We still have a few more interviews to write up, nuggets to unearth and Comic-Con related things to vent about. Read on for the full list of our Comic-Con 2009 coverage, while bating your breath for what's left in the days to come.

Pre-Show Warm Up

Sony Bringing Ratchet, Clank & Drake To Comic-Con
Valve Brings Left 4 Dead 2 To Comic-Con, Reveals "Swamp Fever"
The Comic-Con 2009 Schedule: Just The Games
Microsoft Showing "Exciting Unannounced Project" At Comic-Con
Sega Debuting Iron Man 2 Game, More At Comic-Con
LucasArts Touts "World Exclusive Announcements" At Comic-Con
EA Brings Ten Titles To Comic-Con
Assassin's Creed 2 Short Films Hit This Holiday
EA, Dark Horse To Pleasantly Shock You With Mass Effect Comic Series
Activision, Twistory Unravel Time With Singularity Graphic Novel
Kotaku Heads To Comic-Con

News

How Did Depeche Mode Find Its Way Into Left 4 Dead 2?
The Other Real-Life Inspiration For The Saboteur's Hero
Army of Two Sequel Will Pit Europe Vs. America In Morality Test
Iron Man 2 Will Go Beyond New Movie and Comics, Includes Crimson Dynamo
Stan Lee's Going To Be In A Video Game
And The Ratchet & Clank Weapon Contest Winner Is...
Ace Attorney Investigations Gets a Feb. Release Date
Fate/Unlimited Codes Hits PSP This September
Comic Artists Signed For Army of Two Morality Cut Scenes
The Behemoth's "Game 3" Revealed, Played At Comic-Con
What's The Most Important Warcraft Movie Casting Decision?
Dante's Inferno Cartoon Features Monster Anal
Halo Waypoint Becomes Destination For Halo Fans This Fall
Resident Evil Series Unsure On Direction, Developers
Left 4 Dead 2 Has Bulletproof Zombies Too
Ghost In The Shell Director Joins Halo Legends
The Uncharted 2 Catch Phrase You May Never Hear
EA Provides "Girls", Asks Gamers To Sin To Win
MMO Makers Market The Genre's Future
James Cameron's Avatar Game Scores Some Weaver
CNN Examines the Buzz Building For Batman
You Will Fly In Lost Planet 2
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Expands With New DLC, Ultimate Sith Edition
Halo Waypoint Further Detailed By Microsoft
Emo-Speedball Joins Ultimate Alliance 2, 3 Cast Reveals Left
Gears of War: The Gearsiverse Liveblog
Gears Of War Armor Coming To Your Avatar
A Visit To Flynn's Arcade, The Home of Tron
South Park Tower Defense's Working Titles Sucked
Marvel Super Hero Sackboys Coming To LittleBigPlanet
Insomniac Reveals New Weapons For Ratchet & Clank At Comic-Con
The Stories Behind DC Universe Online
Army Of Two: The 40th Day Team Tease Multiplayer Early, Annoy PR Folks
How Shadow Complex Was Inspired By Super Metroid (And Never Looked Back)

Previews

Uncharted 2 'Gold Rush' Co-op Hands-On Impressions
Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 Hands-On At Comic-Con
Coloring In Your City Of Heroes Powers
Dragon Age: Origins Xbox 360 Hands-On: Have You Considered The PC Version?
Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack In Time Preview: Time Is On Your Side
Left 4 Dead 2 "Swamp Fever" Hands-On Impressions
White Knight Chronicles Preview: Her Head Is So Huge!
Singularity Preview: I Love The Power Glove

Pics and Clips

First Footage Of Clank's 'A Crack In Time' Gameplay
San Diego Comic-Con 2009 Day 0
Pixel Junk Shooter's Lava Cannon in Action
Left 4 Dead 2: Scenes From A Swamp
A Look at Uncharted 2's Gold Rush
Dante's Infero Hellish Cartoon Art
We Get It, Her Thighs Are Huge
Tim Schafer, Casualty Of GWAR
Ultimate Sith Trailer Delivers Ultimatum
Tron Legacy Lightcycle Teaser Still Amazing

