Nathan

I haven't read for a while but some of my favourite books are;

• [*]The Discworld Novels: By Sir Terry Pratchett (I've read about 6 of them and I have another 2 or 3 but I want to read them in order and since there's about 50 of them its really hard to find the ones your after.) Actually its probably a decent part of the reason why I haven't read much for a while, I kind of have a thing where I can't start something new until I've finished or given up on what I was doing and since I really enjoy Discworld but can't get the books...you get the idea [*]Harry Potter (I've read through the entire series about 3 times and I've read the first 5 about 10 times in total) [*]King Arthur Trilogy by M.K.Hume (quite a good Historical fiction series with an interesting twist on the King Arthur Legends, essentially that he had a wife and kid well before he became king, its based in the Dark Ages which is far more accurate than what most King Arthur stories are like (which are usually based in medieval times instead)) [*]The Inheritance Cycle (Eragon, Eldest, Brisingr and Inheritance)
  

There's quite a few books I want to read (most of which have been mentioned above) eg. The Hunger Games, The Hobbit and LOTR, Game of Thrones, and I have also been planning on reading the Halo novels (I have most of them but have never read them). Like I said though I haven't read for a while, unless you count manga in which case I'm probably beating you all (I guess I could possibly count Sword Art Online as something I've been reading recently, but I've only read like one chapter of the online translation of the novel)

 

The Bartimeus Sequence is a really great series. It's about magicians and such. Read through the series twice. The magicians doesn't have much magical power, instead they make magical creatures do magic for them.

That's the series that Amulet of Samarkand is part of right? I've read up until part way through the 3rd book when I got really fed up with the main character. I enjoyed it up until then though.

Yeah, I don't think I'll ever do a 40 hour gaming session... Not continuosly atleast. I'm not sure if I'm even able to do a 24-hour session.

I'm with you there.

Welcome to another "This Week in Gaming" update. Unfortunately I couldn't get a gaming update put out last week, and I apologize for that. To make up for it, instead of covering just the games from last week, we will cover games from the last two weeks.

Game Releases

Here are the games released in the last couple weeks.

Games Released on the 21^st

[*]Lego City Undercover-The Chase Begins (for 3DS) (previously released in the US)

Games Released on the 22^nd

[*]Chernobyl 3:Underground (for PC)

Games Released on the 23^rd

[*]Star Trek (for PC,Xbox360 and PS3)

[*]Poker Night 2 (for Xbox360 and PS3)

[*]Panza: Forged by Chaos (for PC) (previously released in the US)

[*]Dust: An Elysian Trail (for PC)

[*]Draw Slasher (for PSVita)

[*]Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen (for Xbox360 and PS3)

[*]Don't Starve (for PC)

[*]Dead Island Riptide (for PC, Xbox360 and PS3)

[*]Black Rock Shooter (for PSP)

[*]Assassin's Creed III: The Tyranny of King Washington - The Redemption DLC (for PC and Xbox360) (later released on PS3 on the 24th)

[*]Probably the biggest release of the last couple of weeks. The Tyranny of King Washingon is the much talked about DLC pack for Assassins Creed 3, in which the player experiences an alternate history where George Washington becomes a tyrannical king of America.

Games Released on the 24^th

[*]Monaco: What's Yours is Mine (for PC) (soon to be released on Xbox360)

[*]Dyad (for PC)

[*]Cry of Fear (for PC)

Games Released on the 25^th

[*]No games seem to have been released on the 25th

Games Released on the 26^th

[*]Star Drive (for PC)

[*]Mars: War Logs (for PC) (to be released on Xbox360 and PS3 at an unconfirmed date)

Games Released on the 29^th

[*]Zack Zero (for PC) (previously released on PS3 Early 2012)

Games Released on the 30^th

[*]Zombie Tycoon 2 (for PS3 and PSVita)

[*]Zeno Clash 2 (for PC) (to be released on Xbox360 September 2013)

[*]Strike Suit Infinity (for PC)

[*]Soul Sacrifice (for PSVita)

[*]Leviathan: Warships (for PC)

Now for the first games of May 2013...

Games Released on the 1^st

[*]Ragnorok Online 2: Legend of the Second (for PC)

[*]Fez (for PC) (released on Xbox360 April 2012)

[*]Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon (for PC, Xbox360 and PS3)

Games Released on the 2^nd

[*]Might & Magic: Heroes VI- Shades of Darkness (for PC)

[*]Angry Birds Friends (for iOS and Android)

[*]Dark Avenger (for iOS)

[*]Lego Star Wars: The Yoda Chronicles (for iOS)

[*]Paper Titans (for iOS)

[*]Zombies Ate My Friends (for iOS)

Gaming News

News from around the industry.

