In fact, why not offer up Juggy as a retailer exclusive… to GameStop, of course. Now, he may only be a palette swap of Hulk, but Marvel completists will now have to preorder via GameStop in order to play as Professor X’s dear brother. Activision’s press release (after the jump) does not mention any other exclusive bonus characters. Doesn’t anybody want Ghost Rider this time around? He had tons to do during Civil War as well.

MUA2 still features the power fusion gimmick that briefly provided the game a subtitle, is full to bursting with bankable super-heroes regardless of continuity, and now has an online flash game that lets you choose sides in the referendum on super-hero registration.

ACTIVISION ENLISTS GAMERS TO JOIN THE MARVEL: ULTIMATE ALLIANCE 2 VIP COMMUNITY

GameStop Pre-Order Program Launches with Exclusive Character Offer

Santa Monica, CA – July 2, 2009 – Activision, Inc. is calling on gamers to join the VIP community for Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2, the highly anticipated sequel to the #1 best-selling Super-Hero action-RPG. Starting today, players can log on to www.MarvelUltimateAlliance.com and become VIP members earning exclusive and early access to insider content such as classified game information and character reveals, Ask-a-Developer sessions, VIP-only screenshots and videos, and community prizes.

Also just launched on www.MarvelUltimateAlliance.com is a casual online web game that puts players in the heart of the Marvel Civil War. Fans get to choose their side among Pro-Registration and Anti-Registration forces and face off in real-time battles to help their side emerge victorious. Fans can join the Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 Civil War online game and be eligible for weekly giveaways and prizes, including Xbox 360 Elite consoles, signed memorabilia from Stan Lee, a grand prize of a 42” 1080p flat screen TV and more.

The company also announced in conjunction with GameStop, gamers that pre-order a copy of Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 for the PS3 or Xbox 360 from a GameStop store or online at www.GameStop.com will receive an exclusive playable character – Juggernaut.

Incorporating elements of the acclaimed Marvel Civil War storyline, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 allows players to choose their side and team up revered heroes and villains from the largest army of Super Heroes ever, including Spider-Man, Wolverine, Hulk, Iron Man, Deadpool, Venom, Green Goblin and Captain America. Players can combine characters’ powers and unleash astonishing new fusion attacks.

The game is being developed by Vicarious Visions for the Xbox 360, PLAYSTATION 3 system, Wii, PlayStation 2 system, PSP® (PlayStation® Portable) system and Nintendo DS™ and is not yet rated by the ESRB.

We apologize for the issues our service has experienced over the last few weeks. Sony has invested resources to actively work against sites like PS3TrophyCard.com which has made it impossible to update newer games with our current system.

PS3TrophyCard.com is one of a handful of third party sites that grab PSN data (using your PSN login name) and turn it into banners and forum sigs for users to post all over the internet. You know, like what Xbox users have had for years? Sony of America has never quite figured out how to do this sort of thing. And while Sony may not be maliciously targeting PS3TrophyCard.com (the failure may just be the result of Sony tweaking and PS3TrophyCard simply being reliant on now-obsolete code), this certainly seems like another case of Sony taking the ball and going home. Remember when that LittleBigPlanet fansite was shutdown?

All this does is underline Sony’s Web 2.0 isolation. Sure, it’s great that some PS3 games push to YouTube, but being able to show off Trophies to the world outside our PS3 seems so basic that Sony’s half-assed efforts to date are an embarrassment. Clearly the technology is there if random third party fansites can get to it… then why is Sony’s own Portable ID only able to display a username and icon? Further confounding the matter is that Sony Europe DOES have a Trophy sig service.

For their part, PS3TrophyCard says they are working on ways to crack the code and get back up and running.

It’s a great, laid-back and fun way to enjoy a fantasy RPG by building out your little town and then setting bounties on creatures and explore bounties on unrevealed parts of the map and helping your recruited heroes slay their way to victory. The sequel is due out sometime late this year but this one is basically guaranteed to run on just about anything right now.

That’s not the only thing on sale, either. Also of note is a Red Faction: Guerrila pre-order for $39.99 that nets you both Red Faction and Red Faction 2 for free. Strategy game fans can pick up Sins of a Solar Empire and its Entrenchment expansion for $29.99. Hit this link for the full list of what’s on sale now.

Today Media Molecule tossed out a very obvious tease: a spartan black background with the familiar white text “Who Ya Gonna Call.”

