Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Forever Geek

Forever Geek

Sci-Fi Drinking Games That Will Make You Host of the Year

Posted: 31 May 2011 04:00 AM PDT

Some people have the knack of being the life of the party or throwing parties that guests keep talking about in the months after. Then there are those who like throwing parties, but could use some help in making their events livelier. Nothing worse than a party where everyone sits or stands uncomfortably trying to find something to do!

The guys at io9 have the perfect solution for situations like the one described above – drinking games based on notable sci-fi themes.1 Just like them, I am going to say outright that I am not promoting irresponsible drinking. ;)

Remember guys, it’s not all about the alcohol – it’s the theme behind the game.2 So here are my top picks from their list.

Tron Loko

How to play? Simple instructions from the article:

For three or more players. Pop in a copy of Tron or Tron Legacy. Players must drink Four Loko (or Joose or Mad Dog 20/20 or Cisco or whatever neon-hued alcopop doesn’t make you retch) whenever a character…

1.) Derezzes.
2.) Boards some form of vehicular transport.
3.) Volleys back a disc.
4.) Drinks some digital liquid at The End of Line Club (Tron Legacy only).

If you don’t drink alcopop, make your own brightly colored drink. I choose strawberry or blue margaritas! (This might mean taking a only couple of sips each time instead of downing the entire glass, though.)

Hello, Sarah Connor?

This game is only for those who are feeling really silly and are willing to take the risk of getting in trouble. It is highly recommended that you play this game only if you are already buzzed. Or maybe you shouldn’t play it at all. Instructions:

For three or more players. Every player starts with a beer. Open the yellow pages and call each and every John Connor, Sarah Connor, Kyle Reese, Edward Furlong, or Marcus Wright on speakerphone while speaking in a Styrian accent. Keep them on the line while reading verbatim from a 1991 Radio Shack catalogue. For every 20 seconds you keep them on the line, do not drink 1/4 of your beer.

I understand that you might not have a 1991 Radio Shack catalogue lying around, but I am sure you can find a good enough alternative. Now I have a feeling that customer service agents or outbound sales agents will trump everyone else in this game!

Are you a Cylon?

Hands down the winner in the list. To play the game, you must first know how to play Handshake/Wink Murder.3 Introducing the Cylon element just makes it all the more interesting:

For 6 or more players. This is more or less a standard game of handshake murder but with several exceptions.

First off, everyone carries a coffee mug full of their favorite hooch, Saul Tigh-style. Second, whenever you “die,” you must pound whatever’s in your cup. Finally, if you have slept with the person who’s revealed to be “the Cylon,” you must slug another cup.

More than playing Cylons, the fact that you can have whatever drink you prefer makes this the perfect party game.

Anyone up for some drinks this weekend?

  1. Source: io9
  2. Right.
  3. How to play

It looks like a game, but that’s not the point. Horse racing from Planet Japan

Posted: 31 May 2011 03:06 AM PDT

More news from Planet Japan. This is a trailer for what looks like a horse racing game which you normally find at the casinos. After the first few seconds, it turns out that this is no ordinary racing game. I realized this when the giraffe appeared.

What the TARDIS Really Looks Like

Posted: 30 May 2011 12:41 PM PDT

We all know Doctor Who‘s TARDIS is “bigger on the inside.” A lot bigger. Even though all we’ve ever seen is the control room, the show has told us forever that there’s a vast world inside the TARDIS with endless rooms, halls, and equipment. (A recent episode, “The Doctor’s Wife,” finally showed us some interior hallways, but no other rooms.)

Yet all we’ve ever seen of the TARDIS’ exterior is its construct, the blue Police box. Here’s a look at what’s really in there.

The official explanation of the difference in the TARDIS’ interior and exterior is that the two co-exist in different dimensions. There’s lots more to it than that, but that’s the only bit I can get my head around. If you’ve ever wondered what the TARDIS really looks like, in its own dimension, DeviantArt user “Lord Rassilon” is here to help.

This image is just one of many he’s created, showing off numerous incarnations of the TARDIS and his world. Rassilon has grand plans to create schematics and detailed breakdowns of every TARDIS, every Doctor, Time Lord symbology, and more.

For now, this incredible blueprint of the 11th Doctor’s TARDIS (aka, actor Matt Smith) boggles the mind. We can only dream that someday the show’s producers will have reason to show us more of the incredible world inside that blue box.

Review: LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean

Posted: 30 May 2011 09:10 AM PDT

Fans of Traveler’s Tales Games will be happy to know that their adorably magical LEGO video game formula is firmly intact in LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean, the developer’s ninth game based on a franchise external to LEGO. After eight games, you might think they have nothing new to add to this mix, but you’d be wrong. Well, mostly.

LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean takes you through five levels each for all four movies in the series, including the newest film, On Stranger Tides. That’s a total of 20 levels, which come with loads of secrets and tons of replay value.

All of the familiar trappings are here: LEGO stud collection, Story Mode vs. Free Play, minikits and gold bricks, unique abilities spread across 70 characters in numerous character classes, those cheeky cutscenes that lovingly skewer the source material, and so on. Like past LEGO games, Pirates has its own home base hub, which functions as a playable menu where you can enter game levels, collect characters, and explore to unlock special features. In this case, the hub is Port Royale, a large environment that you can explore to progressively unlock more and more of.

The levels are a mixed bag; depending on how much you love the films, some parts of the game may not feel familiar, if only because you can’t recall everything that took place in the movies. Some of the levels are downright inspired, showing off tremendous creativity and bringing entirely new cards to the LEGO table. Others feel like discarded LEGO Star Wars ideas that have been recycled.

 

 

The seventy available characters possess a much broader variety of skill sets than ever before. Some are good with swords, others use whips, steel forging hammers, guns, or bombs. The human characters are all good at climbing ropes and digging with shovels, while the cursed Black Pearl crew and Davy Jones’ people can walk underwater indefinitely, since they don’t have to hold their breath. Women can double-jump. Some can throw axes or bombs, and you can aim by holding down the action button. Flying Dutchman crewmen can pass through special organic passageways, and only Blackbeard can open or destroy special red-and-black items.

Captain Jack has a singular ability that no other character can claim: his magic compass that in the films always points him toward the thing he desires most. In the game, the compass is used in every level to find eight hidden treasures that are crucial to completing that level or the entire game (many of these are accessible only in Free Play). Sometimes the treasures must be dug up out of the ground after Jack locates them, other times (oddly) they’re just sitting right out in the open, waiting to be approached.

While LEGO Pirates doesn’t reinvent the wheel, it does offer new innovations. Chief among them: the co-op split screen that’s been part of the last few LEGO games. Aficionados know this is a long overdue addition — it’s downright glorious not to be tied down to your partner’s position — but the implementation still needs work. Based on you and your partner’s positions in the level, the line going down the middle of your screen rotates, like an arm on a clock, enforcing a subliminal sense of where your partner is located in the level, relative to you. But having the split screen constantly spin creates a very disorienting sensation for players; it means each player is not locked onto one side of the screen. You’ll go back and forth repeatedly, and it leads to lots of confusion in the heat of battle.

 

Switching characters in Free Play mode has always been a bit of a chore, as you tap the controller’s shoulder buttons until you find the character you want. This system has been completely overhauled. In Story Mode, holding down the Y or triangle button brings up a radial menu displaying all the characters available to you. In Free Play, the circular menu gets replaced by the entire list of 70 characters, allowing you to easily pick from them all any time you want.

One of the most creative levels comes at the start of the Dead Man’s Chest chapter, where both players are trapped inside a round cage made of bone. Instead of being confining, this changes the entire side-scrolling mechanic. Rather than run through the level, you roll along in your cage (think: gerbil ball), crushing enemies that get in your way, jumping across chasms, and rolling through cylindrical tunnels pinball-style. It’s a welcome break from the same-old, and the sprawling design of this level gives you plenty of space to enjoy the feel of it.

On the downside, I don’t recall the cutscenes in earlier LEGO games being as long as the ones in LEGO Pirates. The plots of the second and third films in particular were so convoluted that whittling down their essences to something conveyable in LEGO form couldn’t have been an easy task. But most of the game’s cutscenes simply overstay their welcome.

 

On the plus side, there’s still something satisfying about smashing LEGO objects into studs. Even though this mechanic is included in every single LEGO game, it somehow never gets old. I think the developers realized this, because in Pirates, it takes more smashing or blasting than ever to break up a single object — which makes it that much more gratifying.

The visuals represent another vast improvement over prior games. I remember the earliest LEGO titles looked as though their entire world was made of LEGO bricks. Nowadays, LEGO minifigures and objects live in the real world, in realistic environments like beaches and jungles. LEGO Pirates‘ world is mostly sunny and brilliant, though there are a few levels that take place at night or in a storm; I found these levels too dark to easily navigate.

Past LEGO games conveyed a clear sense of what you have to do to reach the end of the level, but more than once I found myself confused in LEGO Pirates, not having a clue about what I was supposed to do next.

Minor gripes aside, LEGO Pirates is still a charming, fun, funny place to explore, entirely worthy of its predecessors’ legacy. The faithful will surely adore it, though I don’t think I’d suggest it as the very first LEGO title that newbies should try.
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