Movies based on anything within the gaming industry are notorious for being bad. However, BioWare, Mass Effect series creator, has insured us that, if there’s going to be a film, they’ll make sure that it’s in the “right hands”. And that, for some time now, Hollywood has been keen on garbing the Mass Effect movie license.

“Obviously we have a tremendous amount of interest from people in Hollywood to make a major motion picture about ‘Mass Effect,’” BioWare’s Casey Hudson told MTV. “The most important thing for us is, we don’t just want to see a movie get made. We want to see a great movie get made, if it’s going to get done at all.”

However, back in ’08, Avi Arad, known for some awesome comic-book adaptations, optioned the film rights for Mass Effect. But, since then, we’ve heard anything. “We’re just looking at our options there, but waiting to make sure we have something really right before we do it,” Hudson told MTV.

Almost nothing has been said about the production of the Gears of War movie; everything said about the movie, so far, is either speculation or PR “contribution”. That said, the Gear of War movie producer, Wyck Godfrey recently sat down to discuss the challenges of translating the popular video game series into a movie.

Revealing that he didn’t take kindly to the already to explored environment within the Gears of War video games, Godfrey told Making Of that the Gears of War movie will center around the events of “Emergence Day”, 14 years before the original Gears of War – “Emergence Day” wasn’t explored fully within the video games’ storyline.

“The hard part is to make [Gears of War] into something that doesn’t feel like a world torn asunder and people just in battle,” Godfrey tells Making Of. “I think we really want to focus on the idea of a world that’s running well and then it’s Emergence Day.”

A month after rumors pointed at its development, Ubisoft has made it official. The French publisher announced today that in May, the same exact month that the Prince of Persia movie will be hitting theaters, Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands will be releasing on both consoles and handhelds.

Also, in the Press Release, the publisher revealed that The Forgotten Sands storyline will return to the Prince of Persia: Sands of Time storyline, which means it follows the original storyline. The Forgotten Sands will also feature “many of the fan-favorite elements from the original series as well as new gameplay innovations”.

That said, the release date wasn’t chosen at random. Like I stated before, the release time-frame is in directly conjunction with the upcoming movie, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time – based on the game with the same name. Can anyone smell a movie tie-in? Be that as it may, Prince Of Persia: The Forgotten Sands is expected to hit both consoles and handhelds in May 2010.

As rumors of another Prince of Persia game unspool, the official trailer for the movie adaption of “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time” popped up on the internet. But, that’s not the only good news. The trailer is actually pretty good; it has a great mixture of humor and action, which makes for a great action movie experience.

The trailer, also, indicates that the film’s story will stick to that of the 2003 game Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, which centers on a magical dagger that can be used to speed up or slow downtime. The Sands of Time is due in theaters May 2010.

When the newly revamped Prince of Persia released, it easily began one of most impressive games this console generation. However, it left many of us wanting more. With that said, recent speculation has pointed to a sequel. And, with the trademarking for “Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands“, speculations has been raising, even more.

At the “The Sands of Time” trailer preview event at Bruckheimer Studios, the movie team left losses that Ubisoft is planning to announce a new Prince of Persia game spring of next year. However, as for details, they haven’t revealed anything about the new game; making it clear that it’s not their place to give out any details.

[Thanks to NeoSeeker]

We have some bads news. Director Gore Verbinski has stepped down from directing the BioShock movie for a possible forth installment into the Pirates of the Carribbean movie series, which isn’t all bad news because Pirates of the Carribbean is awesome, and it looks like Juan Carlos Fresnadillo has stepped in as director – SlashFilm reports.

Verbinski will remain involved in the project, but only as producer. However, as we reported back in April, Universal has shut down production of the movie because of the film’s ballooning budget that continues to grow. Also for some reworking of the script, and to explore possible locations outside the country offering financial incentives.

With a pool of talented name brand filmmakers hoping to helm such a project (Guillermo del Toro has been outspoken), its amazing that Universal went with Fresnadillo in the end, who’s best known as the writer/director of 28 Weeks Later.

