newyorkcomiccon
Latest
Twitch takes over streaming duties for PAX, New York Comic Con
The folks in charge of running America's largest biannual gaming event are teaming up with gaming's most popular streaming solution to offer streams of PAX Prime, PAX East, and New York Comic Con going forward. The company behind all three conventions, ReedPOP, are working in conjunction with Twitch.tv to offer live broadcasts from the aforementioned three shows, as well as Chicago's Comic & Entertainment Expo. ReedPOP also runs PAX Australia, though it looks like Twitch isn't handling that streaming as well. Twitch's biggest competitor in the streaming space, Ustream, secured a deal with Sony to handle streaming from the company's forthcoming PlayStation 4 game console. Microsoft's Xbox One can also handle streaming -- Xbox One distinguished engineer Nick Baker told Engadget, "We architected in several components to allow that. We have a video hardware encoder, h.264, and the ability to essentially screen scrape. Take your output without having to render two separate images. Take your output, feed that back to memory, compress it, save it, stream it to a companion device. The hardware has the capability." Microsoft has yet to announce a plan for how its streaming will work on Xbox One, but we imagine we'll know much more as of next week.
The Engadget Show is live, here at 6:00PM ET!
Are you ready for this? We're back for a very special Halloween episode of The Engadget Show, live tonight at 6PM ET, and you can join us at this very URL -- so keep your browser locked to this spot. This time out, we've got a very special Halloween episode, including a walk through of a high-tech haunted house, a trip to New York Comic Con, an in-studio costume contest and the unveiling of the winners of our Frankengadget competition. We'll also be visiting with Intel's resident futurist, paying tribute to Steve Jobs and taking a look at the month's hottest gadgets. Update: Thanks everyone for joining us. We'll have the full show up soon!
More big app sales for the iPhone 4S release
The iPhone 4S is now out and in customers' hands, and that means a flurry of App Store action as those customers fill up their new iPhones with apps to match. Developers are, of course, looking to take advantage of all of those apps sales, so here are some of the many price drops (in addition to what we saw yesterday) going on this weekend. The old Spider: Bryce Manor game is down again, only 99 cents on the iPhone and $1.99 on the iPad. Crescent Moon's big RPG Aralon: Sword and Shadow is down to $2.99. As promised, Quarrel Deluxe is down to just 99 cents. You should grab this one for sure if you like word games at all. The beautiful Marble Madness-inspired Gears is also a buck. 8-bit retro RPG Dragon Fantasy is a dollar. Daily iPhone App and puzzle game Continuity 2: The Continuation is on sale for $.99. Words with Friends HD has also been dropped to a dollar. Telltale's put all of the Hector: Badge of Carnage episodes on sale for $2.99. Capcom just recently released a Dead Rising Mobile game, and it's half off, to 99 cents. Drawing app ArtRage is down to $1.99 during the New York Comic Con. EA's got Risk on sale for just 99 cents. Flickr HD is also only 99 cents, in advance of a new release. Comic book creator Comic Life is on sale for $4.99, or if you want something still cheaper, ComicBook! is only a buck. Tweet Speaker is on sale for $1.99. And finally, since there's only a few games left in the baseball season, MLB's At Bat app for this year is finally down to just 99 cents. Keep in mind that it's for this year only, so the app is pretty much useless unless your team is still in the running, and even then only for a few more days. Have at 'em! Lots of great games and apps in there, so for just a few bucks you can pick up plenty of app goodness to play with and use on your new iPhone.
NYCC: Hands-on with Dragon Ball Z
New York Comic Con had a great deal of games based on anime franchises. But, they were all on the DS. The one game that I had to play was the upcoming PSP Dragon Ball Z game. I got a chance to talk to some representatives from Atari and I had a blast. As you can see in the embedded video above, the graphics are quite smooth, and the presentation is quite sleek. The "Another Road" mode offers an original story for DBZ fans to appreciate. Load times? Minimal. The controls were incredibly accessible, creating for fast, fun battles.The game looks to be quite ideal for on-the-go play. I wonder if it'll feature enough depth to satisfy hardcore gamers. Also, with my relative lack of inexperience with DBZ games, I have to admit, I'm not exactly sure how much Another Road expands upon the franchise. Can it feel fresh, considering how it's Atari's 26th DBZ game? We'll find more closer to its March 20th release.
