Electronic Arts hasn't always been viewed as a publisher that puts out the greatest licensed games. Its CEO, however, took exception to that. John Riccitiello says their titles are innovative and Metacritic may just be inaccurate in some instances. More after the jump.

It should be remembered that Hasbro and EA have entered into a deal last year that will allow the two to share IPs and transform them into toys and video game titles.

After months of guessing, the two companies have finally announced their first few projects. To know the complete details, click the "read more" link below to proceed to the full article.

Back in August 2007, Electronic Arts and Hasbro signed a deal that  would allow them to share intellectual properties. Because of the deal, IPs from either group could potentially be turned into video game titles or toys, respectively.

After the agreement, we've just learned that Hasbro has acquired board maker Cranium. Given this development, it may not be long before we see Hullabaloo and Zooreka in video game form. More details after the jump!

More details have been unleashed for LucasArts' newest installment on the Star Wars franchise: Force Unleashed. The period where Vader's secret apprentice will make his debut is set between Episodes III and IV, and will feature multiple endings that promises to "rock Star Wars continuity as [we] know it."

 

As promised the Force in the game will be over the top goodness. The developers were very enthusiastic in describing it. As Vader's apprentice you won't merely be pushing enemies into walls but you'll be sending them through it. You won't just be choking your enemies with the force, you'll fry them with lightning and make them go kaboom!

Although we're likely to see a lot of familiar faces, the only one that's confirmed (as per the story's premise) is Vader himself. The story will also take you to the Wookiee homeworld Kashyyyk though, so we're likely to see Chewbacca as well. In line with this, Hasbro will also be releasing a line of action figures featuring the characters from the game.

Star Wars: Force Unleashed will be released for the PS3, Xbox 360, PS2, PSP and Nintendo DS by spring next year. And now for another fun edition of cool Unleashed concept art spammage:

  

Check out more art in the full article after the Jump!

As if the presence of a lot of game companies like Capcom, THQ, Foundation 9, and Codemasters isn't enough, we've received news that Sony will also be attending the Comic-Con International 2007 with a stellar line-up of games and activities. The Comic-Con 2007 will be held at the San Diego Convention Center from July 26 to 29.

Occupying Booth # 4401, Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) will get to brandish a couple of games like SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Tactical Strike, the trading card game The Eye of Judgement, Syphon Filter: Logan’s Shadow, God Of War: Chains of Olympus, and Parappa the Rapper, to name a few. These games will be showing off the prowess of the Sony PlayStation 3, the PlayStation Portable, and the PlayStation Eye.

To have an idea of what Sony has up its sleeve, take a look at the company's itinerary for the Comic-Con in San Diego:

July 26, Thursday

• Booth, all day - Jeanne d'Arc voice actress Kari Wahlgren will be at the booth to sign autographs, while Parappa the Rapper will also be hanging out all day for photo ops.
• Location upon request, 2 PM to 3 PM - Hands-on tutorial of the PS3 game The Eye of Judgement. (Media-only event)

July 27, Friday

• Booth, 12 PM to 6 PM - Photo op with real weapons and pose suggestion from real-life U.S. Navy SEALs for the game SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Tactical Strike. Parappa the Rapper still hanging out for more photo ops.
• Location upon request, 4 PM to 6 PM - Sony PlayStation cocktail reception outside of the San Diego Convention Center. Sony will be showing off new video games for the PSP such as Syphon Filter: Logan’s Shadow, SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Tactical Strike, God Of War: Chains of Olympus, Jeanne d’Arc, and Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice. (Media-only event)

July 28, Saturday

• Booth, 12 PM to 6 PM - Photo op with real weapons and pose suggestion from real-life U.S. Navy SEALs for the game SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Tactical Strike. Parappa the Rapper will still be at the booth.
• Booth, 3 PM to 5 PM - Meet and greet and autograph signing of Limited Edition Comic Book Covers with Greg Rucka Syphon, graphic novelist and co-writer for Syphon Filter: Logan’s Shadow, and John Garvin, Creative Director of SCE's Bend Studio.

