Gazillion Entertainment held an event in San Francisco this week and revealed a few tidbits on what we can be expecting from the new Marvel Universe MMO. “Free to Play” seemed a bit of a suprise to us, but with all the other power MMO’s (besides WoW) heading to free subscriptions (relying on in-game “microtransactions” only) this seems to be the safest route of attack for a game that has to compete with other hero games like NC Soft’s City of Heroes…anyhow here’s a few confirmed goodies.

What we know for sure:

Marvel Universe will be free-to-play, and was planned that way from its inception.

It’s being developed by Secret Identity, a sub-group of Gazillion that was formed in late 2009 specifically to build Marvel Universe.

You can play as Marvel characters, and other players can be the same hero as you at the same time, which the devs believe creates “lots of problems and lots of opportunities.???

You won’t have to choose only one character, but will be able to play as all of them.

Some of the characters you will play as are: Captain America, Iron Man, Wolverine, Hulk, Thor, Spiderman, Nova, and Squirrel Girl.

Doctor Doom will be the game’s main villain (at least at launch).

You will play through existing stories that are told in the comic books.

The game world exists within the canon Marvel Universe–this is not an alternate reality scenario.

Marvel Universe is being made primarily for adults (as opposed to Gazillion’s other kid-focused Marvel MMO, Marvel Superhero Squad). They want to target core gamers first, and also make it accessible for everyone else.

So does that mean I can’t make my own super hot hero chick that flys around in lingerie saving lives and kicking ass? Looks like it. /sadface

[Source]

Like most people plugged in these days, we here at BG can tell you what day of the week it is by what is going on… For instance… new DVDs and music… that comes out on Tuesdays. New movies? That’s Friday unless it’s a blockbuster, then it’s a Thursday showing. Saturday? That’s when our new Hangovers are due… But Wednesdays, now that’s something special. Because Wednesdays my dear friends… is comic book day.

2009 saw some doozies… here’s our favorite comic happenings for the year:

THE BEST

1. Captain America – He is back. Yeah… after about 3 years of being dead… turns out he’s only mostly dead.

2. Battlefields – It’s WAR! It’s Comics! And it’s written by Garth Ennis of Preacher fame.

3. The “Oz??? series – It all started with “The Wizard Of Oz??? that was adapted more closely to the books, now it’s growing to include the other Oz books. Best part? The art is by Skottie Young.

4. Batman – Shenanigans… Bruce isn’t here any more… Dick Grayson has taken the mantle of the bat. Bruce’s son is the new Robin, and the old Robin… he’s now Red Robin. Beautiful art and writing in the new “Batman and Robin??? series… Fans are a talkin’.

5. Image United – Remember the 90’s? So do tons of others. The original Image creators are back, and Image United has been selling out. Best thing? Al Simmons is back.

THE WORST

1. HULK – This is hard for me… I love the Hulk character… but they need to cut out this Red Hulk business. I’ve never been more bored in my life.

2. The “she characters of Marvel” – Red She hulk and Lady Deadpool. Let’s stop beating a dead horse.

3. Xmen Forever – Chris Claremont picks up from his 90’s Xmen run. It’s hit or miss. Sometimes it’s interesting… and other times… he kills off Wolverine and gives Kitty a claw. That spells lame.

4. Wolverine Origins – It’s just bad, people.

5. The great comic book company buyout of 2009 – WB bought DC. Disney buys Marvel. We are still awaiting the fallout. I don’t care what anyone says. Never trust the man, The mouse is gonna kill comics eventually. I may be sounding like that crazy bum outside the train station with a “End is Near??? sign… But comics are a dying art form. I doubt a company as money hungry as these two are going to keep a traditional medium like comics.

-Timothy Danger

If there was anything that was going to bring me out of my little hiatus from writing, it was probably going to be a comic book movie, and folks… I guess I waited for the right one to spew about.

The movie of course, is “XMEN ORIGINS: Wolverine” which is a bad sign because that is 20th Century Fox’s way of saying “We can always make more America!”

I probably could have gone to see this at the midnight premeire Thursday night, but I really didn’t want to because quite honestly, most Wolverine fans have the fashion sense of an overweight Brett Micheals and frankly the only bad mutton chops, cowboy boots and hats I can stand are from the leading character here.

Why the dislike for the clawed one? Why not? Someone around here has to play the devil’s advocate, and it just seems like every 15 to 40 year old virgin who still think Dogg the Bounty Hunter is cool just can’t let this character go….

So here’s a shocker for you… Wolverine is the Britney Spears of superheroes. He’s overrated. He has a crappy origin that wasn’t even explained until the 90′s and it wasn’t because Marvel comics was holding onto some big important origin, it was because they just didn’t have one, they created a viseral looking character who was Stone Cold Steve Austin before Steve Austin was… Case in point, they broke comic book character law by not making a real origin for him… later they added on this Weapon X bullsh** so we would all think he is some great tortured character and blah blah blah. And then they made a movie of it.

He heals. (Great) He has claws (Great) and he’s indestructable (Great)… He’s every 13 year old who ever got beat up in school’s wet dream. Which leads me to believe there was a lot of you kids getting beat up in school, because why this guy is the number one hero of all time is beyond me.

But hey… I’m a comic guy. I’ve read these books. It’s my schtick. So my question to the movie makers is… If a guy who thinks Wolverine is a word that rhymes with Budussy can stop and read the Wolvie and Xmen comics… why can’t the movie people stop and read Xmen comics? I mean did any of you decide to crack open a book just slightly?

Of course Rob Liefield has been loving the movie on twitter. I’m sure it’s because he co created the Deadpool character and is probably getting great royalties off of it, but if I was him, I would be pissed off at how bad they EFFED up Wade Wilson  AKA Deadpool. I’d be mad at half the things they messed up, I mean without giving much away, it’s almost as bad as making Galactus a cloud in the Silver Surfer disaster. (Oh we didn’t forget about you FF!)

So in short (and you will notice that this movie isn’t much discussed because frankly there are other sites out there to tell you the damn plot) I’ll tell you what this is good for…

Good for:

Chilling out for 2 hours

Getting your denim on

Seeing the same fight over and over (Wolverine: “I’m going to kill you! ROAR!” charges at opponent, gets knocked down, repeat)

Not Good For:

Deep Thought

Expecting another Iron Man or Dark Knight

Deadpool fans (unless your name rhymes with Seinfeld and you like people runining your character)

-Timothy Danger / BusyGamer.com

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) – A stolen copy of the film “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” has leapt around the Internet being downloaded from file sharing websites.

An incomplete, early version of the film purloined late Tuesday was posted illegally at websites, according to Twentieth Century Fox Films studio spokesman Chris Petrikin.

The movie is slated to open in theaters worldwide in just under four weeks.

“It was without many effects, had missing and unedited scenes and temporary sound and music,” Petrikin said of the version of the film put online.

“We immediately contacted the appropriate legal authorities and had it removed.”

Fox forensically marks digital films to better track them and, in this case, figure out who made it available online and those that downloaded copies.

The “X-Men” film, based on the eponymous comic book characters, was evidently spread with BitTorrent file sharing technology that lets people share large data files virally between computers in a fashion called peer-to-peer.

“The source of the initial leak and any subsequent postings will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” Petrikin said in an email response to an AFP inquiry.

“We are encouraged by the support of fan sites condemning this illegal posting and pointing out that such theft undermines the enormous efforts of the filmmakers and actors, and above all, hurts the fans of the film.”