CraveOnline

2K Games delivers a surprising solid shooter wrapped tight in blood and gore.

Beneath all the excessive mutilation and profanity, there’s a sentimental, vulnerable beating heart at the core of The Darkness 2. I never in a million years expected to partake in a slow dance with the ghost of my dead girlfriend to “I Only Have Eyes For You” by The Flamingos; but alas, that happens in this game. It just goes to show you that for all the bravado this game displayed in its various trailers and screenshots leading up to release -- making the title appear like it only caters to those who frequent frat houses -- 2K Games and developer Digital Extremes haven’t forgotten about the importance of a story to make the carnage meaningful.

But make no mistake, The Darkness 2 is a very violent package. There's barely a moment that goes by where you’re not pulling the head off some poor sap, or ripping someone apart like a wishbone, or yanking someone's skull and spine out through their butthole. But guess what? I'm the sadistic son of a bitch who enjoyed doing it all thanks to the game's core mechanic, "quad wielding." 

With the power of the Darkness inside him, mob boss Jackie Estacado can simultaneously wield two weapons and his dual demon arms. This lets the player have some flexibility with how they go about maiming people throughout the game's campaign. I'll admit, once you get fluent with using your weapons and demon arms in conjunction, it's bloody poetry in motion. If you're worried The Darkness 2 will feel like just another shooter, lay those worries to rest; the quad wielding mechanic is definitely this game's saving grace when it comes to separating it from the pack.

In addition, you can also enhance your abilities as you progress through the game by collecting essence. Collecting essence allows you to upgrade your reload speed, or apply gun channeling for added power, or command a swarm of flies to stun your enemies, or toss your Darkling minion "fastball special" style, to name but a few options. There are four uniquely different upgrade trees, ensuring that you won't be able to max out everything in your first play through. 

The Darkness 2 has also garnered some attention thanks to its unique graphical style. The folks at Digital Extremes call it "graphic noir," taking a cue from the comic book source material and the ever popular cel-shaded look incorporated in a lot of games these days. Without the "graphic noir" touch, The Darkness 2 would have looked like a very dated game, honestly. However, the cel-shaded style gives this title legs, covering up some of the dated engine's worts and blemishes and replacing them with a glossy, fantastical finish that works within the context of this fictional world.

If there is one thing to be disappointed by, it's that the game's campaign is only roughly six hours. Granted, I wasn't timing my first play through, but it couldn't have been longer than that. Thankfully, we get an added mode called "Vendettas" for up to four people to play simultaneously, whether locally or online. Vendettas is kind of a side story to the main game's campaign, allowing you and your buddies to perform mob hits or rescue missions in the name of your boss, Jackie. The tasks you're asked to perform range from mildly entertaining to downright boring, but at least there are four unique characters to choose from, all with their own special weapons and upgradable abilities. While nowhere near the main draw of The Darkness 2 package, Vendettas does at least extend the lifetime of this game by a couple of hours. 

While the campaign of The Darkness 2 might teeter on the shorter end of the spectrum, it makes up for it with a story and gameplay that manages to engage from start to finish -- even going as far as to tease a potential The Darkness 3 that ties heavily into the comic book source material. And on top of that, Vendettas acts as a nice addendum to extend the longevity of the overall package. Don't let the blood, guts and excessive cursing scare you away, The Darkness 2 is definitely a game worth experiencing. 

Full Disclosure: CraveOnline received one advanced copy of The Darkness 2 for the Xbox 360 from 2K Games. We were held to the embargo date of 2/7/2012 at 8am EST. Before starting our review, we completed 100% of the game's campaign on normal difficulty. We also played a couple hours of "Vendettas" mode.

To understand how we score games, see our officially defined review guidelines.

Catch the all new trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man right here!

First we brought you news on the preview of The Amazing Spider-Man, now we have the actual trailer for the film right here!

Visit the official site at http://theamazingspiderman.com

It’s a teaspoon of danger!

