Andy Wood

The service is limited to non-perishable goods such as cereal, pasta and canned soup, but Amazon can ship those items to any customer, unlike online grocers that only deliver to limited areas.

“Because we only carry products when we can offer great prices and free shipping, we don’t carry everything (yet!),” the company said in a notice on its Web site.

I never thought it would happen in my time, I would just assume that we all would go on through comic book history knowing that the Peter Parker / Spider-Man thing would go on and on.
The latest edition of the Marvel comic Civil War on sale this week, Spider-Man does the unthinkable and removes his Spidey mask to publicly reveal his hidden identity.

“I’m proud of who I am, and I’m here right now to prove it,” the legendary webslinger tells a press conference called in New York’s Times Square, before pulling off his mask and standing before the massed ranks of reporters as newspaper photographer Peter Parker.

“Any questions?” Parker asks in the final panel of the issue, amid a barrage of camera flashes.

In a statement, Marvel trumpeted the revelation as “arguably the most shocking event in comic book history.”

The seven-issue Civil War series, launched in May, sees Marvel’s writers taking on the topical issue of civil liberties.

Following a showdown between a group of superheroes and supervillains in which hundreds of innocent civilians are killed, the government passes the Super-Hero Registration Act, requiring all superheroes to reveal their identities and register as “living weapons of mass destruction.”

Marvel’s roster of invincible crime fighters is split into two bitterly opposed factions, with one camp - championed by the likes of Spider-Man - in favour of the new law and the other, including Captain America and his ilk, refusing to relinquish anonymity.

“It’s about which side you are on and why you think you are right,” said Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Joe Quesada.

Unlike the last generation, where Sony clearly held a commanding lead, the next generation of gaming is going to be a much closer race between the behemoths of Microsoft and Sony. Though there were many skeptics last fall, the past eight months have shown the Xbox 360 to be a very capable system and more than powerful enough to challenge the PlayStation 3. Microsoft also believes it will have 10 million units in the global marketplace before Sony even leaves the gate. So the question becomes: Which system do you buy?

If you want a great platform to play the highest end games right now, then the Xbox 360 is the only choice to go with. Xbox Live is an extremely impressive online service, while the software catalog already contains some must-buys and is rapidly expanding.

If you want a system that doubles as a next-gen movie player, then you need to wait. The PlayStation 3 60GB is the only game system with a confirmed HDMI output and the only one guaranteed to playback all Blu-ray movies in full resolution. Until we hear more from Microsoft, the Xbox 360 can’t promise to run HD-DVD content at its intended resolution.

Playstation 3	Xbox 360

Bear in mind that even with a steep $599 price tag, early adopters will often snatch up all initial shipments. This means that unless you pre-order, chances are good the only place you’ll be able to find the PlayStation 3 in November is on eBay (at an insanely high cost).

Finally, there’s the cost-conscious consumer that simply wants to play games and doesn’t really care about media center features or hi-def movies. If you fall into this category, there’s always the Wii! Nintendo’s unique platform is the only one coming in at a confirmed sub-$250 point, with a sophisticated motion-sensing controller, and a proven track record of being inventive with new technology. Get the Hold Comparison here

Some say that it is always darkest just before the dawn. Whenever darkness falls, the light of hope will drive away the shadows; wherever the forces of evil work in secret, the brave men and women of the Argent Dawn will be there to thwart their dark designs.

The Argent Dawn is an organization that makes no distinction between Alliance or Horde, but instead tries to unite the people of Azeroth in the fight against evil. Though the agents of the Argent Dawn are always wary of the sinister and the wicked in all their various disguises, they have recently focused their efforts on a region of Azeroth where evil has run unchecked for a long time: the Plaguelands of Lordaeron. Detachments of the Argent Dawn are guarding the entrances to the Plaguelands at the Bulwark between the Tirisfal Glades and the Western Plaguelands, and at Chillwind Point, a narrow pass leading south from the Western Plaguelands to the Alterac Mountains.

They have also gained a foothold deep in the Eastern Plaguelands at the Light’s Hope Chapel, east of Corin’s Crossing.  The Argent Dawn is always looking for more fighters to join their cause, and the numbers of those wearing the Argent Dawn Commission, the organization’s insignia, are growing each day. Adventurers seeking to aid the Argent Dawn by rooting out the Scourge’s corruption in the Plaguelands and taking on the Lich King’s powerful servants in the Scholomance and Stratholme will be well rewarded; the organization has many powerful enchanters among their ranks who craft special enhancements that provide the wearer with added protection against all forms of magic attacks.

The Argent Dawn also offers those who have proven their dedication to their cause insight into their craftsmen’s designs, enabling these adventurers to craft the armors the Argent Dawn created in their ongoing campaign against evil.

A very honest person (yes, there are still a few of us) was attempting to get a good deal on the what I think is the best console machine out there, but ran into a little bit of trouble.

He pays promptly and ripped off, no emails, no 360, nothing.

He then started down his path of using the internet and became a Detective and got satisfaction. Click here for his story.

On a side note, I would have to say that 99.99% of my eBay transactions have been without any issues, but yes. I have been ripped off once or twice. The one that comes to mind is when I bought some Ultraman DVD’s from this gent from Florida. I made sure that they were real DVD’s and I didn’t care if they were from another region, I just wanted to watch some quality retro Ultraman.

