It's been quite some time since we last heard anything on the Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 front, aside from a trailer loosed at last month's NY Comic Con. Today, however, Marvel has revealed a new character in "Songbird," an ex-female wrestler turned supervillain turned superheroine, whose main superpower is -- and we're not kidding -- "enhanced vocal cords."

Pictured above, Songbird "fuses" with Iron Man to produce ... what precisely, we're not sure ... though Marvel's Steve Nelson assures us that "fusions are BIG," (his caps, not ours). Mr. Nelson continues on the Marvel website, saying, "Songbird solidifies sound waves into objects, which she can use for a number of purposes on the battlefield ... one of our concept artists, Dave Phillips, came up with a really stunning piece of art for her 'wings,' and we ended up basing the look of her powers largely on that." Looks as though Songbird will not only be able to solidify sound waves and toss 'em at foes but also do so while flying high above their heads. Who knew strong vocal cords could do so much?

For more on MUA2, check out our (limited, we know) gallery below and the most recent trailer, after the break.

Dear Mr. Paramount,
Recently it has come to my attention that Paramount is looking for a new executive to lead its gaming initiative. Although I assume that holding the lucrative Saturday Night Fever and Mean Girls gaming licenses means you've received a countless amount of quality resumes, the chance to work with Lindsay Lohan was too great an opportunity to pass up -- we actually almost worked together once, as I regularly volunteer at various rehab facilities throughout the Bay Area but she had supposedly "got all better" and checked out by the time I started at three of the nine centers she has "visited" in the last four months -- but, I digress. I humbly throw my hat into the ring of "exciting executive possibilities."

Eager bookworms visiting the Washington-Centerville Public Library in Centerville, Ohio, will face exposure to the new-fangled "video game" entertainment medium, as the library will now be loaning PS2, PS3, Wii and Xbox 360 games. According to the Dayton Daily News, the library will carry two categories of games: Titles aimed at families, and ones aimed at players aged 10 and up (sans adult-only games). Each game will be available for one-week loan with the option of one renewal.

You can check for yourself which games are available in the library's online catalog, though the Dayton Daily News has gone and confirmed the presence of Guitar Hero, Kung-Fu Panda, Madden NFL 08 and, err, Iron Man. That one's probably meant to frighten the kids into reading books again.

[Via Shacknews]

Summer blockbusters aren't just good for propping up the sales of crappy new movie-based games ... it turns out they're also good for pumping up the prices of crappy old games based on the same characters. For proof, look no further than the always interesting Video Game Price Charts blog, which shows a distinct and recent uptick in the selling prices for older games based on the Speed Racer, Iron Man and Indiana Jones franchises. Never mind that these games aren't directly related to the new movies, or that the games are universally awful (well, almost) -- once that old clunker of a game gets attached to a hot new movie, the asking price can get inflated by up to 170%.

We can almost see the logic behind the increased demand, from the average consumer's perspective. After all, why waste $50 on the crappy new Iron Man game that junior is begging for when you can pick up a crappy old Iron Man game for half the price (even after accounting for the recent uptick). The little punk won't know the difference anyway, and the game will get him out of your hair so you can get back to having an affair with the pool boy. It's win-win!

Will the line-up of DS demos available on the Wii's Nintendo Channel change every week? We're not sure, but it's starting to look like it; at least, some of the demos available have been rotated out in favor of fresh meat. If you were looking for something that was previously available, it might just be gone. Lesson? Download quickly rather than putting it off, because the demo you want may just disappear!

Peek past the break for the current list of available demos -- you may be surprised at what you'll find!

Each week Jeff Engel and Geoff Brooks contribute Counting Rupees, a column on the business behind gaming:
According to several "analysts" last week, the successful launch of Grand Theft Auto IV threatened to sink the box office returns for Iron Man. The thinking went that since the game and the movie both target primarily the same demographic (males 18-29), that demographic would stay home and play the game instead of going to see the movie. While it's impossible to declare with complete certainty, as Variety did, that GTA IV had absolutely no effect on Iron Man's opening (with $104.2M in domestic receipts, $201M worldwide, and a release date for a sequel already announced), whatever effect it may have had was clearly not enough to significantly impact the movie. But clearly, many had predicted that the game could adversely affect box office receipts. It makes me wonder -- have we ever seen this sort of effect before?

Thanks to Iron Man cleaning up at the box office this weekend (an estimated $100 million weekend), we're sure sales of the Iron Man video game will also be rather high. And even though we can't guarantee the game will equal that of the movies' enjoyment, we can guarantee your Iron Man video game purchase will score you a free gift card.

Over at Circuit City and Best Buy, you can score a $10 gift card with the purchase of Iron Man for the Xbox 360. Not too shabby of a deal, especially if you are or know someone who is a gamer hell bent on owning everything Iron Man after experiencing Iron Man excitement at the box office. Just be careful with your purchase.