Swag

First Look At Prince Of Persia LEGO
Play Spyborgs at Comic-Con, Get a Free Comic
Dead Space Extraction Comic Hits Comic-Con
Hadouken Your Head With This Sweet Street Fighter Cap
Mad Catz Mocks Up Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom Fight Sticks
Comic-Con 2009: The Damage So Far
Even Comic-Con Has Its Own Exclusive PSPs
You Can Buy Actual World Of Warcraft Gold Coins
Yeah, Sega's Bayonetta 360 Console Is "Sexy"
NECA's BioShock Toys Are Disturbingly Awesome
Soundwave Get!
Tekken, TapouT Team Up for T-Shirts
Comic-Con 2009: The Damage Escalates
World Of Warcraft Toys Still Better Than World Of Warcraft
How Much Would You Pay For Capcom's Marvel VS Capcom 2 Mixtape?
NECA's Other Video Game Toys

Cosplay

Comic-Con 2009's Sexiest Cosplay...
NCsoft's Heroic Booth Babes
Comic-Con Friday Cosplay Round Up
Left 4 Dead Tank Cosplay Shows Real Dedication
Way To Blend In, Ezio
Comic-Con Cosplay Stories

So why did Chair opt to pursue a Metroid-style adventure for its second Live Arcade title? We sat down with Chair Entertainment creative director and co-founder Donald Mustard to find out. And to thank him.

"It seems like there was this huge void," Mustard said, saying that Shadow Complex explores a largely unexplored genre. "No one's making these kinds of games. So we decided, well, we're gonna try it. My biggest secret hope is that some awesome game designer will look at what we did and think 'I could do that even better,' and make a game that I can play."

"I already know where everything is in Shadow Complex, which ruins it for me," Mustard joked.

One thing, though. Someone is making these games, as Koji Igarashi and the Castlevania team regularly pumps out "Metroidvania" games on Nintendo's portable platforms. But Chair didn't look to Igarashi's creations, instead going to the source.

"We really looked at Metroid more than Castlevania," he said. "We made everyone replay Super Metroid, Metroid Fusion and Metroid: Zero Mission. Everyone on the team played that for a week or two, but I played them constantly... to the point where I had felt like I had cleansed my system of anything other than Metroid."

Mustard said he was cognizant of looking too closely at the inspiration behind Shadow Complex's game design, saying that there's "a fine line between doing a genre entry and doing a genre rip-off." After immersing themselves in Metroid, they avoided the title during Shadow Complex's two year development cycle.

"We sat down, talked about what we wanted the game to be and we started designing what we thought it would be — then we never looked at Metroid again," Mustard said. "Because we then wanted to make our own game. And I think it was pretty effective, capturing that vibe of Metroid. We didn't want to be seen as derivative."

What games like Super Metroid—and most Metroid games—didn't offer was much of a narrative, at least not on par with what we're expecting to see in Shadow Complex. That's a potential pitfall, considering how much time is spent backtracking and exploring, things that may interfere with a game-long story line.

"I think you have to tell the right story," Mustard says. "Because so much of that kind of game is exploratory, and if you're doing it correctly, has a strong non-linear element to it."

Of course, there is a Metroid exception.

"Metroid Fusion had a really strong story to it," he notes "That's one of the ones I looked at the closest. I thought, 'What are the pitfalls that they fell into while doing this?'"

"I think we tried very hard to structure the narrative more about a loose plot, but then kept it very character-centric. We were always trying to keep the narrative flowing."

Mustard is obviously concerned about being compared unfairly to the decades old Metroid series, lamenting that "we can't compete with nostalgia"—words borrowed from our own Stephen Totilo.

We'll have more from our interview with Chair at Comic-Con later this week.

Not only does it show off the helpful narration of Insomniac's creative director Brian Allgeier, it highlights the game-changing Chronocepter and Time Pads, the latter of which lets Clank record and replay segments of time. The addition of that mechanic should make for some fascinating puzzles. See it in action after this.

A handy recap of the Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack In Time panel is available at the official PlayStation.blog, should have you been unable to attend.

Ratchet & Clank Comic-Con Recap (with Videos!) [PlayStation.blog]

The Xbox 360 we sidled up to running a playable Dragon Age: Origins featured an already game underway. The previous player had already chosen his initial path, opting to play as a noble human warrior. That means we started out with a bit of social leverage and within a castle in the kingdom of Ferelden, one currently being invaded by enemy forces.

