Feel Free to Speculate...
2008-09-15 12:57:53

Activision's Next Three Marvel Games
2008-08-01 14:28:10
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Hi everyone,
Been awhile, hasn't it? In fact, it's been so long since I've blogged here, I should probably reintroduce myself: I'm Chris Baker, the Interactive Content Coordinator at Marvel Studios, and to put my job in the simplest terms (there are so many aspects to it!), I approve a lot of the stuff that goes into Marvel videogames.
Lately, I've been doing a lot of approvals for Activision titles, and with the company holding its big press conference recently, as well as issuing a press release, I'm thrilled that I'm finally able to speak to some of them.
You probably already know about "Spider-Man: Web of Shadows," which was announced back in April. It's looking great, and as a Spidey fan, getting to play this before the rest of the world is one of the true benefits of this job. A demo was presented at the press event and went over quite well.
Also, they were finally able to announce "Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2: Fusion," which is also looking pretty sweet. I've been working closely with Activision and Vicarious Visions a lot, and let me tell you, these guys are as passionate as it gets. I wish I could tell you everything about the game...but I want those fine folks to still like me, and spoiling the game for everyone at this stage isn't something they're very interested in.
Finally, "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" was also announced. No screens or anything yet, but there is news that it will feature the voice and likeness of Hugh Jackman. It's also still more than nine months out and already pretty much my favorite X-Men game ever. I have no doubt it'll rank among the greatest Super Hero games of all time.
So, I'm curious... What do you all think of all this? Any questions you want answered? (Well...that I can answer?) I'd love to hear 'em.
Your pal,
C-Bake
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Stark's Superflous Super Hero Stints
2008-04-28 16:07:12
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Hi, everyone. Justin here. Sorry about missing the usual Friday blog time, but I'm still catching up from my trip to New York Comic-Con, but more on that later. Let's get to the matter at hand, our favorite armored game hero.
Ever since Iron Man has appeared in video games, three have felt especially odd. Not necessarily unwelcome, mind you. But still…odd. With that, we present…
IRON MAN’S TOP 3 MOST UNEXPECTED GAME APPEARANCES
3. "X-Men Legends II"
With all of the characters in the "X-Men Legends" games, seeing another Super Hero show up shouldn’t be too much of a surprise. But when that Super Hero isn’t a mutant in a game about mutants—such as the case with Iron Man in “X-Men Legends II”—it feels a bit unexpected. And it wasn’t just a cameo—Iron Man was even a playable character! All that was missing was Tony building armor suits for all the other X-Men to wear into battle!
2. "The Punisher"
Garth Ennis wrote the script to 2004’s Xbox/PS2 Punisher game, and in addition to the expected missions in crack houses and mafia hideouts, he also worked Stark Industries into the story. Tony didn’t show up until late in the level, but the line he left Frank Castle with after all the madness went down was pretty memorable: “I need a drink.”
1. "Tony Hawk’s Underground"
It wasn’t just Iron Man’s appearing as a skater that could challenge the skills of that other Tony guy in “THUG” that seemed so weird—it was the fact that you could perform all of Shellhead’s sick moves in the unlockable KISS stage as well. I guess making it a Black Sabbath stage would have been too much.
One last thing, we had a blast at New York Comic-Con. There was a playable build of the "Iron Man" Xbox 360 game there (you can go to Xbox Live and download the demo now) and Sega also showed the "Incredible Hulk" game to the public for the first time. The reaction was great in both cases.
In addition, there were a couple of really exciting panels at the show, one was the "Incredible Hulk" movie panel and the other was our Marvel video games panel, which featured developers from the "Iron Man" & "Incredible Hulk" teams. Thanks to those who came by the booth to check out the games and especially to the big group we had at the games panel.
This week’s the big week for our armored Avenger, so I hope you have your "Iron Man" game pre-ordered and already have some movie tickets purchased—It’s Iron Man week!!! Enjoy!!!
--Justin
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Should Iron Man Be in That Game?
2008-04-18 13:26:04
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Hey, Marvel gamers. It’s Chris again. I’ll admit, I had planned to bring you another installment in our 20th-century Iron Man games mini-series…but then a little thing called New York Comic-Con 2008 came along—complete with some pretty big news for folks like you—and didn’t give Justin and I time to delve into the old days as much as we would like to have this week. We’ll make it up to you soon, though.
