Forever Geek

Get Your Halloween Spirit On!
5 Reasons why Team Fortress Arcade is a must download
LEGO’s New Game Experiment
A ‘Walking Dead’ Fix to Tide You Over
The Voodoo That You Do

Posted: 30 Sep 2011 04:00 AM PDT

Are you feeling the Halloween spirit yet? In case you have not heard, we’re running a contest where you can win a Star Wars costume – perfect for the Halloween parties already on your list!

Then again, a Halloween party may be all hyped up because of the costumes that people put on, but one cannot forget the food and drinks served. If you are hosting your own Halloween party, it is imperative that you get this aspect just right in order to make your party a success.

Of course, if you want to be a stickler for details, you need to make the theme stick. For example, if you want to go Trekkie, serving Star Trek-themed drinks is a no-brainer. You can also buy some Romulan Ale to add to the ambiance. The latter can be a drain on your pocket, though.

Here’s an easier alternative that will still rack points up for you in terms of effort, courtesy of recipe search engine Recipe Finder. Why not look at general Halloween-themed food that will elicit compliments from guests and satisfy their appetites as well?

Owl Cupcakes

Planking is old, but I am sure you still remember it. And you probably still remember owling – not to mention batmanning. Forget about all that silly stuff for Halloween. These owl cupcakes will make you cooler than any activity that shows off nothing but nonsense. I think they were meant to be for children, but we all love cupcakes, don’t we?

Severed Fingers

Severed Fingers Cookies

Well, they look like fingers that have been cut off from the hand – zombie hands, even – but they are cookies, and yes, they can be eaten. Imagine just how much fun your Halloween party will be with people walking around like zombies and munching fingers at the same time. Oh, and these severed fingers cookies do not seem too difficult to make!

Halloween Rice

If you are planning on serving more than just finger food, then you might as well go for something filling, albeit a little messier. Gory-looking Halloween rice certainly fits the bill, doesn’t it?

Halloween Eyes

Personally, I suggest making it easy on yourself and serving only snacks and other easy-to-eat food. If they look as cool as these Halloween Butterfinger Eyes, your reputation will be made.

Need more Halloween recipes? Ask Recipe Finder!

5 Reasons why Team Fortress Arcade is a must download

Posted: 30 Sep 2011 03:00 AM PDT

So I checked out the video and I must say this is a “fresh” look into the way back machine of gaming nostalgia. In a nutshell, Team Fortress Arcade is a project that takes everyone’s favorite Free to Play shooter and turns the whole experience into a side scrolling action platform reminiscent of the days of the SNES and arcade machines.

In Team Fortress Arcade you can relive the Payload maps with the same objectives but in side scrolling mode. It’s not enough to kill enemies, but you need to move the payload forward to advance to the next areas of the stage.

Here are 5 reasons why you should download Team Fortress Arcade, like now.

REASON 1: IT’S FREE. Not only is it free to download, there’s no business model behind it. No micro transactions. No hats. No cash whatsoever. All you’re spending is bandwidth to download the entire game.

REASON 2: IT’S MADE BY ERIC RUTH. Look at this guy’s stable of games. Truly epic. If you’ve played any of his previous titles (like the 8-bit version of Halo)

REASON 3: IT’S FUN. So what if it’s free? Is it fun? YES! YES! YES! The game takes all the Blue Team members through several levels with a boss from the Red Team at the end of every level. The Spy can backstab. The Engineer can plant sentries. The Doctor can heal. The Soldier can rocket jump. It’s quite authentic. And most of all, fun.

REASON 4: Because there’s more to come in the future. Yes you can play with up to four team mates in this version (having a Doctor in the team is an absolute must) which makes the game even more fun as you go through every level fighting the oddest types of enemies (very reminiscent of NES games where you have the weirdest types of enemies from floating teacups to robots and other doodads). Future versions will have multiplayer, difficulty settings and a versus mode. And more.

REASON 5: CAN’T WE STRESS IT ANY MORE? IT’S FREE! You absolutely must download it now. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t download this game.

Team Fortress Arcade [FREE DOWNLOAD]

[source]

LEGO’s New Game Experiment

Posted: 29 Sep 2011 03:05 PM PDT

Meet George. George is made of LEGO bricks, and lives an interesting life (which you can follow on Facebook) for a little toy guy. He’s also the central character of an intriguing new game from LEGO called Life of George, which marries physical brick building with a digital game on Apple iOS devices.

When you buy LEGO Life of George (it will retail for $29.99), you get a special gridded play mat and a kit of 144 LEGO bricks. Pair this package with a free iOS app, and you’ve got one of the most unique uses of augmented reality yet. Here’s how it works.

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LEGO Life of George

The iOS app shows you a LEGO creation that can be built with the bricks included in your kit. Then it starts a countdown timer, and you have until it reaches zero to build what you see on the screen. Once you’re finished, place your creation on the play mat and use your iPhone or iPad’s built-in camera to take a picture. The app works with the grid on the mat thanks to a patent-pending “brick recognition software” to see if you succeeded. You get points based on how accurate your creation is and how quickly you assembled it. Two players can pass the iDevice back and forth to take turns, and the player with the best score wins.