Can you defeat the Cinnamon Challenge? If you can swallow a teaspoon of cinnamon without inhaling the powder of vomiting everywhere, you have a rare skill. For years, all across the country, folks have been taking and failing the challenge. Here are 7 videos of people attempting the legendary eating experiment:

University of Tuktoyaktuk Student

This is how they BFFFFT in Canada.

Coughing Dude

Just needs more practice.

Confident Girl

...is suddenly not so confident.

He’s A Puker

Puking for YouTube – that’s a way to make a living now.

Madi Tries

Madi fails.

Cinnamon Bros

Broing out at the sink.

Winner?

You’re probably not supposed to chew for over a minute, but she didn’t throw up blood, so she wins!

Geoffrey Golden is the Editor In Chief of The Devastator, the national comedy magazine for geeks. Header via, 2, 3.

Sony unveiled a new trailer and ten minutes of footage today, but is it really amazing? Find out now.

With The Dark Knight Rises and The Avengers soaking up internet traffic worldwide, The Amazing Spider-Man seems to have disappeared completely from the public consciousness. Sony Pictures tried to do some damage control today by giving a ten-minute sneak preview of the film, with director Marc Webb and co-stars Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone and Rhys Ifans in attendance across the world, simulcast from theaters in Los Angeles, New York, Rio de Janeiro and London. The goal was clearly to get word of mouth started for Amazing Spider-Man, which opens in just a few months, on July 3. Did it work?

Yes… Kinda. It was alright.

I’ve seen the footage, some of it culled from the San Diego Comic Con preview that utterly failed to impress me last summer. It looks perfectly fine. A lot of it looks really fun. I’ll describe it in just a moment, but suffice to say that I’m certainly more encouraged than ever before that Amazing Spider-Man could be a very fun, well-made Spider-Man movie. What they failed to do at the publicity event was explain why this movie was even necessary in the first place.

Batman Begins, for example, was necessary. Warner Bros. had run the previous franchise thoroughly into the ground thanks to rampant product placement and misplaced goofiness. There was no saving the existing Batman franchise. Batman, cinematically at least, was broken. They had to go back to square one and redefine the character in the medium of film. Spider-Man didn’t have that problem. Say what you will about Spider-Man 3, but it didn’t kill the character of Spider-Man. Spider-Man was just fine. He had a lackluster sequel – everybody gets one – but to the public Spider-Man hadn’t lost his overall appeal. So rebooting the franchise, even if Amazing Spider-Man really is, well, amazing, doesn’t fix anything.

In the extremely brief, fluffy Q & A following the screening of the new footage, Marc Webb was asked what they had brought to the Spider-Man mythos that we’d never seen before. His response was Spider-Man’s parents. We’d never seen them before, had we? No, we hadn’t… because he’s an orphan. They influence his psyche but not his teenaged or even adult life in any meaningful, direct fashion. It’s just a detail that the Sam Raimi film hadn’t fleshed out. That’s fine, go ahead and include it, but let’s not pretend that it’s anything akin to a game-changer. Amazing Spider-Man retells Peter Parker’s origin, and from the footage screened clearly integrates his origin into the complete film better than the original Sam Raimi Spider-Man, but it’s not reinventing the wheel. It’s just a different wheel. It’s hard to get excited about that.

What we saw (I’ll warn you when serious spoilers are ahead): Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) at school with his camera. He apparently works for the school newspaper. Flash Thompson – or his near equivalent – is beating up a kid and insists that Peter takes his picture doing so. Peter refuses and gets beat up in turn. On the grounded, beaten, Peter says, “I’m still not taking the picture.”

After a brief clip of Peter pushing Flash against some lockers, a scene played in which Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen) tries to impart a life lesson about using power for petty revenge, before intentionally embarrassing Peter in front of Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone). What followed was a clumsy but successful flirtation. Later in the footage, Peter web-swings onto Gwen Stacy’s fire escape and claims he climbed up 20 stories because her doorman was scary. A particularly awkward dinner scene included a conversation between Peter and Captain Stacy (Denis Leary), Gwen’s father, who throughout the footage seems adamant about bringing the vigilante Spider-Man to justice. Peter goes to bat for this “Spider-Man” character, which does not win him bonus points with his girlfriend’s dad.

