You know what NFL? You’ve lost me forever. I never cared about your “sport” anyway. I sort of cared about Madden because it at least helped sell video game systems during the holiday seasons. But now, you’ve gone too far. Yesterday, the NFL announced they’d be banning “nonstandard/overbuilt” facemasks.

This includes Oakland Raiders defensive end Justin Tuck’s mask that resembled that of Shredder from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Now I don’t know who that is but damn them for not allowing a Shredder mask. They have also announced that the similar Bane styled masks will also be a part of this ban.

Now what is funny is the reason for the ban: because they don’t live up to NFL safety standards. The group of gargantuan men who are doing everything they can to throw their body weight on top of each other as fast as possible is worried about safety? Meanwhile hockey lets people play with a rubber puck flying at their face with no protection. Makes a lot of sense.

Well now I have given up on ever giving football a shot. The best chance they have is stepping their game up and creating a hybrid of the XFL and whatever the heck futuristic version of the game that they play in Starship Troopers and when they do it’s Team Shredder vs. Team Bane vs. Team Casey Jones vs. Team Mysterio.

Until then, I say “Good day” to the NFL.

With Batman: Arkham Origins just around the corner, it was kind of a shock to hear about a season pass for the title. Traditionally, the format of the Arkham games didn’t lend themselves to enough DLC to warrant a season pass. When you finally read what you get for this $20 price tag and is also claimed to be a $30 value, it really doesn’t feel worth investing another 50% of the game’s original price for this extra content.

Most of the Monday Freeview games focus on things that fall into the “Free to Play” model so even though they are free to the point of entry, there is a money-making plan behind them. This one, however, is a little bit different.

This week’s Freeview is sending you to YouTube, to a very specific video. Based off the viral hit they had with “Freestyle Bane“, the Auralnauts have been able to do something new and exciting with the YouTube system to create a fully functional and interactive soundboard for the parody character.

With use of creative timing and production, the Auralnauts were able to max out the number of annotations in a YouTube video (which is 378 so you know for future reference) to create a fully functional soundboard with three full pages of sound files to put in to the freestyle. The video starts off with Bane commanding the DJ to “drop a beat” where the viewer gets to click on a few different background beats. These open up to a new window that plays the audio only video as a background track. After that, head back to the main video and start freestyling to your heart’s content.

As we previewed early yesterday morning, the team behind Batman: Arkham Origins at Warner Bros. Games Montreal revealed an almost five minute long CGI trailer for the game yesterday afternoon. With it came the reveal of pre-order information, two new major characters and some interesting news on the voice actors.

From the initial teaser, it was already confirmed that Deathstroke would find his way into the game. It was announced today that those who preorder Batman: Arkham Origins would be able to play as Deathstroke. It will be in similar fashion to the Joker or Catwoman challenge maps of Arkham games past as well as contain two additional costumes for Deathstroke.

Additionally, the trailer reveals two characters. Black Mask makes his return to the series after a brief cameo in Arkham City. It should be noted that it is revealed in Arkham City that Black Mask was the only man to ever escape. In addition, Deadshot will be making a return to the series as well.

This past weekend at Dallas Comic Con, the voice of Batman, Kevin Conroy, confirmed he would be returning to the Batman: Arkham series in the upcoming prequel, Batman: Arkham Origins. After a rumor surfaced in April that Conroy was done with the series, there was a lot of hesitance from series’ fans that someone else may be voicing the Dark Knight (because they have heard what happens when Christian Bale does it).

Early in the video below, Kevin discusses his involvement in the project and how he has been working on it for more than nine months. There is tons of hype right now around Batman: Arkham Origins as teaser trailer featuring Deathstroke going toe to toe with Batman from last week revealed a longer version would be premiering later today. So far, we’ve seen a healthy number of Batman villains represented in the two previous Arkham titles but there is a lot of excitement as to who will make their Arkham debut this time.

If you loved Batman: Arkham Asylum and the sequel, Arkham City (and we’re pretty sure you did), get ready for some more awesome Batman action. That’s right, there’s another installment of the game franchise on the way.

Recently, Warner Bros. Interactive announced the game and it’s called Batman: Arkham Origins. And now, there’s a new teaser trailer highlighting just how great it’s gonna be.

Check out all the action after the break. Look for Batman: Arkham Origins to arrive in stores on October 23.

Want to see the teaser? Sure you do.