July 29, Sunday

• Booth, all day – PaRappa the Rapper will still be there for more photo op.
• Panel Room #3, 10:30 AM to 11:30 PM - Tech and Trading Cards: THE EYE OF JUDGEMENT for PlayStation 3 Panel, attended by the creators and advisers from Hasbro, Wizards of the Coast, and SCEA.

  

Dreamworks and Hasbro are rushing full throttle towards the completion of the anticipated game tie-in of the Transformers movie for the PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360, DS and PlayStation Portable. Aptly titled Transformers: The Game, the developers are bannering gameplay mechanics that will re-live the glory days of the immortal cartoon series all the while introducing it to the younger generation using a next-gen mantle.

For starters, players will get to choose whether they want to play as the heroic Autobots or the nefarious Decepticons. Both sides have a wide array of Transformers icons such as Optimus Prime, Megatron, Bumblebee, Starscream and many more. Switching from vehicle to robot form will be almost seamless in order to adapt to whatever the situation calls for.

Environments, as expected, will be fully destructible to up the sense of sheer, mindless mayhem. For those who would like to play with more of a thinking style, they can pretend to use on-screen objects to their advantage and be very proud.
 

   

Hasbro and Dreamworks also revealed that the PSP version will have 20 playable characters with unique stats, abilities, personalities and more.

Are you folks familiar with Gary Friedrich? If you are, then that's good. If you are not, you better read up on him now because he is in a foul mood. Friedrich is the creator of character "Johnny Blaze" and alter-ego Ghost Rider back in 1968. Quite recently, he filed a lawsuit against those responsible for the movie and the video game for copyright infringement.

The said complaint was filed last April 4 in the federal court of Illinois claiming 21 violations. The defendants include Sony's Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, producers Relativity Media, Crystal Sky Pictures, and Michael De Luca Prods, as well as Hasbro Inc. and Take-Two Interactive.

According to Friedrich, Marvel wasn't able to properly utilize and capitalize on the Ghost Rider character, not to mention the fact that the copyrights used in the film and in related products were reverted to him from Marvel in 2001. He added that Marvel failed to secure enough royalties, and companies Take-Two Interactive and Hasbro Inc. improperly created merchandise based on his creation.

A part of the lawsuit states,

In late 2006 or early 2007, the defendants herein wrongfully embarked upon a high-profile campaign, arrangement, joint venture and conspiracy to exploit, profit from and utilize plaintiff's copyrights, the Johnny Blaze character and persona, the origin story and the related characters and personas created by plaintiff, in various endeavors, including, but not limited to, the use of the same in movie theater presentations and promotions, commercials, action-figure toys, video games, clothing and novels.

It wasn't specified how much Friedrich is seeking for damages. Aside from copyright infringement, the mentioned companies are also accused of the following: violations of federal and Illinois state unfair competition laws, negligence, waste, tortuous interference with prospective business expectancy, misappropriation of characters, unauthorized use of the characters, and false advertising and endorsement.

 

There's a new interview about the Transformers game, courtesy of Superhero Hype, and they've got the goods on the games' features, confirming some of the earlier information we had regarding the game and adding some new info on top as well.

For the most part, one of the new bits of information we've heard is that this game will start off with nine playable Transformers, which are probably the staples from the movie. You can unlock a host of other characters through play, and though we've mentioned a maximum of 20 characters previously, there may be more or less depending on what their production team manages to cook up. These characters are all supposed to have their own individual movesets, so don't expect Bumblebee to play like Megatron, because Bumblebee certainly doesn't have the same brawling capabilities of the leader-type bots.

More importantly, they also note additional details  on the questing system set up for Activision and Hasbro's new baby. Daniel Suarez, Activision's executive producer, notes that there'll be two different storylines depending on the type of bot you bring to battle:

If the player decides to be the good guy, then their adventure will focus on the key plot points of the film where they come to Earth and are pitted against the Decepticons.

On the flipside, if the player decides to be evil and picks the Decepticons, the game story is uniquely different and answers the question, "What if the Decepticons win?" All the events in the Decepticons campaign never occur in the film and were created specifically for the game.

All in all, there's no reason to complain. Any game that lets you play a maniacal Decepticon hell-bent on blowing things up and ruling mankind deserves a healthy vote of confidence from gamers. Oh, and there's Megatron too.