In the meantime, I thought it might be fun to celebrate Iron Man in games in a different way—or, rather, something else that’s quite the opposite. There are a number of game titles out there that one could just as easily apply to the Armored Avenger as to their actual subject matter. So, with that in mind, I give you…
THE TOP FIVE NON-MARVEL GAMES WITH TITLES THAT COULD JUST AS EASILY APPLY TO IRON MAN (That wasn’t very succinct, was it?)
5. “Avenger”
I just found out about this old arcade game. It was apparently released by a company called Electra (just a K away from being an awesome company name) in 1975 and, unlike well over 99 percent of games out there, it’s actually older than me (not Justin, though—he’s ancient). Here’s what the Killer List of Videogames has to say about it:
The game has a top-down view of a [sic]aircraft scene. Your fighter is at the bottom and you control its speed and horizontal position with the joystick. The scene scrolls from top to bottom and enemy aircraft appear at top of screen, flying down towards you. The Afterburner button lets you quickly speed up.
Hey, what do I know?…Maybe “your fighter” was Iron Man…Well...if Iron Man were a fighter jet.
4. “Rayman Brain Games”
Iron Man shoots repulsor rays, making him sort of a “rayman.” And he’s got a big brain, so he’d be the perfect developer for quality edutainment.
What? You’re not buying it? Okay, moving on…
3. “Armored Core”
This mech series from From Software (I’ve always loved saying “from From” for some reason—and did you know Justin worked on their game "Chromehounds?" Anyway, leaving this parenthetical…) has had quite the cult following since its 1997 PlayStation debut. I might actually be among that cult if it were to include the guy with a real “armored core”!
2. “Metal Gear”
You mighta heard of this one. Maybe. I think there’s, like, another entry to the series coming out this year or something. I’m sure if you search the gaming sites you might find some news on that tucked away somewhere. Possibly.
But anyway, no one sports more metal gear than Tony Stark. No one.
1. “Ironman Ivan Stewart’s Super Off Road”
Even with Ivan Stewart instead of Tony Stark, this 1989 arcade classic from Leland ranks among my personal biggest quarter-munchers of all time. It was only recently upended by a certain May 2 release from Sega as the game I’ve played most with “Iron Man” (or some one-word variant thereof) in the title.
Honestly, has there ever been a more fun racing experience? The only way to improve it would be to actually have four Iron Men racing around the track, using the afterburners in their suits instead of nitro.
Actually, no…that would be terrible. But it wouldn’t surprise me if someone has already made a homebrew clone game like that.
So, your turn…What did I leave off the list here?...
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Looking Back: Old-School Iron Man Games, Part 1
2008-04-11 09:40:52
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By now you undoubtedly know that May 2's a big day for Iron Man fans. Not only does Marvel Studios’ movie hit theaters that day, but it’s also when Sega unleashes “Iron Man” to a console near you. I don’t think Justin would disagree with me here when I say that never before has a video game so respected all aspects of the Armored Avenger’s powers. And what better way to test that statement than to go back and play Iron Man games?
Obviously, there’s not much time left between now and the game release, so in order to make it easier on ourselves and actually give ourselves time to work, we’ve decided to focus on the older Iron Man games—Tony’s games of the 20th Century, if you will. And if you know your 20th Century Iron Man games, you know they fall into one of three categories: 1) As part of a team of Super Heroes beating the crap out of evil, 2) as a fighting-game character or 3) sharing the spotlight with some dude from Valiant Comics you probably wouldn’t have otherwise heard of. I’m tackling the first category for the initial entry in this series.
Like we mentioned the first time we went back in time, one of the biggest parts of our job in Marvel’s interactive division is to ensure that the characters are portrayed accurately and to their full potential. With that in mind, since this entry is all about Iron Man as a supporting character, I won’t focus so much on each game itself as I will on Iron Man’s portrayal in it. Got that? Good. Here we go…
"Captain America and the Avengers"
Arcade – Data East, 1991 (later ported to Sega Genesis by Data East; ported to Super Nintendo, Sega Game Gear and Game Boy by Mindscape)
Iron Man’s first-ever video game appearance was as one of the four Avengers in this arcade beat-'em-up—you know, the genre that was all the rage in the early ‘90s. In addition to Cap, he teamed up with Hawkeye and Vision, taking on Red Skull’s forces, which included the likes of the Wizard, the Mandarin, the Juggernaut (taking a break from terrorizing the X-Mansion, apparently) and a few more. There were even some cameos by Wasp, Quicksilver, Namor and Wonder Man. Overall, it’s a quality beat-'em-up that really feels like you’re playing a comic book with its BOOMs and SNAPs. We’ll talk more about the game itself in a future entry.
