Wolverine uses his claws and Thor is a punching bag!

You guessed it, I am refering to the soon to be released Hulk Vs. Dvd featuring everyones favorite Canucklehead (Yea Charles I used it), and the Thunder God.  After just watching both features I felt I needed to get in there before Charles and give my perspective.  So Lets get to it.

Hulk Vs Wolverine

The DVD starts out already hot and heavy into the action which is always a great way to start off an animated feature.  The fighting is bloody and brutal which surprised me at first, but not so much as what surprised me as when the fight went to round 2.  Get this… WOLVERINE FINALLY USES HIS CLAWS!!! No posing with his claws to try an show how tough he is, no using his claws on doors, walls, gates, etc.  Nope, he actually uses his claws to carve into just about everyone he fights in this.  Apparently, Marvel finally got the memo and lets Wolverine really slice and dice the way we all had wanted him to.  Now I’m not stupid, I know the rating on the shows and the rating on this DVD are way different and for that purpose alone they couldn’t have Wolverine being a butcher, but still its nice to see.

The 37 minute feature goes on to have a plot surprisingly, I originally thought it was just gonna be a slugfest.  It involves alot of characters I never would have thought, including Professor Cornelius, Sabertooth, Deadpool(who is actually pretty funny), Omega Red, and even Lady Death Strike, as Logan-less Weapon X Team.  Other characters are hinted but not revealed which is a pretty interesting way for Marvel to kind of bridge together them an Wolvie.

The DvD menu’s have nicely animated backgrounds, containing alot of character art and clips from the feature but thats really as glamorous as this dvd gets.  Special features aren’t really anywhere to be found.  No Hulk/Wolvie documentary, no art concepts, nothing of that nature.  Just typical commentary and a trailer/sneak peak at the new Wolverine and the X-Men series which if you ask me and Charles could have been left out.

"See these? I'm gonna cut you with em."

Hulk Vs Thor

Hulk vs Thor.. Well.. If your thinking that that title alone will inspire a jaw dropping, bone breaking, earth shattering, clash of the titans like battle… you are way off.  Through means I wont divulge, Hulk finds his way into Asgard as a pawn in Loki’s scheme to destroy the Thunder God and quite frankly, almost does.  Thor proves that when matched up to the Hulk, punching bag is as good a rating as he’s ever gonna get.  Considering that Thor is Marvel’s answer to DC’s Superman this was extremely disappointing.  Blondy gets in a couple of nice shots, but Hulk really wipes the floor with him.  Oh and if you have a hatred for “Thor-speak” as our leader here at Tippingthescales.com does, thats gonna be another irritance.  Considering they are in Asgard, thats the only way they talk.

The story continues through out Asgard and to hell and back (literally) as Loki and Thor team up to save the soul of Bruce Banner from Hella, Mistress of Hell.  This part gets a little tense as we see things as Bruce would have liked them to be instead of as they are.  That part touched me and I felt alot of sympathy for the character.  The writers did a great job in that aspect, showing Hulk/Bruce banner as a brooding, conflicted, and sympathetic Hero.  That was probably the best thing about this feature because the fighting certainly was not.

Again there is no bonus content to speak of on this feature either, aside from the well animated menu background and commentary.  The feature is 45 minutes and probably so because of the extremely long intro credits scene.

Yea.. Pretty much how the whole fight is.

All in all aside from missing bonus content, this really was not as bad as I thought it was going to be.  Sure the Thor fight was really lame but it wasn’t all bad.  If you ask me this was Marvel’s answer to DC’s awesome Superman:Doomsday feature, and they did one hell of a job.

DVD cover.

PRO: Wolverine uses his claws, Hulk is a sad man, Deadpool was funny.

CONS: Thor got his @$$ whooped, No bonus content.

Dragon Ball: Yo! Son Goku and His Friends Return!!

Hey everyone its Joe. Since Charles took a shot at some bad Dragonball, I figured I’d go with the Good Dragonball. Let me start by saying that I was so excited when I heard about this! It was the highlight of my day literally. It has been 11 years since the last new Dragonball video was release and I would have to say that the writing is funny and goofy and as if the show had never ended.

Yep Master Roshi is still a perv.