 

If you were a kid during the 80s, chances are you've tried yelling ala Optimus Prime "Autobots, transform and roll out!" [insert morphing sound here]. The original cartoon series has such a huge following that modern-day producers have now ventured into making a movie and a game based from the series' mecha lore.

Straight from Seibertron, we now have news of more game details for Transformers: The Game. Them lucky folks from the said site managed to catch a glimpse of the game via Hasbro preview at ToyFair and they've noted some very interesting details. Please do remember that this list was made by Seibertron (told you we got it straight from them) and thus should not be taken as official.

• There will be an Autobot Game and a Decepticon Game for Nintendo DS, supporting 4 way multi-play.
• The PSP will a version of the game (maybe different from all), but with 4 way Multi-Play.
• Wii will get special Wiimote functions, such as throwing things, steering, etc.
• You can play as 9 Autobots and Decepticons. Unplayable characters are going to be boss characters or other important characters.
• There will be unlockable characters and possibly movie characters that don't appear in the movie (like Wreckage).
• There will be G1 references in the game.
• It has a full interactive environment where you can pick things up and throw it at the enemy...including a Burger King sign.
• Burger King and Pepsi references were in the game, so we know they are sponsors.
• As the robot you can punch, shoot, jump, transform at will and drive/fly around when you are in vehicle mode.
• Autotargeting will be available.
• For game play, it reminded me of Grand Theft Auto, where you can run around the city (perspective was similar to GTA). The steering of the vehicle looked well done, where you could oversteer around turns, etc. If you caused too much ruckus the police would come and the pedestrians would go around screaming, especially if you were in Robot Mode (so being in disguise is important). Pedestrian interaction was not completed yet, but we were hoping you could pick up people and thrown them.
  
• Storyline is different based upon if you are an Autobot or a Decepticon, humans are part of the story, but not part of the gameplay. Because of the dual roles the Decepticons can win in this one.

This Activision-published title for the PS3, 360, Wii, PS2, PSP, and NDS is set to land/dock/park on retail stores sometime during the third quarter of this year. We just can't wait to see Optimus, Bumblebee, Wheeljack, Starscream, Megatron, the Insecticons, the Dinobots...ok, geek mode off.

  

Homebrew developer IamJeff seems to have a habit of bringing us back to our innocent childhood days by porting games that we have grown up with and loved. But the games he produces are graphically good-looking and I personally felt somewhat nostalgic not because of his creation's graphics but because of the experience of just playing it which flash backed a lot of memories (such as punching my playmate ha,ha)!

So just what in the world am I babbling about here? Well, after bringing us Lights Out, homebrew developer IamJeff is at it again! This time he concocted a game which is the PSP version of the Hasbro memory game called Simon. The name of IamJeff's creation is - well, you guessed it - Simon 1.0 for the PSP.

The game is very simple and maybe I don't even have to say how it works, but for the sake of those who do not know (if there are any), the objective of the game is for you to memorize the random sequence of colors and tones produced by the computer, and see if you can repeat it. Each completed sequence gives you a score that is displayed in the middle of the buttons. Simple right?

That's what I thought, until I reached the eight sequence and my brain got drained for some reason...I lost because I mixed up the sequences! I even forgot that I could just press the RTrigger and I could replay the pattern if I got it wrong the first time - I actually tried pressing it at the middle of the game but unfortunately it doesn't work that way. You can only use the RTrigger once you get the sequence wrong and you still want to continue playing, you can't use it in the middle of the game when you're trying to figure out the sequence of colors. Sigh...

For a first release, this is a good game. Although it doesn't have a main menu, but then again who needs it? The game looks good, the graphics aren't bad, and it amused me the whole time I was playing it. But hopefully when the good developer comes up with another version, he could add competitive gameplay so that the patterns would be more challenging and confusing. I think he is planning something like that, according to him "I (he) might consider adding a cooperative 2 player version, so that there are 8 lights, 4 on each side. or, you could just play it as one person if you're really good."

And as always, your constructive criticisms, opinions, suggestions, and what-nots will be greatly appreciated by the developer, and would ensure that this promising and amusing app would reach its potentials. So with that, don't hesitate to tell them to us through your comments.

   

Download: [Simon 1.0 for PSP]
Discuss: [Forum Release Thread]