[*]Mozzilla has revealed that it is working on a high end gaming experience for Firefox which will allow similar games to consoles, and has even released a demo of what it will be like.

[*]Google recently hired veteran game developer Noah Falstein as "Chief Game Designer"

[*]In China a 20 year old woman almost died after a 40 hour gaming session. She complained of leg pains and when she was taken to hospital she was diagnosed with possibly life threatening Deep Vein Thrombosis, a condition normally associated with flying.

Weird Gaming News and Facts

Here are some tidbits sure to make you scratch your head.

[*]An employee at ESEA has recently been caught using computers connected to the Counter Strike servers to mine for bitcoins for his own personal profit. The good news is though that ESEA has said they will donate its employees bit coin profits to the American Cancer Society and will match the donation with its own funds.

[*]There is a gene in the human body named after Sonic the Hedgehog.

[*]In the original "Animal Crossing" for the N64 (unreleased outside of Japan) you have to input the time and date every time you boot the game.

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Welcome to the site, 

 

I look forward to seeing you around on the site.

There were so many plot in Iron Man 3 that could have easily been sorted.

 

The thing that really annoyed me was that due to the scope of the events within the film, they completely ignored the existance of SHIELD and The Avengers. (My review can be read here: Iron Man 3 Is A Disapointing Mess)

 

Thankfully Captain America: The Winter Soldier is set to have SHIELD, The Black Widow, Fury, The Falcon and Maria Hill as read here: (Captain America: The Winter Soldier Is Avengers 1.5!)

I completely agree, like I mentioned they show the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier but S.H.I.E.L.D. isn't involved at all, the first 2 movies atleast had some SHIELD involvement.

 

I had seen that The Winter Soldier is meant to focus a lot more on SHIELD, so hopefully they do that much better.

Finally finished editing it. Took me two days due to the length. 

Yeah...sorry about that. You did a good job though. I noticed a typo though (not sure whether it was me or you) where it says "...manipulate me ..." it should be "...manipulate metal..."

 

This was something I was going to mention as well. The vast majority of people aren't going to know/care at all about the comics, so when you do a plot holes / issues piece on the movie you should only mention the movie. Of course, there's nothing wrong with a "deviations from the comic book" article either; it's just a matter of choosing one and then writing specifically for that audience.

Yeah, I was trying not to get into that too much but it just kind of kept relating to it. I only use it to add to my argument (other than in suggesting that they could have chosen a much better story to adapt).

 

 

I can respect what you know about the Marvel Universe and what not. Hell, I don't know any Iron Man villains or sidekicks or anything. But if you could step back from looking at the movie from a comic book fan's point of view, would you still say it was good? Which is to say, you'd have to ignore any discrepancies from the books and similar aspects.

Well, I wouldn't say I know a huge amount about the Marvel Universe, but I've kind of just been exposed to it enough that I just know the basics of it.

 

If I didn't have even that knowledge though I would say it would be easier to enjoy the movie (which I still did, just not as much as I could've) but even within the movie they work so hard to set up this major villain that you're meant to really despise and then all of a sudden they just turn away from that completely. There was just a whole lot of stuff that really didn't make sense for the characters just from what they'd set up in the other movies and even the rest of the movie.

 

I don't know. Having an entire city destroyed by aliens on flyers that came out of a giant fucking portal in the sky along with a giant worm would freak me out. If anything, it'd tell me somebody out there hates us and would probably attempt another attack.

Yeah, I kind of get that, my thought's on it though were that being held hostage for months (possibly years I can't remember), and the feeling of hopelessness that come with that should surely be at least somewhat psychologically damaging, whereas the aliens yeah they do a lot of damage but they also stop them with minimal casualties within a day.

 

 

His electronic helper thing does say the remote control suit thing was a proto-type in The Avengers. So maybe this technology in Iron Man 3 are the real deal? Haven't seen IM3, so this is just what I know based on The Avengers.

JARVIS (the electronic helper thing you mentioned) says the same thing in IM3

This article contains a great deal of spoilers of the film; if you haven't yet seen Iron Man 3 be wary! Readers who have not yet seen the movie may prefer our spoiler-free Iron Man 3 review.

Overall, I enjoyed Iron Man 3 but it certainly wasn't amazing by any means and in my opinion it could have been if not for the following issues.

