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

Sailor Moon is not a building block of what makes me a geek. It’s the whole building, and whatever else makes me a geek is maybe a broom closet in that building. I first caught Sailor Moon on TV at age 17 back in 1995 when it was dubbed and playing about a billion times a week up here in Canada. This began my love affair with anime. People would tell me that Sailor Moon was a great gateway anime, and that when they would watch other stuff they would realize that it was only the beginning. Well that never happened for me. I’ve watched a lot of anime in my life, but I’ve just never seen anything that measured up to Sailor Moon. To me it is, without question, the greatest story ever told. So bear with me as I talk about that one element of geek culture that I truly have an unparalleled passion for.

I’ll be giving a full franchise overview for those not intimately familiar with Sailor Moon, but I’ll also try to thrown in some rare content that some hardcore fans will hopefully not have seen before.

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Remember Where’s Waldo? That was a series of books that were centered around finding some goober hiding in a crowd of people. Eventually Where’s Waldo faded into one of those “dear god we were lame back then” gimmicks, but not before there ended up being a TV series (which thankfully didn’t last long). Of course since publishers are all too often willing to spend money for the rights to any intellectual property they can afford regardless of how well it would translate into a good video game (particularly back then), there was also a NES game based on the franchise. Like the books of the same name, Where’s Waldo had you looking at still pictures to find out where he is hiding. There are only 5 levels (and by that I mean still images) and 4 levels of difficulty including practice. On medium and hard you have to scroll to the side to see the rest of the screen, but that’s pretty much as complex as it gets. The graphics are horrible (as the NES really wasn’t big on the type of detail required for this game) making it hard to see Waldo, and the only plus is that Waldo is in a different location each time you play. Shockingly this game was developed by Bethsheda Softworks. Yes, the same Bethsheda Softworks that would go on to create two of the biggest modern single player RPGS ever: Oblivion and Fallout 3. Of course obviously you couldn’t possibly be able to tell that from playing this game. Oh yeah, there was a slightly improved version for the SNES and Genesis, but all that did was upgrade the graphics a bit.

As I played this week’s $20 GOTW entry, three questions immediately popped into my head. How were the people who made Okami make the transition from something so beautiful and artistic to well….this? How did Sega get the green light from Nintendo for this to be released on the Wii of all systems? Most of all, WHY IS NO ONE BUYING THIS GAME? The Wii’s hardcore gamer audience would love this game, as it contains the perfect combination of extreme violence and “what the hell is this” brand of zaniness that made No More Heroes and Killer 7 cult classics. It’s Japanese producers designed this game with a western audience in mind. In fact, as of this writing it’s unsure of weather of not this game will even be released in Japan!
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Blackbolt, Punisher, the Punisher variant, and Nemesis/Holocaust get their turn at bat in this second part of my Marvel Legends Wal-Mart Exclusive Wave of figures featuring Nemesis as the Build-A-Figure.

The new theatrical trailer for the Prince of Persia movie has been released on YouTube for the world to see. The trailer looks pretty good; similar to Pirates of the Caribbean in terms of special effects and overall-feel. What I’m digging is the subtle influences from the game that they actually have put into the movie, such as honest-to-god wall jumping, and the activation of the Dagger of Time making the Prince (Jake Gyllenhaal) look something akin to the Dark Prince’s form from “Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones“. If the entire movie has such influences and easter eggs that were prominant in the games, there might actually be hope for the film.

While reviews of Teela and Zodac (2002) are coming in, Mattel has posted pictures of the upcoming bonus figure for January, Battle Armor He-Man. The original figure had an action feature that when touched, the chest would shift from a clean armor to a ‘battle damaged’ version of the chest plate with a slash. When pressed again, two slashes would appear. Pretty basic, but fun. The MOTUC line has no action features/gimmicks due to tooling costs. Instead this figure will come with swappable chest plates for each stage of the armor and its battle damage. Its a neat way to get around the action feature, but I think the lack of gimmick will really nosedive this figure’s potential interest. This was one of the earliest He-Man variants and one of my all-time favorites.

   

One thing I need to point out about these pictures is that the protective mailing box for him is actually labeled with ‘Battle Armor He-Man’ on it. This is really great because prior figures had no identifier on the outside of the outer box making it very difficult to tell which figure was which if you had several of them still sealed.

Battle Armor He-man will be the bonus figure for January.

Join us after the jump for Green Goddess, Randor and Mattel’s taunting facebook update!
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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.

Anyone who grew up in the ’90s should remember ReBoot on ABC. As a budding computer geek, I was fascinated by this show — not only because of its endless barrage of computer in-jokes and references, but because it was the first 3D-animated cartoon ever. This barely compares to what a teenager can do these days with off-the-shelf software, but in 1994 it was the most amazing thing I’d ever seen.

Most people don’t even know that the show survived its cancellation to have an amazing third season, and somewhat middling TV movies. What? You’re one of them? Then read more after the jump! (Or watch the video above!)

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