Movie based games normally aren’t as good as they appear, but when a developer gets that movie and game combination just right, they can amaze everyone with their final product. X-Men Origins: Wolverine is just that kind of game, but instead of some hand-me-down PG-13 character, you get a Wolverine that stays true to Wolverine. Because of this, “the kiddies” can’t take on this role of Wolverine – thanks to some very brutal decapitations – but that just sucks for them.

Following events from the film, the game tosses you in into the tattered white tank top of Weapon X in a setting all too familiar from the movie. However, X-Men Origins adds a lot of back story into it. The game centers around the time when Logan was running with his commanding officer Stryker and Sabertooth doing animalistic missions within Africa. But that isn’t all, the title also follows Lugan’s turn from the group for a better life – but we all know how that turns out. So now, he’s on a one man mission of revenge. However, for some reason, the game finds away to pop in and out of these timelines, which sometimes can get a bit tedious.

Luckily, this game isn’t much about story; it’s mostly about hacking ‘n’ slashing your way though waves and waves of enemies. Thanks to some quick reaction, combat provides enough variety in its moves to keep things up to speed and interesting, while the ability to unlock special moves and upgrade them with points earned by experience offers an rewarding sense of progress. But without some of these controls such as the game’s lunges, blocks, rolls, and special moves – handled by shoulder buttons and triggers – the controls feel sufficiently different to most other hack ‘n’ slash titles. And once you get the hang of things, you’ll soon find yourself a pro.

Another thing that’s interesting about X-Men Origins is the new health system they have finally given to Wolverine. Like before there is a heath bar, but you won’t need it because Wolverine has the ability to heal in-game. When bullets fly into Wolverine, the holes appear in his chest and they begin to bleed out. Along this, you can also see the shirt being torn off of Logan back as enemy bullets and explosions hit him.

When playing thought this game, I found that there there hasn’t been much work on the characters within the design department. There are three character types that aren’t bosses, and depending on which mission you are on, there are different character skins you will be able to fight. Don’t get me wrong, there are many special moves and attacks that you can utilise, but you can only do something for so long before you get bored of it. This is want happens with X-Men Origins. Sure, adding new character skins in the mix is a nice aspect, but there’s aren’t that many of them to keep things fresh.

Closing Statement:

There’s only so much you can ask from a movie game, but lucky, X-Men Origins is able to capture them all well. When I was playing though this game I was surprised by all the things they’ve added to give the game replay valve. I played though this game twice: the first to beat it, and the second to find all the extra collectables and ablites. There have been very few movie games that people can consider good, however I’m happy to tell you that X-Men Origins: Wolverine happens to be one of these games.

Score: B+

We recently had the chance to speak with Yuri Lowenthal and Tara Platt, known for their healthy career in the gaming industry, about their latest venture together “Tumbling After”.

GCO: For those that aren’t up to date with what you have done in the past, can you guys list some of your past works – both within the video gaming industry and on-screen?

Sure, Yuri might be best known for his work in video-games like The Prince of Persia series (as the Prince) in Sands of Time and Two Thrones. He also recently worked on Afro Samurai (Jinno/Kuma) – both the video games and series – opposite Samuel L. Jackson, Lucy Liu and Ron Perlman. He’s been in countless other game titles from .Hack// (Haseo), Saints Row, Persona 3 & 4 to Final Fantasy, as well as anime series Naruto (Sasuke), Gurren Lagaan (Simon) and more. He also does a lot of original animation work, having starred in Legion of Superheroes (Superman & Superman X), Ben Ten: Alien Force (Ben), Wolverine & The X-Men (IceMan) in addition to on-camera jobs. Most recently on TV he had a recurring role on Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Christopher Garvin) as well as recurring on The Gilmore Girls (Carl).

And Tara is no stranger to video games, animation and television as well. In video games, some of Tara ‘s credits include Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles (Red Queen), DC vs. MK (Wonder Woman), Persona 3 (Mitsuru) and Soulcalibur (Setsuka). In anime, she’s also on Naruto (Temari), Blue Dragon (Cynthia) and Buso Renkin (Tokiko). Tara also worked on Legion of Superheroes (DreamGirl). On-screen in film and TV she’s appeared in Gilmore Girls (Shelly), Charmed (Muse), recurring on Attack of the Show (Baronness & Spoiler Whore) as well as several indie films: Death’s Door, Time & Tide and Tumbling After, the feature film that we wrote, produced and completed this year under our production company Monkey Kingdom Productions. Clearly we don’t like to sit still…:)

GCO: How did you guys use your experiences with your recent venture “Tumbling After”?