Our initial fight was fought alongside one of the bulky Mabari War Dogs, a bruiser of a beast scarier than any pit bull. While the dog can be leveled up, the items available to our dog looked to be limited to collar types.

We also joined up with our character's mother, who, against our dialog tree wishes, picked up a sword to fight alongside us as we made our way through the burning hallways of the castle. Our goal? To find our father, while searching rooms that turned up little more than enemy soldiers, the corpses of our compatriots and the occasional locked chest.

Our demo concluded when we found our seriously wounded father, then engaged in a strategic meeting with some of the Grey Wardens, with whom we planned vengeance for the attack on the kingdom.

Combat was relatively easy to get a grasp on, if a bit middling, with two skills—one, a dizzying shield bash, the other a stronger melee attack—making the action a little more than just target, attack and cool down. Those attacks were mapped to the X and Y buttons on the Xbox 360 controller, with a quick heal button mapped to B. Those skills and button mappings can be customized by pulling the left trigger and navigating a tiered circular menu.

BioWare should be commended for its ability to get a complicated title like Dragon Age: Origins, with a rather complex menu system, to work with a standard controller. After a few minutes of fiddling, we quickly became accustomed to navigating Dragon Age's deep set of options. A color-coded inventory system and auto-leveling option makes exploring its depth that much easier, particularly for some of us who shy away from the more complex BioWare titles.

Based on our hands-on time with the Xbox 360 version—and discussing the classes and races we didn't play with other members of the press—Dragon Age: Origins' story line looks to feature the depth and breadth that will ensure multiple playthroughs of the RPG.

What didn't impress, were some of the visuals in the Xbox 360 version. Up close, Dragon Age: Origins can look extremely rough, particularly when interacting with non-player characters while traversing the game's dialog trees. Some of the presentation looked like a step back from BioWare's Mass Effect for the Xbox 360, with low quality textures and distracting geometry problems in character models. When the camera is pulled back, however, things look fine.

Despite the lack of visual polish during portions of our Dragon Age: Origins demo, BioWare's spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate looks like an exciting epic adventure. After our hands-on time with the game, we'll definitely be looking at the PC version of Dragon Age, but looking forward to it nonetheless.

The series - which we first told you about in February - will be released to cash in on the movie, which is due to hit theatres next April. And while the presence of a LEGO ostrich screams instant purchase, we're going to be holding off until we get confirmation from LEGO that the Prince's shirt is removable.

There's a full gallery's worth of close-ups over at jmenomeno's Flickr page.

San Diego Comic Con 1 [jmenomeno @ Flickr]

Reid Schneider and Alex Hutchinson, executive producer and creative director for Army of Two: The 40th Day spoke about the moral choices that will affect the co-op shooter at Comic-Con, showing how decisions will affect the story line. There will be numerous "good" and "evil" choices players can make, which EA will be tracking and publishing, pitting American players against European players in a battle of who's more "moral."

Schneider said the Army of Two team will be tracking those choices via its Telemetry software, which provides feedback based on what people are doing in the game. (We understand that players can opt out of having Telemetry track their game progress.)

"We're curious to see who's more moral, America or Europe," said Schneider."We're going to dig that up, then put that information out 40 days after the game is out."

Hutchinson says that when E3 attendees were polled on which decision to go with during Army of Two: The 40th Day demos "it was 100% evil." Sounds like we're off to a bad start.

Surely, I thought, when first seeing the band's likeness and logo emblazoned on her tee, that wouldn't last very long. But that Depeche Mode cameo is intentional and it's authorized. Chet Faliszek, co-lead and writer on Left 4 Dead 2, says that Valve solicited bands and record labels for the sequel, but Depeche Mode was one of the few who responded.

And it appears they responded in a big way, with Faliszek explaining to us at Comic-Con that the band was very free with letting Valve use its likeness, its audio recordings, and, obviously, its t-shirts in the game. Probably a smart marketing move, considering the band just launched an album and constantly reminding a few million Left 4 Dead players of the band's existence can't hurt.

Faliszek didn't expand on how, or even if, Depeche Mode would be employed beyond the outfit of the "cool 80s chick," but we're hoping for a well-hidden cameo.

We'll definitely be on the look out for any zombies that even slightly resemble Dave Gahan, just in case.

