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.

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.

There are two known facts about The Flickcast’s gaming division (a.k.a. the Bitcast):

1. WallE and I love video games.

2. WallE and I cannot wait until Wreck-It Ralph hits theaters.

So it only makes sense that we would be following the news on the Wreck-It Ralph tie-in video game. Now while we all know that movie tie-in games run a high risk of not living up to expectations for the film, or for games in general, there is a shed of hope for Wreck-It Ralph. After all, it is a game… based off a movie… that is based off of gaming. What could possibly go wrong? Well, don’t answer that as we have seen many a project that should have been a layup go wrong.

In the new teaser trailer, we take a quick look at Wreck-It Ralph but don’t get the opportunity to see his gameplay so that is what leads us to speculate. What is Wreck-It Ralph going to be like? Players have already been given the opportunity to play browser based versions of Hero’s Duty and Sugar Rush on the Wreck-It Ralph movie site as well as a Fix-It Felix iOS game.

If you are on The Flickcast, you already know the story. A band of mismatched heroes takes an impossible journey to escort the smallest of men to the most dangerous of locales all to destroy a ring that could destroy them all. How do you improve on that ageless tale? Why, add LEGOs of course.

At Gamescom, WB Games revealed the latest trailer for LEGO The Lord of the Rings. Following in the tradition of LEGO Star Wars or LEGO Indiana Jones, LEGO The Lord of the Rings will follow the events of the movies while adding in the quirky LEGO humor. In the tradition of LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes, the game will also feature voice acting.

New to the LEGO brand though is having actual sound bites from the movie used in the game. While it hasn’t be revealed whether or not any new audio has been recorded for the game, it will be interesting to see how much Traveler’s Tales has fun with some of the most iconic scenes while using the current audio that so many of us have memorized at this point. The trailer below already gives a hint both at some of the epic scenes brought to life using LEGO as well as some of the lighthearted fun that the developers have had playing with some of the films’ memorable scenes.

Check out the full trailer after the break and keep it here for more on LEGO The Lord of the Rings set to come out this fall for Wii, Nintendo 3DS, PC, XBox 360 and PlayStation 3.

If there was ever a movie to not surprise us with a tie-in video game announcement, Wreck-It Ralph would be it. What is surprising though is that the video game adaptation of Wreck-It Ralph, the Disney animated flick that revolves around a video game villain who wants to become the hero, is being limited to only the Nintendo platforms.

In the film Wreck-It Ralph, characters from all over gaming’s past and present make cameos from those we have seen to what is sure to be a bunch of star studded surprises as well. Whether that happens in the game remains to be seen.

Here’s the official word from Activision:

Get ready for classic arcade video game action with a whole new modern look and feel as Activision Publishing Inc. and Disney Interactive today announced a collaboration to produce and distribute a Wreck-It Ralph video game. As a story extension to the highly anticipated upcoming blockbuster film of the same name from Walt Disney Animation Studios, the Wreck-It Ralph video game is set to inspire a whole new generation of young gamers as a classic, arcade-style side scroller featuring Ralph – the misunderstood villain of his own arcade game who sets out to prove he can be a hero too.

Nintendo doesn’t sit on their laurels when it comes to their handhelds. Ever since the release Game Boy Pocket back in ’96, Nintendo can’t seem to go very long with out re-releasing and improving on their portable devices. Perhaps this ever evolving strategy is why, despite strong competition from Sony and smart phones, Nintendo has never fallen from the top of the portable gaming mountain.

It was reported that Nintendo was going to announce North American plans for the upcoming 3DS XL, but when nothing was said at their conference rumors began to spread that we might not see it officially in the states. In retrospect it was probably pretty dumb to think Nintendo wouldn’t release a new 3DS in the wake of the successful Vita launch last year.

This is an important time for Nintendo’s portable gaming division. The initial launch of the 3DS was underwhelming, and Sony’s Vita is the most impressive direct competition Nintendo has ever faced. In fact, for the first time since the SEGA Game Gear another company actually owns a respectable share of the market. A market that is shrinking in the age of smart phones and app store games providing much better value for gamers on the go.

For now Nintendo is still the king, and the launch of the 3DS XL should only solidify that. You can expect the newer, larger 3DS to hit shelves in North America August 19th, a few weeks after our Japanese and European brothers get their hands on it, July 28th.

