- verb
to be owned, to have your rear kicked, to be destroyed in a spectacularly manner.
Origin
The is word common among gamers, geeks, and nerds.
Related Forms
Pwned, Pwn3d, and Pwnage
Usage
“Did you see that? I just pwned your ass!”
After crazy Uncle Rupert (Murdoch) claimed that he was contemplating hiding all of his news sites from Google and other news aggregation services (Rupert Murdoch Threatens Seppuku), the Internet was all a-buzz. While everyone was writing about how epicly stupid the idea was, Mike Masnick of Techdirt did some research.
Masnick realized that many of Murdoch’s own sites “parasited” content in exactly the same manner that he endlessly complains about with Google and Microsoft. Prestige sites like The Wall Street Journal and Fox News “steal” stories from blogs, other sources, and even Techdirt itself. Many of Murdoch’s most successful web properties “steal” stories, or have searches powered by Google that allow users to search the broader Internet within a News Corp branded user experience (Techdirt – the original post is worth reading).
“No Doubt” is suing Band Hero (and Guitar Hero) maker Activision over their appearance in the game (GameSpy).
Allegedly, the band’s contract with Activision dictates that the band member’s avatars can only be used on their own songs, but they are fully playable characters in the game. This means that players can appear as say, Gwen Stefani on any song in the game.
Apparently this is damaging to the members of “No Doubt.”
Someone screwed up badly, and only time will tell who it was. Either…
“No Doubt’s” lawyers dropped the ball or…
Activision breached their contract.
I don’t know how it actually went down, but either way, this is pathetic.
At the end of the day, I don’t see how the members of “No Doubt” are actually damaged and deserving of financial reward on account of this, but I’m sure their lawyers would be happy to explain why I’m wrong. By the same token, Activision needs to get their shit together and make sure that the artists that they put in their games understand, and are happy with their role within it, as the very same thing happened with Guitar Hero 5, and their use of Kurt Cobain.
I’m sure that the same lawyer who approved the deal with Activision over Cobain’s appearance along with the song “Smells Like Teen Spirit” in Guitar Hero 5, had to approve the deal with Nicktoons as well. I can’t imagine that Cobain would have liked that commercial.
So, “No Doubt” & Courtney Love, let’s cut this shit out. Everyone got paid and these games introduce the music of “No Doubt” and Nirvana to a younger generation. Everyone is making money, and that’s all that you folks really want at this point.
In Brütal Legend, you play as the greatest roadie in the world, Eddie Riggs (Jack Black). Riggs is killed while saving his wussy band’s pathetic guitarist after he does something stupid on stage. Instead of dying, Riggs is transported back in time to the World of Metal where he takes on the small task of saving the human race with the power of his metal.
The Basic Game Mechanics
Riggs is armed with two axes. The first axe (the chopping kind) is used for melee combat, while the second axe (the musical kind) is used to electrocute, blow away, and explode enemies… in the World of Metal, guitars can do that kind of shit. However, that’s just the tip of the mechanics iceberg. You also have an awesome car, “the Deuce” (as in the Deuce (not douche) from Bruce Springsteen’s song “Blinded By the Light”).
Finally, there is an entirely unique portion of the game, and that’s a real-time strategy (RTS) component. Riggs leads his army, the forces of heavy metal into battle against the likes of General Lionwhyte’s (Rob Halford of Judas Priest fame) glam metal army.
The game is part sandbox/ hack & slash, and part hack & slash/ real-time strategy. The combination works well.
The Good
There is a lot to love about this game; especially if you enjoy metal… but I believe that you don’t need to enjoy the music to have a good time playing this game.
First, the game is hilarious. The dialog is brilliant and well-crafted.
Sample dialog from the opening scenes:
Eddie: “I can fix anything, except that” (in reference to his band’s awful music)
Roadie: “Metal is dead”
Eddie: “Ever feel like you were born in the wrong time, like you should have been born earlier… when the music was real?”
Roadie: “Like the 70’s?”
Eddie: “Earlier… like the early 70’s.”
The voice acting is great. Metal legends like Ozzy Osbourne (who is unusually coherent), Lemmy Kilmister (or as I like to call him, “the fucking man”), Lita Ford, and the aforementioned Rob Halford all lend their legendary voices and faces to the game. They are joined by other actors like Tim Curry (the Tim Curry), and Brian Posehn.
