Cranial Jacks & Converse

This week on Zero Punctuation, Yahtzee takes a look at the ongoing Console War, and nails it on the fucking head.

Yahtzee is a British-born, currently Australian-based writer and gamer with a sweet hat and a chip on his shoulder. When he isn't talking very fast into a headset mic he also designs freeware adventure games and does the occasional feature for Australia's Hyper Magazine.

See a new Zero Punctuation review each Wednesday only at The Escapist. All his articles are simply NOT to be missed.

The Dark Side
408 S. Washington Blvd.
Sarasota, FL 34236
(941) 363-0840
Owner: Brian Polizzi - bpolizzi@darksidecomics.com

Mon - Thurs. = Noon to 10pm
Fri - Sat. = Noon to 2am
Sun. = 12 to 7pm

We are running 10 PC's (AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Processor (Venice) Socket 939, Asus A8N-VM CSM nForce 430/GeForce 6150 Athlon 64(FX)/64 X2 Dual-Core Skt939 DDR M-ATX Motherboard, Geforce 7800 GT Overclocked PCI Express 256MB DDR Video Card, and 1gb Corsair VS1GB400C3 DDR400 PC3200) on a gigabit network that sports 2 game servers (one linux, one windows) and an internal teamspeak server.

Installed games include: Battlefield2, Call of Duty 2, Farcry, Unreal Tournament 2004, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, the entire STEAM suite (Counterstrike: Source, Half-Life, etc.), Age of Empires 3, Star Wars: Empire at War, Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War, Starcraft, Warcraft III, World of Warcraft, Guildwars, City of Villains, City of Heroes, D&D Online, and MUCH MUCH MORE! We have 8 stations available for BYOC.

We have two big screen televisions for console gaming with XBox 360, XBox, PS2, and WII and many games available. We have an entire room available for CCG, RPG, and miniatures gaming.

All this and we're a comic book, action figure, and anime shop!

It's the Heroes meets The Office. An original character driven web series only on effinfunny.

Episode 1: Wake-Up Call.

Welcome to the Guild... Watch as Cyd Sherman's imaginary world becomes all too real when a gnome warlock shows up on her doorstep.

Created and starring Felicia Day - Buffy's (Vi), Directed by Jane Selle Morgan and Produced by Felicia Day, Kim Evey - creator of Gorgeous Tiny Chicken Machine Show and Jane Selle Morgan.

Part of the Mediocre Film family of hilarious comedy.

CHUCK (NBC) September 24th - 8pm :
Chuck works in a big-box store's "nerd herd" otherwise known as "Geek Squad" from Best Buy. Chuck is about the nerd next door who gets called upon by the United States after he unloads a highly-classified government email into his head. Chuck is like a huge data mining/pattern recognition living computer. I loved the pilot episode and it reminds me of Alias/24 but with a dash of nerd/gamer/geek love. This is another show I really hope makes the grad and keeps running.



PUSHING DAISIES (ABC) October 3rd - 8pm:
This show focuses on Ned, a piemaker with a mysterious ability to make the dead live again. The gift is not without its complications, however: if he touches this being a second time, they'll be dead permanently. If they live for more than 60 seconds, somebody else nearby will die. Quirky and hilarious and it is simply stunning, reminds me of the world of Tim Burton's Big Fish. I seriously hope this show stays on for a long time, and does not get the "One Season" brush off.



REAPER (CW) September 25th - 9pm:
Sam Oliver has always been the slacker with no goals or purpose. However, his life takes an unprecedented new direction on his twenty-first birthday, when he discovers that his parents sold his soul to the devil and he must now become Satan's personal bounty hunter. I have but two words to say for this show and the dark humor in it... FUCKING AWESOME!!! As an added bonus, Kevin Smith directs the Pilot episode.

I recently wasted my time attempting to watch Flash Gordon on Sci-Fi Channel. "Ain't It Cool News" has a complete writeup with quotes from major papers across the US, and they are DEAD ON. Do yourself a favor and get the DVD of the film, and wipe this from your minds.