I'm going to be up-front: I reference the comic books a lot here, and I understand that there are changes that need to be made when adapting something to another format. However, there were a lot of changes from the comics that made the movie worse rather than better; many of them weren't necessary.

Face Your Demons!

...Or just make some different ones.

Iron Man in the comic books really lacks decent villains; they are almost all rich business people who are competitors to Stark Industries. Their objective is one of two options: try to steal his suits to make there own, or compete with versions of their own power-suits similar to Iron Man's.

Besides Mandarin (who we will discuss later), Tony Stark's main enemy in the comic books is... Tony Stark. Oh, and his alcohol addiction. I had only seen one of the earliest trailers before seeing the film and I had heard that Mandarin was going to be in it to explore the "Demon in a Bottle" story line. Demon in a Bottle was a nine issue story arc published in 1979 and has been described by critics as "the quintessential Iron Man Story," and "one of the best super hero sagas of the 1970's.' With praise like that this is obviously a really amazing story, but even before the first movie came out fans were excited that Robert Downey Jr. would be playing the character of Tony Stark. After all, Downey has gone through similar issues with drug and alcohol addiction in his past thus - who better to play Stark?

From very early on in the film, the theme of "facing your demons" is mentioned. This may have piqued the interest of some fans, but did we get to see Iron Man at his darkest moments in the series? No. In fact, he doesn't drink a sip of alcohol except during the flashback to 1999. Instead, the phrase has been re-purposed to refer to the creation of two villains that would appear later in the movie (mainly Aldrich Killian) and to his anxiety over events of "The Avengers".

Stark has never been shown to suffer from anxiety in the comic books. Sure, its an adaptation so they don't have to stick to the events exactly, but it just doesn't make sense for him. So he deals okay with being held hostage by terrorists in Iron Man 1, but then suddenly gets post traumatic stress disorder after the almost-catastrophe in The Avengers? Really? If anything, surely those events should reassure him that the world is in capable hands, and not stress him out to the point of having a nervous break down any time "New York" is mentioned.

The whole anxiety thing is clearly just a way of exploring some of the elements of "Demon in a Bottle" without showing any alcohol abuse. The only reasons I can think of to avoid that is to appeal to children more. This is a theme I noticed a lot in this movie... There's a palpable effort made to avoid complaints made by overly conservative parents. Surely people know what they're getting into when they go to see Iron Man 3, right? Tony Stark is, and has been shown in the previous movies to be, someone who loves women (he is a "genius, billionaire, philanthropist, playboy" after all) and alcohol. He even deals with his issue... So if anything it should show how much addictions can ruin lives.

Besides, they're happy to have other people drinking and abusing drugs. We'll get into that in a minute...

Spitting on a Warlord

Mandarin is the primary antagonist of all the Iron Man stories. He is Iron Man's arch-enemy, and Stark's worst nightmare... And apparently nothing more than a British drug addict actor being played like a puppet. It was odd that they had so much back-story set up on Mandarin and the Ten Rings despite him clearly not being Chinese.

Although probably not a close descendant of Ghengis Khan, Ben Kingsley initially did quite well at playing the role... Then in an instant he's turned into a cheap source of comic-relief. Really?

Imagine the outrage if they did the same thing to the Joker. Imagine if Magneto couldn't actually manipulate metal with his mind and he just carried around a giant magnet. Imagine if Catwoman turned out to be a dude... Sure, these things might be funny, but they come at the cost of completely destroying the original character. It's exactly what they did to Mandarin.

Just imagine if this guy (the real Mandarin) saw this movie. It wouldn't be pretty.

Similar to the legendary Batman villain the Joker, an interesting thing about Mandarin is that his true identity is unknown. Well, according to this movie his name's Trevor Cassidy. A purposely inappropriate name for a villain like this.

You may recall that the name of the organization that captured Tony Stark in the first movie was known as "The Ten Rings." Mandarin traditionally get his various powers from ten rings (and of course in the film he doesn't have any powers). The leader of the Ten Rings organization in the first movie makes frequent references to Ghengis Khan. This is meant to reference Mandarin, who is a descendant of Ghengis Khan; this is supposed to reflect his strength as a Warlord. I couldn't tell when watching it, but apparently the organization in Iron Man 3 is the same Ten Rings from the first movie. It just shows how differently they are depicted in this film.