I suppose we can all figure that one out. Now the only question is what form this content will take. Merely costumes? A mini-pack with stickers and a few building materials? Or a handful of fullblown levels? Ghostbusters seems like a franchise that could use some kind of gameplay enhancement, a la the Paintinator from the awesome Metal Gear Solid level pack. So what’s it gonna be? How about Sackperson Proton Packs and capture boxes?

But if you haven’t, you can shortcut right to some of the crazy by visiting the gallery of photographer Greg De Stefano. The photos are for a book project, and they feature just about every Brawl cast member that has been revealed thus far.

Mario, Wario, Sonic, Olimar, Lakitu, Little Mac, Zero Suit Samus… it’s quite a collection. My favorite is the dangerous looking Fox McCloud I’ve thumbnailed in the lower left.

I don’t know how far the claim of parody can take these guys into merchandising, but I would totally buy something from them.

And don’t miss the TWBB Download page, which features some of the photos in handy desktop background form. Not to mention some seriously excellent remixes of classic Nintendo tunes.

Source: GameSetWatch

The Saints Row franchise has unfortunately lived under the microscope as a one-off of the famed Grand Theft Auto series of games.  However, the comparison is unfair, because as we have come to find out, the games may use thugs as their anti-heroes, the two could not be more miles apart.  Saints Row 2 kicks up the mayhem and fun that it started off with in the first title, and adds so much more to the formula, making it one of the best titles I have played all year on the PC.

Saints Row 2 spoils the ending of the first game in the series, so if you have not finished it yet, just skip down to the next paragraph.  With that out of the way, you start off Saints Row 2 in a coma, laid out in a prison hospital bed.  You are awakened by a fellow inmate who wants to help you escape.  You get out only to find Stillwater has been remodeled in the corporate image of Ultor, and the Saints are once again, wiped off the map, with three new gangs moving in to divide up the territory.  Your new foes are The Brotherhood, The Ronin and The Sons of Samedi.

Right after your awakening from the prison bed, you are introduced to the character creator, which allows for some of the best detailing of a character in quite some time.  There are so many sliders here for you to tweak and set, that you could lose hours of gameplay just coming up with a character that suits your fancy.  And if you are coming to the party late like I have, you can find hundreds of celebrity guides out there to help you create your one and only Angelina Jolie gangster.  Saints Row 2 has taken the character creator a step further from the first game, allowing you to create a female character, which gets some of the NPC wise cracking about your “new look”.

While you have main story missions for each gang, Saints Row 2 pushes the concept of respect before you take on a mission.  You have a respect bar that you have to fill up to continue performing main story missions.  To fill up that bar, you will take on a bevy of side missions, ranging from Escorting hookers with clients to shooting septic waste over a section of the city.  There are dozens of different side missions, each with several levels of difficulty.  You can also find races scattered throughout the city, each using a unique style of racing vehicle. Boats and other vehicles have races you can compete in as well.  It’s these side missions that add so much of the charm and enjoyment to Saints Row 2.  You never feel bored, and if you finish the main quest, you still will have so much left over to play through.

After playing through about half of the main story missions, I started to realize that Saints Row 2 actually told a pretty decent story, which surprised me.  I had always heard that when it came to story, it was a backseat item when it came to the zany, over the top stuff that you could do.  But I have to say that the story that is told is pretty well done, along with a few crazy zingers and turns while you play.  It is not Shakespeare, but it is solid throughout the game.

The biggest strength of Saints Row 2 over its competitors is also its weakest link on the PC, and that is the co-op and multiplayer aspects of the game.  The entire campaign in Saints Row 2 can be played in full co-op.  While this sounds great in theory, there are two huge flaws that kill any chance of it being successful.  The first is the clunky system for getting people into a game, which ends up failing connection half the time.  The bigger issue is using a character from a progressed game and having a cheater join your world, thus marking your character as a cheat.  The instruction manual tells you that you can turn off cheats in the phone menu, but the command is lacking in the PC version, so you cannot turn cheats off, thereby ruining a character for you.  Team deathmatch and single player deathmatch along with other modes of play are here, but the lack of players makes getting a decent game of players a chore.

The biggest selling point for Saints Row 2 at the end of the day is that it entertains.  No matter what you do in the world, there are always endless options to try and perform.  Maybe you want to barnstorm, or take up the role of a fake cop in a COPS wannabe.  Sometimes you just need to shoot foul smelling sludge from a septic truck, or just sit back and cruise around.  Add in thousands of clothing and accessories that you can find to purchase in the world, and Saints Row 2 just provides a fun environment for anyone looking to have a great time with a game. 