After Scribblenauts Unlimited came to the Wii U with a fairly soft launch, a lot of people wondered what might be next, if at all, for the series. Aside from new puzzles, what was there really left you could do for Scribblenauts that hadn’t already been done with the customizability of Scribblenauts Unlimited? I mean, it has “unlimited” in the title. The answer of course is rather fitting, a comic book crossover.

Whenever publishers in comics are in a sales dip, they crossover a more popular character into another series to give it a sales boost. But why stop at just a Batman Scribblenauts or a Scribblenauts Metropolis? WB Games and 5th Cell took the whole DC Universe and brought it over to the Scribblenauts world in Scribblenauts Unmasked: A DC Comics Adventure. In addition to giving the powers of various DC heroes and villains to Maxell, the trailer below indicates that players will be able to actually play as various DC characters in the game as well in the puzzle solving adventure.

You can say a great many things about The Dark Knight Rises, but brisk is not one of them. The film is long, and while it might not feel like nearly three hours long, it does feel well over two. Which is noticeable when the last third of this long film somehow felt rushed and bloated all at the same time.

Which is why the rumor coming out of Nuke The Fridge holds a tiny shred of merit. The movie feels like it does have scenes, or at least extensions of scenes on the cutting room floor:

Sources have informed Nuke the Fridge that not only is a Director’s Cut being developed by Warner Bros. for “The Dark Knight Rises,” but it’s going to include Bane’s origin plus a bit more screentime for Ra’s Al Ghul (Liam Neeson) which were omitted from the current theatrical cut of the movie.

Generally, director Christopher Nolan does not believe in director’s cuts, and he allegedly also has final cut on his films these days, so our first reaction to this talk was complete dismissal. Then, as you think back on the flawed final Bat-film, it kind of actually makes sense. Especially if the sources are to be believed and the major additions are Bane’s back story and more Ra’s.

Right now the smart thing to do would be to file this under B for ‘believe it when we see it’, but keep tuned to The Flickcast for any future confirmations or denials about a Dark Knight Rises director’s cut.

This weekend sees the release of The Dark Knight Rises, Christopher Nolan’s final piece of his Dark Knight trilogy. There are two ways you can look at this film and the series as a whole, as films or as Batman adaptations.

The differentiation between those perspectives is something that I have been struggling with since the classic The Dark Knight hit theaters in 2008. Nolan is a master cinema craftsman, his Dark Knight movies are some of the most well made blockbusters in the history film.

The problem I encounter, is that these films have become increasingly less ‘Batman’. It is not that I think Nolan doesn’t ‘get’ the character, I think he just doesn’t really care.

So at the end of the day I am stuck with two opposing sides to my opinion, one that respects the cinematic merits of the Nolan’s trilogy, and one that is increasingly frustrated with its seeming disrespect shown to some key aspects of the source material.

From this point on my review will weave in and out of spoiler territory, so proceed at your own risk. If you are on the fence about seeing the film this weekend and want a non spoiler recommendation, I can say to you see the film. For all the qualms I have, it is still a well made piece of cinema that should be seen on the big screen with an eager crowd.

The name itself is somewhat deceptive. LEGO Batman combined with the DC Super Heroes. Is it another entrant into the LEGO Batman franchise or the start of a new series focusing on more of the greater DC universe? And with trailers featuring members of the Justice League, why didn’t they go with LEGO Justice League or at least LEGO Batman 2: Justice League? LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes gives a lot of what is expected as well as some interesting gameplay and story design choices as well.

Gameplay:

At its core, LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes is a puzzle solving game with light combat elements. Players must figure out how to traverse from point A to point B in a room using the special techniques and powers of the game’s heroes. Both Batman and Robin have multiple suits, each with different power sets, to aid in this and are aided by Superman’s unique abilities later on. Superman can’t walk through electric fields, but Batman has a suit that can. Robin can’t melt gold beams but Superman can shoot his heat vision to accomplish the task. And for some reason, Robin has both a hazard suit to clean up toxic waste and a snow suit which lets him freeze stuff.

Interspersed between puzzles is light combat. Enemies can often be taken out in a single hit and multiple targets can go down quickly with a quick shot from the batarang. Combat is also one of the fundamentals that hurts the gameplay. During the levels where players can be both Superman and Batman or in a later level where players can be Wonder Woman, both characters are essentially invincible. There is no threat as they have steel health hearts and cannot take damage. And because both can fly as well, there is no fear of them falling during platforming sections. The second players realize this, the excitement of the combat sections is lost.