Green Lantern Cosplay Photos

Sexy Green Lantern

So Ryan Reynolds is about to take the Green Lantern super galactic with his new film version of the popular comic book hero so why don't we take the time at a couple of cosplay adventurerers who've chosen to wear the ring and save the cos play universe from itself?

The Green Lantern Corps are in town

Lantern with a green lantern

Extremely well tanned Green Lantern

Double Trouble Lantern

Finally, check out this Green Lantern costume fail....

What happens after the ME3 credits roll?

I found this quote at Attack of the Gameboy which refers what happens to your 'game' once you have completed Mass Effect 3

. Can you go back and finish off quests and the like, or is that it? Here's an answer of sorts:

"It's probably going to be a combination of [the first two games]," executive producer Casey Hudson said. "We're going to have a version of the post-game state that you can go back to and finish more stuff, but then we'll have stuff you can loop back around and do in new game. It's a hybrid of the two."
So what does this mean? Well, if you do some deductive reasoning - it would appear the Reapers do not manage to destroy all sentient life in the universe - cos if they did there would be no body to talk to in game post credits right?

Extra for Experts: Why the Male Sheppard is only used in ME3 Marketing

April Gaming News Round Up

So like I thought the day before the Easter Holidays would be a good chance to do a bit of a round up on some of the news that's been happening in the world of gaming in the last little while.

Talk of the town this week has been how awesome Portal 2

is. Kotaku raved about it and so the Bellingham Herald. What an awesome name for a newspaper!

But what did Gears of Halo readers do? They came for the cosplay. They seem to have a major crush on the voluptuous Power Girl . As I suspected, the Green Lantern cosplay was pretty popular, as was Bat Girl. People still keep asking the question, Is Noble Six the Master Chief? In a word, NO HE ISN'T!!!!

In the Bungie space, Marty O'Donnell talked about how Bungie wanted to be like Blizzard. He also kindly released to the internet wilderness some piano tracks from Halo: Reach. Go have a listen, they are haunting pieces of music.

Hopping though a relay into the Mass Effect Universe, the vexed issue about what happens post saving the universe was discussed as was why the female Commander Sheppard does not appear in the marketing for ME3. Apparently it's because she's too sexy. Mass Effect's producers also saw fit to give IGN an insight into how Legion's voice was created for the game. You may recall the recent ME3 news that confirmed his in game appearance.


Bellatron also took down the Kali Ma

Another big thing happened this week, the Gears of War 3

beta went live and by most accounts, the multiplayer element of the game will be a vastly superior to GOW2. Any one wanna send me a code? PALEZE? I doubt it will be as awesome as Halo 2 ever was..... it was also possible the achievements for Gears 3 were leaked to the internet. Question, if the internet is so leaky, why don't they fix it?

So what are you doing for Easter? I trust it involves an Xbox or a Play Station of some kind!

Cos play pix from ICON

Black Butler Here's some cos play action from the April 2011 I-Con convention

Steam Punk Team Rocket - Pokemon

Felicia Quiles as Zippy Dee?

An original costume called Lady Black Bird

Rei

Twi'lek Sith Cosplay

Wizard World Anaheim Cosplay 2011

Here's some cosplay pictures from the Wizard World Anaheim Comic Con. Short and Sweet!

We'll start with the Ghostbusters

and the mandatory slogan, "Who you gonna call?"

Venkman is in there somewhere....

Daft Punk or Gort from the Day The Earth Stood Still?

Lone Ranger and a sexy friend from Hawke's Bay...

A dreamy Poison Ivy cosplayer

Mean Streets of Tokyo?

Bit of War Craft on the Side....

The five amigoes?

Pax is Primed for a Halo Party

Halo Waypoint has announced some party plans for the 10th anniversary of Halo - so you all need to get of the xbox for a few hours and make your way to Pax Prime!
If you call yourself a Halo fan, this is the year to attend PAX Prime! With a PAX Prime badge, fans gain admission to Halo Fest, the largest and most expansive live Halo experience ever. Packed with tournaments, exclusive panels, and sweet prizes, Halo Fest is the place to be for Halo fans attending PAX Prime 2011.