NYCC: Godzilla Wii eyes-on
Tucked away in a secret corner of New York Comic Con was Godzilla: Unleashed for Nintendo Wii. Considering its early pre-alpha form, Atari didn't want to show off too much of the game. Makes sense: the game really looks incomplete at this point, especially with its primitive, worse-than-Gamecube graphics. Of course, graphics are easily correctable during a product's development.How were the controls? You can watch and judge for yourself. Do the motion controls really add much to this brawler? At this moment, it doesn't appear to. The game still has a long way to go: it won't be ready until the holiday season later this year. Hopefully, the Wii functionality of the game will feel a bit more significant, and less tacked on, the next time we see it.
NYCC: Pirates of the Burning Sea interview
Who doesn't love pirates? The answer seemed to be "no one" as Flying Labs' upcoming MMORPG was swamped with fans throughout the entire New York Comic Con weekend. Although this MMO has been fairly under the radar, it certainly deserves a little more attention. Pirates of the Burning Sea promises a lot of playability, from multiple fighting styles, to naval battles, barter, economics, and more. It's the kind of stuff not-leaving-the-house-ever is made of.Saying whether or not the team has been successful on capitalizing on their ambitions requires having a lot more time with the game. Thankfully, there is a public beta available for those that want to find out more. The game promises tons of missions, both offline and on. With cross-functionality with a planned Pirates of the Asian Sea, the whole ninja versus pirates debate can finally be settled ... in a far more artistic way than the Internet has ever portrayed it.Watch the video to get more info about the game. Be warned that it's incredibly long and will waste tons of your time. But that doesn't stop MMORPG players, right?
NYCC: Hands-on with TMNT
OMG is it the early 90s again? The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are back, and like before, they're invading all forms of media: cartoon, comic, movie, and game. While the past few iterations of the franchise were a little shy of the "good" mark, the upcoming Xbox 360 version looks to bring the franchise back with a bang. Many hardcore gamers probably recall the early NES/Arcade games quite fondly, and Ubisoft's take on the franchise looks to restore the fun factor of those games.This upcoming rendition of TMNT has the unique "Ubisoft touch." You know, add a lot of inspiration from their other series, Prince of Persia. While not original, the acrobatic nature of the game works quite well, giving the turtles a real "ninja" feel. All the wall jumping, wall running, and double jumping is handled via the A button: it's certainly easy to learn, but it'll take a while to get the hang of it. Stay too close to a wall and you may find yourself running, instead of jumping. Although it takes some getting used to, it was incredibly fun and refreshing to see your Turtle quickly and gracefully move around the city.
NYCC: Hands-on with The Darkness
Warning: This video contains scenes of extreme violence and gore. It ends with a torture sequence which may not be appropriate for the faint of heart. Viewer discretion is advised.Top Cow's ultra-violent, ultra-cool comic The Darkness is heading to the PS3 and Xbox 360 in the summer, and attendees of New York Comic Con were treated to a special playable preview of the game. The game comes from the developers of the equally dark Chronicles of Riddick on ye olde Xbox, and it looks like Starbreeze is about to deliver another equally compelling and original FPS game. Just like Riddick before it, The Darkness looks to not only borrow from the license, but add a great deal of depth to it as well.The playable build at NYCC offered both single and multiplayer components. The single player demo certainly started with a memorable bang. You're in a Hollywood-style car chase: your comrades are wildly shooting around you, as cars are being flipped, crashed into, and destroyed in a cornucopia of chaos. Although it's basically an on-rails segment, it feels truly engrossing: you have control over your character's view, but you'll have to fight the wind and momentum of the car. It's really quite spectacular.
Bring your PSP to NY Comic Con, get free stuff
Are you going to New York Comic Con? It's happening today, tomorrow and Sunday at the Jacob Javitz Center. While it's unlikely you'll be able to get in without tickets already, those of you lucky to be available for the convention should remember to bring your PSPs. The first 50 consumers to bring their PSP system by the PlayStation booth #411 each day will receive a UMD carrying case (pictured). Not only that, you may see me roaming the show floor, wearing the iconic orange Joystiq shirt. If you can find me and show me your PSP, you may win something from my patented Bag of Swag???.Hope to see you there!
