As expected, Activision made a strong showing at this year’s E3. Of course, they headlined with their premiere franchise Call of Duty with Modern Warfare 3. But they didn’t forget about the rest of their games.

One of the games right now being most closely followed by us is Spider-Man: Edge of Time.  The followup from Beenox from Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions, Edge of Time tells a story about time being ravaged by the untimely death of the modern day Peter Parker and the ripples it sends in to the future.

In the latest trailer and screen shots below, one of the game’s first major villains is revealed with Anti-Venom. Anyone reading the current Amazing Spider-Man arc will be familiar with Anti-Venom who fancies himself as a cure on society’s cancers. Much like Eddie Brock’s former lethal protector mentality as Venom, Eddie’s personal delusions get in the way of his motives and inevitably put Spider-Man in the sites as one of his targets.

How this will play out in the game remains to be seen but it is refreshing to see Beenox putting newer characters in to their game instead of just rehashing the most famous of Spider-Man’s rouges over and over again.

Take a peek below at Spider-Man: Edge of Time featuring Anti-Venom, Spider-Man 2099 and of course everyone’s favorite modern day Spidey. Stick to The Flickcast for more on Spider-Man: Edge of Time as it becomes available.

This past weekend at WonderCon, Activision and Beenox gave the world its first look at their latest Spider-Man title, Spider-Man: Edge of Time. As we discussed last week, Spider-Man: Edge of Time is a concurrent storyline between two versions of Spider-Man, Amazing in the present and 2099 in the future.

Visually, there are a lot of similarities that can be seen in the trailer between Spider-Man: Edge of Time and Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions. It looks like even gameplay will be similar as well, as can be seen from the return of Spider-Man 2099’s freefall combat section shown in the trailer.

It has been revealed that two of the voice actors from Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions will be returning to Edge of Time as well, but strangely neither will be reprising their previous role. Sadly, Neil Patrick Harris will not be returning to the role of Amazing Spider-Man as it will be voiced by Josh Keaton who played Peter Parker in the Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon and the Ultimate Spider-Man in Shattered Dimensions.

Spider-Man 2099 will be voiced by Christopher Daniel Barnes who voiced Spider-Man in the 1990’s animated series and Spider-Man Noir in last year’s game.

Take a look at the screens and trailer after the jump and be sure to check back right here for more on Spider-Man: Edge of Time.

Writer Peter David must have found something very special within himself when he created Spider-Man 2099 nearly twenty years ago. Of all of the characters that came to be from the 2099 universe, Spider-Man 2099 is the one who keeps coming back.

Whether it was in Marvel’s “Time Stream” crossover or having a place on the Exiles or his most recent appearance in Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions, Miguel O’Hara has earned his place as a true Spider-Man (unlike the much despised Ben Reily or Kaine).

Now, Spider-Man 2099 will be a part of Activision and Beenox’s latest adaptation of Spider-Man with the newly announced Spider-Man: Edge of Time.

Taking a cue from games like Singularity, Spider-Man: Edge of Time plays on the concept of actions in the past affecting the future as both the current day Spider-Man and the Spider-Man of 2099 both take actions to prevent a premature death of this generation’s Peter Parker which leads to a future that should never come to pass.

Here’s all the info you need to know from the official press release:

“The first Spider-Man entry by Beenox, Spider-Man™: Shattered Dimensions was touted as one of the wall-crawler’s best Spider-Man games to date from both critics and fans,” said Vicharin Vadakan, Director, Global Brand Management. “Beenox is once again taking a fresh and different approach to bring a fast-paced and high-octane adventure and unexpected story to life in Spider-Man: Edge of Time.”

Not many people snynomize Neil Patrick Harris with video games. They do, however, consider him one of the greats when it comes to awards show hosts. Which is why Spike TV’s decision to hire him as the host of this Saturday’s Video Game Awards.

G4 may have their own version of the awards, but Spike’s show is considered the be-all, end-all of video game award shows. You can expect to see guests like the cast of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Guillermo Del Toro, Nathan Fillion, Chris Hemsworth, Olivia Munn, and a musical performance by My Chemical Romance.

You can check out the full awards show live on Saturday, December 11th at 8pm ET/ 5pm PST. Here’s the full press release announcing the new host.

New York, NY, December 6, 2010 – Acclaimed television, film, stage and video game star Neil Patrick Harris has been handed over the controller and will host Spike TV’s 2010 “Video Game Awards.”  Broadcasting in over 175 territories worldwide from Los Angeles, the “VGAs” will celebrate the best in gaming on Saturday, December 11 at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT.

After the kid focused Spider-Man: Friend or Foe and the somewhat redundant nature of Spider-Man: Web of Shadows, Spidey fans have been clamoring for a change in the Spider-Man formula. Since Spider-Man 2, most titles have revolved around a sandbox view of Manhattan where everyone’s favorite webslinger traverses back and forth in the city, sometimes racing against time, to match up against his more fearsome foes and crossing paths with various small time criminals committing minor offenses along the way.

While it has proven a successful formula, it had started to grow stagnant. Influenced by that criticism, Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions puts together four versions of the Marvel icon, including two who have never been seen in video game form, in a variety of diverse levels and constantly changing gameplay.

Gameplay:

Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions plays differently than most previous Spider-Man titles, and not just because of the change away from open world environments. While button mashing combined with Spider-Sense dodging is the focus of combat, traversing through the levels seemed looser in terms of control.

Slinging through levels doesn’t feel as natural or fun as it did in Manhattan in days of Spider-Man’s past. Possibly because of the level design system, less emphasis was put on traversing areas at fast speeds.

Combat also doesn’t feel as diverse. Because each Spider-Man only has three individual levels, there is not a huge diversity in combat abilities. Previous titles, because of only having one or two versions of Spider-Man, had a larger number of different attacks to work with.