Well, I think simply being in the entertainment industry as long as we have definitely helped us as we worked on Tumbling. It was its own unique process, which I don’t know that anyone could have been totally prepared for given the circumstances. And there were certainly moments when things got hairy, that we had to say, “This is just the way it’s gonna go!” and not take it personally or get bummed out, or we wouldn’t have finished the film at all. Yuri jokes that making Tumbling was our equivalent to going to film school; we had to learn on the spot and make things happen however we could just to get through the day.

We certainly called a few favors from people we know in all areas of the business. At every step of the process. It’s really the way things get done here, we’ve found. First it was calls to see if people could jump in as cast/crew, then it was to see if they could help in post-production. Those friend-favors are invaluable and we owe the caliber of the film in great part to the hard work and efforts of those people…which we couldn’t have accessed without having laid the groundwork in our personal careers up to that point. It’s such a huge undertaking, making a movie, that there’s a lot of trust involved, from start to finish, which is kind of funny, because trust is a major theme in the film.

GCO: When you hear the name “Tumbling After” you hear the ringing of the popular children song “Jack and Jill went up the hill”, was that you inspiration for the name of the movie? If yes, why?

Great! Then it’s working. Although the film is a psychological thriller, we like the eerie feel you get when you juxtapose children’s rhymes with scary ideas and images. Most of those fairy tales are pretty scary when you get right down to it, anyway. The main characters are named Jack and Jill for that reason, so that you are following the ‘tumbling after’ that befalls them. In fact, our tagline for the film is “Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water, Jack fell down and broke his crown and then began the slaughter…”

It’s funny really, since when we started filming we thought we might name the characters Jack and Diane, like the John Cougar Mellencamp song but fate stepped in and we ended up changing Diane to Jill just before shooting. And it all lined up perfectly. We couldn’t have planned it any better, really, since the character of Jack starts the film having just had a mental breakdown (he broke his crown) which sets all the events in motion (slaughter, you ask? Well, you’ll just have to watch and see.). So, yay! We’re glad that those images were conjured when you heard the name. Success!

GCO: Monkey Kingdom Productions. This has to be one of the most unique names I have heard in a long time, how did you guys come up with it? What’s the reason behind the name?

Why thank you! It actually stems from Asian myth and legend, by which we are both intrigued and inspired. In Eastern mythology, there is a Monkey King god. The Monkey King is a trickster god, always playing pranks on the bigger more powerful gods. We liked this image of the clever underdog, especially in the studio-powerful entertainment industry. So, we took that idea and our love of teamwork or a ‘kingdom’ of people, since in this business a successful project is never the work of a single person, and we created Monkey Kingdom Productions. ‘Cause when you’re having fun, its not really working, right? And if we don’t take ourselves too seriously and allow ourselves to play, then we’re just monkey-ing around. As we like to say, “C’mon monkey, let’s make a movie!”

Currently we’re shopping Tumbling After to several distributors and we are also in production and filming our next feature film, a documentary about the world of comic/cartoon/anime/video game conventions from the perspective of actors who travel there, since we live that firsthand. We are also co-authoring a book on voice-over due out this fall entitled Voice-Over Voice-Actor: What It’s Like Behind the Mic, so keep your eyes out for that. Like we said earlier, we’re always on the move!

I’m amazed by the potential this game had: the ability to advance the third-person cover-shooter genre, and the possibility of being one of the few great movie games out there. However, thanks to the marks of a rushed project, it couldn’t really expand beyond the movie game status quo. I mean, the movie itself was amazing: it had everything you could possibility want from a Terminator movie along with a overload of explosions. So wouldn’t you expect that from the game?

