This trailer for the upcoming film tie-in X-men Origins: Wolverine shows a taster of the gamplay you can expect from the game. The result is pretty flashly, complete with Wolverine leaping at a helicopter in that badass kind of way that only Wolverine could pull off. It’s hinted in the trailer, but the game will also include a large amount of blood and gore so don’t expect your usual X-Men game.

It’s a game based off a film, so you wouldn’t be wrong to automatically be suspicious of how good the game will actually turn out. I say we give this one a chance though, as they can’t all turn out to be awful can they (the upcoming Ghostbusters game looks pretty great too).

Of course, this isn’t the first X-Men game to appear on consoles, but it may turn out to be the most decent one. Let’s hope that also extends to the film that it’s based on.

The game will be out for the PS2, PS3, PSP, Nintendo DS, Xbox 360, PC and Wii on 1 May.

The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena, a ’sequel’ to 2004’s The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, has been given a release date. The game will ship to European retailers on 24 April.

The game itself is not a direct sequel to the original game, but more of a remake with new content on top of it. An improved version of Butcher Bay with redone graphics will be part of the package, along with an entirely new single-player campaign and several multiplayer modes. So, in essence, the game is more or less an episodic update to the original, although a direct sequel is reportedly in the works.

Atari also revealed that playable demos of the game will be coming to Xbox Live and PSN sometime next month. An official website for the game is also now online.

The original game was one of the most well received movie games of all time, with many players actually saying that it was far better than the movie it portrayed. You can make the decision yourself by picking the game up in the Xbox Classics range, but be warned that it’s not backwards compatible with the Xbox 360 (Apparently one of the reasons Microsoft wanted to do a remake of the original for the 360 is because they couldn’t make the Xbox version backwards compatible with the 360).

If there’s one big pointer that a film may turn out to be utter trash it’s when the studio releasing it decides not to hold early screenings for film critics. This is what has happened with Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, which means that critics will have to go to the cinema with the rest of us Average Joes on its 27th February release date.

It also means that those of us sceptical about the films quality (which is probably most of us) will have to go to the cinema blind as there will be no reviews available for us to read beforehand. Of course, most of us probably don’t read reviews either but Fox can rake in a bit more cash from those who would usually read the review first, but seeing there are none would buy a ticket to see it anyway.

What would I do? Well, if Fox doesn’t have enough faith in the film to screen it to critics beforehand then why should we have any faith to put down our hard earned cash when we might be going to see an incredibly bad film?

Whatever the case let’s just hope that it turns out to be a better film than the incredibly awful first Street Fighter film. I have to link that to show you how cheap you can buy it for, but trust me on this - even if it was free it’s totally not worth wasting your time watching it. Even the presence of a young Kylie Minogue can save that film, and the Devil himself counts it as one of the worst tortures he can give. It’s THAT bad!

Oh well, at least we have Street Fighter IV which, coincidently, was released today.

Street Fighter movie not being screened for critics - The Cut Scene (Variety)

Bioware - a company well known to Star Wars fans due to the excellent Knights of the Old Republic series - has announced that the new Star Wars MMO rumored a few months back will be called Star Wars: The Old Republic. The game will be set three centuries after the events of KOTOR II and will feature two opposing factions - the Galactic Republic and the Sith Empire. You won’t be forced to pick good or evil right from the start though as, like KOTR and Mass Effect, your good or evil status will evolve through the choices you make.

“Players get to come in and take the roles of heroes–or villains–at this pivotal moment where we’re starting to go back into a big galactic war,” promised Erickson. - Gamespot

There’s not much more we know yet, aside from the basic information about the story (which is apparently going to be pretty important to the game, and each class will have its own unique story). The game’s art direction will not be realistic (as you can obviously see from the screenshot above) but it will not be overly cartoon-y either. The big reason for not having spectacular realistic graphics is similar to the approach that Blizzard took with World of Warcraft. Having more simple colourful graphics means that the game will be able to work on a wide range of systems, which is part of why WoW is so popular.

Star Wars: The Old Republic will be the second attempt at creating a Star Wars MMO. Star Wars Galaxies was certainly ambitious but never quite managed to fully grasp the attention of the extensive Star Wars fanbase. Then there was the complete change to the way the game played that angered most of those still playing the game, and while the game still exists today its playerbase is tiny compared to what it could have been.

Hopefully it will be a better game than its former attempt, especially as it’s being made by the rather excellent Bioware. The game is only in development for the PC at the moment but Bioware aren’t ruling out a console release just yet.

More information:

Star Wars: The Old Republic Revealed - Gamespot.
Star Wars: The Old Republic - What we Know so Far - Kotaku.
BioWare Compares ‘Star Wars’ MMO Combat To ‘WoW,’ ‘Age of Conan’ And ‘The Force Unleashed’ - MTV Multiplayer.

No, you haven’t stumbled into the past and discovered that movie blogs were around in 1974. This is because it isn’t 1974 and you aren’t reading a movie blog (unless you live in some strange parallel universe); you’re reading a gaming blog and this, wouldn’t you believe it, is a game!

Right, that’s the confusing stuff out of the way.

Godfather II is the sequel to EA’s Godfather: The Game – a pretty average but still enjoyable fair. While it’s loosely based on the plot of the second film it takes some liberties by Michael Corleone appointing you as the stand-in Don over Brando’s character, Vito Corleone. The unique aspect of the game is the combination of GTA inspired action with strategy-orientated play. While you’ll be doing the usual missions and partaking in all the glorious violence that mob life brings you can also pull back to the ‘Don View’. This gives you a citywide bird’s eye view where you can direct the actions of your men, who they’ll hit and what businesses you’d like to offer ‘protection’ to. Your men will each have their own specialties, such as a demolitions guy that can be used to…well…you know the rest.

Godfather II will feature three locations; Miami, New York and Havana. However, if you’ve read the book/watched the film then you may be slightly miffed that the game won’t feature Vito’s childhood or see much of what Michael is getting up to. At least the locations fit with the story, but it remains to be seen how much of the original plot will actually remain.

The game is in pre-alpha sage at the moment, but it’s slated for release in February next year for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and the PC. Hopefully it will bring a different twist to the usual GTA style formula.

Update: Gametrailers has just got the world exclusive debut trailer. The trailer shows a hefty amount of action and also a gives you a little look at the ‘Don View’. Check it out below.