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

Duke Nukem. Halo. Call Of Duty. Resistance. Killzone. Goldeneye. Bioshock. Deus Ex. Quake. Timesplitters.

The list of great first person shooters goes on and on, and each game has left its own unique stamp on the genre, weather it’s the RPG-like stat progression of Bioshock and Deus Ex, the cinematic realism of Modern Warfare and Rainbow Six Vegas, the zaniness of Timesplitters and Duke Nukem, or the multiplayer action of Halo and Goldeneye. However, all of these games owe their existence and popularity to one name: Doom. While ID Software’s classic didn’t create the FPS genre (that honor many would say belongs to ID’s previous effort Wolfenstein 3D), it helped shape the face of the genre for years to come. This article will take a look at the classic and its impact on gaming.
[Read the rest of this entry…]

Is Avatar all it’s cracked up to be? With mere days to go until Mass Effect 2, should you pick up Dragon Age: Origins? With plenty of Tonight Show jokes in tow, it’s the pre-first episode of Cool Beans!

Direct Link: Cool Beans 00: Avatar’d

Audio Netcast Details
Subscribe to the Powetcast on iTunes

Show notes after the jump!

[Read the rest of this entry…]

Back when Midway was a part of the Nintendo 64 Dream Team, they promised an exclusive Nintendo 64 version of Doom that would take advantage of the console’s capabilities. In 1997 they delivered Doom 64, a continuation of the franchise (yes, even after Final Doom) that gave the game a brand new look while retaining the shoot-em-up action the franchise was known for.
[Read the rest of this entry…]

I’m one of the many who believe that video games not only can be a form of art, they can also be a literary medium. Want proof? Look no further than Silent Hill 2’s gripping narrative and try to tell me that that’s not on par with a Steven King or Clive Barker. Check out Ico’s emotionally moving story. Even Bungie’s Halo and Bioware’s Mass Effect have introduced players to science fiction universes on scale with a Star Wars or Battlestar Galatica. However, if gaming is to progress as an entertainment medium, it’s not enough to present an quirky art style or a deep plot. Gaming has to be able to explore taboo and even controversial subjects just like books, movies, and television shows do, even if they may get somewhat offensive or politically incorrect (which is why I was disappointed when 6 Days in Fallujah ended up being indefinitely postponed, but that’s another story). Of course I’m not saying that a developer should go out and create ‘KKK Lynchin’ Heroes’, but if and when done correctly, video games can provide a light with which to look at social issues that continue to affect us today. Beyond Good and Evil could be considered a commentary on the role of the press and the distribution of information during times when civil freedoms are being challenged, and Metal Gear Solid 4’s storyline about private military corporations can be considered a look at military policy, particularly in the wake of the Blackwater scandal. However, few issues have been more hotly debated than that of violence in our schools, and no one moment in our history better exemplifies the issue than the Columbine Massacre.

For those of you who don’t know the story, on April 20th of 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, two troubled teens who had apparently been bullied during their years in high school went on a violent shooting spree, killing over a dozen students and teachers. The media, parents/teacher groups, clergymen, and opportunistic politicians, unable to fathom that two white boys from a wealthy suburban community bought about something that apparently is only supposed to happen in the ghetto or a backwoods rural area (and with rumors of a so-called ‘trenchcoat mafia’ shut down), immediately set about finding things to blame the tragedy on. “It was because of easy access to guns!” “It was because gun control laws are too strict!” “It was Marylin Manson!” “It was violent video games!” “It was Doom!” “It was because of the evil liberals taking prayer out of schools!” “Where were the parents at?” “Why didn’t anyone see the warning signs?” With all the fuss in a search for a scapegoat, few even considered to take a look at the events in their lives that might have led up to the shooting. Enter independent developer Danny Ledonne. Using the program RPG Maker 2000, he created a game which places characters in the role of the shooters. By researching thousands of pages of news articles about the massacre, home videos the two killers made, and video news reports, Ledonne’s product gives an insight and paints a picture suggesting why such a tragedy occurred.

[Read the rest of this entry…]

The first Powet review of an iPhone game! How does it stack up to the Xbox Live Pac-Man: Championship Edition?

Buy this game on iTunes if you’d like, or you can redeem a code for the original version or purchase an iTunes card to download Pac-Man CE to your iPhone or iPod Touch!

Goldeneye changed the direction of console first person shooter games. While there had been good console FPS games in the past, Goldeneye established a foundation of fun multiplayer and an intuitive control scheme. Who didn’t enjoy spending weekends huddled around their TV with 3 of their friends shooting each other up? When several of the original developers broke off to form their own company, Free Radical, and began work on a PS2 FPS game, many believed that good things would happen. They were right. The company’s first entry, Timesplitters was one of the best launch-window PS2 games, and its multiplayer managed to surpass Goldeneye in terms of sheer variety and fun.
[Read the rest of this entry…]

So this week’s $20 GOTW (or should I say free) isn’t so much a game as it is a tool. However, it comes with free games and you can always download more for it. The engine was created by Andrew Gardner, who in 1997 had set out to create a first person shooter game entitled Corridors of Power (which by the way is one of the games included in the download). After releasing some teaser levels, modders discovered that they could use the engine to create their own levels. Developer Paul Moxon joined Gardner and created a level editor using the software. After several difficulties throughout the years, the project was temporarily shut down in 2006 only to be restarted less than a year later as an open source project. Thus the fruits of their labor are available for download on their website at http://www.apgardner.karoo.net/. The download comes with three full games (Corridors of Power, Sinister, Dead Man Walking), several individual levels, several challenge levels, and a suite of editing tools. There is a map creator, a model editor, an episode editor, and more. They are designed to be user friendly, so anyone can jump right in regardless of programming skills. While the graphics in the included material look as if they were from the Dreamcast days, the engine makes use of many of the latest OpenGL features. The games themselves are throwbacks to the early days of the genre, so FPS fans will get a kick out of their simplicity. If you got a decent computer, you will definitely want to check this out. Weather you want to create games or simply play what other people make, the Retribution Engine is a great open-source package.

This video has a lot of the same footage from the Transformers War For Cybertron Teaser Video, but includes voiceover from Peter Cullen as Optimus Prime. Its not Frank Welker as Megatron though, unclear if he’s still yet to be cast or if they’re going with another actor.
You’ll identify a lot more characters, including Bumblebee and Trypticon.

In related news, is Hasbro prepping a full line of War For Cybertron Toys? They’ve definitely made a deluxe Prime! Still no announcement where the series will go in 2010, this might be “filler” material until the next cartoon or movie is released.