Extremis

If you've seen the movie you will know that the plot revolves around Extremis. Extremis is actually a comic book arc that the movie was based on; however, it's a rather recent comic having been published from 2005-2006. Of course, both the writer and illustrator admitted they knew next to nothing about Iron Man...

Despite the fact that it is a fairly popular story, I don't think it was a good fit for this movie. For one thing the story is based just after the Avengers Disassembled story line; this not only obviously leads to the breakup of the Avengers, but also several key members of the Avengers are killed during it (including Hawkeye). It leads to further chaos amongst superheroes and eventually begins a civil war in which Iron Man causes the death of Captain America... So yeah, not the best story to choose to lead up to another Avenger's movie.

It's also a new origin story for Iron Man, but we already had an origin story in the first movie. Adding another one only serves to confuse things.

Further changes were made that made the film worse and caused inconsistencies and limitations for the overall Marvel Cinematic Universe. For starters, the main villain in the movie, Aldrich Killian, is a very different character in the original story. He co-developed Extremis with Maya Hansen, and kills himself after he gives it away to terrorists. Maya is also not working with Mandarin on purpose as she is in the movie; instead, she is tricked into giving him samples of the drug. Extremis does give superpowers in the original - but it doesn't cause explosions - and Stark actually asks to be injected with it to save his life.

Two of the people in the movie who were injected with Extremis were actually existing characters: Eric Savin and Jack Taggert. They are, of course, the super-villains Coldblooded and Firepower respectively. However, they don't even have the same powers... Coldblooded is a cyborg mercenary while Firepower has a highly protected suit of armor. It's air conditioned and equipped with a vast array of sensors and weapons; neither of them were introduced by Extremis. In fact, they were introduced to the series nearly 20 years before the Extremis arc...

In my opinion, they would have been far more interesting characters to see and could have added a lot more to the movie than they did in their "human bomb" forms.

S.H.I.E.L.D. Help

Something I was really disappointed in was the lack of involvement by the rest of the Marvel universe. Fine, it's an Iron Man movie; not an "entire marvel universe movie,".... I get it. But why do they show the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier when Stark first breaks out before meeting up with Rhodes? They did nothing at all in the movie. Why were they even there? Couldn't they have maybe lent some help to fight Mandarin? Surely that was the intention - I mean why else would they be there?

Everyone Should be Dead

The part where Iron Man is saving everyone falling out of the plane is really inaccurate... In so very many ways.

I don't know a whole lot about physics, but I know this. So he just manages to catch everyone before they hit the water (firstly I'm pretty sure he would have died or at least fainted from falling that far from that high without anything to slow him down) and then he only moves slightly away from there before dropping them. He barely loses any speed or velocity. Again, I'm not great at physics and I guess he probably lost a fair bit of velocity by changing direction, but still I'm sure those people would all be seriously injured if not dead.

Before going after them, he stops for a moment and works out which one to get first. Why on earth did he choose that woman first? Surely he should get one of the stronger people who is capable of holding everyone, no? Or maybe he would go for the president first in case things didn't go according to plan.

"Which one will I wear today?"

So we very quickly learn that Tony Stark is up to MK 42 armor. The comics never really seem to go past about MK VII (8), so what were the changes in the different versions? We see all of them towards the end and some of them clearly have very different features (such as a larger, bulkier one that shoots heavier weapons and misslies), but for the most part they all seemed to do the exact same thing; they just looked slightly different visually.

Then obviously the whole situation ends up being resolved when all of the suits, which are being remotely controlled, arrive. Yay! Problem solved. But why the hell didn't he do that earlier? He could have done that immediately, or at least as soon as he found out where Mandarin was.

What was so much better about this one anyway? Sure he could put it on remotely, but couldn't some of the other suits do that anyway? I'm sure he did that in the Avengers: falls off of the building and the suit deploys and flies after him as he equips it in mid-air.

Anyways, he proves how useful it was to keep all those suits; even Pepper said she could understand now. Then.... Then he blows them up for no reason other than to reassure Pepper. What if the next day a new supervillain arrives... They would be doomed. Where's the harm in keeping them? Pepper had already said that she understood.

I QUIT!

What the hell was with the end? You know, with Stark removing the power core.

The whole reason he had it on all the time was because it's a risky surgery to remove the shrapnel. Secondly, it's the power for his suits. If he removes that, he has to redesign all the machines to include it within the structure of the suit. This is the thing that the villains of the first two movies were trying to get from him and he just throws it away. Sure, in the real world that would be completely lost, but your dealing with super-villains; I'm sure they can think to maybe go to his house and work out where he might have thrown it.