Further Gwen Stacy footage – MAJOR SPOILER ALERT – finds Stacy caring for Peter after what appears to be a particularly brutal fight. So we can assume she finds out he’s Spider-Man at some point. She explains to Peter that every time her father goes to work, she’s not sure if he’s coming home, so presumably Peter’s about to go do the same thing. He seems to blame himself for creating The Lizard (Rhys Ifans), but we didn’t see too much of the creature in this footage. The bulk of the action between them seems to take place atop a big radio tower. At one point an energy pulse is emitted from the top, not unlike the end of Bryan Singer’s original X-Men. So I assume The Lizard has a grander plan beyond, well, being a lizard. One of the cooler action moments occurs when Spider-Man is surrounded by police officers and unmasked, forcing him to beat them up quickly to avoid being identified. END MAJOR SPOILERS.

The web swinging looks as fun as ever, and once again we have a goofy montage of Peter trying to figure out how to use his spider-powers. There are also several shots of Peter inventing the web shooter, and when he actually uses it there’s a bright red LED light activated on his wrist, presumably to call attention to the action during the copious night scenes.

Everything else we saw involved random bits of action – debris flying about, beating up muggers, etc. – or scenes we can infer from the original trailer, such as Peter investigating his father’s mysterious suitcase. Apparently his father worked closely with The Lizard years ago, and Peter is able to help finish the work they started… which clearly backfires.

In short, there’s nothing in the footage that implies that Amazing Spider-Man won’t excel as a Spider-Man movie, but there’s also nothing that makes it stand out from the previous films besides the obvious, more naturalistic tone. I complained that the Comic Con footage looked unnecessarily dark and moody, but that doesn’t seem to be a problem now. The footage was textured with shadows but easy to make out through the 3D glasses, which is very reassuring. Amazing Spider-Man doesn’t quite look amazing, but it looks like a worthy addition to the Spider-Man film franchise. But nothing we’ve seen so far justifies the need to reboot the franchise as a whole, aside from a desire to recast Peter Parker as a younger actor. 

Marvel releases the first of its updated origin stories - aka blueprints for how to make a movie - and it ain't half bad.

The Marvel Season One project is a way for the House of Ideas to update the canonical origins of all their biggest heroes, paying respect to the work of Stan Lee and company by incorporating the stories they told with a modern-day sensibility.  Given the "Season One" title, this seems to be entirely un-subtle code for making their big-name properties a lot more movie and TV-friendly for spin-off purposes.  Here's your storyboard, Hollywood, please give us money now. Of course, it's also a nice way to bring in new readers who can't yet appreciate old-school 1960s-era storytelling, or may be daunted by the long and storied histories.

Fittingly, the first of these books is Fantastic Four: Season One, by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, currently a writer on Glee with a history of working with Marvel's First Family during the Marvel Knights era, as well as Secret Invasion.  The release of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's Fantastic Four #1 back in 1961 is what launched the Silver Age and the modern superhero era, so it's certainly the best place to start.  So... let's start!

Keep in mind HERE THERE BE SPOYLERS, as it's kinda hard to discuss how this origin differs from what came before without discussing major plot points.

What this 130-odd page book does is roll most of the major early Fantastic Four events into one big issue, and this is your new canon... unless nobody likes it, and then it won't be (see also: John Byrne's Spider-Man: Chapter One).  The cosmic rays, the Mole Man and the return of Namor are all packed into this graphic novel. It's worth noting that Dr. Doom, however, only has a one-page cameo, commenting amusingly on the public reveal of the FF... which was now initially known as The Fearsome Four, thanks to a hot-headed Johnny Storm thinking it sounded badass and blurting it out on television. 

