Noted for Dirty Dancing, Ghost, Roadhouse, and the above SNL clip, Patrick Swayze finally succumbed to Pancreatic Cancer today, at the age of 57. He was given only weeks to live, but toughed it out for over a year and a half.

Source: ‘Dirty Dancing’ star Patrick Swayze dies at 57 [AP]

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

Back in the gaming days of yore, the multiple genres of video games defined what type of gamer the person playing would be. You had your RPG gamers, your FPS gamers, your sidescrolling-adventure gamers, and your sports gamers, to name a few. (Though the sports gamers are considered a completely separate category from the rest and its fans are often rejected as being gamers at all. You know what I’m talking about) There was also the highly competitive fighting gamer. Despite one-on-one fighting games existing prior to its release, Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter helped shape the genre into a more standardized style and gained it a following. It also found a niche in the arcade scene, and soon arcades across the nation were featuring fighting games left and right. However, MK and SF couldn’t carry the genre alone. Games like Primal Rage and NightWarriors soon popped up to satisfy the masses. Midway saw the goldmine that Mortal Kombat had brought in, and decided to try another fighting game in order to bank on the growing success. This game was Killer Instinct.
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When this arcade shooter from Konami was released in 2001, it was way ahead of its time. The arcade cabinet was lined with infrared sensors that tracked your every movement, so you could duck and dodge and take cover. Years before the Wii, Police 911 got players in the game like no other game could do so. Playing as either a Japanese police detective or an American police officer, your job was to stop a Japanese crime syndicate. You made your way through several stages, shooting enemies while avoiding fellow officers and civilians. There is a timer not unlike Time Crisis, so it’s best not to dawdle in an area for too long. You can increase your rank and earn bonuses by completing the levels without killing civilians. A sequel was released, featuring more characters and levels. This game would be a perfect fit on the Nintendo Wii, as the Wiimote and the balance board make a perfect substitute for the arcade cabinet’s infrared sensors.

One thing you gotta love about Goichi Suda is that he doesn’t care how well his games are received by critics. He doesn’t care how well reviewers score his product, how well his games sell, or weather or not he gets a game of the year award. In fact, he doesn’t care about gaining any kind of mainstream recognition whatsoever, as anyone who has played Killer 7 knows. He works in this same spirit as many independent game programmers, and simply wants to share his demented thoughts with the world. No More Heroes is his latest creation. Weather you love or hate the game, it will be sure to have you scratching your head in a way that few games can.
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Powet Presents something that’s not very standard fare for the site (or me, for that matter), but is close enough to geek topics near and dear to our hearts.

Happy birthday, Dreamcast!

In what appears to be a clear and obvious direct response to the Disney acquisition of Marvel, DC has announced today that it is restructuring. After a 40 year courtship, DC and Warner are going ahead with their merger!

Warner Bros., parent company of DC, has created DC Entertainment to better leverage the greater potential of DC Comcs properties across all media outlets. This new company will be headed by Diane Nelson.

From the release:

DC Entertainment, a separate division of WBEI, will be charged with strategically integrating the DC Comics business, brand and characters deeply into Warner Bros. Entertainment and all its content and distribution businesses. DC Entertainment, which will work with each of the Warner Bros. divisions, will also tap into the tremendous expertise the Studio has in building and sustaining franchises and prioritize DC properties as key titles and growth drivers across all of the Studio, including feature films, television, interactive entertainment, direct-to-consumer platforms and consumer products. The DC Comics publishing business will remain the cornerstone of DC Entertainment, releasing approximately 90 comic books through its various imprints and 30 graphic novels a month and continuing to build on its creative leadership in the comic book industry.

Current President and Publisher of DC Comics, Paul Levitz, was effectively demoted back to editorial and writing roles. He has already been slated to work on Adventure Comics.

So what does this mean? Sounds like Warner and DC are actually merging for the first time since DC became a subsidiary of Warner in 1969. Warner has largely stayed out of DC Comics’ editorial decisions as near as I can tell with the expection of the DC Implosion. That being said, I didn’t do much research. Frankly, Marvel was managing to do more on their own, than what DC was able to do under Warner’s wing. We’ll see how this plays out with a non-editorial person in the top seat.

Obscenely long official press release can be seen after the jump

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Today marks the 10th anniversary of the release of the Sega Dreamcast on 9/9/1999 – the very first released of the sixth generation of gaming consoles. As the last console developed by Sega, we’ve got a bit of a tribute to the ill-fated awesomeness that was the Dreamcast.
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