"Gold Rush" is not unlike a blend of the Uncharted 2 multiplayer modes we played this past April, combining the three-player action of the game's cooperative mode with the capture the flag style "Plunder" gameplay. Grab the idol, take it back to your treasure chest and hope you survive long enough to cash in on that booty.

Each round requires more than just the safe return of the golden idol, which slows players down and limits them to pistol-wielding while carrying it. You'll also have to clear each round of mercenaries intent on sniping you or snapping your neck. To add more comparisons to Uncharted 2's newest mode, think of "Gold Rush" as CTF plus coop plus Gears of War 2 "Horde"-style waves of enemies.

Those enemies become increasingly more skilled and well armed as the round counter increases. Getting past round 4 was no easy task for me and my Comic-Con co-op team. The communication just wasn't there, key to safely transporting the idol and requesting back up.

As with the game's "Plunder" mode, players can lob the golden idol in an arc, key to faster movement across a map. You'll also need to toss the idol to higher ground, should the treasure chest be on a second floor. As in "Plunder," players can opt for a fire bucket brigade strategy, tossing the treasure from player to player to player.

If you want to score big in "Gold Rush," you'd better learn that technique, as a multiplier time counts down from 3.... 2.... 1. The faster you grab the gold, the more money you earn. Players can also find pieces of treasure scattered about the map, meaning more money to buy more "Boosters"—Naughty Dog's take on Call of Duty 4's "Perks"—in Uncharted 2's in-game shop.

Should anyone fall during the round, players in good health can revive them. And only one needs to survive to complete the round. But that doesn't mean that teamwork should be ignored.

"Gold Rush" is a little less frantic than Uncharted 2's deathmatch mode, but speedier than the regular three-player co-op mode, making for a tasty compromise of play styles. While the variation from the already revealed modes isn't that strong, it should be a great mode for smaller groups of players looking to score an in-game cash boost.

"The good news is that everyone in the known universe told us what was wrong with the first game," said Kyle Brink, creative director at Sega Studios San Francisco, the team working on Iron Man 2: The Video Game. Sega Studios San Francisco is the re-branded Secret Level, the team that worked on the original Iron Man and Golden Axe: Beast Rider for Sega.

Yeah, I know.

But Brink says that there has been some personnel turnover at the studio, plus new faces—including his own hiring as the studio's creative director. The Iron Man team is listening to complaints, things like having to half-pull a trigger on the Xbox 360 or PS3 to make Iron Man hover.

"The controls were a big issue in the first one, so we completely revised the controls here," told us during an interview at Comic-Con. "They're based on the top 20 games out there, so they should be immediately familiar to people and they're consistent across all movement modes out there."

"We also brought the range in tighter, because in the first you were hunting pixels," he adds, addressing one of our own gripes about the original.

Brink says that adding in diverse enemies, diverse environments—both indoors and outdoors—will alleviate some of the repetition that plagued the first Iron Man.

T.Q. Jefferson, director of games at Marvel, touched on some of the changes that have been implemented on the Marvel side to make the company's games stay "suck free." That includes the recently established Marvel Creative Committee, which is focusing on using in-house Marvel talent—like Invincible Iron Man comic book writer Matt Fraction—on games based on the comic book publisher's properties.

Jefferson says that one of the new Marvel games tenets is that "movie games don't have to be movie games," abandoning the strict limitations of a movie's plot, characters and set pieces. Instead, Marvel games will be "original stories set in the movie universe" making it more feasible to release a game alongside the film, with input from folks like Fraction.

Even though Iron Man 2: The Video Game isn't due out until April 2010, Marvel and Sega were showing off a playable (by Sega staff only) demo of the game at Comic-Con. It looked impressively polished for a game still 8 or more months out, hopefully a good example of Marvel's change in strategy for games.

We'll have more from our interview with Kyle Brink and Matt Fraction shortly.

While the gameplay is largely similar to the first, putting the player in control of up to four Marvel super heroes, the visual style has drastically improved from the first Marvel Ultimate Alliance. MUA2 looks incredibly sharp, taking better advantage of the now-gen hardware than the original. Also new is the "fusion" combination of powers, letting characters like the Hulk and Wolverine work together—in the Marvel trademark "fastball special"—to take down enemies.