It all flows fairly well together, and while I'm not encyclopedic in my knowledge of Fantastic Four history, the changes made don't seem too catastrophic.  There's no space race against the Commies anymore, but instead, Reed Richards' ego wants to establish himself as manning the first entirely privatized excursion into space, to help subsidize the rest of his work.

Aside from revealing that Reed has self-diagnosed a mild case of autism he's inventing a cure for - a development sure to cause some strong debate - perhaps the most significant of the alterations is the incorporation of Dr. Alyssa Moy, a former flame of Reed's that was introduced in the late 1990s by Chris Claremont, into the origin story as one of Reed's colleagues at the Baxter Building.  In the new origin, she basically plays Mission Control for their secret excursion into space, while providing a little bit of dramatic tension in the potential nuptials between Reed and Susan Storm and eventually becoming their PR lady.  How this affects her previously established canon, we don't quite know, but retcons can be ruthless to minor characters.  Then again, this is a pretty big upgrade, and it prevents them from having to make Sue into a scientist Ultimate-style just to prove the FF isn't all antiquated in its social mores about gender roles - a point made a bit too fine later when the boys try to leave Sue behind, and she joins them anyway after making a pissy speech about not being window dressing and saves the day against underground monsters.

Yes, the Mole Man still attacks, as pictured on the cover of Fantastic Four Vol. 1 #1, but the team fights him and his beasts in New York City instead of Monster Isle, and  in street clothes while still discovering the extent of their powers - and they solve the problem by having Sue just talk down ol' Harvey Elder, have him call off his big monster named Korgu, and offer him a lab in the Baxter. That ain't how it originally happened back in 1961.

However, that change sets up the solution to the Namor problem, when the public revelation of a new Human Torch fires a few synapses in the shaggy bearded transient who has apparently forgotten his true identity.  When he suddenly realizes he's The Avenging Son of Atlantis, and goes home to find his kingdom ransacked by surface-dwellers, he goes to a museum, finds the big magic horn, and calls the Leviathan to come stomp New York.  Thankfully, the FF recruited the Mole Man, and thus have their Korgu to defend the city.  That's right - Fantastic Four: Season One culiminates in a big-ass kaiju battle.  Ain't nothin' wrong with that.

All the familiar tropes are still present - such as the Reed guilt about Ben Grimm becoming stuck as the Thing (and Ben flipping out and feeling justified in making Reed feel like crap about for a while it is a nice, humanizing touch - and it's a way of referencing the animus between Reed and Ben in the original origin issue, without making it about competing for Sue). After finding a cure for the rockness, his choosing to take on the burden again to save his surrogate family is a fairly solid moment, even if it feels a little rushed and we're not entirely sure why he can't re-cure himself afterward.  The ball-busting between Ben and Johnny is always entertaining, too. If anything rings hollow to me, it's the forced contemporary references out of Sue.  She tosses out names like Mad Men, J.J. Abrams and "Zach Snyder" [sic], which entirely defeats the purpose of making sure your story isn't dated.  Rooting your new origin story in a specific era is part of the problem you're trying to solve, folks, so don't just up and root it in THIS era as a solution.  It's called making it timeless.

There's also a minor quibble that I should just shrug off, because it's in service of a fun joke at Johnny's expense.  They establish him as a big comic book reader, and thus familar with Namor and the Invaders, but earlier, he's surprised to learn that there was a Human Torch before him.  It's funny because it makes him look like the dope he is, but it's one or the other.  Or we can No-Prize it and just say 'hey, you can know who Captain America is without knowing who the Whizzer is.'

