After a busy weekend of rocking out, followed by some hardcore napping, we finally got together to record this week’s podcast episode. Episode 034 of Marooners’ Talk, “Do A Barrel Roll!”, covers various topics. We get off to a slow start, but to be fair it was Monday evening, and not every opening can be fireworks and pinatas, so LAY OFF. There are a few moments of positive discussion this week; specifically, our conversations about limited editions being released this year and our shared admiration of Harmonix titles. The rest of the episode, though, sees us revert to our natural negative natures when discussing Activision (Radical Entertainment), The Amazing Spider-Man, Mass Effect 3 Extended Cut, FOX Marvel movies (Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, X-Men), and the flaws with X-Men: First Class and its absolutely awful Blu-Ray special features. Read the full story

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We take a break this week from our normally scheduled video game discussion to focus on another topic near and dear to our hearts: comic books. Continuing our weekly production streak (three in a row makes it an official streak), episode 16 of Marooners’ Talk, titled “Avengers vs. X-Men and Other Comics Shit,” was originally intended to focus solely on the upcoming Marvel Comics Avengers vs. X-Men event. As is the case with nerds, however, the discussion quickly expanded to take in the entire topic of comic books in general (hence the “and Other Comics Shit” part of the episode title). Read the full story

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Marvel Comics has had a real hard-on lately for “events” in their universe. Eschewing the path of simply allowing characters to play out their own adventures and missions within their own titles, Earth 616 has seen back to back, and often simultaneous, major events bringing their world’s cast together in collaboration and in conflict. So far, since 2010, we have seen more events within the Marvel Universe than the entire decade of the 1990s. That aside, their newest upcoming event will pit the Avengers against the X-Men in a battle over the Phoenix. Read the full story

The Avengers vs. X-Men event draws ever closer, and in anticipation of hero vs. hero, Marvel will be releasing episodic breakdowns of some of the event’s big battles. Read the full story

I was a child of the arcades. I would spend my time and money gladly and without hesitation at any one of a number of arcades on any one of a number of cabinets. X-Men, Gauntlet, Time Crisis, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and more have all played their part in draining me of the limited funds I had in my childhood. One of the games most responsible for my lack of cold hard coinage in my youth was The Simpsons. The first video game ever made for The Simpsons was made as an arcade cabinet by Konami in the first years of the 1990s, a decade very near and dear to my heart. I grew up with The Simpsons, both on TV and in the arcades. Now, it’s made its way to XBLA, and will be coming to PSN this coming Tuesday. Has Konami done the unthinkable and tampered with one of the greatest arcade games ever? Read the full story

While enjoying elementary school recess in the late 80′s, my friends and I played various games of the imagination, from X-Men to G.I. Joe, and from Super Heroes to Street Fighter. You have never known joy if you didn’t spend 30 minutes a day running around shouting, “HADOUKEN! NO… NO! SNAKE EYES CAN’T BLOCK A HADOUKEN WITH HIS NINJA POWERS, YOU BIG BUTTHEAD!” Now, Ubisoft’s PowerUp Heroes lets me combine my childhood imagination of Super Heroes and Street Fighter into something with tangible, visible results, and it does it splendidly. Read the full story

I’m going to go a bit hipster on you right now. Before it was mainstream and popular, I read comics. Before it was mainstream and popular, I ran around on the playground pretending Rogue was my girlfriend and adamantium claws were popping out of my fists. Before it was mainstream and popular, I was collecting and trading Fleer Ultra cards with my like-minded friends. I am a X-Nerd, and I can’t wait for X-Men Destiny. Read the full story

I’m a fan of Darren Aronofsky. He knows what he’s doing, and he tends to surround himself with people who, in turn, know what they’re doing. This combination produces the results we’ve seen from Aronofsky. That being said, I had no idea how he would tackle a movie like Wolverine. As time passed, and more was revealed about the plot, I started hoping that Aronofsky’s The Wolverine would be a diamond in the rough; a redeeming X-Men movie. News broke yesterday, however, that Darren Aronofsky has bid The Wolverine farewell. Read the full story

I’ve been thinking about this lately. The X-Men film series is screwed. It has been for a while. The first two films, while taking liberty with the vast X-Men universe, were good films in their own right that could be watched by people who have never before read about Sniktbub and his amazing adventures. But with X-Men: The Last Stand, things started going all crap shaped. Too many characters, no story, deaths for no good reason, it was a mess. And X-Men Origins: Wolverine just kept the stupid coming without any of the quality that X3 had somehow kept from the first two movies. And then what they did to Deadpool…yeah, it was bad. So, here we are with yet another prequel. What can Fox, Marvel and Matthew Vaughn do to bring the X-Men movies back to where they once were? Well, here are five things that they could/should do to get the quality back into this series.

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In which we discuss the arcade games of yesterday, how we play them today and whether they have any future tomorrow. Read the full story