Kid Icarus: Uprising - The Final Showdown

This Saturday saw the grand final of the Kid Icarus: Uprising Battle Events take place in Central London. For the past eight weeks, the series of competitive Nintendo 3DS events have been touring the length and breadth of Great Britain, giving the general public the chance to take on pro-gamer Russki in a tournament to win a trip to IPL 5 in Las Vegas this November.

On Saturday, 24 finalists descended on the Century Club in Soho, (some coming in from Scotland) to duke it out in front of an audience of Nintendo fans. While only one person was going to be walking away with the main prize of the trip to Vegas, five runners up also managed to get their hands on a full deck of Kid Icarus: Uprising AR cards (400 of them!).

A victorious James Rushton

Fighting off fierce competition, James Rushton was the overall winner of the tournament, and he'll be jetting off to Vegas later this year courtesy of IGN and Nintendo. We'd like to thank everyone who took part across the country and those who came down to cheer on the competitors this weekend. Check out the snaps of the event below – a massive thank you to Ace Ashun for supplying!

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X-Men Legacy #272 Review

Technically X-Men Legacy can still be considered a tie-in to Avengers vs. X-Men, if only because it's still taking place concurrently with the events of that series. But Christos Gage has plucked Rogue away from the battle and placed her in a "fish out of water" scenario on an alien world. At this point I'm growing weary of excess AvX tie-in books, so this arc is a breath of fresh air, pointless as it may be in the long run.

Rogue became acquainted with the Thundercats-esque Vray last time, so this issue switches things up by making her a prisoner of the insectoid Hive instead. Basically, this arc is Rogue's chance to play John Carter of Mars and use her great powers save an entire planet from a devastating war. The only snafu is that her borrowed Ms. Marvel abilities have run out.

I'm enjoying the fun, almost pulpy tone of this arc. The John Carter comparison is apt, as Gage is busy merging the X-Men franchise with a more old-school brand of science fiction than the norm. And fortunately, issue #272 is less burned by unnecessary narration than #271 was. While there's a bit too much dialogue at times, this still makes for a smoother reading experience. Gage seems intent on using both factions and their opposing philosophies to comment on Rogue's own troubled psyche. However, the connection is a bit too weak and tenuous to succeed. This is a fun, adventurous conflict that doesn't function on the deeper level it seems to strive for.

Rafa Sandoval returns to the series for this arc, and unfortunately his pencils are mixed once again. His work is more detailed than before, and he delivers some engaging action scenes and general design work. However, Sandoval's chronic problems with female hair remain, and his tendency to reuse facial expressions and poses can be aggravating.

We now know Gage's run will be ending shortly. Unfortunately, that fact may be the biggest flaw with this whole arc. With so little time left, is it really worth ignoring the rest of the Legacy cast for what is ultimately a fun but forgettable field trip?

Jesse is a writer for IGN Comics and IGN Movies. He can't wait until he's old enough to feel ways about stuff. Follow Jesse on Twitter, or find him on IGN.

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Warehouse 13: "An Evil Within" Review

Note: Full spoilers for the episode follow.

Last week's premiere restored order to the series after the chaotic events of last season's finale. We see more of the same trend here, as the show continues to gradually make the wrong things right; this time by bringing Jinks back to life. I'm happy to see Aaron Ashmore still has a job, but I'm hoping all this re-writing of history has some serious consequences that raise the stakes for the series.

This episode started off well. The team is in good spirits, except for Artie who seems to still carry stress/guilt/fear from all of last week's events. Pete's innocuous “turn back time” comment has an obviously jarring effect on Artie and precludes the reappearance of Brother Adrian, who of course doesn't know that he and Artie met in an alternate timeline. Brent Spiner gets a much better opportunity to explore the role and it's good to see him back on TV. On a separate note, here's a little bit of TV history trivia for you: Saul Rubinek (Artie) and Brent Spiner once worked very closely on an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation called “The Most Toys” (quite a good episode if you haven't seen it).

Anyways, back to the Warehouse. This episode takes a three-part format, with Pete and Myka investigating an odd case while Artie deals with Brother Adrian and Claudia is doing her best bad girl impression. If you didn't have a ton of reasons to love Allison Scagliotti before, well you should now.

The story really takes an odd turn when Kate Mulgrew once again shows up as regent Jane Lattimer to tell Claudia that it's okay for Claudia to bring Jinks back. It's a thrilling development, made even more surprising by the late revelation that the regents actually did not approve it and Jane was going rogue. We've got all sorts of morality issues here, but Artie's time turning is the biggest of them all. There's a nice bit of thematic storytelling as Artie tries to prevent Claudia from doing something similar (but different) to what he did. It's quite a moral quandary that will surely be part of the series going forward.

Once Claudia gets the questionable go-ahead to revive Jinksy, she and Jane bring Steve back in an emotional scene where Kate Mulgrew really shows she still has the acting chops. I've really enjoyed Mulgrew in this role, and it looks like her character is joining Artie and Claudia in moral limbo. For the most part our heroes have been able to resist the temptation of artifact power, but now things are changing fast.

I also liked the little characterization moments in the script. We learn that Myka has a fear of tentacles (maybe she had an unpleasant experience with some hentai anime). And I really enjoyed Artie's desperate attempts to figure out how to get around this “evil” without unfixing the warehouse's destruction. There's plenty to like here, but there are unfortunately a number of flaws too.

H.P. Lovecraft finally gets some love in Warehouse 13. This is a deserved acknowledgment which comic and horror geeks should surely enjoy, and it's a wonder that it took this long for this series to fit him into one of the stories. Unfortunately, this artifact hunt is one of the weakest the series has ever produced. The plot with the tentacled monsters just doesn't hit any highs, and it culminates in a final scene that his horribly cheesy, partially because our antagonist barely says anything, and when he does he's not particularly interesting. Then we have the extras at the gym, who are all horrendous actors. But to be fair, the whole concept of the scene leaves a lot to be desired. And the special effects – which were gradually getting better for this series – take a little step backwards here.

But if you take out the shaky Lovecraft plot, this is a good episode that sets up a lot of pieces for the developing story that is going to carry us through the season. Still, all these new developments have been at the expense of undoing all the shocking surprises of last season. Normally I wouldn't be a big fan of this approach because it keeps us from believing that any of the major events of the series will ever stick. But at the same time, I understand the producers don't want to take too many risks with a formula that's working. The showrunners have proven themselves capable caretakers of this series, so for now I'll be cautiously optimistic that this direction will pay off very soon.

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