The four characters play essentially the same, but with their own respective powers, all with two buttons—attack and jump. (Ah, the good old days…) For Iron Man, that means a combo of punches as the primary attack, plus a jump attack. If you really want to get complicated, you can hit both buttons at once for a long-range repulsor shot from the ground, and you can even shoot repulsors while mid-jump in a downward-diagonal direction. The latter puts Tony in the air for about two seconds, which is the closest he comes to true flight.
And therein lies the greatest misrepresentation of Iron Man in this game—outside of the “Gradius”-like shooter portions where everyone takes to the air, he pretty much doesn’t fly. At all. Taking to the skies is only, like, his most basic super power. It’s pretty obvious Iron Man’s flight was omitted for gameplay balance reasons, as none of the enemies fly, and picking them all off from up high kind of isn’t fair. So give them jetpacks or something.
One basic gameplay element feels particularly odd. Like any good beat-'em-up of the era, you could pick up items to throw for a little variety. This includes things like heavy machinery, which is fun and makes sense. But Iron Man can also pick up wrenches and soda cans to throw. Is there any way these could ever be as effective as a repulsor shot? Well, according to this game—yes!
One other big thing that Data East forgot: The unibeam. It’s arguably Tony’s coolest power, and it isn’t even in there.
But all things considered, given the game and the time of its release, Iron Man fans should be pretty happy with his representation in “Captain America and the Avengers.” At least this version…
"Captain America and the Avengers"
Nintendo Entertainment System – Data East, 1991
The NES version of “Captain America and the Avengers” had nothing to do with the arcade semi-classic of the same name. Rather, it was a 2D action-platformer akin to “Castlevania” and “Ninja Gaiden,” but with Cap and Hawkeye. Not a bad game, necessarily, but certainly Iron Man’s personal low point in video game history.
Why? Well, he and Vision were essentially the unplayable Princess Peaches to the other two’s Mario brothers, held captive by the Bowser known as the Mandarin. I’m surprised we’re never told, “But our Iron Man is in another castle!” Though, for what it’s worth, as we learn in the game’s all-text ending, they “made resistance while being captured.” Whatever that means.
"Marvel Super Heroes in War of the Gems"
Super Nintendo – Capcom, 1996
One of the last big games for the Super NES, “War of the Gems” also took the beat-'em-up route in a game based on Marvel’s classic “Infinity Gauntlet” storyline. Capcom let you choose between Iron Man, the Hulk, Captain America, Wolverine and Spider-Man en route to securing the six Infinity Gems and stopping Thanos once and for all.
Once again, flight was an afterthought, as its only real implementation was a double-jump that allowed Tony to access areas other characters could not. He could also charge forward with a flying turbo boost. But basic hovering and shooting? Nah…
Oddly, “War of the Gems” incorporated a fighting-game style for combos, but used only two of its six possible buttons, making things a bit unnecessarily complex. This control scheme made the simple act of shooting repulsors a bit of a chore—it should have been easier. However, the inclusion of a smart bomb, meant to be fired from above, was an unnecessary but welcome inclusion, showing that there’s more tucked away in that suit than a variant of the traditional sci-fi laser beam.
Well, that’s it for this batch, True Believers. Check back here next week, when we tackle some more of these.
--C-Bake
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Voluminous Videogame Visions
2008-04-04 13:55:51
This is Justin here again, and I just wanted to follow-up on the amazing response that we received from our first (and subsequent) blogs. I love hearing about people's favorite Marvel Super Heroes and why they want them to have their own game. It's one of the great thrills of this job to be able to realize some of my own visions in our products and I hope to create some of yours as well.
