So a few months ago, someone online posted a leaked list of the roster for Marvel vs. Capcom 3. Big deal, there are leaked lists all over the place and they have crap like Howard the Duck and Dio Brando in there. This specific list has been right on the money again and again for every reveal and leak. Especially the specifics of the downloadable characters. That does make me late to the party, but I post this now because the more interesting inclusions has finally been made public via leakage.

First, let’s look at the confirmed list:

– Morrigan Aensland
– Amaterasu
– Arthur
– Tron Bonne
– Captain America
– Chun-Li
– Crimson Viper
– Dante
– Deadpool
– Doctor Doom
– Dormammu
– Felicia
– Hulk
– Iron Man
– Magneto
– MODOK
– Chris Redfield
– Ryu
– She-Hulk
– Shuma Gorath
– Nathan “Rad” Spencer
– Spider-Man
– Storm
– Super-Skrull
– Thor
– Trish
– Jill Valentine
– Viewtiful Joe
– Albert Wesker
– Wolverine
– X-23
– Zero

From the list, that leaves seven characters left to be officially announced. The four who haven’t been hinted at in any capacity are Phoenix, Sentinel, Hsien-Ko and Akuma. About a month or so ago, a picture appeared online of a Capcom employee’s office with Mike Haggar on a monitor. So we got that going for us.

Today, an interesting development happened. On the Comic Art Fans website, Kevin Sharpe posted a few pages of the Marvel vs. Capcom 3 tie-in comic. Images included Hulk dealing with the Resident Evil crew and various Marvel guys fighting their counterparts from the trailers. Two pages are of special note. First off, the end boss. Behold the Devourer of Worlds.

Sweet! We got Galactus! Now for a page of Doctor Doom holding a meeting of the Marvel villains. We got Magneto, Super-Skrull, MODOK and… hello, who is this?

Hey, now! Taskmaster is now confirmed. Now my Deadpool/Taskmaster/Haggar team is a lock.

I would have linked to the Kevin Sharpe page, but wouldn’t you know it, his profile’s been deleted.

You know what rules? Awesome Video Games.

That’s one of the earlier episodes, admittedly before they really hit their stride and got good production values. Awesome Video Games is an internet series brainchild of Fraser Agar. There’s a good possibility that you’ve already heard of the series, but I only got into it recently, so to hell with it. Awesome Video Games is basically a parody of all the live action video game ads, promotional VHS tapes and TV shows from the late-80’s/early-90’s. Back when everyone who played video games was depicted as a totally radical dude with sunglasses. You know, like these guys from the Game Boy comic.

The show stars happy-go-lucky skater idiot Chet and his even stupider and more childish brother Ace. The two are a mix between Bill & Ted, the villain from The Wizard, the host of the Gamepro TV-show and basically every incompetent contestant on Nick Arcade. As they preview and review the newest titles for the Nintendo Entertainment System, they’re usually accosted and annoyed by their father Dad, who mixes aspects of everyone’s father merged with a vaudevillian charm. Often, he’ll scream at them to take out the trash, even — as shown in that above clip — if it’s in the middle of the night for some reason. A lot of the time, he’s there for Chet to point out that parents just don’t get it.

Although they have a zest for gaming, the duo are absolutely horrible at it and have no idea. It isn’t that they’re just bad gamers, it’s that they rarely understand how to even play the game in question. They think that Duck Hunt is about protecting ducks and performing cover fire to defend them from the sinister dog. They’re stoked when a fan letter tells them that there’s a secret SECOND level of Super Mario Bros. that you get to by not turning off the game when you get to the first castle (“No wonder it’s so hard to find. It’s underground!”). And man, I can’t even put their concept of Double Dragon’s gameplay into words.

Hours into discovering Awesome Video Games, I found that they’ve released a DVD of the show, featuring the first 43 episodes (excluding the Christmas specials) and with three additional episodes never released for one reason or another. Also, it has a ton of bloopers, some deleted scenes, commentary, some seriously high-quality animated menus by Retro Mike and a crapload of other extras. I found the whole concept of the show so fresh and entertaining that I felt the need to support them. See also: this post.

To further spread the love, here are some of the better episodes:

Gyromite: As Dad shows he’s a bigot when it comes to the game’s “greedy smicks”, the boys discover a newfound robot friend ROB to help them beat the game. ROB continues to screw up again and again, begging the question: is ROB more sinister than he appears? Short answer is yes. Meanwhile, a new dance craze sweeps the nation.

Game Genie: A very special episode. Ace and Chet’s shady cousin Lester visits and gets them hooked on codes. Sure, it may get their scores high and bring them to the next level, but it’s still an irresponsible gateway into a downward spiral.

Bad Dudes: To help rescue the NES game’s president, the boys dress in the coolest outfits they can find, thereby making Ace extra punchable (in the outtakes, the guy playing Chet is doing all he can to not tear his face off in a fit of rage). Their enthusiasm for badness starts to concern Dad, who wonders if they’ve been behaving wrongly behind his back. COMPLETELY UNRELATED, “the government himself” calls up the boys to see if they truly are bad enough to save the president.

Sonic the Hedgehog: In a remake of sorts of the first couple episodes, Ace and Chet are as excited and inept when it comes to Sonic the Hedgehog and the brand new Sega Genesis as they were with Super Mario Bros. and the NES. But man, the Green Hill Zone his HARD!

Have at it. It’s all good fun.

Last night I got back from yet another three days of awesome CHIKARA King of Trios action. For those out of the loop, CHIKARA is an amazing and super-fun indy wrestling federation that I follow the way hippies follow Phish. Every year, they do a tournament of sixteen teams of three, stretched over three shows in a weekend. Like every year, I had a complete blast.

I got to see a 6’8″ masked viking crush a midget dragon. I got to see the legendary Curry Man team up with CHIKARA team Los Ice Creams. I went to the fan conclave, where I got to defeat a guy dressed as a Ninja Turtle in Connect Four, sing “New York, New York” on karaoke with a turn-of-the-century baseball player (worth noting: Soldier Ant covering his ears in agony), and have a prom photo taken with wrestlers Jimmy “Equinox” Olsen and Jigsaw as I’m instructed to cradle a half-finished jug of orange juice in my arms like a baby and look at it “like a proud father”. On the last night of the show, Tommy Dreamer made a surprise appearance to put over the company and challenge Eddie Kingston to a match for next month.

But one of the biggest thrills I got came from the end of intermission. You see, these days, CHIKARA is being dominated by a stable of wrestlers called Die Bruderschaft des Kreuzes (“Brotherhood of the Cross”, BDK for short), made up of those who are angry at the company for one reason or another… as well as a giant viking guy. They’re such a force to be reckoned with that it seems like the tecnicos (good guys) and rudos (bad guys) will have to eventually join forces. Yet before intermission could end, the lights went out and this appeared on the big screens.

If you’re wondering, the wrestlers in the foreground are Worker Ant, Private Eye, Sumie Sakai, USApe, Mr. Zero, Blind Rage, Lance Steel, and Jervis Cottonbelly. I’m so down for this.

Nothing much is up so far on the CHIKARA: Rudo Resurrection website, but hopefully not for too long.

Who wants a Marvel vs. Capcom 3 trailer?

Okay, I see Deadpool’s there during the Marvel silhouette. Bring in Cage and Iron Fist and we’re all good.