Since the alphabet is the building block of our language, the Powet Alphabet is the building block of what makes us geeks.

Zombies – they’re a staple of film and games alike. Pioneered by the likes of George Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead” and its sequels, and followed by the slightly less-serious “Return of the Living Dead” movies and scores of others in the horror genre, zombies have been a tool of the entertainment industry for decades. Games began using them as early as the late 80’s, with Castlevania starting the trend of pixelizing the undead, and the idea taking off with subsequent games such as DOOM and the less-than-terrifying “Zombies Ate my Neighbors”. The idea of the dead coming back to life in order to devour the living has been used to great effect in all types of media, and tend to do rather well because of a good chunk of the populace having a morbid fascination with not only the undead, but more importantly – killing the undead. Capcom decided that, by the mid-1990’s with video games starting to become mainstreamed in the media, that it would try its hand at capitalizing on the concept.

Enter Resident Evil (Biohazard) in 1996 for the Playstation. [Read the rest of this entry…]

Still looking for something to do until Diablo III hits, and you’re done with Torchlight? Iron Lore Entertainment’s Titan Quest is here to bring you some mythological era looting and level grinding. After deciding the name and gender of your character, you arrive on the shores of the village of Helios, you find that the city is besieged by monsters. You are then recruited by the order of Prometheus to help bring order back to the world. Your quest takes you from Greece to Egypt and the Orient. The base game contains three acts, and the Immortal Throne expansion, which is included on this edition, contains an additional act, so the game takes around 40 hours to complete. You’ll encounter several types of mythological monsters, and you’ll even face bosses. Unlike Diablo, the environments aren’t randomly generated, but the custom crafted backdrops are visually pleasing. You can customize your character’s class and abilities, and you can join up to 5 other player on either local area network or online multiplayer. You can even create custom quests with the game’s editing tools. Like Age of Mythology and God of War, Titan Quest shows players shows how cool Greek mythology can be and how well it translates into video games. Not only that, it’s another fun way to get your dungeon-crawling fix until Diablo III hits.

Years before Microsoft/Fasa Interactive took a steaming hot leak over the franchise, Beam Software and Data East produced this SNES masterpiece which bought PC-style role-playing game mechanics to the console. Based on the tabletop RPG of the same name, Shadowrun, combines real-time shooting action with RPG customization elements. Shadowrun takes place in the year 2050 on the streets of Seattle. Players take control of Jake Armitage, a Shadowrunner who wakes up in the morgue with amnesia after a near-successful assassination attempt. After giving the workers a good scare by walking out, Jake’s quest is to discover his identity, who wants him dead, and why.
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Since the alphabet is the building block of our language, the Powet Alphabet is the building block of what makes us geeks.

Not long ago, there began a somewhat off-kilter TV show with an unbelievable premise that nonetheless captured the hearts and minds of America. Guest stars who were associated with it went on to have long careers of their own, even as the principals struggled to escape its overpowering shadow. Despite the sometimes-inexplicable twist and turns of the plot, what really attracted audiences were the touching and realistic character pieces that this show delivered week after week.

I could be talking about ABC’s LOST, but before LOST was NBC’s Quantum Leap. Read on to find out why this show held, and twenty years later continues to hold, a special place in the hearts of science geeks, acting geeks, history buffs, and non-geeks alike.

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Forget about Twilight and all these other vampire films that make the creatures of the night look like goth-emo jerks. White-Wolf pen-and-paper role playing game, Vampire: The Masquerade has been doing the modern-day vampire bit for years, better than anyone else. Bloodlines is the second PC game based on the series (the first was Redemption, although Bloodlines isn’t a direct sequel). Despite the bugs and glitches that were present when the game was first released, the pen-and-paper RPG mechanics translate well to PC, and the game offers a number of options to play through it. Besides Half Life 2, this was the one of the first games to make use of Valve’s Source Engine, so the graphics were pretty good for their time.
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Since the alphabet is the building block of our language, the Powet Alphabet is the building block of what makes us geeks.

Today is P for the Powers of Grayskull. The Powers of Grayskull was a line proposed in 1987 that would serve as a sort of prequel to MOTU as we had known it. While some of the figures made it to the prototype phase and licensing material was sent out to interested companies, nothing ever materialized as far as a full scale toy line. After the jump we’ll dig a little deeper into what was really planned for the series based on what has been found.

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Years ago, there was a game known as Gauntlet. Alongside up to 3 other players, you took control of one of four characters and descended through enemy-infested dungeons. You had to work together in order to takeout the monster generators, secure items, and keep each other alive, but of course there were players who shot and destroyed food as well as douchebags who swiped up all the healing and food items. That was one of the best early co-op games, and it helped lay the foundation for co-op gaming as it is today. It’s dungeon crawling also helped to set the stage for future action RPG games such as Secret of Mana and Diablo. Years later, Midway released a modern-day revamp of the game. Although it was given a graphical face-lift, RPG mechanics, and a storyline, it retained all the co-op fun from years earlier.
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Looking for something to do until Diablo III comes out? Torchlight does a good job of taking care of your dungeon crawling fix until Blizzard gets done. Developed by Runic software, a team which includes people who have worked on Fate and Diablo I and II, Torchlight is a simple-to-play yet complex dungeon crawler. Just like Diablo, players take control of one of three character classes, each with upgradable abilities, and explore the mines below the town of Torchlight, battling monsters, gathering items, and completing quests. The town of Torchlight serves as a hub world where players can purchase and sell items along with other stuff. The player also travels with a companion animal whose form can change. The game isn’t graphically intensive, and there is even a graphics setting for netbooks. Players can create their own adventures using Torchlight’s easy-to-use modding tools. Unfortunately there is no multiplayer, but the developer is working on a free-to-play MMORPG set withing Torchlight’s universe. If you’re looking for some good dungeon crawling to take your mind off the fact that Diablo III is a while away, you’d do well to give Torchlight a visit.