san-diego-comic-con posts

Earlier this year developer Petroglyph Games finally revealed End of Nations, its near-future themed RTS MMO game for pubisher Trion Worlds. Now comes word that the next Video Games Live music concert will feature the world premiere of the music for the game.

The concert will be held on Saturday July 24 at the San Diego Civic Theater (hey, that's the city where Comic-Con is right now!) with the game's music composer Frank Klepacki taking the stage for the premiere of his music themes. Also the End of Nations "0" issue comic book that was revealed last week will be given out to all attendees of the concert.

You may remember that one of the things included in the upcoming Fallout New Vegas Collector's Edition is a hardcover graphic novel called All Roads that serves as a prequel to the upcoming RPG. Today publisher Bethesda Softworks announced that the cover for the graphic novel will be drawn by Geoff Darrow. Darrow is known for his highly detailed artwork on comics like Hard Boiled and Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot (both written by Frank Miller). He also was a main concept artist for The Matrix movies.

You can see a slice of the complete cover artwork from Darrow above (the full reveal will be made next week). Darrow and Obsidian Entertainment's Chris Avellone (who wrote the graphic novel) will be signing lithographs of the cover at the Dark Horse Comics booth at the San Diego Comic-Con on Saturday, July 24 at 5 pm.

The 2010 edition of the San Diego Comic-Con is now just 10 days away and today the massive pop culture event has revealed the panel schedule for the final day of the show on Sunday, July 25. Sunday is usually the slowest day of the event and panel event programming is usually themed for the kids and that's certainly true for the game-related panels on that date.

One of them will feature members of Gazillion as they take about their upcoming kids themed Marvel Universe MMO Super Hero Square Online. Another panel takes a look at the entire Halo franchise; not just the games but all of the other aspects of Microsoft's game series (novels, comics, action figures, etc). Finally Netdevil team members host a discussion of the upcoming Lego Universe MMO title. You can check out all of Comic-Con 2010's games-related programing by using the Games tag on the web site's schedule page.

One interesting panel that's happening at the San Diego Comic-Con on July 24 that we missed mentioning on Saturday was one that involves Ubisoft's Ghost Recon franchise. You may remember a few months ago that Ubisoft plans to release a live action short movie based on the military shooter franchise. It's being designed in part to promote the upcoming release of Ghost Recon Future Soldier.

On July 24 at Comic-Con Ubisoft will hold a panel where the first trailer for the live action short film will be shown for the first time. The panel will also have a live demo of Ghost Recon Future Soldier which is due for release in the first quarter of 2011.

So we know that DC Universe Online is this long-in-development MMO from developer Sony Online based on the DC Comics super heros and its vast fictional universe. Sounds straightforward, right? So what does Mark Hamill have to do with the game?

That's the question after today's reveal of the July 24 panel schedule for the San Diego Comic-Con. It states that a panel devoted to DC Universe Online will have Luke Skywalker himself present, along with DC Comics' co-publisher Jim Lee Will the actor be voicing the Joker, his long time animated role, in the game or is there something else going on? All we know is that the panel listing says, "Jim, Mark, and key members of the development team from Sony Online Entertainment discuss how an earth-shattering chain of events will make you the key to the salvation or ruin of the DC Universe when the game launches this November." Oh, and if you attend the panel you will be getting a VIP beta key for the game. Nice.

The official San Diego Comic-Con web site has been updated once again, this time with the schedule of panels for Saturday, July 24. Saturday is usually the busiest day in terms of attendance for the sold out pop-culture event and there's lots of game-related programing slated for that day.

One very interesting panel for that Saturday will apparently reveal for the first time a new game in the Spore franchise. According to the schedule the panel will feature members of Eleclronic Arts' Maxis development studio. They will reveal "a brand new, Sci-Fi Action-RPG based on the DNA of Spore."

Other game-based panels scheduled for that day include Guild Wars 2, Red Faction Armageddon, and non-PC games like God of War, Epic Mickey and more.

The 2010 edition of the San Diego Comic-Con continues to reveal its massive panel programming schedule. Today the sold out show's official web site posted up the schedule for Friday, July 23 and as expected there's a bunch of game-related programming mixed in with the movie, TV and comics panels.

July 23 will see panels devoted to, among other games, Lionhead's upcoming RPG Fable III along with a Star Wars: The Old Republic presentation devoted to crafting the storyline behind the upcoming MMO title. There will also be a panel devoted to upcoming titles based on Marvel Comics properties with "surprise reveals" as well as a Dead Space 2 presentation. Also members of Obsidian Entertainment will host a panel on game writing in their past and future games including Fallout New Vegas and Dungeon Siege III. Non-PC related game panels on July 23 will be devoted to Marvel Vs Capcom 3, Gears of War 3 and more.

Later this month the sold out San Diego Comic-Con begins and it's becoming more and more of a place for game developers and publishers to show off upcoming titles and even make a few game announcements. The official Comic-Con web site has just posted up their panel schedule for the first day of the convention, Thursday, July 22, and it reveals that one game will be getting its world premiere during the show.

That game will be "Project Mercury" the code name for the upcoming RPG title from 38 Studios, the game developer formed by former Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, and its subsidiary Big Huge Games. Big Download confirmed that the panel will indeed be about "Project Mercury" via a 38 Studios rep. The panel discussion, which will feature Schilling, art director Todd McFarlane, author R. A. Salvatore and designer Ken Rolston, will reveal the actual game title and will also have the premiere of the first trailer for the game.

July 22's panel schedule for Comic-Con is going to have lots of other game-themed programming including panels on City of Heroes: Going Rogue, Dead Rising 2, World of Warcraft, Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, Star Wars The Force Unleashed 2 and more.

While PC gamers wait patiently for the release of the PC port of Darksiders sometime in September publisher THQ has announced plan to release merchandise related to the action game from developer Vigil Games. Two of these items will debut during this July's San Diego Comic-Con.

One of them is The Art of Darksiders,a book containing tons of concept artwork from the game. It will be released in a limited print run at Comic-Con by Udon Entertainment and will be generally be released in October. Also SOTA Toys will show off a 14 inch statue of the lead character in the game WAR during Comic-Con. The statue will be the first of a series based on Darksiders and will be sold sometime later this year.

Publisher NCsoft has set over word that their commercial expansion pack to its super hero MMO City of Heroes has had its release date pushed back a few weeks. Originally set for release sometime in July, the expansion, Going Rogue, will now be coming out on August 17. The expansion will also be included in the new retail box release City of Heroes Going Rogue Complete Collection. The new box set will contain the original game, City of Villains, and Going Rogue along with all of the previously released free expansions for $39.99.

People who pre-order the collection at GameStop will get access to five new in-game character enhancements along with an exclusive skin that can be applied to the Razer Sphex mousing surface (which you can see above this post). The collection also comes with a $5 coupon for any Razer product.

NCsoft also has plans to promote Going Rogue at the San Diego Comic-Con in July. If you are attending the sold out event you can check out a panel with the Paragon Studios team, get special giveaways at the NCsoft booth and attend the Going Rogue Preview Event at the Hard Rock Hotel in San Diego on July 23,