Marvel.com Blogs - Ames on Games by Ames Kirshen

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Episode III

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2008-04-28 14:30:34

Greetings again gameboyz and girlz!

Comic Con was NUTS, but in a good way.

Marvel had an amazing presence on all fronts; comics, movies, animation, toys and of course video games.

Once again we shared a booth with Activision and Ultimate Alliance was the centerpiece of the booth. We had trailers and some FMVs from the game looping on the plasma screens in addition to scheduled demos which packed the house every time. Big personal thanks to Activision’s Jeff Poffenbarger, Chris Palmisano, Doug Grutzmacher, Vicharin Vadikin, Daniel Jhung and MacLean Marshall for all of their hard work in making Marvel Ultimate Alliance such a hit at the show.

We revealed three new playable characters at the show; Iceman, Invisible Woman and Human Torch. We’ve got a lot more to share with you, so keep checking http://www.marvelultimatealliance.com for further reveals.

We had a panel on Saturday to talk about Marvel Ultimate Alliance and the turnout was huge. Myself, Activision Exec. Producer Adam Goldberg, game writer CJ Cebulski, voice actor/actress Phil LaMarr and Gabrielle Carteris and Stan “The Man” Lee were on the panel. Response to the panel and game were tremendous and we had some great questions from the audience.

Some of our other video game partners had Marvel games on display at the Con. Konami had kiosks for their “Marvel Vs” video game and Sony Computer Entertainment Of America was kind enough to put 2K Games Ghost Rider game on display in their PlayStation booth. Both games got really great responses from fans, industry insiders and the press.

I was really pleased to see such a big video game presence in general at Comic Con with companies like Sony, Nintendo, Capcom, THQ, 2K Games, Square-Enix with booth’s displays their latest and greatest titles.

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Ames on Games

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2007-04-23 12:09:19

Marvel Ultimate Alliance

Welcome to my first Marvel.com blog entry. I thought I’d open up by introducing you all to my role in the company. I run Marvel’s video game business. I work day to day with our game publisher and developer partners in managing and shaping our creative and business strategy on all of the Marvel video games. Given e3 just wrapped up 2 weeks ago, I thought I would share with you how things went from the Marvel POV. In all we had 4 games featured on the show floor.

Our newest partner, 2K Games showed off the Ghost Rider game which is based on the Sony-Columbia Pictures feature film which will be released in February 2007. The game features a combination of motorcycle combat and 3rd person action gameplay. The gamplay experience is like “God Of War” meets “Road Rash”. It was well received at the show and I am really excited about this movie and the game. The second game featured was Konami’s Marvel trading card game. Coming off their success with “Yu-Gi-Oh”, Konami was the perfect choice to take on this interactive version of the widely successful Upper Deck “Marvel Vs.” trading card game. Truth be told, I have never played any of the popular trading card games (“Vs”, “Yu-Gi-Oh”, “Magic The Gathering”), but there is no denying their popularity and appeal. Konami is releasing the game on Nintendo DS, PSP and PC this holiday.

Lastly, our good friends at Activision were showing off the epic Marvel Action-RPG “Ultimate Alliance” at their booth in addition to a teaser video of the forthcoming Spider-Man 3 game. I couldn’t be more proud of “Ultimate Alliance” and the reception it got at the show from colleagues in the industry, major retailers as well as the press. We received numerous “Best Of Show” awards from such notable outlets as 1UP.com, Gamespot and The New York Times. The game is the biggest super-hero game ever with over 20 of the top Marvel characters fully playable. It’s going to blow you away when it’s released current, next-gen and handheld platforms this holiday.

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