All that entertainment does not happen flawlessly, however.  After two patches, Saints Row 2 can be horribly unstable at times.  Several times, I will be in the middle of a mission, only to have the game completely crap out and die.  At one point, I finished a mission and before I could save, the game spawned me inside of a building with no walls or doors.  I was stuck inside the building with no way out, which meant reloading and replaying the mission.  Also, little things like botched physics get in the way of playing some of the missions, like having a mission objective clip into the ground, so you can no longer attack the character.  Another patch or two would fix up a lot of these issues, but I have a feeling that Volition has moved on to Saints Row 3 already.

Saints Row 2 takes players on a widely entertaining ride from beginning to end.  After 30+ hours of gameplay, I have no problems with recommending this title for people on any of the three platforms it has shipped on.  Tons of character customizations, an abundance of side missions, and a compelling main storyline have me preaching to the masses that Saints Row 2 is one of the best games you can play on the PC so far this year.  Saints Row 2 gets 4 out of 5 Aeropausonauts.
Check out Saints Row 2 and other PC reviews at Test Freaks.

Telltale Games has released a little bit of gameplay footage for their upcoming release, Tales of Monkey Island Episode 1.  The footage shows off the new combination system, where you can link two items together for use.  Also, we got a few new screenshots from the game, that you can check out after the jump.

As I noticed that VG247.com linked to our latest Nintendo Power Read-a-Long article (the one where Miyamoto says the next Zelda will not be radically different), I was also highly entertained by their Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood advertising banner.

It pimps a downloadable iPhone app that simulates a Wild West shotgun. To wit:

Just pump your iPhone or iPod Touch back and forth to cock, then jerk your hand up to compensate for the massive recoil.

Indeed!

Thanks VG247.com (and Kotaku) for spreading the Read-a-Long love!

The Punisher: No Mercy for the PS3 hits the PlayStation Store on July 2nd at $9.99. The Unreal Engine person shooter from Zen Studios sounds nice, but I’m just going to say that for $15-$20 you can get a far deeper game: Unreal Tournament III.

The Bigs 2 from 2K Sports comes in on the 7th and NCAA Football 10 from EA bounces in on the 14th. Both the PS3 and PSP get versions of these games and while I heard good things about The Bigs from friends I haven’t taken the demo of The Bigs 2 on the PlayStation Store for a spin yet.

The PlayStation Network is known for quirky and unique games and the PSP gets a nice digital-download-only game July 16th called Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman! What Did I Do to Deserve This? The smartly localized demo already on the store is pretty funny stuff and while challenging it brings one of my favorite genres to the handheld — that of being the evil ruler who is trying to defend his dungeon realms from goody-goody heroes. It will retail for $19.99.

The second of two Watchmen: The End is Nigh games appears this month but I heard it’s not appearing as a PSN game. The first did do ok score-wise as a by-the-numbers brawler — something notable for a movie tie-in, but must not have sold well enough at its $20 price point. Part 2 will be released in a bundle with Part 1 on the disc with the Blu-ray movie release of The Watchmen movie on July 21st. This is the first hybrid Blu-ray and game disc release of its kind so it should interesting to watch how well the movie sells. I saw The Watchmen in the theater without having read the book and found it to be very entertaining and fun to watch but I haven’t played the game yet.

Fighting game fans get two 2D fighters this month with BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger — which has already gotten a gushing 9.4 review from IGN — and King of Fighters XII. The nice thing about BBCT is that the first run of the game at retail is actually a Limited Edition of the game with some very nice extras at a regular retail price. Both games have a July 28th release date.

Oh those fellas over at Blue Omega have had it difficult.  First they decided to make Damnation.  Then, to further the insult, they actually released the game to the public.  Move forward to a month after release, and it seems that the entire development team for Damnation have been let go.  The development is not surprising, considering the game has been hammered at great length by many review outlets, and even made it into our dramatic review reading in the latest podcast.

Via his Twitter account, Geoff Rowland, lead programmer at Blue Omega posted the following tweet:

The entire Blue Omega team was laid off today (well, starting Friday). If anyone has job openings, send them my way and I’ll pass them on.

Also hitting the presses today via ShackNews, are two lawsuits that were filed by Blue Omega against two of its subcontractors that it used for some of the game development.  Apparently, Blue Omega states craptacular work by the subs, resulting in delays and loss of income with the game.

It seems they never mention the game being bad as a reason for a lack of sales.