The establishing of the dynamic between Sue, Reed and Namor is somewhat curious.  Sue has that initial hypnotic attraction to him and his crazy speedo suit - and it's just after one of her girlfriends encouraged her to try flirting with other dudes to maybe spur Reed (apparently now her college professor she eventually started dating) into proposal action.  However, Namor's obnoxious sexism and general conqueror vibe immediately douse that into 'pff, you're a pig.'  There's also a moment where Reed thinks Namor has just casually killed Sue and Johnny, and he absolutely flips out in anger and threatens to kill ol' Baby Fish Mouth, which is something you just don't see out of the brainiac.  This is all just the beginning of that triangle, but what's here doesn't really seem like the kind of basis to build a long-simmering tension.  Then again, the fact that apparently Mr.Fantastic's body apparently actually feels like an inflatable pool toy to the touch now might mean Mr. Imperius Jerkx is more forgivable.

The art from David Marquez is very solid, however - clean and shiny with well-rendered characters, and the coloring from Guru E-FX is just as bright as the Fantastic Four should be.  Marquez is a bit too waify-supermodelly with his ladies, but that's just a systemic problem with the entire medium, and there's a lot more Torch and Namor shirtlessness going on than there is any focus on how nose-jobby Moy looks.

There are nods to the original origin issue, though, as the first time we see Sue, she's brunching with friends, just as she is in Fantastic Four Vol. 1 #1, and Johnny is obsessing about a car - although now he's also flashing his abs as a model and flirting with his photographer. Then there's the official announcement of their names - Reed swears "Mr. Fantastic" isn't his idea from the get-go, while Sue takes umbrage at Moy introducing her to the world as Invisible GIRL instead of WOMAN.  Little things like that. But it's very much a modern story that generally captures what's fun about the FF, so long as you don't let yourself get all worked up about continuity issues or come to it with intention to just pick it apart.  There are moments that taste vaguely of ham-fist, but overall, it's a nice piece of storytelling.

It's just fun, which is what the Fantastic Four should be.

CRAVE ONLINE RATING: 8.3/10

Scott Snyder brings down the hammer hard on Alec Holland and Abby Arcane.

After a misfire with issue #5, Swamp Thing #6 gets us right back on track. In fact, Swamp Thing 6 is so powerful, I’m beginning to think issue 5 was purposefully lackluster so the kick to the nuggets that is issue 6 would be that much more ridiculous. Shit has gone bad. Real bad. Fuck you, world, here comes some evil, dark, demon rotting blood shit, bat shit bad.  This is one of those issues where you scratch your head and really wonder how exactly our hero is going to get out of this. Sure, we all know good will prevail, but damned if I can figure out how.

Alec Holland has screwed the pooch. Well, actually, he’s screwed the Parliament of Trees. The collective of the spirit of the swamp, which chose Holland to be the Swamp Thing, begged Holland for help and he kindly refused. Now, the Green is dying, as the Rot grows stronger. In the jungles of Brazil, the Rot is burning the Green and creating demented creatures to serve it. Worst of all, Abby, the woman sworn to fight the Rot and her younger brother, the herald of evil, has been swallowed by the rot and cocooned. Apparently, the true heir to the throne is not Abby’s brother but Abby, the Black Queen. Holland has screwed the Parliament, the world, and now his new lady friend. Nice going, Alec.

Writer Scott Snyder unleashes hell in a handbasket with Swamp Thing #6. The entire issue is about the collapse of everything holding Alec Holland together and his realization hat his own ego has led to a dramatic failure. I find it fascinating that so much of Snyder’s work is about personal failure due to ego. The Commissioner Gordon story in Detective Comics (pre-reboot), his current works with Batman against the Court Of The Owl and now Swamp Thing. It’s as if Snyder’s creating an epic theme tying these stories together - one that shines a light on the tragedy of the human ego and how badly those failures can effect everyone around you. It’s deep, heady and effective stuff, further proof Snyder deserves every single accolade he’s received.