This event commemorates ten incredible years of Halo, looking back at the amazing stories that forged a diverse community and redefined gaming for two entire console generations. Join us August 26th-28th, at the Washington State Convention Center, and see why the last ten years of Halo were just the beginning.
Here's the official dates and times:

WHERE:	PAX Prime
	Seattle, WA
	Washington State Convention Center
	Annex 3rd Floor
WHEN:	Day	Time
	Friday, August 26	10am-6pm
	Saturday, August 27	10am-midnight
	Sunday, August 28	10am-6pm
TICKETS:	Admission included with PAX Prime Badge purchase

What are you waiting for? Go buy a ticket!

Cosplay fake boob fail

And this kids, is why cosplay and fake boobs don't mix. Check out Tanya Tate and her Green Lantern boob job fail:

Tanya Tate and her fake boob

This was Tanya at the Anaheim Wizard World. Fail! Don't worry, these fans kicked on with some awesome cosplay.

Playstation Network is back with free goodies. What are they?

Sony's Patrick Seybold just revealed on the PlayStation Blog how the company is going to make up for the great big fuck up. No word on what the R.O.T.W. will get... ok here's Europe's treats.

• Dead Nation
• Infamous
• LittleBigPlanet
• Super Stardust HD
• Wipeout HD + Fury

Same deal for PSP on two of these games:

• LittleBigPlanet (PSP)
• ModNation Racers
• Pursuit Force
• Killzone Liberation

Further bonuses include:

* A selection of "On Us" rental movie titles will be available to PlayStation Network customers over one weekend, where Video Service is available. Those titles will be announced soon.

* 30 days free PlayStation Plus membership for non PlayStation Plus subscribers.

* Existing PlayStation Plus subscribers will receive an additional 60 days of free subscription.

* Existing Music Unlimited Premium Trial subscription members will receive an additional 30 days of free premium subscription.

* Additional 30 days + time lost for existing members of Music Unlimited Premium/Basic subscription free of charge for existing Premium/Basic members.

* To welcome users Home, PlayStation Home will be offering 100 free virtual items. Additional free content will be released soon, including the next addition to the Home Mansion personal space, and Ooblag's Alien Casino, an exclusive game.

Lord of the Rings Cosplay

A few hobbits and elves cosplayers

All the hype about FIGWIT be damned, the true heroes of Lord of the Rings

are the fans who have long kept the novels popular since they were first published by Tolkien in the mid 1950's. The modern day equivalent of keeping something popular is not read like a good book worm but to dress up as your favourite character from that book or film and before you can say "And my Axe!", you got a whole lot of LOTR cosplay action going on.

Below we have a cosplay version of Aragorn or The King of Narnia. I forget which one he is. To his left is Arwen or some sexy elvish hooker that he's picked up on his way back from a hard day's work fighting Ringwraiths and the like that may be found on the outskirts of the Shire.

Aragorn and his Missus

Above is a very pretty elf, this cosplayer could be trying to be Arwen or some other elvish creature but I'm sure you'll agree she's done a pretty good job with her costume.

You shall not pass!

If one had to some up Lord of the Rings in one word, it would not be hobbits. It would not be the Fellowship. It would be Gandalf. Cos he's like the coolest wizard in the history of wizardry. So why not dress as him for some cosplay adventure?

And here's the most menacing of all the LOTR characters, a ringwraith. Ooooh Scary.

Bioshock infinite is not a simple rehash of the original

Michael McWhertor -Please, don't write off the dazzling BioShock Infinite as simply BioShock in the sky. Yes, it has plasmid-like superpowers ("vigors") and an impossible retro sci-fi dystopia, but this is a BioShock that greatly contrasts with the one Ken Levine and Irrational Games created four years ago.

BioShock Infinite is more of a rollercoaster-powered thrill ride than its forebear. It's still a smart shooter, now woven with concepts of American exceptionalism and Jeffersonian ideals, threaded with an undercurrent of domestic violence, xenophobia and jingoism.