Finally, I can't work out a reason why he would seemingly quit and suddenly get over his anxiety of an alien invasion just because he wrapped up one completely unrelated problem. Besides, apparently he wasn't even quitting... After the credits it says "Tony Stark will return". Before it even said that it was obvious, so why would they even pretend to not have Iron Man in the next Avenger's movie? There is no answer for that. The only reason I can think of for them to include that in the movie is to copy the ending of the Dark Knight Rises, which I absolutely hated for very similar reasons, many of which were detailed in this plot holes and problems article.

Upcoming Movie Speculation

This movie really added nothing to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so I don't really have any extra speculation on future movies.

The only thing that I can possibly come up with - and this is only because I really want the post credits scene to mean something - is that Bruce Banner (played by Mark Ruffallo) had much more grey hair in that scene because of stress. This means... A new Hulk movie with Mark Ruffallo. Or that I'm just reading waaaay too much into it and really want a new hulk movie with Mark Ruffallo as Hulk/Bruce Banner. It is possible, though, but not until 2015. When/if it does happen, Tim Roth will return playing The Leader.

Between now and the Avengers 2 (May 1, 2015), confirmed upcoming Marvel movies are (in order)...

[*]Kick Ass (which is completely unrelated).

[*]The Wolverine. Wolverine is sometimes part of some of the Avenger's teams in the comics, and it would be cool to see him appear in the Avengers 2, but the movie rights are owned by a different studio, so it's unlikely. This movie is about Wolverine in Japan, which I consider to be a very interesting story; it should bring out a gentler side of him. Hugh Jackman has also said that he has been a fan of the Japanese arcs in the comic books so he should be pretty good at acting in it.

[*]Thor: The Dark World, the next movie in the MCU, with few details on the plot revealed. Loki does return and is shown in the trailer. However, I don't believe he will be the main villain.

[*]Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the third movie in the MCU, which will involve other S.H.I.E.L.D. members including Black Widow and Bucky Barnes, who was Captain America's sidekick before he was frozen. It also shows Steve Rogers adapting to the modern world.

[*]The Amazing Spiderman 2. I would also love to see Spiderman in the Avengers; again, he is sometimes a member of the Avengers, but the rights are owned by a different studio. The main villain is apparently Electro.

[*]X-Men: Days of Future Past. Several X-men Characters are rumored to appear in the next Avengers film even though another studio owns it. I'm not really looking forward to this at all. I love the X-men comic books, but I really hated X-men: First Class and The Last Stand. Its apparently a sequel to both, which doesn't make sense to me. I get really frustrated about how badly the X-men films manage to conflict with themselves.

[*]Guardians of the Galaxy. The 4th and last film in the second phase of the MCU before The Avengers 2. I'm rather interested in this as I have never really heard of this team and I'm sure many other people are in the same situation. However, it includes a team of super-humans and aliens based on the post credit scene in The Avengers. It seems like things are heading in the direction of the outer-space side of the marvel universe, which has quite a lot of potential.

[*]Fantastic Four. Again, not an MCU project; it's actually meant to be in the same universe as the X-men films. It's a reboot; not a continuation of the previous Fantastic Four Movies.

Aside from that there is an upcoming TV Series called Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D; Agent Phil Coulson - who apparently died in the Avengers - will be returning in the show. Rumor has it that he may appear as the android, The Vision or the Cyborg, Deathlok. The Vision seems more likely and is an important member of the Avengers.

There is also an upcoming Hulk TV Series with very few details released. It was apparently meant to be coming out this year but it has obviously been pushed back if it is still planned at all.

Conclusion

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it. Please let me know what you think of the article by commenting below and joining in the discussion with us.

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That's good to hear. I wasn't really a fan of Iron Man 2. It was still a decent movie, but no where near as enjoyable as the first one.

 

So far Iron Man 3 has better IMBD scores than 2, and I think 1 as well if my memory serves me. Can't be bothered to actually check.

Maybe its just that I went into it with a critical mindset and so I noticed everything wrong with it.

 

There were some weird decisions though that completely ruined things a lot of people are looking forward to.

How does it rank against Iron Man 1 and 2? As long as it's better than 2 it will at least be enjoyable and worth my money.

Honestly I thought the first 2 were better, it is still an enjoyable movie. I've also heard from a lot of people that they thought it was better atleast than Iron Man 2.

 

So the post credit scene doesn't elude to either The Avengers 2 or, perhaps, Thor 2?

