasn’t a finished product and you “paid” for the early gameplay by dealing with the bugs. Kids today don’t get betas. They just get an extended demo and that’s why they don’t know the pain we went through growing up.

What brought on this jaded old man tirade you ask? The Titanfall beta of course. Don’t misinterpret, there is nothing wrong with the Titanfall beta. Between the beta and the awesome art book I got today (don’t worry, a review is coming soon), I am going to be picking up Titanfall on launch. But when playing it, it hasn’t been a beta experience. The game runs smooth, controls great and looks fantastic. The only limits are some of the maps and weapons not being fully unlocked. It’s basically a smaller version of the final product. And that’s not a beta. It’s a demo. But they’ve changed the name because beta access is a better buzz phrase for marketing.

Part of what we loved most about the High Moon Studios entry into the Transformers world is that it was the original G1 canon most of us had fallen in love with during our childhood. Wanted to know what happened before Optimus and the crew made it to earth, you got the story finally from Transformers: War for Cybertron and Transformers: Fall of Cybertron. But Activision has gone and done something that is not only unexpected but for some of the most hardcore of Transformers G1 fans… unwelcomed.

Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark will be a part of the G1 Universe but it will also be a part of the Michael Bay movieverse as well, with events taking place before Transformers Age of Extinction. That means that they are doing what could be the absolute worst offense when it comes to G1 territory by combining it with whatever Michael Bay is throwing at the wall this time.

A lot of people say I am too harsh when it comes to the Michael Bay films but after the first one, it just kept getting farther and farther away from the franchise I grew up on into a poorly put together film with sophomoric level comedy forced into it. In Transformers: Fall of Cybertron, we got Grimlock and the rest of his dinobot compatriots but now that could all be washed away because of the new Michael Bayified Grimlock that we were introduced to during the Super Bowl trailer.