While there are too many to respond to individually, some I did want to address where the numerous references to Captain America and Thor. We have announced a videogame partner for those properties in Sega, who are working on our latest movie franchises, Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk. Although I don't have any specific information to reveal, rest assured that these legendary characters will see some fantastic games somewhere out in the future!
As for the rest of your votes, characters that came up often included Daredevil, Silver Surfer, Namor, Cable, Jean Grey, Iron Fist, Hawkeye (now known as Ronin), or heck, even a personal favorite of mine, Starlord and the rest of the gang from Annihilation Conquest, all have intriguing recent and past comic storylines, as well as amazing powers that seem custom made for fantastic games.
Also, I was thrilled to see the passion for some of our past games, like X-Men Legends, Ultimate Alliance and the Marvel vs. Capcom series. We always look to our past when considering ideas for the future, and we're glad that you do too. I'm a big fan of our old games, which is one of the reasons Chris and I started this blog, so we can relive some classic gaming moments with our characters.
And finally I hope you had a chance to see the Iron Man and Incredible Hulk games on TV last Friday night (3/28). Check out SpikeTV's GameTrailer TV show online, as the most recent episode featured our two upcoming games, including the world premiere of the Incredible Hulk video game trailer. It was smashing good time that you won't want to miss.
Until next week!
--Justin
Looking Back: Spider-Man for Atari 2600
2008-03-21 14:56:17
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When the idea of putting this blog together for you came up, it as obvious that it would be a great place for Justin and I to inform you on the latest happenings with Marvel games on the horizon, like “Iron Man” and “The Incredible Hulk,” from the licensor's perspective. That's a given. And when the question arose as to what else we can do on a regular basis that might interest Marvel gamers (and ourselves, as we're the ones writing this), my love for classic gaming sparked an immediate suggestion: Let's go back and play all of the Marvel videogames ever made. Better yet we can tell people how those games might be different if we had held our current positions back then. (Game quality wasn't exactly the biggest of concerns for Marvel back in the day...)
Though we'll probably jump around a bit chronologically when it comes to when each game was released, “Spider-Man” for the Atari 2600 seems like the best place to start. After all, it was the first Marvel game. And, given its time, it actually wasn't so bad.
“Spider-Man” comes from the day when, if you wanted any sense of story from a game—if a game even HAD a story to begin with—it was all in the manual. Though it’s easy enough to gather from the gameplay that you’re Spider-Man up against the Green Goblin, reading the manual is essential to actually understanding what you’re doing. And, lucky for us, Spidey himself gives us the lowdown:
"New York City—at the mercy of the GREEN GOBLIN!” He tells us, excitedly. “He's booby-trapped the city's skyscrapers with SUPER BOMBS! I must save the city NOW. But the GOBLIN will try to stop my every move. Criminals and time bombs—even the GREEN GOBLIN himself—stand between me and the SUPER BOMBS! Can I save the city in time?"
Oh, no! Not just bombs! SUPER BOMBS!
But on to the gameplay itself: Every level plays exactly the same, only faster and with a different-colored (yet identical) building to scale—and eliminate the SUPER BOMB! There’s an obvious “Donkey Kong” influence here, as you web-sling upward (that’s what your single Atari 2600 button is used for) en route to—you know what’s next—the SUPER BOMB! (You can’t not put an exclamation point after that.) Your webs can only cling to the stone part of a building, though, and webbing a window will send Spidey downward to death unless you can shoot another web to stone and save him.
Curiously—and this is something you kind of need to read the manual to understand—all of the bad guys you see peering out of windows can’t harm you at all. In fact, you’re supposed to try and web-swing over them, supposedly to “capture” them. When this happens, they simply disappear...which of course yields the question: Where do they go once Spidey rounds them up? And for that matter, why were they making themselves so easy to round up with no intention of actually attacking? Whatever the case, you get 30 points for each one.
Same deal with the time bombs Spidey mentions in the manual. They can send you toward the pavement if they explode at just the right time, but otherwise, you’re free to simply pass by them, which disarms them right away.
Before you get to the SUPER BOMB(!), you must then pass by the Green Goblin. And it’s really that simple—he doesn’t throw anything at you or anything. As Gobby bounds back and forth like a paddle from “Breakout,” all you have to do is pass him so that he doesn’t ram you or slice through your webline. And then you’ve reached the SUPER BOMB! And you get to do it all over again. And again. And again.