The story picks up just after the death of Kid Majin Buu, and the world is celebrating its newly won peace. All the characters seem to be relaxing enjoying life when they receive invitations to a celebration from Mr. Satan. The celebration is to commemorate the victory over Majin Buu and give thanks to all those who participated. A pretty decent gesture by the glory hog Mr. Satan. As the festivities begin 4 space pods land on earth and approach the Z Fighters. Two of the pods contain a young saiyan and a.. well.. you decide when you see her. The young saiyan is identified as Tarble, Vegeta’s younger brother. Shocked? I know I was. I thought when you produced a hell raiser like Vegeta, you were pretty much done. Aparently Tarble and the creature beside him is his wife (I still don’t know what the hell she is), have been terrorized by two teletubbie rejects on their home planet and Tarble came to Earth to enlist the help of Vegeta in defeating them.

Enter Tarble. Mini Vegeta minus receeding hairline.

Space Tubbies. Nuff Said.

After gauging their strength every single character decides they want to take them on, but in the end its Goten and Trunks who get the honor of facing off against these two. Silliness befalls and the kids seem to need to go through Fighting training 101, but eventually they get em against the ropes. Both pairs of fighters fuse and after some of Gotenks “special” attacks, things get a little serious. The newly fused purple guy isn’t as weak as they had all thought and because of that the big guns to step in.

Blue and Red make Purple!

Gotenks gonna wreck yo face!

The Big Guns

I was all psyched to see Goku and Vegeta get in an tear this guy apart, but something else happened. Goku plays Vegeta an finishes him alone. Totally unexpected and yet so very like Goku. After the brief ass whoopin of one very big Purple cretin, they all go back to celebrate and more laughs follow.

The Odd couple of Anime lol.

This special had everything that I had come to love from watching years of Dragon ball through out my life. It had plenty of laughs, the art was beautiful, and it threw some pretty unexpected things at me. However there were some oddities that I noticed due to either the difference in artist, or just trying to take it back to nostalgic times. First, it seemed all the fighters regressed to their pre-android costumes and chose not to continue with the apparel seen in the Majin series. Second, Where is Tien Shinhan (Tien) and Chiaotzu? Gotenks uses one of Tien’s special attacks but he and the little white midget are no where to be found. Even Lunch is there, his psychotic split persona lady friend, but no Tien. Also I would have definitely liked to have seen a little more Super Saiyan Time, but it was good that they didn’t need to rely on it. These are just a couple of the biggest oddities in the special, although there are some character art differences which mainly arise from the different artist on hand. Overall this is a great addition to the Dragonball Franchise and a very timely and welcome release so long after the original show ended.

PROS: Usual elements of Dragonball all present, Good to see after 11 years.

CONS: Missing 3 eye an white midget (Tien and Chiaotzu), Short run time (35mins).

Super Street Fighter 2 tur… A Good Street Fighter Game.

Hey Everyone, Its Joe again I hope everyone had a safe and enjoyable Thanksgiving as I did. I figured with the holidays out of the way I can get some time to get a Post in.

As the title says, the new Street Fighter game is out, available on the Xbox Live Arcade and Playstation Networks and as no surprise to this blogger, its really good. Finally, after months and months of nail biting sweat dripping anticipation, the game Capcom has only been teasing about was in my hands. The first thing I noticed about the game as I started it up was the title screen where you have both Ryu and Akuma face to face holding their own fireballs in their hands and the amazing graphics there in. The developers truly out did themselves with this beautifully rendered image for the title screen. The BGM of the classic Street Fighter Theme remixed into an edgy rock/techno mix that gave me chills begins here and follows you through the menu selection process. The main menu, simply designed to house the selections of arcade, multiplayer, and various other extras. Everything has been redrawn by the talented team at Udon comics, the backgrounds, the facial animations, and the ending cut scenes. No detail was left un-touched and it really breathed some new life into this old classic.

After you choose your fighter from some excellent high res thumbnail shots its time to get into it. The game pretty much stays true to its roots here, with a plane flying over to the next country to indicate the battle ground of your next opponent. The fighting speed has truly been beefed up to show the change in times despite the age of the title. The speed of the fight and the responsiveness of the characters is excellent and very fluid like. Even fighting on the horrible Xbox D-pad wasn’t as much of a chore as it was on the original.

