Perhaps it isn't all that interesting to some, but I'm always fascinated by the approach Hollywood and television composers take when developing music for video games. Tyler here packed the tracks he created full of sounds in order to make sure that every gameplay decision would be covered. It must have been a real challenge, but the man who scored The Day the Earth Stood Still and Rob Zombie's Halloween movies was more than up to the task.

The original 1994 game told the story of an orphan adopted by Aboriginal Australians in a dystopian future. The game's graphics and artwork were down by Dave Gibbons, co-creator of Watchmen.

The remastered game has a touch-based interface, new animated movies from Gibbons, context-sensitive hint system and a remastered audio track featuring re-sampled voice and higher quality music. Sound was the one thing that the game was dinged on when it was initially released.

The $5 game will take you about ten hours to play through, according to the game's developers.

If the first episode featured the brand of sadism you crave in your downloadable video games, the second will give you an opportunity to inflict it upon the type of masochist who gets off on that sort of thing. This debut trailer features a handful of bulky leather daddies on the receiving end of a beatdown from two of the Watchmen, as well as Nite Owl delivering an impressive pimp slap.

Women in cages, dominatrixes and blood spurts, Watchmen video game style?! Sign someone other than me up!

Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment announced today the release dates for the PlayStation 3, PC and Xbox 360 versions of the Watchmen beat 'em up, which span two retail releases—Watchmen: The End is Nigh The Complete Experience for the PS3 and Watchmen: The End is Nigh Parts 1 and 2 for the Xbox 360—plus three digitally distributed episodes for the PS3, Xbox 360 and PC.

The second episode will be available to you in a number of formats, included with one of the Blu-ray editions of the movie, in PlayStation 3-style packaging and on a Xbox 360-only DVD. It can also be downloaded, for everyone that enjoyed the first Watchmen: The End is Nigh so much.

Maybe this official list will clear it up.

Watchmen: The End is Nigh The Complete Experience is an innovative, retail Blu-ray Hi-Def game and film hybrid which will include Watchmen: The End is Nigh Parts 1 and 2 and the Watchmen: Director's Cut on Blu-ray. This new cut of the action-packed blockbuster includes an additional 25 minutes of footage not seen in theaters, available only on Blu-ray and DVD. The two-disc collectible set will also feature exclusive artwork in a premium package. The game will be playable on the PLAYSTATION 3 which can also play the Blu-ray disc of Watchmen: Director's Cut. The Watchmen: The End is Nigh The Complete Experience will be available on July 21 for a suggested retail price of $49.99.

Watchmen: The End is Nigh Parts 1 and 2 will be released as a single game available for the Xbox 360 on July 21 for a suggested retail price of $29.99.

Watchmen: The End is Nigh Part 2 will be available for download on PC on July 29 and PlayStation Network on July 30 for a suggested retail price of $14.99 and on Xbox LIVE Arcade for the Xbox 360 on August 26 for 1200 Microsoft Points.

Deadline Games director Søren Lund has told 1UP that both "The End is Nigh" and the second title will be released together on the same disc, and that it should be shipping at the same time the movie is out on DVD and Blu-Ray (due in the US on July 21).

Does this mean the second game won't be released digitally? No idea, but it wouldn't surprise us.

Watchmen Retail Disc Confirmed [1UP]

I love the skin, but those are my two least favorite characters. To enter for a chance to win, just head on over to their site and write up your review of the Watchmen movie in 50 words or less. Each review comment will be put into a drawing for several "Watchmen" prizes, including a Watchmen game and the Xbox. It features photos of Silk Spectre II and Nite Owl II.

You could win this super cool "Watchmen" Xbox and other prizes [Fresno Beehive]

Old-timers on the 360 front will remember a time that Xbox Live Arcade games had to come in under 50MB. That 50MB was then stretched to 150MB. Then 250MB. Then along came Portal: Still Alive and Street Fighter II HD, and it looked like Microsoft's restrictions were bending.

You can forget that. They're now breaking. Anyone unfortunate enough to have downloaded the Watchmen game last week will have noticed that that it clocked in at 1.2GB. 1.2GB! That's, uh, a lot bigger than 250MB. Microsoft explains:

We have set Xbox Live Arcade game file limits as a general guideline. An important part Xbox Live Arcade is easy access, and keeping file size down is a vital part of that. Equally important is offering titles with superior gameplay. We weigh both considerations on a case-by-case basis, and will make exceptions when it makes sense to ensure the best customer experience.