Needless to say, when the package arrived they were not DVD’s , but DVD-R so this a-hole lied and I asked for my money back which he agreed, but he would not refund my paypal and would send a check after he got the discs back. (sigh) I did as he asked, I was shocked as I got a check back , but you guessed it , this butt lick put a stop payment on it.

Speaking of Robert Kirkman:

ROBERT KIRKMAN’S THE WALKING DEAD -

The Walking Dead creator and writer Robert Kirkman has granted The CS Moore Studio the license to create statues and other items based on the highly popular and critically-acclaimed Image Comics series.

The Studio’s first piece will be a dramatic statue of the series hero Rick Grimes fighting off zombies from the hood of a crashed muscle car. This limited-edition statue will have the detail and quality that collectors have come to expect from Clayburn Moore and The CS Moore Studio, and will bring Kirkman’s story to life (so to speak) for the horror series’ legions of fans.

“Working with Robert Kirkman is just terrific,” said CS Moore Studio President Clayburn Moore. “He’s had some great ideas for this first piece, and Charlie Adlard has drawn up a fantastic sketch based on our design. We think Walking Dead fans will love it.”

“Clayburn Moore is at the top of his game,” said Kirkman. “I couldn’t be more thrilled to have him lending his enormous talents to The Walking Dead property. From what I’ve seen on Charlie’s design and Clay’s previous work, I can tell this statue is going to be AMAZING.”

Release date and edition size to be announced soon

CVG had a little sit down with senior producer Marcus Nilsson for an insight into the future of Battlefield warfare!

Traditionally, the Battlefield series has used historical or near-future settings. What prompted the decision to go so far ahead in the future?

Marcus Nilsson: We’ve been thinking about this for years. For something like Battlefield, it’s easy for us to go into the future because for the first time ever, we make things up and we can make things that fit perfectly into the world of Battlefield. It’s all about the toys and the equipment, the vehicles and how you use them. And if you can start designing how they work, then you can build upon them. We’re now reaching a level where we make it more interesting to play the game.

So rather than building it around a pre-set scenario, the gameplay comes first? You’re not restricted, like in Vietnam, to crawling through jungles?

Marcus Nilsson: Exactly. The way you start out when you make a game like Vietnam is you go reference hunting; you Google up ‘Tiger Tank’ or whatever. This time, you need to have a very clear vision of where you want to go.

Is it harder to invent stuff from scratch?

Marcus Nilsson: It’s far more creative, far more inspiring to do it. At the same time it’s more pressure, because you need to make things look good and interesting, because you don’t have a template to follow. It’s important to have a strong vision from an art standpoint and from a game design standpoint to be able to do a game like this.

Is the Ice Age scenario a reference to global warming or just something that fitted in with the game’s style?

Marcus Nilsson: We wanted to find an interesting scenario where we knew people would be pushed together towards the area we wanted. It’s quite a convenient thing happening to the world. At the same time, it raises the point of global warming. More

First off, let me apologize for the looong delay in columns here. I know you’ve all missed me a great deal and I apologize for the delay. I figured I’d pop in here real quick and try to explain the delay. I kinda kept this close to the vest because I didn’t want to use it as an excuse for late books — but for late columns, I figure that’s cool.

On, April 25th, 2006 at 12:47 am my lovely wife gave birth to Peter Parker Kirkman.

That’s right, folks — I’ve got a son.

I’ve been able to get a little work done, seen below, but for the most part this little guy has been the scheduling czar for my wife and I.

I’m digging myself out of a hole and should be able to resume regular column writing next week, but I wanted to pop in today, let you all know what’s going on and share a couple photos of the little guy.

Here he is trying to use his new organic webshooters.

Robert will be returning next week with more jpeg previews and occasional rambling on inane, unimportant topics. Until then– Robert has learned that diapers are expensive, so now, more than ever… BUY HIS BOOKS.

Robert over at Voodoo Extreme posted this today:

F-13.net is carrying a story that reports — according to a presentation from Vivendi Universal Games — that Blizzard will be making a massively multiplayer game for each of its major franchises:

“All Blizzard franchises will become MMOGs.”

All. They claim they have a model now to develop an MMOG in 3 years for $50 million. WoW cost 50 million euros and took 4 1/2 years.

They have bifurcated the MMOG market into two parts: long session games (more than two hours per session) and short session games (less than two hour sessions.) They will also be rolling out a bunch of short session games under the Sierra Online brand. An example is FreeStyle, a pick-up basketball online game scheduled for 2007 release. No details on pricing model for the short session games.

Editors Note It is about flipping time, I sure hope this is true. I would love to see a World of Starcraft, Starcraft 2. I mean I still play Broodwar for crying out loud!

UPDATE: This morning, Blizzard officially responded to last night’s reports: “No, that rumor is not true in regard to Blizzard. We believe that the rumor circulating about this subject is based on a misinterpretation of information provided to industry analysts. We do not currently have any MMO development plans beyond the upcoming expansion for World of Warcraft, and furthermore, we don’t have any intentions to focus on only one genre or platform with our future games.”

It’s better than a “we don’t comment on rumors and speculation,” denial, that’s for sure. Their comments put us firmly back in a “what’s next for Blizzard?” state of mind, which in the game industry is right where publishers and developers want gamers to be.

Editors Note again: I knew it, generally I don’t publish material like that unless it comes from the horses mouth, just shows you what I get excited about now.

Check out this ‘in-game’ footage of the soon to released Xbox 360 CHROME HOUNDS which you can pre-order from the GamersCircle store