As I said, wrapping this all up is going to be a real head-trip. I know Animal Man will crossover into Swamp Thing, but how that will effect the current bad times is anybody’s guess. Outside of the great story and character development, there’s a constant unknown factor with Swamp Thing. This isn’t a major hero for DC so Snyder has more freedom to muddy the waters with adult themes and darker tones. Swamp Thing might not get out of this, and if he does it’ll be at great cost to his psyche. It’s rare when a comic series keeps you guessing but Swamp Thing has, even with the last issue's hiccups, still stood above most anything else out there right now.

Marco Rudy’s art is the uppercut knock-out shot of the entire exercise. First, let me talk about layout. Not since Batwoman have I seen layouts this spectacular. Each page contains a really special statement to what comic books could and should look like. Epic double page spreads, panels that begin one place and end inside a second panel. Moving panel edges, combinations of various scenes, its all so gorgeous that it lifts Snyder’s story into something else. Rudy also has a keen sense of macabre and that which is really unnerving. In short, the guy can draw fucked up and creepy better than most. Swamp Thing #6 is a keeper.

CRAVEONLINE RATING 9.5/10 (4.75 Story, 4.75 Art)

Redundant Comics Redundant brings Ultimate Falcon is on the cover, and the Hulk is chillin' at a temple somewheres.

If you read Ultimate Comics, (which I don't, but my opinion is hardly the only one out there, and never let it be said that I don't respect those of others), then you'll be interested to check out this preview to see what the alternate-reality not-Avengers are up to. Captain America has refused Nick Fury's plea to lead his new team against Reed Richards and The Children of Tomorrow, so he'll have to resort to desperate measures since his team is a complete mess at the moment.

What's that?  Evil Reed Richards, you say?  Well, it is FF writer Jonathan Hickman at the helm here.

Check out this ultimate preview ultimate Esad Ribic art for Ultimate Comics Ultimates #7: Ultimate Ultimatumy Ultimateness.  Okay, I ultimately made up that ultimate part.

Mandy Moore, Elijah Wood, Simon Pegg, Chris Hardwick and more appear in the Chronicle guy's mocking of DC Comics.

Do you want to see Elijah Wood play Cyborg Superman, with Mandy Moore as Lois Lane?  Do you hate how cheap death is in comics these days?  Did you like Chronicle?  Then you'll want to check out The Death and Return of Superman, as short-filmed by Max Landis, son of John Landis and writer of the new superhero movie Chronicle (reviewed here by Film Channel Editor William Bibbiani, who I thank for bringing this to my attention).

In this nearly 17-minute short, Landis diminishes Superman as a concept a bit too cavalierly, but he zeroes in on how The Death of Superman completely ruined the entire concept of death in comic books, by re-enacting how bad the whole story of Doomsday and the Reign of the Supermen notion was with all his friends in entertainingly goofy ways.  Look out for quick appearances from Simon Pegg, Chris Hardwick and even Ron Howard, too.  Not to mention Grae Drake, who appears as one of the DC Comics execs, and who you can hear from on the latest B-Movies Podcast, as well!

Check out the film right here:

Find out what your friends are really trying to say this Super Bowl Sunday!

Are you suffering from obscure Facebook status updates? Well, fret no more with CRAVE Online’s Decoding the Facebook Series! We take some of the most boring, annoyingly-vague Facebook status updates and translate them into more realistic language.

This week, we concentrate on the event that everyone’s talking about: THE SUPER BOWL And rest assured, there is no shortage of moronic, dumb Facebook updates all over the place.

Take a look:

Rachel (moments ago): I don’t know why everyone has to knock Madonna -- she’s a living legend!

What they’re really saying: I hope when I’m 53 I can still crush a walnut with my vagina.

Dan (15 minutes ago): Taking a shot for every missed Eli Manning pass.

What they’re really saying: I’m driving home drunk! Come and get me Burbank Police!

Stacey (about an hour ago): I can’t eat any more wings!

What they’re really saying: I only have a quarter roll of toilet paper at home!

Mike (30 minutes ago): LET”SK GOfsO!!!! PATRIOTTIS!

What they’re really saying: We ran out of beer, so I started drinking the sh-t under the sink.