The game is just as difficult as you remembered, with characters like Sagat and Vega appearing to know every move your going to make before you do. There are some nice Xbox 360 achievements you can get, the best one to me being the “Scar of Sagat” achievement. This requires you to defeat the behemoth Sagat with Ryu’s powerful Shoryuken technique, a very nostalgic achievement to any Street Fighter fan. Other achievements include time opponent defeated in, game completion, and a bunch of online multiplayer achievements.

The multiplayer option really gives the game some great benefit also, with ranked, player, and custom matches and the inclusion of Tournament mode. The initial versus options have about 6 players take turns battling the winner of individual rounds. These modes take me back to the “I got winner” days, which is very fun for long time fighting game fans such as myself. Players not fighting are spectators and watch the fights which can prove to be strategically beneficial or intimidating depending on the skill of the active warriors. Tournament mode is a test of players skills as they are slotted up against one another and advance to take on fellow winners in typical tournament fashion.

All in all Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix, is worth saying the full name because it is a great game and always has been. I say it always has been because it is the same game I remember from my childhood, but with a fresh coat of paint and a wax to make it shiny. Though it may be the same game, that doesn’t make it not fun to play. The game is plenty of fun and a great distraction from the seemingly endless supply of shooter games and the fact that the next NEW version of the franchise is 3 months away. Capcom, keep up the great work!

Images gathered from IGN.com, teamxbox.com, gamesuy.blogspot.com,

You are invited to the Street Fighter Tournament…Trailer.

Hey everyone its Joe again with some great news. Today Capcom and Udon have posted the official trailer to the highly anticipated Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix on IGN.com, coming soon to the Xbox Live Arcade and Playstation Network. This title has been in development for a long time and the final release date has been kept a close guarded secret by Capcom. Only until recent had fans learned it is allegedly to be released this November. The game itself features all new character and level animation redesigned by the creative teams at Udon comics also responsible for the Street Fighter comic series.

The Trailer features the character of Chun-Li being presented an invitation to the Street Fighter Tournament and then a montage of characters and scenes from the game. The back ground music for the trailer is none other than the tournament theme from the 1984 classic film The Karate Kid, “You’re the best” by Joel Esposito. I found this to be a great choice in BGM by Capcom and Udon and is likely to create alot more hype for this highly anticipated title. I can’t help but wonder if Ralph Macchio is a hidden character.. even though he’d be ruthlessly slaughtered it’d still be cool. We as I’m sure all of you will be keeping a closer eye on this title as the release date approaches… We Hope. (Link to trailer posted at foot of post.  Hosted on IGN.com)

Link to trailer on IGN.com

A Wonder-ful Hoax

Hey it’s Joe, the new team member of the Tipping the Scales crew. Thought I’d start my first post with something that I just recently heard of and that Charles hadn’t gotten to yet.

It seems that a while back a website (www.wonder-who.com) came about with the Wonder Woman logo and a simple slogan “The Truth will be revealed”. The site cleverly updated periodically with pieces of the initial image torn revealing a person in the Wonder Woman garb under neath. At last the final piece revealing our possible Amazonian Princess was torn away and who was standing there but the beautiful Megan Fox. Now, to the untrained eye, this may seem believable, the costume is authentic and the logos are all in the right place. Much to the disappointment of many fans however the image is photoshoped and the website a hoax. Another online blog similar to this one, JoBlo.com (no affiliation with me) was able to reach a rep from Fox which confirmed the site and image are “complete B.S.”

Now don’t get me wrong, Megan Fox is an amazing and beautiful woman. Someone this writer is very fond of, and could picture.. well.. thats not important. Megan Fox could very well get the role of Wonder Woman, if they were casting for a role for her younger self. I do believe that her very young appearance does not do her any justice for a role like this, and she lacks the commanding presence that Wonder Woman has. This is an Amazon, toughest woman on the planet and she needs to be able to grip that role and from what she has done in the past, she has not demonstrated this. I could be wrong and she may very well end up with the role and prove me wrong. While personally I don’t think she is suited for this particular character, there are other Super Heroines She is very well suited for. Aheemm..AspenMathews…Cough..