The World of Metal is gorgeous. It looks exactly like what heavy metal world look like if the music and album covers became a functional reality. The landscape, people, weapons, buildings, cars, men, women (especially the women), and even the creatures all look like they could grace a stage or album cover.
The story is oddly compelling, and pays such a loving tribute to the often misunderstood musical genre.
My favorite part of the game was visiting the location known as “the Wall of Sound.” Guitarists like Yngwie Malmsteen play with a wall of amps behind them… the Wall of Sound is a cliff of amps.
The use of the music was wonderful, especially in certain areas of the game where the music was deliberately selected. The getaway scene where you are speeding in the Deuce, avoiding the onslaught of some big and ugly monsters is set to Dragonforce’s shredfest, “Through the Fire and Flames” (I can’t help but speed in real life when this song is blasting in my car, so I was happy to race to it in-game). During one critical story moment, Ozzy Osbourne’s “Mr. Crowley” struck me as particularly beautiful and powerful.
Throughout the game, music constantly plays through the stereo in the Deuce. The selection is broad and generally good. I was especially pleased to hear song’s like Motörhead’s “We Are the Road Crew,” and a pair of songs by Racer X.
The driving and combat was intuitive, and the RTS components were easy to control after I got the hang of it; fortunately the learning curve was pretty shallow on the RTS battles.
The Not So Good
Brütal Legend gets everything almost perfect, but it could have used some polish. For example…
Riggs often gets stuck on things like rocks – a jump button would have fixed that
Riggs dies in water – I’m so tired of characters dying in water (especially when you see them swim in the during cinematic sequences of the game without dying)
A mini-map while driving the Deuce would have saved me from constantly pausing to check the damn map
Cinematic scenes, particularly at the beginning and end of the game cut to load screens in odd places; this yanked me out of the narrative
A lack of instructional cues – There are things throughout the game that aren’t explained and you have to discover them for yourself (how do you a free serpent statues, or disabling songs that you don’t enjoy [I can't stand industrial metal], among many other key features
None of these ruin the game by any stretch of the imagination, but an extra month or two in development would have gone a long way.
The Ugly
I’m not completely sold that this belongs in the “Ugly” category, but I need to put something here, and this bothered me the most about Brütal Legend…
It was too easy, even on the Brütal difficulty level.
Once I got the hang of the RTS system, and discovered that the old Starcraft Zerg rush technique worked insanely well, I destroyed the computer without any resistance.
The Bottom-line
This is a great game, and well worth your time and money; if only for the humor, story, and music. Brütal Legend is a breath of fresh air, and a truly original experience in an ocean of sequels and rehashed game mechanics. There are so many great things about this game that I couldn’t even get into all of them. I guess you will just have to play and discover them for yourself.
There is a growing number of quality web video series that are mostly target towards geekier audiences, in large part because geeks are the web pioneers, and geeks are also the early adopters of this kind of stuff.
The Legend of Neil is a web series that is based on the classic videogame, The Legend of Zelda. Basically, a loser named Neil is sucked into the videogame where he is the game where he assumes the role of the hero.
The show is ridiculously funny, but it’s one of those things where you probably should have played at least one Zelda game to fully appreciate. For instance, if you don’t know that the hero of the Zelda games is a guy named Link, you most likely won’t have enough background knowledge to completely enjoy the show.
Actress and geek queen bee, Felicia Day shows up to costar in a few of the episodes as the Fairy. All I’ll say is that Ms. Day is usually typcast as the crazy cat girl or the geeky friend by Hollywood… her role here is absolutely not the crazy cat girl or the geeky friend.
Finally, The Legend of Neil is not safe for work. In terms of humor, it takes quite a bit to really shock me. The Legend of Neil made me blush on a number of occasions.
This is the first of a few “better late than never” game reviews.
The Good
The revamped multiplayer mode is exceptional. Having the game boot right into a party play mode that never stops is brilliant. Players can join or drop at will, no one fails out, and anyone can play any instrument on any difficulty (which means you have have four people playing guitar). It’s perfect during big geeky parties.
The graphics are very pretty.
The ability to use your own Xbox Live avatar in game is freakin’ awesome. I love that I am able to import myself into the game, make a guitar that looks just like my wine red Gibson Les Paul Studio, and rock out on stage to a song like The Derek Trucks Band’s Young Funk.
The Not So Good
I’m not sure this is really a problem with the game, but the track list is so broad and diverse that inevitably you spend a fair amount of time jamming on songs that you just plain dislike (even if you have broad musical tastes). I’m not sure there is a way around this other than band, or genre specific games (Like Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, Guitar Hero: Metallica, and The Beatles Rock Band).
