Tom Delay

Delays are something geeks have to live with. As the hype for a movie, game, or book grows we get more and more excited and upon release its a moment of true excitement. We have to temper our expectations before we get that new thing in our hands, knowing that until its there, we have nothing and that it could be delayed or cancelled.

Delays are always with the best intentions. I mean really, if Portal 2 wasn’t ready for release in November 2010, then it wasn’t ready and it wouldn’t have been worth playing. And when it wasn’t ready in February 2011, it wasn’t ready and it wouldn’t have been worth playing. And now that its been released, some might say wasn’t ready and it its not worth playing, but that OK because they can patch it. [Read the rest of this entry…]

So back in the day, MTV actually had a decent helping of good programming to its name, in tandem with the music component it has since lost. In the 1990’s, you had shows such as Beavis and Butthead (I didn’t say they were intellectually-stimulating, mind you), which showcased the network’s mindset of pushing the envelope with mindless entertainment for it’s core audience – teen and 20-something men.

But then the balance came out in the form of Daria in 1997. Daria Morgandorffer started as a side character on Beavis and Butthead to serve as a foil for the two brainless teen boys. MTV execs approached the series story editor with the idea of creating a spin-off series starting Daria. The Go-ahead was given, and in March of 1997, the first of 13 episodes aired for the new series and an animated legacy was born. Sorta.
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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.

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.
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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.

Created in 1994 for the PC, Diablo was meant to be a compliment to Blizzard’s popular Warcraft series, which had come out a few years prior and was deemed a success. Diablo, meant to be much darker and more gothic than Warcraft, also had a much different change in gameplay. Instead of the strategy of starting off on one side or the other and amassing a huge amount of warriors and weaponry to bash your enemies with, Diablo took to the Dungeon Crawler type of gameplay that was popular with games like DOOM, and added an RPG-type of flare to it like Final Fantasy.

The world of Diablo is deeply rooted in the heaven vs. hell archetype of story telling. Diablo, Lord of Terror, is one of the 3 Prime Evils, which are the highest level of demon in existence, and he and his brothers are in a huge war against the forces of light in a bid to destroy them and take everything over. Humans are the middle ground and both sides try to win them over through either benevolence or violence. Some powerful human mages on the side of good and backed by heavenly forces were able to capture the Prime Evils after they’d been defeated and banished to Sanctuary (aka: pseudo-Earth) and seal them in powerful Soulstones in order to bind them forever. (Apparently high-level demons can’t have their souls destroyed easily and can always resurrect if given the chance) With the souls of the Prime Evils locked away, the Soulstones were scattered and hidden away, with Diablo’s being buried in a catacomb beneath a church that later became the central point for the town of Tristrim. However after a few centuries the Soulstone weakened and Diablo was able to exert influence over the people of Tristrim, which led to massive slaughter and the kidnapping of the King’s son. So begins the game of Diablo.
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