Other characters can combine in less predictable ways, with the Hulk joining Songbird to create an amusing hamster ball-like sphere of pink and green destruction. Hulk roll!!

Normal attacks and special attacks are nearly identical to the first Marvel Ultimate Alliance, using the right trigger to perform each hero's signature moves.

Our run through of the demo, set in Washington, DC and during the Civil War storyline that ran through numerous Marvel titles in 2006, was a relatively quick beat 'em up affair. We had access to two sets of teams that included mainstays like Hulk, Spider-Man, Storm and Iron Man.

We met up with fan favorite Deadpool, who was no easy task to defeat. Fortunately, after putting a hurt on Deadpool, he asked to join our team of Marvel's merry men. The writing here was spot on, with the anti-hero spouting laugh out loud dialog. We were given three options with which to respond to Deadpool's request and choosing one affected how our team leveled up, making us either more defensive, aggressive or diplomatic. Those choices affect a team's defense, strength and fusion powers, respectively, adding a bit more variety to your alliance of choice.

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 looks like it will go a long way to improving the series, with noticeable boosts to the game's graphical capabilities, leveling mechanics and storytelling. If you were just a casual fan of the first, we'd highly recommend paying attention to the second.

According to Positron, power customization is something they've wanted to include in the game from the very beginning, only to have the feature constantly pushed onto the back-burner. Why hasn't it been a focus? "Well it's a whole lot of work," he explained, which would certainly deter me from doing it. The game's powers were basically set in stone, and changing that meant changing a great deal of how powers function in the game.

The issue finally got the attention it deserved last year, when NCsoft took over development from Champions Online developer Cryptic Studios, bringing over most of the team that originally created the City of series. Miller explains that once that change went through they gathered together a crack team to work on power customization, locked them in a room for a year, and here we are.

The update brings more than one welcome change to the game's extensive character creator. Along with power customization, players can now hop back and forth between the different character creation steps, meaning no more spending hours creating a costume only to find out your name has already been taken...though in City of Heroes it's generally best to assume it has been taken anyway.
Miller walked me through a bit of color customization. Much like the costume color palette, players are able to select primary and secondary colors for each power, tailoring each skill in the power set they've chosen to their personal taste. For simplicity's sake they can link colors across all powers, so your Pink Lemonade Avenger will fire off uniformly pink and yellow bursts of energy in order to take down bad guys.

Each power has to palettes to play with - a light and a dark - with the dark-based powers eventually showing up on a different background to better display how they will look within the game's environments, as they certainly don't display well against the character creator's current dark-blue background.

It looks like they've got a rather nice implementation going here. Rays, lasers, and explosions all carry custom colors, while powers that summon creatures are also affected by the color change. Physical skills, like the kick-heavy martial arts power set, now feature a choice of animations, allowing players to swap out their kicks for punches.

I'm definitely looking forward to the update going live now, my mind swimming with ideas on how to best take advantage of this new feature. How about a superhero team based on the colors of the rainbow, or a hero whose powers change color with his costume? Sure, I'm just going to forget that idea and create an all pink guy with a heart on his chest who fights with the power of love while Huey Lewis and the News music plays in the background, but still.

A roundtable discussion with the legendary voice of Batman kicked off on Saturday at Comic-Con with Conroy addressing the question, "Is this the first time you've done voice work for a video game?" to which he answered, "Yes, I believe it is." Thus I found myself in the unenviable position of having to correct one of my personal heroes.

Conroy has lent his voice to a number of games over the years, though perhaps none as intensively as the upcoming Batman: Arkham Asylum.

"Recording games is so hard, because it's only you in a studio alone. They record separately. And you do four hour sessions, a morning session and an evening session, so it's 8 hours a day of just you doing five or six different takes on each line for three or four days. It's mind blowing. You have to keep it fresh...keep it real. It's very hard, and you don't have the other actor to feed you energy."

Unlike the cartoon, where Kevin records with his fellow actors, playing off their performances, the video game dialog is recorded one person at a time. This means they have to have him do each line multiple times to make sure they have a take that fits with what the other actors are doing.

With that sort of grueling process in place, it's no wonder he's forgotten the abysmal Batman: The Rise of Sin Tzu and Batman: Vengeance. He's also provided voices for Lords of Everquest, Max Payne 2, and Jak & Daxter, but we'll forgive him for forgetting those bit parts. When you've spent the better part of two decades talking, you can't be expected to remember everything you've said.