There are 12 levels to play through comprised of 10 LEGO models each, with two game modes (novice and expert) to challenge players. The game is built around George’s adventures, and the LEGO creations players are challenged to build are based on items seen in George’s photo album.

The game also comes with a creation mode where you can design and build your own LEGO models, and then capture it to add it to the app’s virtual scrapbook.

LEGO Life of George will be available to buy exclusively in LEGO Retail Stores and at shop.lego.com beginning Saturday, October 1st.

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LEGO Life of George

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LEGO Life of George

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LEGO Life of George

A ‘Walking Dead’ Fix to Tide You Over

Posted: 29 Sep 2011 12:43 PM PDT

Hannah (Lilli Birdsell) and director Greg Nicotero - The Walking Dead Webisodes

Man, it seems like we’ve been waiting forever for the second season of The Walking Dead. The series finally returns on Sunday, October 16th, but in the meantime, AMC has cooked up a little morsel to ease the pain of waiting.

AMC is launching a series of The Walking Dead webisodes that fill in the backstory of one memorable character from the pilot. Over the course of six episodes, fans will learn about the “Bicycle Girl,” the fan-favorite zombie missing its legs and lower body that Rick Grimes (actor Andrew Lincoln) stumbled across on his front lawn.

Bicycle Girl’s name, before she became a “walker,” was Hannah, and the webisodes will show us her life pre-apocalypse, her struggle to survive after the world falls apart, and her finally being bitten and becoming a zombie. The series is written by John Esposito and produced by series co-executive producer Greg Nicotero.

The Walking Dead webisodes will all be posted online together, on October 3rd at 2:pm EST, at amctv.com.

Photo courtesy of “Generate” and AMC.

The Voodoo That You Do

Posted: 29 Sep 2011 12:39 PM PDT

Voodoo #1 Priscilla strikes out on her own

Reading the shipping listing in text format can lead to a number of amusing misunderstandings, as happened this week. I saw the listing for Voodoo #1 and all thoughts of the DCnU had escaped my mind; I wondered what it could possibly be? Maybe another independent title such as the almost retro Witch Doctor that brought such pleasure a few months ago?

Of course, upon arriving at the store, I realised my mistake. The integration of the Wildstorm characters into the mainstream DC universe had intrigued me since I first heard of it. Absorbing the characters of other companies has been a long-standing tradition at DC, from Fawcett and Quality that gave us such greats as the Marvel Family and the Freedom Fighters, to the more recently distinguished Milestone and the brief visit of the Red Circle characters. I hope the latter will come back for another stay, DC is a perfect home for them.

From Charlton's Captain Atom and the Blue Beetle to Tower Comics T.H.U.N.D.E.R.Agents; DC has been a literary analogue to The Blob, absorbing all that it touches. Or would the Borg be a more appropriate example?

No one could deny that doubts hung in the air when fandom considered Wildstorm's new position in the cosmic scheme of things. Vertigo aside, DC can err towards the family friendly side of the street, or at least, that's how it has always seemed in many titles.

Our fears were allayed with the arrival of Stormwatch, granting us the edge and scope of the old Authority, while seamlessly integrating the Martian Manhunter into a whole new paradigm.

The Wild C.A.T.S. however, had yet to make an appearance. In the month of first issues, only Grifter had made an appearance so far.

Voodoo, of course, focuses on Priscilla Kitaen, the bi-racial (in so many different connotations of the phrase) dancer who unlike the arrogant and seemingly angelic Kherubim, was born on the wrong side of the tracks.

Ever since Wild C.A.T.S. volume three, I have long thought that Priscilla was a much under-used character, whom I would love to see blossom to her true potential. If you will excuse the pun, it is good to see her getting such exposure.

We can assume that she is half-Daemonite, but as for the politics behind that statement in the DCnU, that has yet to be revealed. The first issue, by Ron Marz and Sam Basri, certainly sets the scene by focusing on the visuals, harkening back to the tradition of the 'bad girl' character that was so popular when Image comics and these characters first appeared. We see little of the inner workings of Priscilla's mind, and are maybe led to believe that there are not a great deal of them, but long time fans of the character know that still waters run deep.

If I were a new reader to this title, I'm not sure what I would think. It has the sense of both DC (nice, clean lines) and Wildstorm (an adult, potentially smutty backdrop), and has yet to declare any identity for itself. That being said, it is a pleasant read. Maybe not one that I would immediately share with a child of say thirteen or younger, but certainly one I would be willing to stick with for a few more issues. Mr Marz has a very talented pen and is always able to entertain me, and I would follow the title purely on that basis.

Still, I have to wonder. Have our cultural standards dropped so much that there is no need to a 'Parental Advice' label on the issue? This is hardly full on 'Mature Readers', but may of the new Fifty-Two have been near to the knuckle in terms of graphic depictions of sex, violence or just sheer nastiness. (I still have the image of Maxine Baker and the walking animal corpses in my head, which goes to show how effective the story was.)

I love the stories. But I am fast approaching my middle age. Does DC really think that my age group are the main purchasers? Or should it look to a system of labelling?

Come back Dr Wertham, it seems all is forgiven!