A SciFi Channel adventure based on the classic comic strip, “Flash Gordon” depicts an athlete who finds himself contending with otherworldly menace.

When SciFi needed a showrunner for its update of “Battlestar Galactica,” it hired Ron Moore, who co-wrote “Star Trek: First Contact” and had a hand in some of the best episodes of “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” and “Carnivale.”

When SciFi needed a showrunner for “Flash,” it hired Peter Hume, who has written for “Charmed,” “Relic Hunter,” and Jennifer Lopez’ “South Beach.”

Did SciFi choose wisely this time around? “Flash” apparently got the greenlight over Moore’s “Galactica” prequel “Caprica,” which continues to molder on the channel’s development shelf.

This 4 minute musical short gives a glimpse as to what Richard's (Undead Warlock) existence was like before meeting the rest of the group.

This short is part of the LFG Feature Film, due in 2008. The animation is done by Blind Ferret Entertainment. They are the ones responsible for the PVP animated episodes and other web-comic animation.

Make sure to head over and read the continuing adventures of "Looking for Group", which is set loosely in the World of Warcraft universe. I have been reading it for a long time now and love it.

I have recently grabbed some of the Pilot episodes to some of the shows coming this 2008 year. I grab so many that are generating buzz and interest on the net, I have had to break this into two parts.

I have watched them, and some I have watched twice just to be sure before I reviewed them. Yes... I did actually do this before I was sent write something down for you the reader. I am a film/book/tv buff in the sense that I love great things we humans create and I am shocked at the total shit we clutter the shelves and airways with.

Here is what I watched and what I thought...


CAVEMEN (ABC) October 2nd - 8pm:
I freaking loved it. The humor is very dry and not heavy-handed like MANY American shows. It actually reminds me of many British shows with the humor, and how they go about it. I do not see this show making a full season at all. Too many Americans will not get the humor and the ironic nature of it. It is a shame actually.



THE SARAH CONNER CHRONICLES (FOX) Date not set - 9pm:
First the GOOD news... the show is fucking stunning. Takes place after Terminator 2 but before part 3. It is being worked on by the same group of people that did Terminator 3. The cast I believe is dead on, including Summer Glau of Firefly as the good Terminator. The effects are impressive too, with not a hint of cheese. Now the BAD news... it is on FOX and they are known for ruining and canceling great shows way before their time. We shall see.



BIONIC WOMAN (NBC) September 26th - 9pm:
Hmmmmmmmmmm... this one was kinda tough I loved the original two shows when I was a kid. I am still not feeling this one yet, but I will give it a few episodes to see how things pan out. The high point was they did the "Sound", you remember the bionics sound right? :)

Now I have tried to read Stephen King many times over the years, but I often get bored about halfway through his books. I have often picked up and then put down many of his books. The ONLY ones that have never bored me has been the Dark Tower series, Cell, On Writing, and my ALL-TIME favorite short story, The Mist. Which is currently being made into a film, along with Cell and From a Buick 8. I seriously hope Hollywood does not fuck them up, as they often do with books to film.

Recently, I have given him another shot and I am currently reading Danse Macabre, From a Buick 8, and Tommyknockers. I have no idea why suddenly I an hooked on his books, but I will be getting out some of the older ones that bored me in the past. Anyone who is a serious Sci-Fi/Horror fan should get Danse Macabre and From a Buick 8 ASAFP. They fricking rock. King also has a couple of stunning Foundations created to help artists/writers in various forms.

The Haven Foundation:
Created to establish a compassionate and committed group of board members willing to sift through cases and identify those where the need seems to be the greatest. These “greatest need” cases would be freelance artists—writers, readers, and those in the associated publishing industry—who have found themselves unable to work due to disease or accident.

The Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation:
This is a private non-profit organization that promotes strengthening and supporting communities and draws upon the values and spirituality of the founders. The Foundation has a special interest in organizations and people who have less recourse to usual channels of resources, focusing on community-based initiatives, especially in the State of Maine.