Read - $10 Gift Card at Best Buy
Read - $10 Gift Card at Circuit City

Talk of Grand Theft Auto IV possibly hurting Iron Man's opening was clearly wrong. According to Variety, the movie made $104.2 million during its opening weekend, proving Paramount's Rob Moore right when he said that young males can carve out two hours to see Iron Man.

Variety did explore GTA IV's impact on the home video market recently, which showed no major releases targeted at the young male demo for the week. Probably the best comparison would be to see how the Iron Man video game did in sales when NPD comes out next month, and we know we're going out on a limb on this one, but we're pretty sure GTA IV won that battle.

Uh, no post title, it is in fact not Iron Man (although, we should say the prospect of seeing the film this weekend sounds nice). What we're all going to be playing, no doubt, is Mario Kart Wii. With its multitude of tracks, online play and plethora of control schemes available (got to love that wheel!), it looks like it's a shoe-in for this weekend's down time. What about you all?

Will you be racing it up in Mario Kart Wii, or are you playing something else? Maybe you're still chipping away at Okami? What are you playing?

Remember when an analysts predicted that the release of Grand Theft Auto IV could derail the ticket sales of the Iron Man movie that releases this week? While the idea that big video game launches hindering movie releases is nothing new -- they said the same thing about Halo 3 -- we have one more prediction to make about the launch of Grand Theft Auto IV: it's going to put a serious damper on sales of the Iron Man video game. You see, they both come out this week. Sure, a game might steal money from a film, but a big game will definitely steal money from a smaller game. They will be competing for the same shelf space after all.

Well, competing might be too kind a word.

[Via Joystiq]

It's been one big week leading up to here and this week is also bound to be a big one for the lot of you. That's right, Mario Kart Wii is on shelves right now, and likely many of you did the right thing and picked it up yesterday. Did you get a new Wii with it? Did you race Jason Priestley at the Nintendo World Store?

This week's releases are:

• Mario Kart Wii
• Iron Man

Also, in case you might have missed it, don't forget to check out our off-the-wall features and fun we had up until the game's release to retail locations nationwide. It's been a fun ride, now we look forward to taking the turns and bumps with you all at Game Night. See you Thursday!

Calm down, calm down. The waiting is finally over. The game you've all been waiting for finally gets unleashed onto the public this week. That's right, it's Iron Man week. What's that? Grand Theft who? Never heard of it. If that's your thing, though, you can pick it up on Tuesday. After you've seen Iron Man, that is. Here's the full release list:

US Games

• Grand Theft Auto IV [Get a $10 gift card at Circuit City]
  
• Grand Theft Auto IV Special Edition
• Iron Man
  

EU Games

• Grand Theft Auto IV
• Grand Theft Auto IV Special Edition
• Iron Man

Asian Games

No new releases

That's pretty much it, this week. Two games worldwide, but what more do you need? GTA IV should very well tide you over until the next major release. Depending on what you're excited for that's either Haze or Metal Gear Solid 4. With both of these games due within the next month and a half, now really is a great time to own a PS3.

Sega has kindly informed us that an interactive snippet of gameplay from its upcoming Iron Man game will become available for download on the Xbox Live Marketplace sometime tomorrow. Players are invited to become literal cans of whoop-ass, with Marvel's metal-clad superhero aiding them in the destruction of tanks, jets and other things that explode when you punch them a lot.

PlayStation 3 owners will have to make do with our impressions for now, though a PSN demo is scheduled to arrive "soon." Iron Man is out for every console ever on May 2, the same day they release a movie of the same name. What a coincidence!

Thanks to an earlier press release from Sega we can report that the demo for the upcoming Iron Man game will be going online sometime tomorrow. With the movie and game both set to be released on May 2, it was rather important for Sega to get this out there a few weeks in advance to garner more mindshare. Especially with analysts saying that the movie could be upstaged by GTA IV. Whether or not the movie is a success, we just wish the gods of exclusive content had seen fit to give us the cooler armor. Oh well, at least we've still got the demo tomorrow, the PS3 demo has no definite release date at all.

There's a new trailer for upcoming Sega movie tie-in Iron Man. Rather than focus on the core of the game (you know, blowing stuff up, tossing missiles back at planes, that kind of thing), the trailer highlights the game's story. That's all well and good, but the character models, well, they could use a little work. There's just something odd about seeing a rendering of Robert Downey Jr. that just isn't quite right. The same goes for the other unfortunately wooden models shown in the trailer. Still, we'd say it's safe to assume that the game's storyline is window dressing at best. As long as the "blowing stuff up" part holds up its end of the bargain, the game should at least be worth renting before seeing the movie.

[Via Joystiq]