Terminator Salvation follows the story of John Connor as he receives a distress call from a resistance member trapped within Skynet territory. But instead of leaving with his team, Connor decides to go on a rescue. Sadly, the game doesn’t produce any insight or unexpected twists into John Connor or the formation of the resistance, which could have been interesting. Instead, you do get the chance to meet up with characters featured in the movie, but, really, who’s that interested in meeting Common’s character?

There really isn’t anything here to call this a game. It feels as if some portions have been painfully edited out. And there isn’t that cinematic punch that’s normally featured with games like this. There’s a scene within the game where an HK (Human Killer Tank) cashes into a building – sounds cool doesn’t it? But, sadly, there’s isn’t that explosive feeling. It just feels bland.

Terminator Salvation gains all of its controls from other games, such as GRIN’s recently released Wanted title. However, its cover system is more like a half-circle-shaped thing, flipped upside, and cut into five different sectors. By hitting one of these sectors, you move into a that selected position. It’s a unique and original way of creating a cover system, and works well when you add it into combat – which, thanks to this system, is very intense.

The visuals are strong, but it’s too bad there isn’t much to look at. Salvation takes place within a post-apocalyptic Los Angeles, so everything is destroyed, and the game doesn’t have that beautiful feel to the environments. Everything is washed-out and grey. I don’t know about you, but I like the environments within a game to have a pop to them.

The enemy AI is tough and follows the same logical attack patterns. This isn’t a good thing. When I was playing through this game on the lowest difficulty setting, it sometimes took me over five minutes to take out a squad of “spiders” – these are the enemies that can only be takien out from behind. This isn’t a gameplay problem. It’s an AI problem because they always have an eye on you, even if you’re behind cover. This passes by more easily if you play co-operatively with a friend, but that just makes a short game go by even faster.

Closing Statement:

Salvation seems to be a victim of time. There’s really isn’t anything here to call it a game. So I’ll have to tell you to pass on buying this title – instead, you should head out and rent it for the achievements or trophies because this game isn’t a long-term commitment. This game feels like a $30 title, and a rushed one at that.

Score: C+

It seems that the movie is shaping up nicely. When being interviewed by MTV News, screenwriter Chris Morgan give a status update on the upcoming video game to movie adaptation of Gears of War.

“A draft went in and we’re talking about it now and we’re budgeting it out,” Morgan told MTV. “It’s looking incredibly good.”

“I think the gamer side is going to be thrilled with it,” Morgan continued. “All the stuff you want to see, we put that in there and then we blow it out a little more, even. Now it’s just a matter of honing in on all of the character arcs and determining production types of things.”

The film is currently set up at New Line with “Underworld” helmer Len Wiseman attached to direct.

Update: Here’s a picture of one of the areas featuring snow in the game.

Original: We have all seen snow, or looked at it in the movies, and in some of these cases you may have seen some of the most beautiful showcases of snow. Well, it looks like you really haven’t seen anything, yet.

Naughty Dog is working to make Uncharted 2’s snow and ice as visually impressive as the stunning water effects found in Nathan Drake’s original adventure.

In a recent interview with Gamereactor.se, Naughty Dog producer Evan Wells boasted that with the new improvements to the Naughty Dog Engine 2, “[Uncharted 2] will have the prettiest snow you’ve ever seen in a game!”

“With Uncharted 2 and the Naughty Dog Engine 2 we can do much more, do it better and do it faster,” said Wells. “For example, we can see more polygons on screen, which allows us to create areas with even more detail than in the previous game.”

“In addition, we save no effort when it comes to the rendering of snow in Uncharted 2. It should be a banner to me to be the prettiest snow you have ever seen in a game!”

Back when the DVD and Blu-ray versions of Wanted was released, Universal Studios implanted on to the discs 10 secret codes, which are hidden among the menu screen and/or bonus features, that unlock new portions of the game.

The codes will give you the ability to open up a new character, access enhanced weaponry and exclusive game modes, etc.. But, it also back into the DVD/Blu-ray movies. When an embedded code in the game is entered into the movie disc’s menu screen, a special featurette starring Wanted lead James McAvoy will be revealed.

Universal did not aggressively promote this game-movie cross-over when Wanted bowed on DVD and Blu-ray last year because the game, initially planned to release at the same time as the DVD, was delayed until March.