If Watchmen can get an exception on the basis of "superior gameplay", anything can get an exception, so hopefully we can expect to see a lot more high-profile XBLA titles popping up around the 500MB-1GB mark in the months to come.

Which is a good thing! Accessibility be damned, if developers can cram better graphics and more levels into a game in 1GB than they can in 250MB then you'll please a lot more people than you upset.

Microsoft enforces Xbox Live size limit-some of the time [Ars Technica]

Tonight my wife and I are going out for a rare Tristan-free movie night. The question is, should I be taking her to see the Watchmen or is it going to leave her feeling bored and me feeling inadequate?

I've never been one of those people unable to get past the source material for a movie and enjoy the theatrical experience, but I still can't imagine Watchmen is going to live up to my expectations. Are you going to see it, or did you already?

Did it live up to yours?

If you're interested in the game make sure to hop onto the official Playstation Blog today for a chance to speak with Jerry Pritchard, the associate producer for Watchmen: The End is Nigh, during a hosted live chat from 11 a.m. to noon (Pacific).

As much as I loved the graphic novel, the movie is starting to get some negative buzz. I can't quite tell yet about the game, but I don't have high hopes for the brawler.

Watchmen Live Chat Tomorrow at 11am PST

Best Buy's promotion takes your purchase of either an Xbox 360 console or an "Xbox Live product" and tosses two tickets to the comic book movie adaptation. That's a nice bonus, considering the price of movie tickets.

Potentially even better is that an Xbox 360 Live 12-Month Messenger Gold Pack tosses in a controller chat pad, headset and Project Gotham Racing 4, all for fifty measly bucks. If you want to go cheap, grab a 3-month Gold subscription and get your free tickets. Not too shabby.

The potential catch here is the fact that this offer will only be honored at "participating U.S. theaters."

Free Watchmen Movie Pack With Xbox 360 or Xbox Live Offer [Best Buy]

Described as a "multiplayer online adventure fighting game," Watchmen: Justice Is Coming brings post-Keene Act, pre-events of Watchmen vigilante action to the iPhone and iPod Touch. The game uses Last Legion's cloudMMO tech that will allow on-the-go gamers to experience "an ever-changing gaming environment, chat with other players and participate in street battles."

That means isometric adventuring on the rain-soaked streets of an alternate universe Manhattan, plus one-on-one fighting game mechanics. Watchmen: Justice Is Coming looks to offer vigilante avatar customization and a "skills editor."

Release date is "early March" with no price point offered in the announcement.

More tiny screenshots of the iPhone game is available at the official site.

Watchmen Justice Is Coming [Official Site]

A while back, we talked with Warner Bros. about pricing for End is Nigh. At the time, they responded with "It'll be quite a bit more than" $10. So it's not really a surprise to see that Steam is charging $19.99 for the game – but it's still a bummer.

GamerBytes speculates that this may be a case of PC-taxing; but I think it has more to do with marketing and sales. End is Nigh is a short downloadable game meant to be the first in a series of "chapters." How many chapters there are will depend on how popular the first installment is. Since they're already making a second chapter, they're probably hoping to make enough money on the first one to break even. You know, just in case nobody buys the second one.

Watchmen: The End is Nigh comes out on Steam, Xbox Live and PlayStation Network on March 4. The film hits theaters March 6.

PSN, XBLA: Watchmen Twenty Bucks On Steam, XBLA And PSN To Follow? [GamerBytes]

The film adaptation of Alan Moore's classic comic book series The Watchmen is a major deal for Paramount, and no on is safe from their relentless marketing campaign; not even the residents of Sony's PlayStation Home. With exclusive clips of the film already available for viewing, the PlayStation Home Watchmen invasion escalates on February 27th, when players can purchase exclusive clothing and items for their avatar, including clothing, a doomsday clock, and a couple of fine-looking costumes of characters Nite Owl and Rorschach. >

Then on March 6th, Paramount is hosting the first-ever filmmaker Q&A session in PlayStation Home, featuring the movie's director Zack Snyder (of 300 fame) along with graphic novel artist Dave Gibbons. While the Q&A is an invitation-only event limited to 10 guests, it will be streamed majestically across the internet, eventually incorporated into a full Watchmen webcast that includes footage from the film and clips from the UK premiere .