As for Rise of Sin Tzu, I told him he was probably better off not remembering. We'd rather not remember it either.

Saboteur protagonist Sean Devlin may have been inspired by real-life Grand Prix motor racing driver and special agent William Grover-Williams, but Grover-Williams' look didn't quite fit what Pandemic was looking for in terms of a rugged, good-looking main character. Lead designer Tom French and Hunt explored the difficulty they had finding the right look for Sean Devlin during their "Rethinking The WWII Gaming Genre" panel at the San Diego Comic-Con this weekend.

After the original concept of Tom French wailing on an electric guitar was vetoed, the team tried for something a bit more period appropriate. A nice look, but it was a bit too fragile for their liking.

Then, inspiration struck. Chris Hunt found their hero at a concept artist convention, but it wasn't a piece of art that caught his eye. It was this guy:

"Then we ran into this guy. He had the hat, he had the hair...even him walking around...he was the embodiment of what we wanted, so we approached him, got permission to use his likeness, and now we had the hero we were looking for."

The moral of this story? Always wear a kick-ass hat. You never know when you'll be asked to be the main character in a video game.

Half a dozen comics and two new cartoons based on video games were announced at the show and plenty of comic books were unveiled as video games. The convention itself was host to more than 40 panels about video games.

Often these crossovers serve as a sort of table setter for an upcoming game, helping to set the stage, build up the characters and explore the world of a video game before it gets into the hands of gamers.

Before the original Sci-Fi role-playing game Mass Effect hit two years ago, Del Rey published the novel Mass Effect: Revelation. The prequel, penned by the game developer's head writer, took place 35 years before the game.

This time around, the next Mass Effect game will be heralded by a comic book, not a novel. Mass Effect: Redemption is being written by Mac Walters, the person responsible for Mass Effect 2 script, and Walters promises it will change the way gamers look at the upcoming Xbox 360 sequel.

Upcoming Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 game Singularity is also getting a prequel in the form of a graphic novel. And long-lived franchise Prince of Persia is getting a graphic novel prequel for the upcoming movie based on the video games.

The shift from books to comic books to tell a story set in a video game universe shouldn't be that surprising. Comic books, like video games, use both narrative art and dialog to tell a story. The two also have a very similar audience which could explain the virtual explosion of crossover titles in recent months.

While Dead Space Extraction will explore the world of the upcoming Wii-exclusive, it won't be a prequel, according to Steve Papoutsis, executive producer of Dead Space Extraction.

"There is so much more to the Dead Space universe than we could ever fit into one game and we're excited to be working with Image Comics again to extend the story in Dead Space Extraction," he said. "(Illustrator) Ben (Templesmith) and (writer) Antony (Johnston) did such a tremendous job with the original comic, we can't wait for fans to get their hands on this special issue."

Other comic crossovers seem to be more about marketing than expanding the story. For instance, at last week's convention Capcom gave away copies of a Spyborgs comic to promote the upcoming Wii game. And Sony Computer Entertainment announced a comic based on their popular God of War franchise.

The six-issues series, set to be released on a monthly schedule leading into the release of God of War III, was announced alongside a novel based on the game and a collectible copy of the anti-hero's weapon: The Blades of Chaos.

Crossovers aren't relegated to the pages of comics either, there were also two new cartoons announced at the show.

Halo Legends will be a set of animated shorts based on Microsoft and Bungie's popular first-person shooter for the Xbox 360. The seven shorts will explore some of the fictional history of the game's universe.

Dante's Inferno, an action game based on the epic Italian poem, is also getting the cartoon treatment. The collection of six shorts, each created by a different studio and director, will show some of the untold moments of the video game on a DVD set to ship around the same time as the game.

Comic books and animated movies based on video games aren't a new phenomenon. Gears of War, Resident Evil, World of Warcraft, even Sonic, all have their own comic books. But the past 18 months or so has seen a surge of interest in the pop-culture crossovers.

Perhaps that's because of the increasingly mainstream role that comics and their offshoots are taking in pop culture. Once relegated to children, comics are now recognized as an important form of expression, something that can deal with big issues and reach a broad audience.

