I know a lot of people have been waiting a long time for an official Marvel MMO, but somehow I doubt this is what they had in mind. This week Gazillion Entertainment officially announced Marvel Super Hero Squad Online, an MMO based on Marvel’s line of cute and cartoony two-inch figures. As you might expect, they are targeting a younger audience with this game, but how many younger kids really play massively multiplayer online RPGs? I still can’t understand why they canceled the Marvel game that was originally being developed by City of Heroes creators Cryptic Studios a couple of years ago (and eventually became Champions Online). If Sony’s competing DC Universe Online does end up being released later this year, I don’t think there’s any question which one has a better chance of being fully embraced by comic book fans.

By now, you may have heard about Axe Cop, the web comic written by a 6-year-old kid and illustrated by his 29-year-old brother. But have you seen the motion comic? Like a lot of things that go viral on the web, it may seem a bit gimmicky, but there’s also something so charming and refreshing about the wild imagination of a kid. I love the fact that this comic is taking off, I just hope they don’t overdo it. If they play their cards right, perhaps one day we will see an Axe Cop animated series!

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post over on Film Junk about a movie in development based on one of the Fighting Fantasy books from the mid-’80s. I was a big fan of these books when I was younger, as they combined Choose Your Own Adventure-style branching stories with role-playing elements… a brilliant concept if ever there was one. They eventually died out in the early ’90s (most likely thanks to video games, among other things), but in writing the article for Film Junk, I discovered that Fighting Fantasy is actually going through a bit of a revival again. A number of the original books have been re-released, and the first new titles in over a decade have been published. On top of that, the first book The Warlock of Firetop Mountain was recently turned into a Nintendo DS game, and London, Ontario developers Big Blue Bubble just put out a couple of Fighting Fantasy iPhone apps as well.

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I know I’m probably in the minority here, but I haven’t touched a football video game since the mid-’90s. Once the Madden era took over, the games just got too complicated and realistic for me, and I couldn’t be bothered to put in the time to learn all the intricacies. In the years before that, though, my brother and I must have logged hundreds of hours on Tecmo Bowl for the NES. This was basically the perfect football game for me: quick and easy, with just a handful of plays to choose from. I think the sequel, Tecmo Super Bowl, was the ultimate version since it had official NFL teams, plus a slightly expended playbook.

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Brilliant short film where 8-bit video game characters invade New York City and start to pixelate everything. Written and directed by Patrick Jean.

Ever since Alicia and I became interested in traveling in university, we’ve been looking for ways to continue to live vicariously through other people’s adventures or to help get ideas for our next trip while we’re stuck at home. The problem is, most travel shows tend to be pretty stuffy and dull, and little more than glossy ads or fact sheets for your typical tourist destinations. This is where Departures proves to be refreshingly different.

It’s a Canadian travel show now in its third season on OLN, and it stars three friends (one of whom is the cameraman) trekking across the globe in search of the unknown. Because they’re fairly young (still in their twenties), there is a sense of unpredictability and adventure as they aren’t afraid to veer off the beaten path if it means having more fun. Whether they decide to enter a kickboxing match in Thailand on a whim, get asked to judge a beauty contest in Siberia, or get caught in the middle of the Indian Ocean during a monsoon, you never know what might be around the corner.

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I don’t know too much about this game other than the fact that it came out in Japan last year, and it is now coming to North American shores this May. An old school Zelda-style adventure game with 8-bit style graphics, expanded to three dimensions. It definitely looks unique, even if they’ve borrowed a lot of elements from Zelda and the Lego games. I’m all over this.

I guess I can finally admit to myself that I have become a Scott Pilgrim fanboy since I am much more excited for the final volume of the comic than the upcoming movie. (Then again, that could change once I see a trailer.) It hits stores on July 20th courtesy of Oni Press.