Nope. It's an extra scene that only relates to Iron Man 3 and doesn't really add anything to it. Mind you like I said they might add another post credit scene before the international release.

 

 

One question, and don't spoil anything. In the trailer, I saw that more people got themselves Iron Man suits. A lot more people. Was the concept as stupid as it looked?

 

I hate superhero "teams," as it makes the main hero's achievements less impressive. The Avengers is an exception; they pulled that off well.

I really find that difficult to answer without spoilling things. It made sense though, plot wise though it just made the earlier parts of the movie completely pointless.

 

I'm surprised by your last comment, I really enjoy superhero teams. X men is probably my favorite comic book and the Avengers and the Justice League are both awesome, mind you it doesn't lend itself to well to movie format. Also "main hero"? In most of the big teams there isn't a "main hero". The Avenger's has 2 leaders (iron man and captain america) the justice League has 2 (Batman and Superman) etc. I also think to work really well they kind of need to face one of the supervillain teams.

As I said in the description this is going to be a completely spoiler free review of Iron Man 3, I will however be posting another article (hopefully about this time tomorrow) which will be an in depth discussion of the film, such as plot-holes and speculation for future movies and will contain spoilers similar to the previous The Dark Knight Rises article.

For the last few years Marvel have set themselves the goal of releasing 3 live action movies each year, and Iron Man 3 is the first of four planned to come out this year.

Iron Man 3 is the 7th movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it is the first movie since the extremely successful "Marvel's the Avengers" making it the first movie in Phase Two of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (which will conclude with the Avengers 2). To those who may not be familiar with the Marvel Cinematic Universe it is essentially a group of movies that fit into the same 'canon' which allows for crossovers such as we've seen in the Avengers and means that the writers don't have to worry to much about sticking to the existing canon that exists in the comic books.

When I went to see Iron Man 3 the movie trailers that played showed just how many Superhero movies are coming out this year. Of 4 Trailers (the other one being Star Trek into darkness which I consider to be a very similar sort of movie), 3 were superhero movies, and 2 of those were also Marvel movies; The Wolverine; and Thor: The Dark World. And of course the upcoming film based on the DC character, Superman, "The Man of Steel".

Now to what you came here for - Iron Man 3. Overall I was rather disappointed in the film as I believe many people will be, particularly after Joss Whedon's The Avengers. The plot and its characters all seemed to be dumbed down a lot, apparently to put more focus on making the film humorous which no doubt it was but at the cost of a few things. The first of those things is the way the writers try to shock you and tricking you into thinking something happened when anybody should be able to tell that its too big of an action for them to actually do. I'm probably being really confusing here since I'm trying to completely avoid any spoilers but basically there are several parts of the plot that are just really predictable. The other point I mentioned is that major parts of the characters are changed in completely unnecessary fashion, perhaps to appeal to children.

The thing is my above criticisms are based on the fact that I know it could have been done that much better, as we've seen Marvel adapt their comic books into film so much better before. However, if I were to compare it to other movies that aren't part of such a successful and beloved franchise, it would probably stack up quite well. In fact, it does do much better than many other movies by Marvel (Spiderman 3 and Hulk I'm looking at you).

As a side note I wanted to mention that in typical Marvel fashion (particularly in the Cinematic Universe) there is a post credit scene. It always frustrates me that people don't realize that marvel normally show really interesting sneak peaks and hints at their future movies and just leave. However in this case the post credit scene really adds nothing to the story of the cinematic universe or even the movie itself, nor is it that funny like it was obviously meant to be. Mind you that may change before its released worldwide based on the fact that after the Avengers was shown in Australia (and possibly the UK etc) an extra post credit scene was filmed and added before it was released worldwide.

Anyway thanks for reading, let me know what you thought of this review and check out the upcoming in depth Iron Man 3 article (which I hope to get out about this time tomorrow) if you're not afraid of spoilers.

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Why the hell is The Joker the front and center on the Gods Among Us package? Also, I find the game title change for the Middle East edition very interesting. Also, dat SWTOR expansion. Great article.

I thought the same thing when I first saw the cover. I wasn't sure whether to include the bit about the name change so I'm glad someone found it interesting.and Thanks

Thanks a lot, Deathirst. You made me regret leaving the Boy Scouts.

That's what I'm here for making people regret XD

Welcome to another "This week in Gaming" update. We've made some changes so I'll talk a little bit about what this is and how it works. These gaming update articles will be published every weekend and will start with us filling you in with all the games that came out in the previous week. For some of those games we'll have some more details for you, such as the initial reception of the game and what it's about. There will also be game and console announcements, trailers, and then the signature weird news or facts related to gaming.