Becca (about an hour ago): Does anyone else think Tom Brady looks like Dexter?

What they’re really saying: I want to f-ck Tom Brady.

Chuck (yesterday): Who give’s a damn about the “East Coast Bowl?”

What they’re really saying: I really had my fingers crossed the Rams were gonna go all the way.

Lindsay (moments ago): Bob Costas has a sexy voice!

What they’re really saying: Bob Costas sounds like my dad.

Bobby (two hours ago): I give you your 2012 Super Bowl champs – THE NY GIANTS!! This is the GREATEST moment in sports history! God Bless the NY GIANTS!

What they’re really saying: I have to go to work at Burger King early tomorrow. My life sucks.

Steph (45 minutes ago): Aww, poor Bill Belichick! I feel so bad for him.

What they’re really saying: He should have cheated like the old days, then he wouldn't be so sad!

Check back to CRAVE Online for more Decoding the Facebook!

Getting you set for the sports week ahead!

With the Super Bowl behind us and the NFL season officially over, we are left with basketball and more basketball to fill the void until baseball returns. Luckily, we have a week chalk full of excellent games at both the collegiate level and the pro's so though the parting of the NFL brings sadness to most, at least we have something!

Monday

(NCAABB) Connecticut at No 25 Louisville

(NBA) Utah at New York) 7:30 pm NBATV

(NCAABB) Texas at Texas A&M 9 pm ESPN

(NBA) Oklahoma City at Portland 10 pm NBATV

Tuesday

(NCAABB) No 11 Florida at No 1 Kentucky 7 pm ESPN

(NCAABB) Iowa St. at Oklahoma St. 7 pm ESPN2

(NBA) Cleveland at Miami 7:30 pm FXPOH

(NCAABB) Purdue at No 3 Ohio St. 9 pm ESPN

Wednesday

(NCAABB) No 14 Georgetown at No 2 Syracuse 7 pm ESPN

(NCAABB) No 8 Kansas at No 6 Baylor 7 pm ESPN2

(NBA) New York at Washington 7 pm NBATV

(NCAABB) No 5 Duke at No 6 North Carolina 69 pm ESPN

(NCAABB) Seton Hall at Rutgers 9 pm ESPN2

(NBA) Houston at Portland 10 pm NBATV

Thursday

(NCAABB) No. 20 Wisconsin at Minnesota 7 pm ESPN

(NCAABB) Ole Miss at No 19 Mississippi St. 7 pm ESPN2

(NBA) LA Lakers at Boston 8 pm TNT

(NBA) Oklahoma at Sacramento 10:30 pm TNT

(NCAABB) No 16 Saint Mary's at Gonzaga 11 pm ESPN2

Friday

(NBA) LA Lakers at New York 8 pm ESPN

(NBA) Oklahoma City at Utah 10:30 pm ESPN

Saturday

(NCAABB) Butler at Cleveland St. 11 am ESPN2

(NCAABB) No 25 Louisville at West Virginia 12 pm ESPN

(NCAABB) Connecticut at No 2 Syracuse 1 pm CBS

(NCAABB) Kansas St at Texas 2 pm ESPN

(NCAABB) Maryland at No 5 Duke 4 pm ESPN

(NCAABB) Wichita St at No 12 Creighton 5 pm ESPN 2

(NCAABB) No 10 Michigan St at No 3 Ohio St 6 pm ESPN

(NCAABB) No 1 Kentucky at Vanderbilt 9 pm ESPN

(NBA) Denver at Indiana 7 pm NBATV

(NBA) Phoenix at Sacramento 10 pm NBATV

Sunday

(NCAABB) St. Johns at No 14 Georgetown 1 pm ESPN

(NCAABB) Illinois at No 22 Michigan 1 pm CBS

(NBA) Chicago at Boston 3:30 pm abc

(NBA) Miami at Atlanta 7 pm ESPN

(NBA) Utah at Memphis 9:30 pm ESPN