“Universal saw an exclusive opportunity to creatively intensify Wanted fans’ entertainment experience by crafting a code program that essentially is designed to drive film and game enthusiasts from the Blu-ray and DVD releases to the game and back,” said Hilary Hoffman, the studio’s senior VP of brand and digital marketing.“By bridging these two platforms, we effectively extend the marketing window for the film’s DVD and Blu-ray releases, substantially enhance game play and enable fans to unlock even more bonus content for one of their favorite films.”

[Wanted: Weapons of Fate in DVD, Blu-ray crossover via Video Business]

Jigsaw’s, the guy that we just love to hate, will finally be getting a release date after some, foolish, talk that the game would never see the light of day.

Konami today revealed that it has come to the table with a deal with, Lions Gate Entertainment is to continue the work of  Brash Entertainment, after the the studio closed it’s doors late last year. The deal would entail the movie game so that it will release around the the same time with Saw 6, which is Fall 09.

Here’s a quick question. Are you guys into the Saw franchise? If so, are you looking forward to the game? And we all know that ”The Sicko can’t be let down. Let’s play a game.”

I will have to admit that I did indeed stay up to see this video, but it wasn’t because I was bored and had nothing important to do, example sleeping, it’s because I really want this game to be good, an sometimes even great. Anyway, speaking on it, on the season premiere episode of Game Trailers TV they revealed the first trailer for the upcoming movie game, X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

“X-Men Origins: Wolverine amps up the action by bringing to life Wolverine’s wholly unique skills such as his brute strength, regenerative mutant abilities, and indestructible adamantium claws and skeleton in an immersive experience that is fitting to one of the most enduring and popular characters of all time,” said Rob Kostich, vice president, global brand management, Activision Publishing, Inc.

‘The Godfather’, altogether, is one the film industry’s most recognized, and most acclaimed, films and when some in the gaming industry embraces, or finds, that it well make a great game they will go after it. Thus was born The Godfather: The Video Game, the game, being the first game, was a very interesting first try releasing on most of the last-gen systems.

Now, its developer, EA, plans to release it on current nex-gen systems in the form of a new game, The Godfather II, and it was recent revealed that the title will be releasing in February. Now-however, it seems that EA has also finally revealed the Box-Art for the game.

It’s been along time since we last heard news on the latest project from the guys over at Running With Scissors, but in an past interview the developers mentioned that the game will be “bigger, badder and ballsier.” Yeah, it does sound like something a special someone that we know, an I mean that in the full sense of the word, would say. In an interview with XboxCore when asked about gameplay features that have changed, Vince Desi and creative director Steve Wik, mentioned that they’ll be making POSTAL 3 “bigger, badder and ballsier.” And I’ll leave that to you to figure out.

“It’s all about the Gameplay. I like movies as much as anyone, but I’d rather watch ‘em on a big screen. I can tell you from all the fan mail I get that the gamers who liked POSTAL 2 really loved it, and so we will make POSTAL 3 bigger, badder and ballsier.” said Vince Desi.

[Postal 3 First Impression Interview via XboxCore/VG Core]

I remember not so long ago that Lionsgate was shooting for a PG-13 rating for Punisher: War Zone, which was reported by Latino Review. Now, today according to CHUD, the movie, Punisher: War Zone, has recieved a R-rating for, “pervasive strong brutal violence, language and some drug use.” Also by the video shown at Comic Con we can tell that this movie wasn’t going to be all sunshine and rainbows. The movie was rated by the MPAA, Motion Picture Association of America, and we all know that there was going to be drugs in this movie because lets face it, it’s The Punisher. The language we can understand because it will just and to the fact that this movie is about Killers and Kingpins and that will just add to that fact.

3D Realms really loves movies so they have decided to move their well known franchise, Duke Nukem, to the big screen. To help with this big screen move they have decided to pick a very responsible man Scott Faye will be taking on this big project. If you don’t know Faye, he has worked on the upcoming future blockbuster Max Payne, starring Mark Wahlberg. “I am already working on building a scenario that does justice to the game, as Duke Nukem is one of the most important franchises in the history of video games,” Said Faye. As producer he will work very close with Scott Miller,3D Realms, to ensure that this movie is done right. Even if it takes 10 years to make this movie as gamers we would rather have a great movie then a bad one.