So without further ado, lets get started.

Game Releases

This week is mostly downloadable content (DLC) with only a few full retail releases.

Games Released on the 14^th

[*]Star Wars: The Old Republic - Rise of the Hutt Cartel Expansion (for PC)

Games Released on the 15^th

[*]Pandora's Tower (for Wii)

Games Released on the 16^th

[*]Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner- Soul Hackers (for 3DS)

[*]Dishonored: The Knife of Dunwall DLC (for Xbox360, PS3, and PC)

[*]Victoria II: Heart of Darkness DLC/Expansion(for PC)

[*]Darkfall Unholy Wars (for PC)

[*]Injustice: Gods Among Us (for Xbox360, PS3, and WiiU)​

​Probably the biggest game to come out this week. Gods Among Us (Mighty Among Us in the Middle East) is a fighting game featuring the characters from DC comics such as Superman, Batman, The Joker, Wonderwoman, etc.

[*]Call of Duty: Black Ops II - Uprising DLC(for Xbox 360)

[*]Capcom Arcade Cabinet: Game Pack 5 (for Xbox360 and PS3)

Games Released on the 17^th

[*]Sacred Citadel (for Xbox360, PS3, and PC)

Games Released on the 18^th

[*]PaPo and Yo (for PC) (Previously released on PS3)

[*]Witch and Hero (for 3DS)

Games Released on the 19^th

[*]God Mode (for PC and Xbox360)

Since there wasn't a whole lot in the way of new games this week, I thought I would add a couple of special games to this list which had already been released in the US. Interestingly, both games have Japanese origins.

Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 3

Whilst it was released last month for most of the world, it was only just released in Japan on the 18th. It's available on both the Xbox 360 and PS3. As a massive anime/manga fan I really want to get this game. The strange thing about the Ultimate Ninja Storm games is that rather than continuing where they left off in the story they go back through everything from the start and end up going further in the story. There's also a special DLC code that you can get from some stores with the game that adds a Goku skin for Naruto to wear. I think that's a really cool reference to Dragonball, as Naruto is published in the same magazine that Dragonball was published in and most modern mangaka (manga authors) grew up watching Dragonball. [/otakurant]

Fire Emblem: Awakening

Released back in February for the US, but only just released on the 19th in Europe (a year since it was released in Japan) and on the 20th in Australia. Available on 3DS.

Gaming News

News from around the industry.

[*]A month after the Boy Scouts introduced a badge for game design the Girl Scouts have introduced one for game development (currently only LA, but it may be implemented worldwide).

[*]Pokemon Rumble U trailer became available on the Nintendo3DS eShop

[*]EA has announced a patch for the "unable to process" error in SimCity scheduled for launch on the 22nd

Weird Gaming News and Facts

Some tidbits to fill your bland week with the joy of the unexpected.

[*]Tim Lamgdell began suing developers such as EA and Namco 4 years ago for using the word edge in video games (eg. Mirrors Edge) after trademarking it based on games he made in the '80s. Fortunately he has recently had his trademark cancelled and can no longer claim infringement for the use of the word.

Click here to view the article

And already over 1250, Congratz

Laughing my ass off right now. First guess for the win.

 

Might have unknowingly cheated, though, since I've seen your Twitter profile. Not sure if you've ever had a real life picture there or not.

 

You were definitely the star of that video.

I don't think I have a photo of my face on twitter, maybe a similar thing with my facebook though since I've commented on the elder souls page.

 

and lol.

1:00?

that was quick

Something happened today though. I'll post a link to it here once the video gets posted, I don't want to talk about it now just in case I'm not meant to. 

Here's what I was talking about. I was in this weeks AHWU (achievement hunter weekly update) twice (first time with everyone else in the panel and then I say something in it later).

 

I don't think I've posted what I look like here so feel free to try and guess which one is me

I was nearly going to post yesterday but then i realised I didn't have anything interesting to say that I haven't already said at some point.

 

Something happened today though. I'll post a link to it here once the video gets posted, I don't want to talk about it now just in case I'm not meant to. 

You know whats sad?...

 

I actually have a few games that I left out for time's sake last night, but that wasn't even in the top 10. 

...I had to reread this 3 times because I kept reading it as saké and so it made no sense

 

You know whats even more sad?...

