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

In the fall of 2004, amidst a general lackluster lineup of programming on TV, my brothers pulled me aside to watch this new show everyone had been buzzing about. After watching just the first episode, I knew there was something great about this show with a simple concept about a plane crashing on a deserted island, but that obviously was up to much more. For me right off the bat the show keyed into something I’ve always been into, which is a kind of survival show idea, but then as it goes on the show kept me hooked with great drama, intriguing mysteries and original ways of tackling sci-fi and fantasy elements.

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Lets turn the clock back to 2006. It was one year into the Xbox 360’s life cycle, and consumers were either stabbing and shooting each other in order to get their hands on the newly released PS3, or lining up for hours to get their hands on a Wii. Meanwhile, Xbox 360 gamers were still waiting the proverbial ‘killer app’ for the system. While games like Oblivion, Fight Night Round 3, and Saints Row did a good job or keeping players tied over, many of them were just higher resolution versions of games on the original Xbox. What gamers really wanted was Halo 3. Meanwhile, Epic had something brand new up its sleeve. Making use of the brand new Unreal 3 graphics engine, a lifelike alternate world, and unique gameplay features, Gears of War was unleashed on the scene, and it redefined the rules of the shooter genre.
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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.

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

Now we all love video games. At least most of you do. I can’t imagine that the majority of our visitors would be here if they didn’t, let alone reading this article. However, many of us can’t afford to run out and buy the latest new game when it is released, especially in this recession. Most of us have to deal with tuition/student loan payments, rent/mortgage payments, food, utilities, and in some cases, even extra mouths to feed. However, just because you’re swamped with bills doesn’t mean you have to keep playing the same games over and over again, simply because you can’t afford new ones. In this addition of the powet alphabet, I’m going to show you 10 selections straight from our weekly $20 Game of the Week feature, a.k.a the gamer stimulus package, designed to stimulate your collection and bail you out from the monotony of replaying the same titles again. I tried to cover every system here, and there is a good selection of genre offerings, so there is something for everyone. As luck would have it, this is also the 4 year anniversary of the column. All of these titles can be found for under 20 dollars anywhere you buy games from.

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This is part of a short series of articles covering a number of serious missteps that Mattel has made concerning some of their top properties.

When Mattel’s MattyCollector.com site went live, there was (and still is) a link to join “Matty’s Newsletter”.

Sign up for our Email Newsletter
MattyCollector.com is your source for exclusive toys, news and more. If you want the latest updates on toy lines like Justice League Unlimited™, DC Universe Classics™ and Masters of the Universe®, sign up here for Matty’s Newsletter!

The “latest updates” never came from this newsletter, however.

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Before there was Lord of the Rings (the films, not the books) or Harry Potter, there was Willow. Co-produced by George Lucas and Ron Howard, and starring Warwick Davis (who had previously played as one of the Ewoks in Star Wars Episode VI) and Val Kilmer (long before he played his part in the destruction of the Batman film franchise in the mid 90s), Willow told the tale of a dwarf’s quest to rescue a baby from an evil sorceress queen. George had high hopes of Willow becoming Lucas’s fantasy equivalent to Star Wars, but it met low numbers at the box office and mixed reviews from critics. However, enough fans liked it enough for the film to gain cult status, and Capcom was fond enough of the property to release a pair of games based on Willow, one for the NES and the other for arcade.
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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.

The Guilty Gear series is a string of fast-paced fighting games first developed by Japanese company Sammy in 1998. During an age where Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter was still champions of the fighting games, with Killer Instinct on its way out and Soul Caliber and Super Smash Bros. on their way in, it was a hard time to be a thrown into the fray, so to speak. However, if there was one thing that Guilty Gear games could always capitalize on, it was speed. Probably the fastest fighting game to date, the sheer velocity of the game made it a favorite amongst button mashers.
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GI Joe collectors will be gathering this weekend, August 13-16th in Kansas City, MO to celebrate, among other things, the new GI Joe: Rise of Cobra movie. Sure to be a huge boon to the franchise, the movie will be a topic of great discussion at this year’s convention. And what Joe convention is complete without exclusives?

Read on for a look at whats to come!
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