But like I mentioned earlier, “Spider-Man” itself is actually kind of fun in a “stupid Atari 2600 game” kind of way. There’s something mildly hypnotic about the whole “scale a building and capture bad guys without falling” style of play.
That said, here’s where I introduce what I’m sure will turn out to be my favorite part of these retrospectives:
WHAT WE’D CHANGE
The most important part of the job for Justin and I is to make sure Marvel games pay off on the Marvel license in the context of solid gameplay. Here’s a rundown of the issues I had with “Spider-Man” that just wouldn’t have cut it if Justin and I had been working with Parker Bros. back in 1983 (you know—aside from the fact that we’d both be 10 or under).
1. Wall-crawling. Though the web-slinger is indeed a web-slinger in “Spider-Man,” the wall-crawler is not a wall-crawler. Your only option when scaling a building is to web your way upward, even when there’s a clear path on which to crawl.
2. Glass-clinging. If Spidey was unable to cling to glass with his webs, he’d be one sloppy web-slinger. An easy fix would have been to simply make them all open windows, or you could even explain in the manual that the Green Goblin has coated all of the windows with some sort of anti-web gel.
3. Different, taller buildings. Of all the buildings in NYC to terrorize, you really think the Green Goblin would go for the same-looking 20-story building over and over again? Perhaps he might be more interested in something a little more taller and iconic, like the Empire State Building or the Chrysler Building? Maybe?
4. Better web fluid reference. The timer at the bottom of the screen is supposedly the amount of web fluid Spidey has left, but it ticks down no matter what. It's just a timer. Attach it to the SUPER BOMB!
5. Hostile bad guys. Sure, you can still have Spidey capture bad guys hanging out of windows—why not? But put them there for a reason. Give ‘em guns, baseball bats, rocks...something!
6. Hostile Green Goblin. Seriously, just watching Gobby go back and forth makes me want to play “Breakout.” Make him throw stuff at you. Like, I dunno, maybe...
7. Pumpkin bombs! So many bombs in this game, yet none of them even remotely resembling a jack-o’-lantern—not even the SUPER BOMB!
So, do you have any memories of this game? Is there anything else you’d change about it? Let us know...
(Images borrowed from AtariAge.com.)
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All I Need to Know About Marvel...
2008-03-19 14:36:00
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...I learned from video games.
Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you can’t learn anything from playing video games. In my quarter-century or so as a hardcore gamer, games have taught me everything from football rosters (in "NCAA Football"—go Vols!), to what a Stinger is (that helicopter went down HARD in "Metal Gear Solid"), to ancient Chinese history (thank you, "Dynasty Warriors 372"—that’s what they’re up to now, right?). Even the very existence of games like "Al Unser Jr. Turbo Racing" and "Lee Trevino’s Fighting Golf" (which sadly lacked any fisticuffs) once informed me to the very existence of people like Al Unser Jr. and Lee Trevino. Fine folks, I’m sure.
But not nearly as fine of folks as the likes of Spider-Man and the X-Men…guys I hung out with in arcades and/or on my old consoles back in the day whose games familiarized me with the Marvel Universe as much as any comic book ever did. As my first contribution to this blog, I thought it’d be fun to reflect upon some the games from which I picked up the most.
I can’t say for sure what my very first Marvel gaming experience was, but there’s a very good chance it was Sega’s "Spider-Man: The Videogame" at the Oak Court Mall’s arcade in Memphis, TN, sometime in 1991 or 1992. At this point, I loved Super Heroes, and "Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends" was must-see Saturday-morning TV for me in the ‘80s, but I wasn’t very familiar with what was actually happening in the comics. So when the first boss encounter occurred—against some bigger dude in a black spider suit—I quickly went from “who’s this Venom guy?” to “holy crap, this guy’s cool!”