The PlayStation Home push is being orchestrated by the fine folks at specialist film marketing agency Picture Production Company and Deluxe Corporation, who previously worked on one hell of an amazing Second Life campaign for the Transformers movie, complete with custom transforming robot avatars. You know, for the kids.

While I've not spent too much time in PlayStation Home at this point, I might have to log in long enough to pick up a sweet Nite Owl costume. Wake me up on the 27th please.

Hosted on the website for the upcoming Watchmen film, the Watchmen arcade game is - despite its "1977" production date - a decidedly 80's take on the side-scrolling beat-em-up, and features two of the original Minutemen (the team's predecessors) walking down streets and kicking trash cans.

It won't win any awards for innovation, but for something that's free, it does a great job of capturing both the feel of the comics and the shrill soundtracks to the games of the mid-80s.

[Watchmen]

Even movies that came out a while ago are getting the game treatment, like Wanted and Ghostbusters. But what about the major movies that didn't get games? Or at least didn't get very good ones (I'm looking at you, ET). GamesRadar's "Long Lost Movie Games" feature asks the same questions and comes up with some pretty good (and pretty gross) answers.

The Deliverance game on the last page goes a bit far. But do check out the plan for a Breakfast Club game — I'd SO play that.

Long Lost Movie Games

Then again, that's probably our inner (well...outer) comic book nerds over-thinking the whole thing! The world needs more cheap, simple beat-em-ups, and if developers Deadline Games can provide us with one, we'll overlook the strip-mining of the canon and characters and happily mash our buttons to within an inch of their miserable lives.

Or at least try to.

The beat-'em-up-meets-puzzle-game will be released in an episodic format to coincide with the upcoming film. While Watchman writer Alan Moore is off being bonkers and not involved with the game, Watchmen artist Dave Gibbons is acting as advisor. That's a good sign!

Another good sign? The game is being written by the book's editor Len Wein, and what's more, it's completely in the Watchmen cannon. Gibbons explains:

Alan and I have always resisted doing any sort of back-story to the Watchmen graphic novel — at various times it's been suggested that we could do the Comedian's Vietnam War Diaries or Rorshach's journal, which we thought would be a bit dopey. But the precedent is, at the time the original comics came out, Mayfair games did a role-playing game that Alan helped write bits of, and it's completely canon, so this game uses a lot of that less-well known material.

Gibbons does admit that he doesn't know much about the game as he focused more on the artwork and the cutscenes, trying to retain the look and the feel of Watchmen.

Watchmen: The End is Nigh [Eurogamer]

If so, you'd do well to check out the newest issue of EGM, which features a cover story on Watchmen: The End Is Nigh including first screens, interviews with all involved and probably a heavy dose of disappointment for some of you.

EGM Watches the Watchmen in Our December Issue [1UP]

"We know it’s risky for us, and the safe move would have been to cram out a retail game alongside the film release," Senior VP Samantha Ryan told MCV, "but we didn’t feel that was the right decision.”

Surely the risk with Watchmen isn't the length of the game, the media it arrives in or how closely it aligns with the film's release.. it is the fact that Watchmen is such a beloved comic that fans are convinced it is going to stink up the place before seeing even a few pixels and will hunt you down, vigilante style if it is worse than they fear?

Warner: 'Watchmen release is industry first' [MCV]

Reading the start of the press release for the Xbox LIVE Film Club ("Love your movies? Want to see exclusive screenings of the hottest new releases before anyone else? Xbox LIVE Film Club has just the ticket.") I thought Microsoft had gone and rolled out some kind of movie premiere service that would let you watch new releases over LIVE rather than putting up with popcorn-hurling kids at the local multiplex.

But no - it's just a competition that will let a selection of LIVE users attend some swish movie premieres. This is all in aid of promoting some new releases via the LIVE Video Store (Forrest Gump, Pretty in Pink, Planes Trains and Automobiles and Ghost, among others). In the 'coming soon' dispatches, we have Iron Man, The Love Guru (oh dear) and — assuming it isn't sued into the ground and gets a release at all — Watchmen.

If you fancy a shot at watching Iron Man don some blackface in Tropic Thunder, just email Microsoft with a short review of your favourite film and cross your fingers.

Xbox LIVE Film Club premiers [Xbox.com]