Well Played is a weekly news and opinion column about the big stories of the week in the gaming industry and its bigger impact on things to come. Feel free to join in the discussion.

Pre-Show Warm Up

Sony Bringing Ratchet, Clank & Drake To Comic-Con
Valve Brings Left 4 Dead 2 To Comic-Con, Reveals "Swamp Fever"
The Comic-Con 2009 Schedule: Just The Games
Microsoft Showing "Exciting Unannounced Project" At Comic-Con
Sega Debuting Iron Man 2 Game, More At Comic-Con
LucasArts Touts "World Exclusive Announcements" At Comic-Con
EA Brings Ten Titles To Comic-Con
Assassin's Creed 2 Short Films Hit This Holiday
EA, Dark Horse To Pleasantly Shock You With Mass Effect Comic Series
Activision, Twistory Unravel Time With Singularity Graphic Novel
Kotaku Heads To Comic-Con

News

Iron Man 2 Will Go Beyond New Movie and Comics, Includes Crimson Dynamo
Stan Lee's Going To Be In A Video Game
And The Ratchet & Clank Weapon Contest Winner Is...
Ace Attorney Investigations Gets a Feb. Release Date
Fate/Unlimited Codes Hits PSP This September
Comic Artists Signed For Army of Two Morality Cut Scenes
The Behemoth's "Game 3" Revealed, Played At Comic-Con
What's The Most Important Warcraft Movie Casting Decision?
Dante's Inferno Cartoon Features Monster Anal
Halo Waypoint Becomes Destination For Halo Fans This Fall
Resident Evil Series Unsure On Direction, Developers
Left 4 Dead 2 Has Bulletproof Zombies Too
Ghost In The Shell Director Joins Halo Legends
The Uncharted 2 Catch Phrase You May Never Hear
EA Provides "Girls", Asks Gamers To Sin To Win
MMO Makers Market The Genre's Future
James Cameron's Avatar Game Scores Some Weaver
CNN Examines the Buzz Building For Batman
You Will Fly In Lost Planet 2
comic-con 09
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Expands With New DLC, Ultimate Sith Edition
Halo Waypoint Further Detailed By Microsoft
Emo-Speedball Joins Ultimate Alliance 2, 3 Cast Reveals Left
Gears of War: The Gearsiverse Liveblog
Gears Of War Armor Coming To Your Avatar
A Visit To Flynn's Arcade, The Home of Tron
South Park Tower Defense's Working Titles Sucked
Marvel Super Hero Sackboys Coming To LittleBigPlanet
Insomniac Reveals New Weapons For Ratchet & Clank At Comic-Con
The Stories Behind DC Universe Online
Army Of Two: The 40th Day Team Tease Multiplayer Early, Annoy PR Folks

Previews

Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack In Time Preview: Time Is On Your Side
Left 4 Dead 2 "Swamp Fever" Hands-On Impressions
White Knight Chronicles Preview: Her Head Is So Huge!
Singularity Preview: I Love The Power Glove

Pics and Clips

San Diego Comic-Con 2009 Day 0
Pixel Junk Shooter's Lava Cannon in Action
Left 4 Dead 2: Scenes From A Swamp
A Look at Uncharted 2's Gold Rush
Dante's Infero Hellish Cartoon Art
We Get It, Her Thighs Are Huge
Tim Schafer, Casualty Of GWAR
Ultimate Sith Trailer Delivers Ultimatum
Tron Legacy Lightcycle Teaser Still Amazing

Swag

Play Spyborgs at Comic-Con, Get a Free Comic
Dead Space Extraction Comic Hits Comic-Con
Hadouken Your Head With This Sweet Street Fighter Cap
Mad Catz Mocks Up Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom Fight Sticks
Comic-Con 2009: The Damage So Far
Even Comic-Con Has Its Own Exclusive PSPs
You Can Buy Actual World Of Warcraft Gold Coins
Yeah, Sega's Bayonetta 360 Console Is "Sexy"
NECA's BioShock Toys Are Disturbingly Awesome
Soundwave Get!
Tekken, TapouT Team Up for T-Shirts
Comic-Con 2009: The Damage Escalates
World Of Warcraft Toys Still Better Than World Of Warcraft
How Much Would You Pay For Capcom's Marvel VS Capcom 2 Mixtape?
NECA's Other Video Game Toys

Cosplay

Comic-Con 2009's Sexiest Cosplay...
NCsoft's Heroic Booth Babes
Comic-Con Friday Cosplay Round Up
Left 4 Dead Tank Cosplay Shows Real Dedication
Way To Blend In, Ezio
Comic-Con Cosplay Stories

While the full, official reveal of Army Of Two: The 40th Day's versus modes will be unveiled "shortly," Hutchinson made Schneider a bit nervous with the details he offered. Our ears always perk up whtn someone starts a sentence with "I shouldn't be telling you this, but..."

