Everyone likes a challenge, right? It’s the cornerstone of video gaming or gaming in general and gives us things to strive for. Several different gaming genres catered to specific challenges that gamers wanted to test their skills at. Want to see how well you can memorize things? Try Mortal Kombat or Killer Instinct for their ability to throw insane combo strings at you. Want to test your mettle and see how much of a brave person you are? Go ahead and play Silent Hill 2 or the more recent Slender to see how much you are, in fact, a little girl.

Want to be barraged by near-endless curtains of projectile death in order to see how well your dodging skills are and your resistance to collapsing into twitching messes? Bullet Hell games are right up your alley!

A sub-genre of the classic shoot’em-up games, Bullet Hell gaming is exactly what it sounds like – you doing nothing but maneuvering into endless waves of bullet-like projectiles with a emphasis on precise movements in order to survive. The sub-genre itself isn’t as recent as some people might think, but it’s only gotten more insane with time. Here’s a list of top Bullet Hell games that leave people with twitchy fingers and darting eyeballs for day afterwards, and be sure to let us know what yours are if any were missed!
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Yet more great Kickstarter gaming news! So a back earlier this year, I produced a retro review of “The Great Giana Sisters”, a game from the Commodore 64 and Amiga days of gaming that was notorious for being one of the earliest Super Mario Bros. clones in existence. The review mentions a recent remake of the game for the Nintendo DS that, while imaginative, some fans believed fell short on paying proper homage to the original’s fantastic music and unique charm.

Unbeknownst to me, a Kickstarter was established by independent developers, Black Forest Games, under the name “Project Giana”. With the idea firmly cemented in their brains, they set to work with the goal of making a truly innovative remake of Great Giana Sisters that would help to not only bring back the spark of the original game, but hook players that may not have cared for the DS revamp. What the Kickstarter originally didn’t really make clear, but thankfully writer Audun Sorlie at Destructoid managed to lay all out on the table with his interview with BFG, was that original game composer Chris Huelsbeck was along to help with the project’s soundtrack, along with DS-version composer Fabian Del Priore co-producing and metal-chiptune maestros Machinae Supremacy along to help out.

With a playable demo currently available to try, and a ton of goodies for those who pledge to the fund, (the very first tier gets you the game for PC), “Project Giana” is shaping up to be one of those Kickstarters that again appeal to the childhood gamer in so many of us. (Now that we’re adults with larger budgets than our weekly allowances) Whether it make it’s 150K goal within the August 31st deadline or not will be determined these next few days, but if it does, it will be another testament to the growing idea of resurrecting similar older games through the power of the gaming community.

In the past few years, video game conventions have managed to take great strides to become a heavy presence in the convention and event field. With PAX, and later PAX East, and eventually smaller but more tight-knit cons like MAGfest and Gencon, video games have been getting a lot of venue attention. Eventually, gaming media giant Screwattack decided to create their own event called SGC (Screwattack Gaming Convention) Started in 2009, it was in their own words – “We don’t think of SGC as a “convention” but moreso as a 72 hour gamer slumber party.”.

Unfortunately, after the second SGC in 2010, funding the event became too hard and the venue did not return for 2011 or 2012. However last month, Screwattack posed the idea of bring SGC back with the help of Kickstarter. If 100K was raised in the month timeframe, SGC would be able to rise again and offer another fun gaming event for all to enjoy. However, the campaign started slow and suffered from a slight lack of publicity and details as to how the money raised would be spent to make SGC come to life.

Surprisingly, however, it became Cindrella story of sorts, since within a 12-hour period, not only was the gaming fan community able to rally together and raise the remaining 30k in funds that was missing from the original goal, the goals was actually succeeded by an additional 20k.

Sadly, they couldn’t make the goal of 300k that would ensure Stuttering Craig would cosplay as Chun-Li the entire con. A heavy loss indeed.

Looks like Parkinson’s has claimed another of Hollywood’s greats.

The L.A. Times today reported today that actor Bob Hoskins announced his retirement today after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. If you don’t happen to know Hoskins (and if not, shame on you; you’re a bad geek), then perhaps the movie titles Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Hook, Brazil and Super Mario Bros. might ring a bell.

Hoskins turned 70 later this year, and follows after other renowned geek-beloved actor Michael J. Fox for retiring from the acting spotlight after being the most well-known actor who brought spotlight to the serious ailment that is Parkinson’s. (Fox later came back to acting several years after retiring, but has been no-less active in the fight against the disease and raising awareness about it)

We wish Mr. Hoskins well with his retirement and for his future.

Ok, I’m going to start off by immediately saying that this list does NOT, in fact, represent my top favorite game themes. Neither does it mean to undermine any of the multitudes of iconic first-level game tunes that didn’t make this list. This list is simply made up of those jingles upon first entering a game’s plane of existence that meant the most to me and why. (and yes, most are from older games)

I see you there with the pitchfork and torch. Don’t try to hide it.

So here are my top 5 most iconic 1st Level tunes from video games.

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Always being about geek media in general and not just comics, some new info and pics were shown at San Deigo Comicon for the second season of the Avatar: The Last Airbender sequel-series, The Legend of Korra! Scans_Daily patron Espanolbot was good enough to gather some precious info regarding the future of the series, which was recently announced to have been greenlit for 50 additional episodes by Nickelodeon.

Among a slew of new concept art regarding the characters both established and new that are set to appear in Season 2, Mr. Bot was able to grab informational tidbits set to happen in the new seaon, such as the Southern Water Tribe being the main location of the new season, a look at Korra’s extended family, and further development of Tenzin’s older siblings Bumi and Kya. There is also to be a a look back on the origins of the Avatar and a large focus on the Spirit World.

The whole list of official reveals can be found at Espanolbot’s blog, as well as the character art and some setting design. Season 2 of Legend of Korra has no set air date as of yet, but it rumored to be early 2013.

Welcome to the Powet Top 5, where we explore the top (and bottom) 5 items we think are relevant to any of a variety of topics that span the imagination. Sit back, read, and respond.

Let’s face it, having a servant must be an awesome thing. They clean up after you, prepare your daily routine, fix you whatever you want to eat and drive you around – amongst a whole plethora of other duties. They are your right-hand man. (or woman, if we want to be politically correct)

Then there are the servants that not only fix you dinner and take out the trash, but the type that REALLY take out the trash. They do everything from help you combat colds to combat the forces of hell. They may have been soldiers in their former lives, or are just very dedicated to making sure every possible need of their masters is met; even those that require a good helping of regular asskicking.

There is “effective”, and then there is “combat effective”. These guys take up both titles. They will also serve you tea in-between cracking skulls. Would you like some sugar with your lumps?
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