Marvel MMO restarted

Marvel has contracted with Gazillion Entertainment to publish a new MMO based on its stable of comic characters. Sound familiar? It should, since this is the second attempt by the comic giant to start a MMO based on its popular line of super heroes.

Back in 2006 Marvel made a lot of waves by suing Cryptic Studios, makers of City of Heroes, the only superhero based MMO in the market. The lawsuit alleged that City of Heroes had infringed on Marvel’s intellectual properties since the City of Heroes’ costume creator could replicate the design of a number of trademarked Marvel hero costumes. Read more

$473,000 to play Warcraft III

Jae-ho Jang is a happy man. The 22-year-old video game player has just inked the second largest contract in the history of e-sports to play Warcraft III for a living. His take? A three year contract worth 700,000,000 won, which is roughly $473,000.

Jang has relished the chance to play for a Korean team, having played recently for a foreign team, and promised to live up to his big salary by bringing home a lot of wins. In press conference Jang stated, “I am honored to play for a Korean professional gaming team for Koreans…I will give everything to my fans and FOX team by winning lots of titles in 2009.”

Jang become the second highest paid player in e-sports history. Only Yoo-yeoh Lee has been paid more, getting 750,000,000 won in 2007. Jang earns far more than the highest paid Starcraft player, Bisu, who is paid 150,000,000 won, a relative bargain in comparison.

Via Kotaku.

Second Life gets adult area

Linden Lab’s Second Life will soon begin offering a cordoned off adults only area in its virtual landscape. This new area, which can only be accessed to those who have electronically verified their age, will provide separation to those that wish to access adult material and those that would rather filter it out of their Second Life experience. The exact means of this verification and many other details are not yet known but will be announced by Second Life in the coming weeks. Read more

Amazing Metroid cosplay

I usually don’t feature cosplay on this site. It’s not really my interest, though I appreciate it when it’s well done. However, I’m making an exception for these two cosplayers who dress as Samus Aran of Metroids fame extremely well. How well? Well one of them crafted her custom Metroid armor over 6 months with a material cost of $350! The costume weighs 23 pounds and lit by 73 battery powered LEDs. That’s dedication to your hobby. Read more

Watchmen movie reviewed

So I’ve just come back from a midnight viewing of the Watchmen. I sat through 2 hours and 40 minutes wondering why the film couldn’t be a little shorter. It doesn’t mean I didn’t like the film; I did. However, as someone who isn’t familiar with the original work, the plot was complicated and somewhat overwhelming. It’s the same sort of feeling that you get when you’re offered an extremely expensive and well regarded red wine. You sip it, it swirls around your mouth and you feel somewhat badly that you aren’t immediately impressed by it. You want to like it more, but your own inexperience lets you down. Read more

EVE Online trial reviewed

An online game trial should show off enough of the enticing features of a game and hook a player’s interest in subscribing. It’s important that the game not only make an effort to help the player learn the game reasonably enough to play but also welcome her to the community of other players. I think EVE Online does a pretty decent job at doing that. I downloaded my trial version about 9 days ago, so I have 5 days left until the game subscription expires. Overall, I had a lot of fun playing; however, I won’t be subscribing (more on that later). Read more