A letter from a nerd in need...

At Nerdbloggers, we offer many services to the nerd community.  One of our most popular and most needed is our Nerd Therapy service which we use to address the many, many psychological problems seen throughout the nerd community.  If you have a problem you would like out help with, please don't hesitate to write.

Dear Nerdbloggers, How can I recover from having my childhood memories raped by an out-of-control film director?  --John in Burbank

     John, as a nerd therapist, this is one of the most common issues brought before me.  Since your letter doesn’t go into specifics, I’ll have to make some assumptions based on past experience.  Common sources of Childhood Memory Rape Related Anxiety (CMRRA) include the Star Wars prequels, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (George Lucas, serial childhood-memory rapist), and The Transformers movies.  I'll assume that you aren’t one of the men and women who grew to adulthood between the release of The Matrix and The Matrix Revolutions as those poor bastards never even had a childhood to speak of. 

     The temptation in cases of CMRRA is to go with GOI (or “Get Over It”) Therapy.  This is where the therapist screams “Get Over It!” at the patient as loudly as possible while hitting them repeatedly with a plastic lightsaber. (A variation for those traumatized by the J.J. Abrahms re-launch of Star Trek is to poke the patient with a plastic Bat'leth while screaming  "tlhap Dung 'oH!" at them in Klingon).  Though satisfying and fun for the therapist, I've seen little evidence that GOI actually works.  Instead, I'd like to suggest a therapy I've had good luck with in the past. 

     The problem with recent sequels, re-makes, and re-launches isn't necessarily that they are bad films.  The problem is you are not seeing them with the same naive and wide-open eyes that you watched the original films with.  When we are young, everything seems new and fresh.  We don't realize that this awesome new film is a regurgitation of centuries old archetypes, themes and motifs.  We are so willing to suspend our disbelief that we ignore glaring plot holes, sub-par acting, and unrealistic dialog in exchange for neat gadgets, cool special effects, and daring adventurers--especially if some of the adventurers are chicks in metal bikinis.  Heck, I remember coming back from seeing Star Crash as a child and telling my parents it was the best movie ever made.  It wasn't.  Wasn't even close, but to my young eyes it was fresh, exciting and funny, and Caroline Munro was the hottest woman in the world  (not sure that last part wasn't true--see photo evidence below)

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    So, try re-visiting whatever film(s) that caused your trauma with a young, innocent person by your side (a brother, sister, cousin, etc.  I'm not recommending kidnapping a small child and making them sit through G.I. Joe). You just may find that the experience allows you to see the movie in a different light.  That you can begin to appreciate that it isn't bad, just different and that, just maybe, you are no longer the audience the film was intended for.  If that happens, move on.  Avoid re-makes and sequels and seek out fresh, new franchises not built on the brittle skeletons of past successes.  Or, just maybe, you will still think the film sucks and it will drive you deeper into your depression.  If that happens, write us back, maybe we can write you a prescription for some Soma.

Review of Word on the Street

 

Word on the Street

Out of the Box Publishing

MSRP: 24.99 USD                                                        

Available for around $20 through online retailers

The Spin: “The Hilarious Tug of Words”

The Story: Word on the Street is a simple word game played on a board that is shaped like a long, narrow street and divided into squares. Letter tiles are placed down the center column of the board. Throughout the course of the game, players will say and spell words based on cards that are drawn and pull the letters in the words toward their side of the street. A team wins when they have pulled eight letter tiles off their side of the board.

The Play: The brief description of the game above almost covers the entirety of the game. Players divide into two teams and choose to play with the easy or difficult cards. The cards have conditions on them that the players will use to generate a single (though not necessarily singular) word. For instance, the card might say “Method Actor.” The team whose turn it was would have thirty seconds to decide on an actor, say it, and spell it while moving the letters in the name one square per time used toward their side of the board. In the above example, the team might say “Brando” and move the B, R, N, and D toward their side of the board (vowels and some other letters are not on the board from the start).

Players must spell the word correctly and both the spelling and the appropriateness of the word can be challenged by the other team. We play the spelling rule pretty loosely and only penalize the team if the misspelling helped them, not if it hurt them (not sure how nice we are being there).

Proper nouns are allowed assuming they are appropriate for the card, as above, and all English words including plurals and hyphenated words are allowed. This is far less strict than many word games and we appreciated the looser feel.

The combination of simple game play and the 30-second timer make the game fast-paced and sometimes a bit hectic.

My Take: I really enjoyed Word on the Street. I played it with both our regular groups and with some students from one of my courses and it went over well with every group. As I left the last game session, one of the players said “you need to give Word on the Street” a good review. Well, here it is. The game is quick and fun. It is simple and easy to explain which means it works well with casual gamers and new gamers.

My only complaint is one I've mostly had with trivia games over the years. Some of the cards are too wide open, meaning way too many words would work. The one that came up in our first game was “Name of a Street or Boulevard.” I'm not sure what word the other team could have said that could not have been justified. It reminded me of the Planet Hollywood trivia game where players went back and forth naming actors or movies that matched specific cards. When the card said “John Ford Films” or something, the game worked great and rewarded the players with the most knowledge. When it said “beautiful actress,” it bombed because a team could justify any answer: “Well, I think Whoopi Goldberg is stunning!” Luckily, not too many similar cards have come up since that first game and it is really only a problem when one team lucks into a majority of the wide open cards.

That small complaint aside, I have no trouble recommending Word on the Street to our readers. The back and forth action on the board feels fresh and unique, and I expect the game will be played at our house for many years to come.