But it also has literal rollercoasters, thanks to the zippy skyline transportation system that connects the flying pieces of the city of Columbia. It has huge zeppelin fights and time-ripping portals and vigors that left players fire a murder of crows from one hand while firing a shotgun with the other.
Ken Levine, creative director at BioShock Infinite developer Irrational Games, talked about the facets of this complex game and its new approach to narrative at a recent preview event, starting with the concepts behind the floating city of Columbia.

"There was so much sci-fi art about cities in the sky," Levine said, referencing the early 19th century influences behind BioShock Infinite's unlikely setting. "That wasn't just happenstance, it was because there was so much optimism about science. They had electricity and movies and cars and radio," Levine says excitedly, rattling off a quick succession of innovations that impacted our world.

Columbia's freedom of movement and implied limitlessness exists in contrast to its dark, violent inhabitants-and to the dark, claustrophobic confines of Rapture, an aspect Levine feels may have been under-explored.

"We didn't really 'pay off' the ocean in BioShock," Levine says, "so I wanted to make sure we do that [with the sky] in BioShock Infinite." Irrational Games did this in the form of the game's high-speed rail system that serves as a theme park ride for the player, perhaps the most exciting new gameplay mechanic in the 2012 game.

Levine tells me this while we're sitting poolside at a Santa Monica hotel. He's drinking a preferred brand of hot chocolate-"It's only 25 calories," he says of the beverage-to keep his energy up during a long day of interviews.

"The game looks very colorful and very Disney-like," he says of the bright, airy Columbia, a city more physically stable than BioShock's sunken city of Rapture. "I like that, because it's contrasting what's going underneath, the darkness that the Vox Populi represents."

The Vox Populi, BioShock Infinite's "internationalist, anti-capitalist, Karl Marxian group formed as a response to the excesses of the city," represent more than just a faction in conflict with Columbia's Founders. They're also a new storytelling beat, Levine says.

That faction, Levine says, "won't automatically aggro on you," the player, like the Splicers of the original BioShock. Indeed, during our BioShock Infinite demo, we saw protagonist Booker Dewitt and his sidekick Elizabeth weaving through angry Vox Populi unharmed, bitter faces who taunted the two instead of attacking them.

"In BioShock, in the beginning of the game, you come off an elevator and there's a woman with a baby carriage," Levine recalls. "She's singing to it, but you see she's actually singing to a gun. We love that beat, but the moment she saw you, she immediately came after you." Irrational wants to stretch that beat.

"What if you didn't always know what's going to set those people off? Wouldn't that be interesting, to tell a story that way?"

The dialogue between Booker and Elizabeth will also tell that story, he says, allowing them to comment to each other on game events, allowing for "more storytelling than just what the player might see with their eyes." Players won't just have to rely on audio recordings and one-way conversations to extract the story of BioShock Infinite, Levine says.

Elizabeth, your super-powered companion in Infinite for a "substantial part of the game," is designed to help keep players engaged and informed, but not bothered by her presence as a sidekick. She's supernaturally gifted, but not your bad-ass equal.

"If [your AI companion] shoots guns, like you, they sort of have to be a net zero because you don't want them to win the game for you," Levine says of the dangers of included a computer-controlled ally. Players will instead control when and where they want Elizabeth to use her reality-tearing powers.

"Part of the interesting story is figuring out how she became this person. When you find her, she's in this Faraday cage and doesn't know that she has these powers," Levine says. Rooting out the mystery of Elizabeth and her giant protector, Songbird, is key to BioShock Infinite's plot. (Levine wouldn't tell me what Songbird was, whether he was fully mechanical or partly organic.)

It seems the component that Levine is most guarded about is BioShock Infinite's plot.

I asked the Irrational Games founder about the possibility of BioShock Infinite's story expanding beyond the disc, wondering if like Fallout 3, Mass Effect 2 and L.A. Noire, this (for now) single-player, story-driven experience would continue. He couldn't quite say.

"I'm very protective of the story," Levine says. "A lot of people want to do BioShock comics, BioShock Infinite comics-and there's the movie situation-but I'm very reluctant. If I can't be heavily engaged in it, it's tough. To some degree, sometimes a franchise gets big enough and you have to build your team around where you can have people you trust. I brought in guys like Steve Gaynor, who did [BioShock 2] Minerva's Den, and there are other people that you can eventually trust-but I'm still protective of it."