The creative director said to expect a "fully client/server" connection for Army of Two: The 40th Day multiplayer, with "many more modes and more people allowed to play."

The original Army of Two featured a trio of multiplayer game types, supporting up to four players.

Expect to be able to drop in and drop out of co-op focused multiplayer matches. And say goodbye to the region locked restriction on multiplayer games. The 40th Day dudes say you'll be able to play with your global buddies, making a co-op get together a little bit easier.

Lee and Wolfman talked about the challenges of squeezing the 75-year-old DC Universe into the game, focusing on "the coolest characters, the coolest content" for DCUO, which is still in a pre-alpha state. Geoff Johns was the one on the DC Comics side responsible for the overarching story in DCUO, with Wolfman fleshing out the story concepts appropriate for the game.

"If you think about a building, Geoff created the entire structure, the beams, now I'm filling in the individual rooms, the plastering," Wolfman said. "We're all coming up with story concepts that fit within the DC universe. They'll take up a paragraph I've marked up, and the developer turns it into 60 missions. It passes through us a second time to make sure it fits in the universe."

Those on the DC side sounded enthusiastic to be able to work within the broader confines of DC Universe Online, with Wolfman relishing the chance to write for the player who chooses to side with DC's villains.

"In DCUO sometimes the hero loses," he said, noting that DC writers are "trained to have it the other way."

Lee joked that it was challenging on the artistic side, making the transition from 2D comic book panel to 3D multiplayer online video game, bemoaning that "Drawing the other side of buildings was tough."

"There is no map of Metropolis," adds Johns, one of two main locations that DCUO is focusing on for its initial release. But Andersson pointed out the depth of the game's interiors, particularly S.T.A.R. Labs in Gotham City and the thrill of "cleaning up all the disasters that happen there."

"There's just too much cool stuff to put in the game at launch," Lee said, explaining SOE and DC's focus on two main cities. That obviously doesn't rule out other famous DC Universe locations in future expansions and patches, but considering the MMO is dated for "2000-something" right now, don't expect to hear anything about a Central City expansion any time soon.

Lee did joke that the bottle city of Kandor, miniaturized by Braniac, would probably be the easiest, quickest to download city expansion.

Sony Online Entertainment says the game is due to hit an alpha milestone "soon," but still has no release date to announce.

That fan-submitted addition to the already deep Ratchet & Clank arsenal was revealed at an event earlier this week, with Insomniac's Brian Allgeier describing the device as a "deadly yo-yo." You can see how deadly that is in the video above, which also shows the triple saw blade upgraded version, the Spiral of Carnage.

Insomniac also revealed the Constructo line of weapons.

That comes in two parts, the Constructo Pistol and Constructo Bomb glove, each a highly customizable weapon.

The pistol features multiple stocks, barrels and ammo types, including single shots, auto shots, charge shots, ricocheting bullets, and rounds explode on contact. The look of the Constructo Pistol varies wildly from upgrade to upgrade, with one clearly showing a flamethrower type barrel.

The Constructo Bomb Glove is similarly varied, with napalm, shrapnel, and explosive bombs adding variety to the wearable weapons, as does an option to alter the area of explosive effect. Mods for both Constructo weapons can be found throughout the galaxy, rewarding exploration of the Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time universe.

Marvel showed off three concept renders of Sackboys that may be coming to the PlayStation 3 exclusive, but did not offer dates for the costumes, nor confirm that this would be the extent of the Marvel characters that would be licensed for LittleBigPlanet use.

Considering Marvel has Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 and Marvel Super Hero Squad coming this year, don't be surprised if you see Captain America, Iron Man and Wolverine on your PS3 soon.