Sometime last month we got the chance to see the latest photos from the set of the upcoming video game movie adaption, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. In the photos we saw Jake Gyllenhall, who we saw in movies like Zodiac and Jarhead, making his way to the set to film a part of the movie in his costume with no shirt on. As many of you know the pictures turned the movie/gaming world over getting featured on almost every movie/gaming site on the web. Today, according to photo gain by Korben, which show parts of the set being made or set up, the film is really going to be something amazing.

All six photos are post at the both of this post so feel free to check them out, warning there’s not photos for Jake Gyllenhall acting out any part of the movie.

Black Box studio has revealed some new details for their upcoming game, Need for Speed: Undercover, the details are as stated from the press release: Need for Speed: Undercover has players racing through speedways, dodging cops and chasing rivals as they go deep undercover to take down an International crime syndicate. The new game heralds the return of high-intensity police chases and introduces the all-new ‘Heroic Driving Engine’ — a unique technology that generates incredible high-performance moves at 180 miles per hour during breathtaking highway battles.

“Need for Speed Undercover puts you at the center of a big-budget Hollywood movie with all of the drama, action and dazzling chase scenes, right on your gaming console. The unique Heroic Driving Engine will give you ultimate control over the hottest cars and push you to use every ounce of skill to outrun the law and take down criminal adversaries,”-Executive Producer Bill Harrison

According to Variety , Capcom is teaming up with producer Avi Arad to bring the Lost Planet movie adaptation to life. The movie is set to be part of a distribution deal with Warner Bros. Along with the news we got word that David Hayter , which was aready know by the rumor posted on the net, will be the writing the script for the movie. Arad will be producing the movie with his son Ari in partnership with Steven Paul through Seaside Entertainment. We are still waiting for officail word from Capcom about the movie.

Not so long ago we reported that David Hayter would be working a deal with Warner Bros. to induce Capcom’s Lost Planet to the big screen. Now, a rumor has been spotted up on the internet that advises the Lost Planet movie adaptation will be coming our way in 2011.

According to 1UP, the Lost Planet movie adaptation will be coming our way in 2011, or in other words the movie will be seen for the first time in theaters some in late, mid or early 09.  Many rumors have been going around that the movie would indeed be coming to life on the big screen, and many sources state that Warner Bros. will indeed be the distributor, with Capcom and Seaside Films co-producing the adaptation in to film. But, for now this is still a rumor so until E3 there is still no official word on the movie so far, so we still need to wait.

Lost Planet: Extreme Condition is currently out for the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.

According to an article posted by IGN (Joystiq ), veteran voice actor/screenwriter David Hayter revealed a deal with Warner Bros. to bring Capcom’s Lost Planet to the big screen. Bring Lost Planet closer to fruition than previously thought. Hayter told IGN that "It’s not entirely confirmed yet," he goes on to say "we are just closing the deal with Warner Bros. for me to adapt Lost Planet." But, unfortunately due to Hayter’s contractual agreements, IGN was unable to obtain more specific information about the film. Just keep E3 as an open window for an announcement.

In the article Hayter goes on to talking about his Hayter’s approach to adopting games to film here’s what he had to say "There is gap in Hollywood between people who write good movies and those who appreciate good video games," he said. "I’m fortunate enough to be in both worlds. For myself, I try to make an effort to take the essence of the game, keep as much of that as possible, and still put it into a proper film structure."

While we all have to wait in pain for the all new 50 Cent: Blood On The Sand, there is  one more detail that can keep you at rest and knowing that this game is going to not end up like Bulletproof.

Stephen Totilo had a chance to talk the game’s producer and told MTV that there was a demo of 50 Cent’s Blood On the Sand and was  "really excited" on how the game was shaping up.

To the point that even 50 cent has high hopes on this game. He also talked about a new love interested that came from Mr. G-Unit himself.

No details where revealed on who that mysterious love interest is at this time.

"Get ready for a great game."

50 Cent ‘Really Excited’ By ‘Blood On The Sand’, Love-Interest Details Revealed [MTV]