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Avengers Assemble! Transmogrify your own superhero team
Transmogrification isn't just for making your character pretty or wearing old sets. Where's the fun in that? There are thousands of pieces to choose from for your look, and there's no reason you can't make it a distinctive one -- paying homage to video games or popular comics is just as much fun as being pretty. Today, we've got an iconic foursome of characters who have been staples in Marvel comics for decades and recently made a smashing success with the film The Avengers. Though Warcraft's armor doesn't contain exact replica's of Ironman's iconic armor or Captain America's easily recognizable shield, you can still use transmogrification to compile a look that screams Marvel Comics. Just because the Hulk doesn't wear anything more than a pair of pants in the comics doesn't mean we can't capture his look through some well-placed camouflage. And even though we can't get our hands on Mjolnir, there are more than enough warhammers lying around to find a good replica.
Marvel Avengers: Battle for Earth on Kinect and Wii U from Ubisoft
Ubisoft and Marvel are partnering on an Avengers game for ... Kinect and Wii U? It's an unlikely pairing – the controller-free format and the format with a giant controller and an extraneous screen; but for a franchise that pairs a half-naked monster man with an armored plutocrat, perhaps it's appropriate.Marvel Avengers: Battle for Earth is in the works at Ubisoft Quebec, and will allow players to use motion controls to fight off the alien Skrull. "The idea that we're making a motion-control version of 'The Avengers' is a unique proposition if you compare that to superhero games of the past," said Ubisoft marketing VP Tony Key, as reported by the Washington Post. "This is the perfect type of game for that because these characters are very action oriented. They're always fighting and throwing things." Those rowdy kids.As suggested by the Skrull invasion storyline, the game deviates from the movie, instead drawing from the "Secret Invasion" comic crossover event, which featured Skrulls posing as Earth superheroes.
If The Avengers ever has a video game tie-in, we hope it's not like this
We're warring with ourselves over the lack of a movie tie-in game for The Avengers, much like Tony Stark and Steve Rogers fight with each other in the beginning of the Avengers initiative, each representing opposing yet valid spectrums of morality, society and technology. And that's the problem – The Avengers movie is so good that we can relate everything in our daily lives back to the most faint of plot points and imagined superhero thought processes. It's also the reason we're disappointed that there's no Avengers video game.But movie games are always terrible, right? It probably would have been rushed, stilted and dumbed-down for a (much) wider audience.Actually, Steve, it probably would have been fantastic, as this pre-alpha footage from a canceled THQ game demonstrates.Well, Tony, that could merely be programmers editing the computer-generated graphics with software and codes to make the game appear better than it actually is.Steve, stop quoting Bruce. You sound like a man who's been frozen for 70 years. Oh wait.Shut up. At least the humorous video at the top of this page isn't real.For once, Cap, we agree on something. And there's always this potential Ubisoft title, Avengers: Battle for Earth. But it's not called Avengers: Iron Man is Obviously the Best, so I'm ignoring that one too. Cheers....Cheers.
Domain registered for 'Avengers: Battle for Earth,' all signs point to Ubisoft
Look, we're gonna level with you: We need more of Joss Whedon's The Avengers in our lives. We need more Captain America suspenders, more Sammy-J eye patch and more Scar-Jo everything. That new Pinball FX 2 table kinda helps, but its not really the explosive licensed tie-in gaming experience our bodies are craving.There is hope, however, as a domain for Avengers: Battle for Earth has been registered by Marvel (via brand protection company MarkMonitor) and is currently parked on a Ubisoft server, according to whois data unearthed by the URL sleuths at Fusible.As there have been no official announcements of any sort, the chances of Avengers: Battle for Earth being a super high-octane movie tie-in blockbuster are just as good as it being some sort of social farming/drawing/word search cash in for iOS and/or Facebook. We're keeping our fingers crossed for the first option, but at this point we'll take what we can get.
The Avengers game in limbo as Marvel mulls over licensing
Speaking to Gamespot, Marvel has confirmed that the video game rights to "The Avengers" IP have reverted back to the company, enabling it to explore "potential publishing and licensing opportunities." Marvel's film division is on the verge of successfully concluding a multi-year plan to bring its greatest heroes, The Avengers, together in a blockbuster outing. Directed by Joss Whedon and scheduled to smash cinemas in May 2012, The Avengers is preceded and supported by films centered on each of the team's most prominent individuals. And alongside each of those films has been a tie-in game. Marvel's film strategy and culmination was mirrored by game publishers with Thor, Iron Man, Hulk and Captain America games -- right until The Avengers climax was canceled behind the scenes. Presumed to be in the hands of THQ's now-shuttered Australian studio (one of many victims in THQ's shift away from licensed titles), The Avengers looked to be a first-person action game starring an irradiated scientist, a cocky technologist, a norse god, a temporally misplaced super soldier and some guy with a bow. Whether that blueprint will survive or transfer to a new publisher is a question that won't be answered fully until Marvel confirms a new licensor. With the movie due in 2012 and the marketing guys insisting on synergy, there's very little time to start over and develop a quality game -- so, probably plenty of time to develop an average licensed game. (With an apologetic nod to the decent Captain America: Super Soldier.)