"I'm still fleshing everything out."

Who said female spartans have to be butch?

Bamm! Whoever said female spartans have to be butch were just wrong. Oh.so.very.wrong.

Fanime Con 2011 Cosplay Images

Here' s a few images I found on the next of cosplayers vamping it up on the Fanime Cosplay 2011 circuit. From Tim Burton's A Nightmare Before Christmas to a guy with a giant fork, there's a little something for everyone...

Bleach is good for blood stains.....

Tim Burton has a lot to answer for....

I wanna taste you, but your lips are venomous Poison, live Ivy!

New Halo Views and News

Here's some more news and views on things related to the new Halo games.
Video Gamer

"Speaking to journalists at a behind closed doors E3 event today, it was revealed that, as part of the remastering process, all of the game's music and sound effects have been re-recorded at the Skywalker Ranch. The original voice acting has been kept, however.

But, unlike the graphics, users craving a slice of aural nostalgia will be unable to toggle between classic and remixed audio tracks."

What will the new Halo map be? Examiner takes a wide punt

"Frank O'Connor posted, in what might soon be a weekly update on Halo Waypoint, that another shipped will be one that was never on the Xbox before. That either means Death Island, Danger Canyon, Infinity, Timberland, Ice Fields, or Gephyrophobia. My bets are on Death Island, Danger Canyon, or Timberland"

The dude from Examiner also speculates quite well on the new armour the Chief appeared to be wearing in the Halo 4 trailer:

"First thing you might have noticed is this; Master Chief is not wearing his MJOLNIR Mark VI Armor. The armor does seem to be a natural progression following the Mark IV, V, and VI however. It was mentioned in Dr. Halsey's journal, an added bonus for anyone who bought the Limited or Legendary Edition of Halo

Reach, that the idea of MJOLNIR Mark VII Armor was being tossed around. It is assumed that no work was ever done on it, but it does seem as though plans were possibly made. Who might have had those plans? I think Cortana would. Now, we have no clue how much time she might have had, or even ability to make something like this up, but it is definitely a possibility that Cortana has modified the John's armor with these Mark VII specs."

Terminal Velocity from Artstechnica

"The game also updates the terminal system, the text-based method the game used to explore the backstory of the world. Now the terminals are much easier to find, and feature a stylized, graphical story that tells the tale of the Halo, and how Guilty Spark found himself there. It's an interesting way to flesh out the game's backstory, and the only way you'll be able to experience it is to play this new game. "This isn't just a weapon, it's my home," Guilty Spark tells the player, describing the Halo structure. The graphics in the new story-based terminal segments feel almost like a breathing comic book, and what little of the story we saw was conveyed very well. If you're a hardcore Halo fan, this is going to be a nice bonus to replaying the original campaign."

Frankie says to open your kimono?

Now that the Halo fires have been ignited at 343i, Frankie is back leading the podcast charge - here's a link to discussion of Halo Anniversary and Halo 4 - good stuff and if I listened properly - those that bought Halo Reach will be able to get access to the 7 new multiplayer maps that will be available with Halo anniversary.

Nice work there Frank and company - this halo podcast sounz so much better than those from Bungie with that annoying smart alec that Urk replaced.

Extra for Experts - Frankie's Inaugural 343 Bulletin

Joe Staten talks up the Halo Movie - in 2005

Remember that Halo movie that was SOOOO close to being made? HBO higlighted a six year old article by one of Bungie's Hard Hitters (or is that Grizzled Ancient?) Joe Staten about how Bungie hooked up with Alex Garland to write the first Halo movie script...

"A few months back word got out that Alex Garland had written a Halo movie script, and that Universal and 20th Century Fox were interested in double-teaming it into a film. We didn't say anything at the time because the deal still needed massaging. But today I'm happy to announce that Microsoft and the studios have worked-out all the kinks, and we're ready to get cracking on the fun, creative part of the process.

You've undoubtedly got questions: "What's the plot? Is it the same as Halo1? Halo2?" "Who's gonna play the Chief? Scratch that - who's gonna play Cortana?" "I read somewhere that the script had 'bad buzz'. Does that mean the movie's gonna suck?"

