Little known fact for all you World of Warcraft players: before it was the massively multiplayer online hit that it is now, Warcraft was a real time strategy series that, while it may not have been the cultural icon that its online cousin is, it was just as critically acclaimed. In fact, Warcraft 2 (along with Command and Conquer) are credited for establishing many of the 4X (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate) concepts prevalent in most RTS games, and many of the events in WOW are based on Warcraft 3, which is collected in this box. Like the Starcraft Battle Chest, the Warcraft Battle Chest contains Warcraft 3, its expansion, strategy guides and manuals for both games, and a 2 week trial for WOW. If you played Starcraft, then you should feel right at home, as many game mechanics here are similar.
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Based on the Canadian comic book that is not a manga. I’ve never read the book, but I like Director Edgar Wright (Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead, Spaced). I’m also not quite sick of Michael Cera yet. I love all the wacky video game references, my favorite being the “KO!” directly ripped from Street Fighter Alpha 3.

Apple.com has the HD version. I hope you all appreciate that there’s not a working version on youtube and I found this on a Russian video site. In Soviet Russia, movie comes before trailer!

Movie comes out August 13. What do you think? Worth seeing?

Ever wanted to play as a badass in a suit of armor? Sega’s Ranger X gives players that chance. Taking control of Ranger X, players battle against alien invaders. You have several weapons at your disposal, and many of them can recharge in brightly lit areas. Also your power suit allows you to hover for a limited time.

Oh, and there is a motorcycle as well! It moves and fires independently of Ranger X, but he can board it at any time to take advantage of its separate shielding. The game’s graphics do a good job of pushing the system’s hardware to its limits, and the game provides a good challenge. Ranger X is one of those games which does something different with the standard shooter genre, and should be enjoyed by Genesis owners. Hopefully it won’t be much longer before this shows up on the Virtual Console.

Casting for Captain America has been highly public, with every young male actor vying for the role. I was pulling for “Office” star John Krasinski, but he got dropped early on. Channing Tatum was apparently in the top 3, if Marvel wanted to go the unlikable stone faced dancer type.

Now it appears that Chris Evans has been forgiven for his participation in the two laughable Fantastic Four movies by being given potentially the biggest role in Marvel’s movie universe. For DC fans, imagine if John Wesley Shipp was given the role of Superman and you might begin to appreciate how odd this casting is on paper.

That said, its hard to argue that Evans isn’t a likable guy on screen and his performance as Johnny Storm was one of the things that didn’t stink about the F4 flicks.

Slightly less surprising is Hugo Weaving as Red Skull. Having already played Agent Smith in The Matrix and Megatron in Transformers, Weaving could be on his way to being typecast as the ultimate villain. At least this time he’s not a robot.

“The First Avenger: Captain America” is set for release in 2011 and will be directed by Joe Johnston. Shooting begins this shortly, and will be set largely during World War 2.

If you can’t wait to see a Captain America movie, catch the absolutely shitty direct to video one on hulu.

news via THR Heat Vision: 1 and 2

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

Laputa is an island castle which floats in the sky. These days it’s most commonly thought of as the castle from the movie Laputa: Castle in the Sky by Hayao Miyazaki, but originally the story of Laputa was told as a minor part of the classic novel Gulliver’s Travels in which a similarly floating island carries the same name. There are similarities and differences between the two, both of which I’ll look at to try to give a complete picture of what Laputa really means.

Laputa: Castle in the Sky

So what is Gulliver’s Travels? It’s a fictional novel by Jonathan Swift from 1726, told in a narrative as if it were a retelling of real events from the travels of one Lemuel Gulliver. This story has been told time and time again, the most iconic image from it being that of a seemingly giant Gulliver being surrounded by the tiny people of Lilliput. Among the many places that Gulliver travels to in the book is the floating city of Laputa.

Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift

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The Onion (the funny newspaper) has new series where they’ll get 25 touring bands to cover 25 songs selected by editors. The first band, one of my favorites, Ted Leo & The Pharmacists, get to turn in a pretty great cover of “Every Body Wants To Rule The World” originally by Tears for Fears.

By the way, I told you guys about 3 years ago about “Living With The Living” and my praise is matched for “The Brutalist Bricks”

This is not the first time Ted Leo pulled out a pop cover for a website, taking a look at his performance of “Since You Been Gone” from a few years back… [Read the rest of this entry…]

Every once in a while, a game comes along that challenges gamers to think. Not just in a problem solving way, but a way to really think about the message that the game is trying to convey. Braid is one of those games. On the surface, the game resembles other platformers, specifically Super Mario Brothers. Even the plot seems like something you’ve seen before: the princess has been kidnapped by a monster, and you make your way through different worlds, only to be told again and again that the princess is in another castle. However, the game’s method of story telling, art style, and mechanics turn the whole thing over on its head.
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