It toppled Atari. It went head to head with SEGA for years to come out the victor. Even during the slow times, it was still in the black. Then Nintendo took control of the home console market again with record sales from the Wii. But eventually being on top means you have to fall. March 31st, 2012 marked the end of Nintendo’s fiscal year where they were forced to announce something that seemed impossible to imagine. They were at a loss.

While many factors contributed to Nintendo losing $ 458 ,000,000 during the past year while sales were in the $7,990,000,000 range, the main two being looked upon are the lack of software and the gigantic price drop from the 3DS.

With a library of over 1200 games, one would think the Wii would have carried enough momentum to continue high sales. Unfortunately, 2011 marked a lackluster year for new Wii releases. With only The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword to be both a commercial and critical success releasing in late 2011, owners of the system didn’t flock to other critical darlings such as Xenoblade or The Last Story like Nintendo would have hoped.

This could speak strongly to the hardcore gaming audience already having written off Nintendo for forgetting them with a lack of big core titles when the system initially launched. With the Wii U on its way, there is a drastic drop off in titles being promoted for the Wii.

When I first heard there was going to be a movie based on the Battleship tabletop franchise, I was expecting some modern naval epic. Instead, like Michael Bay going to the Ninja Turtles, we got aliens. And now, seeing the game based off the movie off the game takes on a FPS perspective, we can’t help but watch with morbid curiosity at the potential insanity that could be brought to us.

It’s obvious that developer Double Helix Games, known for Silent Hill Homecoming, G.I.Joe: The Rise of Cobra and Green Lantern: Rise of the Manhunters, were forced to tie in to the theme’s of the movie as opposed to the board game like the 1993 NES and SEGA Game Gear classic. But there is something unmistakably interesting about the premise behind the game, by association to the movie, that we can’t take our eyes off of it.

It could be the thought of combining Call of Duty and Halo style gameplay together on a modern locale like Hawaii. Or it could be the premise of a piece of our childhood being completely shattered like it was during the summer of G.I. Joe, Wolverine Origins, Transformers: Rise of the Fallen and Terminator: Salvation.

But, luckily, the Battleship tabletop game didn’t have characters that we could hold close to heart only to be torn from us. Instead, many people just remember the frustration of trying to program the damned Electronic Battleship that almost never worked as well in real life as it did in the commercial. So now, little white and red plastic pegs are replaced with high grade military grade weaponry in a FPS along with a tactical sea-based warfare game alongside it.

Kirby is the most adorable mascot in the Nintendo pantheon. He is a cute, pink little ball that sucks up enemies and can use their powers. I always assumed he ate the souls and gained their strength, and that underlying creepiness always punctuated his cuteness.

In honor of the Mascot’s 20th anniversary, Nintendo has announced plans to release a special commemorative disc to Wii consoles this fall. No word on what titles we can expect in this set, but the game will no doubt encompass the earlier era of the character.

In an official statement Nintendo executive VP Scott Moffitt had this to say:

A new Mario game and a big Kirby celebration will help make 2012 an especially great year for Nintendo fans. Whether they’re playing at home on Wii or using Nintendo 3DS to have fun on the go, players can look forward to experiencing some of our biggest franchises in exciting ways.

This release should be similar to the 25th anniversary Mario set that was released a while ago. Although we certainly hope for a more in-depth set of games than the Super Mario World free Mario set. On the flip side though, that collection included some nice bonuses, so if all we get are NES era Kirby Games, a soundtrack, and a Pink Wii-mote, this celebratory set should still be worth it.

Were you one of many consumers who took the plunge into 3D gaming last year with the release of the Nintendo 3DS? Or were you among those gamers who were waiting for a 3DS Lite- a smaller, thinner, version of the device with a better battery life?

While there’s not much evidence to support this, only speculation, Nikkei Trendy expects that an unannounced 3DS Lite could be released as early as spring 2012.

“To increase the 3DS’s install base,” the magazine writes, “there’s a possibility for a lighter version that addresses the handheld’s weak points, the thickness and the battery life.”

I know I waited for the DS Lite, and was very pleased with the decision. But with the 3DS I got impatient and picked one up. I definitely haven’t regretted the decision, but Nintendo always improves on their products in the second go-round, and if a 3DS Lite is on the horizon, I’m sure it’ll be better (but not bigger) than the current handheld console.

We’ll throw this onto the pile of things we’re waiting Nintendo to release, including the Wii U, introduced during last year’s 2011 and still no definitive release date on the horizon.