...It made me think of the One Piece song "Binks' Saké"

 

 

Sorry for the random interruption. I think it may have been caused by a combination of me being tired (from lack of sleep) and slightly delusional (from trying to install stuff after upgrading my computer to a 64bit os)

I'm pretty bummed no one realized Crowe is Australian.

 

Carry  on.

I noticed that, I only just saw it though since I haven't been online for a few days.

 

 

The most frustrating part about it is that often when an Australian actor is playing an Australian character they do a british accent to appeal to the American audience.

Just to let you know this is actually outdated now, a couple of years ago Australia overtook America (take that XD)

 

 

 

 

[*]No one knows the difference between being English/British, or even what the actual name of your country is. Including me. Is it the United Kingdom? Great Britain? England? Why can't you just pick something and put it on my mini-globe?

Or the difference between Australia and the UK from my experiences. Apparently they can't distinguish between our accents so be prepared to be asked whether you're from the UK or Australia

trouble is I dont think there is a clan to stay in :/

That seems to be pretty much the case. Sure there are still people (like yourself) who still play runescape and want to stay in the clan however there is only a few (by that I mean maybe 3 people), and even though more people who are still on the site would probably play more if we became more active (I know I would) it just doesn't seem like it would happen. Even if we did somehow gain new members the clan would be very different to how it has been in the past due to it being made up of mostly entirely different people, and I think the reason people who do want the clan to keep running rather than just joining a new clan is because of the people here.

 

I know it sucks, and I've done a shit job of changing anything since being put in charge but it really does seem to be over. That's not to say that it wont EVER be revived (if your familiar with the clan history you'll notice its been restarted several times) and there's even a good chance that elder souls will set up similar groups in other games (I know Elder Scrolls Online has been suggested and I think there might already be one in Guild Wars 2).

 

So yeah. sorry but its good to see you log in again anyway destiny.

I was thinking one of the great things that you could possibly do with the new format (and mind you I have virtually no understanding of whether that would even work) is to put those sorts of "register now" ads on the sides of the page and possibly have it so that it scrolls with the page. That way its not in the way but its still clearly visible.

Yeah. Nobody seems to interested in keeping it going. Besides its always possible to start again if we need to.

 

Also sorry I haven't been on much lately...tbh even I don't know why that is (I haven't been that busy really)

in america we have always been told that the australian gun regulation started after the massacre of tourists nearly twenty years ago but thats all they teach us in school. but in regards to that your regulations are something that america should adopt if what i was told is right. when i said that in the modern world guns are a norm i was referring to the fact that any country with modern technology ie computers, tvs, xbox, ps3 etc  see guns in nearly everything from games to movies.  thus not making it a taboo object to talk about. but yes traag good job lol

Yeah, I don't know the details too well since I was so young but it was triggered by a shooting (or possibly a couple I know there was a big one at Monash University shortly before they introduced the new laws)

NO NO NO only a few % are in gangs and we do not consider them to be much of a citizen anyway.  but you cant stereotype americans as the only country with gang violence.  turn back the history pages and look at africa, germany, mexico, belgium undrground, china, ukraine, the former USSR, dublin in itself, iraq, etc.    if you look at the modern world brought up in watfare guns are a norm and nothing will change that.  

I agree its not fair to stereotype Americans as the only country with gang violence. And I don't think thats being suggested however America as arguably the most powerful country at this point of time has far more gang violence. The examples you gave are countries that are not as economically developed nor are a lot of them recent (obviously the USSR has not been around for a long time).

 

The claim that in the modern world guns are a norm is not really a valid statement. In most countries (I'm talking about more economically developed countries of course African countries still have a variety of issues including guns but they are also behind in terms of technology and social views, these are countries with lots of civil war and power struggles which America does not have.) I think you'll find in most developed countries (the UK, Australila, Germany etc.) guns are heavily regulated. And although there are incidents where people obtain guns illegally through the black market, its quite rare.

 

I can only really speak from whats most relevant to me but for example uniform gun laws in Australia were only introduced in 96 and already gun violence is extremely rare. Something I heard recently is that one reason that may have worked so well is because it was introduced by a conservative government and perhaps if Romney had won the election and was put into the position where he had to review the gun laws then people would accept it far more easily. And of course people who need guns (eg farmers or even for recreational hunting.) can still obtain guns its just regulated far better. A lot of Americans seem to think that they are looking to completely outlaw guns which obviously wouldn't work.

 

Anyway Traag your response seemed really well written and your opinion on it is clear and well supported. Good luck with it