And then there was the supporting cast in this four-player beat-em-up/platformer. Though this wasn’t my first exposure to Namor or Hawkeye, the first sight of Black Cat was a very welcome one to an American male somewhere around 14. Of course, looking back, I’m forced to wonder what exactly Namor and Hawkeye were doing as playable characters in a Spider-Man game…
Sometimes shortly after that, I got my first real exposure to what would eventually turn out to be my absolute favorite Marvel property—the X-Men. In fact, the ol’ Oak Court Mall might have outright replaced "Spider-Man: The Videogame" with the four-player version of Konami’s "X-Men" that I played there (I wouldn’t discover the superior six-player version until months later). At this point, I knew the basics on Wolverine and Storm (the latter from a freebie “don’t smoke” PSA comic I read ca. 1985) and that was pretty much it. My mind was blown by all these great new characters to play as—Colossus, Nightcrawler, Cyclops, Dazzler. It’s one of the few beat-em-up games of its ilk that I actually completed back then (quarters are tough to come by at that age!), and I still remember saving some bald professor from a floating baddie in red.
By late 1992, Fox Kids’ "X-Men" cartoon was about three episodes in, and I couldn’t get enough. I was buying all the comics I could find and afford, and I was happy to find that LJN (a division of Acclaim) had released a couple of related NES games. I distinctly remember spending one Saturday evening playing "Wolverine," thinking it was a good way to get my mind off not going to the Pyramid for what was sure to be an awesome Slaughter concert. In retrospect, it was a pretty terrible game, but I was so interested in soaking in the lore, I didn’t care. Throughout the course of the game, I recall getting assistance from Jubilee (“hey, she’s from the TV show!”) and new faces like Havok and Psylocke (who even looked great in 8-bit graphics). And then there was the final confrontation with the Super Villain called out on the cover of the box, whom I had never heard of before—Sabretooth. I can’t say that I actually learned much about him through the game, though, other than he’s really mean. But, come to think of it, that’s him in a nutshell.
Soon after "Wolverine," I checked out LJN’s 1988 release, "The Uncanny X-Men." For about 10 minutes. It was terrible. In fact, it probably ranks right behind "Cliffhanger" as the worst NES game I ever played—and that’s a lot of ‘em! But did I learn anything from it? Well, that Wolverine is 5’3”. It had decent character bios, anyway.
I’d list more reasons why "The Uncanny X-Men" sucks, but crappy old Marvel games are the subject of many blogs to come. I can assure you of that.
Back to the subject at hand, there are plenty of other games that have enlightened me to certain aspects of the Marvel Universe—but I’m ready to hear from you. Have you ever learned anything about Marvel through games? Any similar stories to the ones I’ve relayed? We’d love to hear ‘em.
Until next time,
Chris Baker (call me C-Bake)
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Greetings from the gregarious game guys!
2008-03-07 08:34:21
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Welcome to the first of our weekly Marvel interactive blogs—in other words, insight into the world of Super Hero video games!
First, I'd like to introduce the main contributors to this section, starting with myself. I'm Justin Lambros, Vice President, Interactive here at Marvel. I oversee any and all interactive game content done with our characters, and I also serve as executive producer on all our major console & PC game releases. I've been at Marvel for about a year now, and before that I spent several years as a video game producer at Sega and LucasArts. But I got my start in the games industry as an editor for "GamePro Magazine."
Working with me is Chris Baker, the Interactive Content Coordinator at Marvel, and essentially my right-hand man on every game project. Chris previously worked at LucasArts as well and was an editor at "Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine"—where he reviewed a ton of super hero games and wrote huge cover stories for "Spider-Man," "X-Men: Mutant Academy" and "Hulk."
2008 is a big year for Marvel and a huge year for our games. "Iron Man" and the "Incredible Hulk" will be bursting into theaters and onto game consoles, PC and handhelds this year in a big way, so you'll be hearing lots more from us on those games in the coming weeks.
But we also want this video game blog to be as interactive as possible (excuse the pun)—so we want to hear from you. Let us know your video game questions, and please give us feedback on what we blog about.
In fact, here's a question for you Marvel gamers out there: We know you've played Spider-Man, Wolverine and Hulk in several previous games, but what Marvel Super Heroes do you want to play as who haven't had a chance to shine in the spotlight of their own game? Let us know—we have connections here, and it just might happen someday.
Until next week, keep gaming!
-- Justin
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About this blog: A behind-the-scenes look at Marvel’s current and upcoming video games.
 | About the author: Chris Baker is the Interactive Content Coordinator for Marvel, having a hand in all video games for the House of Ideas. |
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