I can't respond to any "who, what, where" queries without ruining a bunch of cool surprises, (there will be Grunts - that I guarantee), but as far as the quality of the finished film goes...well, the only thing I can say is: so far so good.

Let me tell you a story...

About six months after Halo1 shipped we started getting calls from Hollywood. This was the summer of 2002 and we were just starting to crank on Halo 2, but Pete Parsons (Bungie's studio-manager) decided it was worth me spending a few days in LA to suss out our options.

While I knew that Halo1 had sold well, I didn't know just how far outside the hard-core the so-called "Halo Phenomenon" had spread. So it was pretty shocking to meet a bunch of film producers, writers, etc. who not only claimed to be "big, big fans" of the game, but were able to back-up their assertions with detailed descriptions of their favorite legendary co-op moments, vivid war-stories from recent LAN parties, etc.

Though, to be honest, when I say "shocking" I really mean alluring".
-

The full article is on Bungie here.
As everyone reading this probably knows, the movie when into production with New Zealand's favourite son Peter Jackson producing and wunderkind Neill Blomkamp directing but then the movie died and the two focused on District 9

which was a pretty bloody good Sci Fi movie. Like everyone, I've chipped in with my views on who should direct Halo before too....

Horde Mode GOW video

With Gears of War 3, Epic Games has revisited its popular Horde Mode. Rather than simply provide more of the same, the studio has added elements of tower defense and strategy to the mix. It's a cool change of pace, and we had a lot of fun with it at E3. If you weren't able to check it out there, a new trailer hosted by Anya Stroud's familiar voice walks greenhorns through the mode.

In the mode, players earn currency that they can spend on fortifying their defenses. These defenses range from simple barriers to slow down attackers to automated sentries, mountable turrets, and the enormous Silverback mech suit. Check out the video below to see these and more in action, and to get a look at how these defenses can be further upgraded.

http://www.gameinformer.com/games/gears_of_war_3/b/xbox360/archive/2011/06/22/go-to-video-boot-camp-to-prepare-for-updated-horde-mode.aspx

Bungie's Aerospace to take off with independent games

Sorry for the obvious headline but Bungie make it too easy sometimes! So finally after a lot of subtle hints and wonderment about what per per audacia ad astra means, Bungie Aerospace is announced as being a house to publish video games. Another small step in Bungie's quest for world domination, a giant leap forward for people who want quality video games.

Bungie's official press release begins with "Today Bungie launched the first phase of a new venture, Bungie Aerospace, created to help independent developers create brilliant mobile and social games. Bungie Aerospace will give studios the creative freedom and the resources they need, like access to the Bungie.net platform and an audience with the incredible Bungie community, to launch their entertainment experiences into orbit."
Into orbit? Surely that will make ipads even more expensive?
"Bungie has always been passionate about making and playing great games, regardless of platform," said Pete Parsons, Bungie COO. "Bungie Aerospace will allow us to explore game creation in multiple formats with some amazingly talented teams. Now that we've returned to our roots as an independent studio, we are in a position to launch Bungie Aerospace to support, foster, and elevate like-minded, independent developers."
Multiple formats sounds great - we know Bungie's next venture is going to be for at least both the Playstation and the Xbox so getting onto Ipads, Ipods and androids and the like is a pretty logical step - it's the way the world's going these days - I think I saw a headline that had Google androids being adopted by technology loving punters at a rate of 500,000 units per day - that's a market that's only beginning to be tapped and it's clear Bungie Aerospace wants to tap that market.

Fly me to the moon!

Bungie Aerospace's first official partnership is with Seattle-based developer Harebrained Schemes, helmed by Jordan Weisman, the creative mind behind Halo 2's "I Love Bees" Alternate Reality Game, FASA Interactive, Wizkids, the MechWarrior and Shadowrun universes, and dozens of other creations and companies. The studio's first mobile gaming title, "Crimson," is set to launch this summer on iOS and Android devices.
Cant.Hardly.Wait to see how this pans out! Good luck Bungie. We heart you. And bees.