Components: I'm rarely unhappy with the components from Out of the Box. Word on the Street is no exception. The tiles are heavy and have a great tactile presence. The board is attractive. The cards are good, not great, quality, but considering that they don't get handled or shuffled often, they should last through many plays.

Score: 4 out of 5

Pros: Easy to teach, good for a variety of groups, attractive on the table

Cons: Some unbalance cards

Review of Kachina

The Story: Kachina is a tile-laying game loosely themed around the idea of battling Hopi spirits. Players take turns playing tiles to the board that represent various spirits. All of these have numbers that represent the strength of the tile while some also have special powers. The central idea is to place a tile so that it is the dominant spirit in a row or column. If the player manages to do this, he or she gets points equal to the number of tiles in the row or column.

Click to read more ...

2K Sports NBA 2K10:Draft Combine Released on Xbox Live

This just in from 2K sports: NBA 2K10: Draft combine is now available for download on Xbox Live. This is a download only title apparently meant to ramp up interest in the upcoming release of the full NBA 2K10. We've seen a number of these auxiliary releases recently, including a very successful March Madness spin-off from EA last year. The list of features (see f below) is actually impressive, and for 400 Microsoft points ($5.00), it will likely be worth a go. Included in this announcement is news that the Playstation Network version will be released September 3rd for the same price.  

Note that the game does include achievements and trophies (woo hoo!)

Here is a cut and paste of the features from the press release:

• Chicago Bulls’ Derrick Rose as spokesman.
• Building custom players and increasing their NBA stock through a variety of challenging basketball drills and 5-on-5 games.
• Over 300 different signature customizations, including player-specific shooting animations, and dunk and dribble packages to give each created player his own unique personal style.
• Ability to strengthen all parts of the created player's game through a variety of drills, such as shooting, post offense and defense, attacking the basket, dribbling, challenging shots, and boxing out for rebounds to progress through the NBA Draft Combine.
• Organized games that allow players to gain valuable skill points by offering a variety of specific in-game objectives to be accomplished. A full analysis will be available for gamers to review their player's performance and strategize further improvement.
• All players created inNBA 2K10: Draft Combinewill wear a special patch on their uniform throughout the rest of that player's career to denote that they have completed the NBA Draft Combine.
• Online leaderboards to track the highest ranking custom built players, so fans can gauge how their player stacks up against the competition.
• Opportunity to unlock special achievements on Xbox 360 and trophies for PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system.
• Fans can take their custom built players fromNBA 2K10: Draft Combineand use them in the all-new My Player career mode inNBA 2K10launching this fall.

Seven more cast for The Game of Thrones

The Hollywood Reporter broke the news last night, and George R.R. Martin has confirmed (with some commentary) the casting of seven more major characters for The Game of Thrones. The actors and actresses range from unknown to slightly famous and all look like pretty good candidates for the roles. Everything seems to be shaping up nicely for a great roll out. Let's just hope that there is enough of an audience for gritty fantasy out among the masses to keep the series on the air.

Here are the new actors:

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as bad boy Jaime Lannister. I loved Coster-Waldau in New Amsterdam, a very underrated sci-fi series that didn't even manage one full season. He is definitely not who I mind-casted in the role while reading the novels, but he is an enormous talent. Much like Nathan Fillion though, he seems to bring the curse of cancellation with him wherever he goes. Hopefully, Martin can get some of New Orleans buddies to work their magic and remove the bad mojo before filming starts.

Tamzin Merchant as Daenerys, the fire from the Song of Ice and Fire. Merchant played one of King Henry the VIII's eventually beheaded wives in The Tudors (hope she doesn't get typecast as the woman who stars in projects that involve beheadings). I haven't seen her scenes in the Tudors, but Martin seems impressed, saying her sex scenes were “as hot as anything I've ever seen on T.V.” I'm not sure at what age saying something like that gets a bit creepy, but I'm pretty sure Martin is past that age. Regardless, male fans of the series apparently have a hot Dothraki deflowering to look forward to.

Alfie Allen (Lily Allen's little brother!) as Theon Greyjoy. Allen moved into the role of Alan Strang in Equus when Daniel Radcliffe tired of flashing around his wand, so he should have no trouble playing the series' biggest wang, Neddard Stark's young ward (and, well, you know--hostage) who repays his honorable treatment by the Stark family with blood. Allen has a kind of smarmy douchebag look that should work well for Theon.

Maisie Williams as Arya Stark. This is a pivotal role for my enjoyment of the series and Maisie is, appropriately, a complete unknown. It is really in the second book that she starts to distinguish herself, so Williams should have time to grow into the role. For the Game of Thrones, she just needs to be boyish and bratty—actor or not, most kids could pull that off.

Sophie Turner as Sansa Stark. Another important role, another near unknown. I really think this is the way to go for the series and I have faith that a team as experienced as the one working on Game of Thrones will do a good job. The quality of these two roles should give these young ladies a chance to go from unknown to famous in no time.

Richard Madden as Robb Stark. Madden is a British stage actor who recently played Romeo in a London production of Romeo and Juliet.   He certainly has the look for Robb. As Martin mentions, Robb's story arc will take the ladies for a quite the emotional ride if the series manages to make it through a few seasons.

Iain Glenn as Jorah Mormont. Glenn gets the plum role as creepy, older dude lusting after thirteen-year-old Daenerys. Of course, in order to pull off the sex scenes with Kal Drago, Daenerys will be older here than in the books, so he Mormont probably come off as an honorable knight who, after being crushed by his first love, bravely dares to love again...while spying on her for the king.

That's the new cast. Most of the roles are now filled and, despite the bit of snark above, I'm pretty excited by the mix. Can't wait to start seeing publicity shots of these guys in full costume. We will keep you guys informed as news rolls in.