The Ugly
Why the hell can’t Activision make a guitar controller with a silent strum bar? I hate all of the incessant clicking, and so does everybody in the room when you are playing.
The Bottom-line
If you like music rhythm games, it’s worth the money. If you don’t, this probably won’t convert you.
My friend, coworker, and designer extraordinaire RJay Haluko photoshopped the hell out of a picture of me from a company bowling outing.
I saw a videogame called “Dragon Punch” and couldn’t help but strike my best Street Fighter pose… he did the rest in about 15 minutes while I was picking up lunch.
P.S. – If you found this site by googling “RJay Haluko,” who are you? Fess up to your stalking here. You know who you are.
The new video game Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 is a pretty big waste of time. I’m kind of mortified that I took the time to play it through to the end. However, there was one thing at the end that almost made it worth my time; Hulk reciting a series of haiku.
Allow me to save you $60.00 and a bunch of time by sharing a video of the audio file:
As far as the game goes, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 commits a few major gaming offenses.
The enemies all feel the same. The big difference is that some of them take more time to kill. Otherwise, everything feels very repetitive.
It rewards you greatly for breaking things in the scenery. Rewarding a player for doing pointless things like breaking scenery means that they will. It’s an annoying waste of time.
Unlocking characters. I’m pretty tired of having to unlock characters. Why all of the hoop jumping?
I love the characters. I wanted to enjoy the game… but I can’t. It’s just not very good.
Nintendo’s Wii is joining the console price cut party.
It seems that the family friendly video game system is getting a $50.00 price cut, making it $199.99. I hope this translates into sales for all three console makers as the holiday season approaches.
It seems that the members of Pink Floyd are considering a music game. After seeing the loving care that the Beatles received in Beatles Rock Band (review coming really soon), I can’t think of a band that is better suited for the same treatment.
The stages would be freaking awesome. The music is incredible (and far more difficult than the Beatles), and that solo on Comfortably Numb… ooo the solo on Comfortably Numb. I’m in love with this idea already. I hope it happens.
There’s too much going on today to just cover one topic…
Happy birthday to TGW contributer Jason (TheLisnakFactor). He is now the official TGW tech question responder guy, so send him some questions!
Happy 10th birthday Dreamcast; the defunct Sega gaming console. Oh Dreamcast… your graphics were so good, controller was freaking odd, and your games were unfathomably easy to pirate. Thems were the good ole days.
The wire coming out of the back of the controller was never a good idea.
Steve Jobs and the folks at Apple announced a lot of iPod related things that didn’t excite me enough to write something original.
DC Comics is going through some drastic changes… really it’s a corporate enema.
The new Batman: Arkham Asylum is easily the best comic book/ video game adaptation released to date. The story is interesting (written by legendary Batman Scribe Paul Dini); the voice acting is mind-blowing (most of the voices are provided by veterans of the 1990’s Batman the Animated Series), and the fighting is fluid.
By providing a simple attack/ defend method, the game designers created a superb fighting system that is easy to learn, but takes some art to master. I also love the variety of ways you can take down thugs… which is also my favorite part of the game. The planning that is necessary to take down a room full of armed thugs on hard is certainly challenging. One room in particular where the Joker has seven armed thugs wire the ceiling with bombs (essentially removing your ability to go vertical) took me a number of tries to triumph. I can’t remember the last time I had to work so hard to conquer a puzzle in a game; it was intellectually refreshing.
The scenes where you get fear gassed by Scarecrow, and have to escape your own madness, are really trippy and quite cool.
The Not So Good
My only substantive complaint is regarding the boss battles. On one hand, I have to give them some credit because no two boss battles are alike. On the other, they never made me feel like I was Baman beating the hell out of my crazy, ostentatious rogues. The boss battles were never as enthralling as the rest of the game.
One other graphic design issue bugs me just a bit. In cut scenes, Batman looks like he’s sweating buckets. This is probably because the game was created using the Unreal Engine. It’s not a huge issue, but it’s something I noticed.
The Ugly
Nada
Bottom-line
I typically don’t feel the need to complete all of the side challenges in a game, but something about the Riddler’s taunting has compelled me to go back and finish answering his riddles… so I’m not done with Batman: Arkham Asylum.
All-in-all, this game is a triumph. It looks good, is fun to play, and it gives you a reason to play some more after the main story is over. What more could you want out of a game?
I was a young lad, no older than six when I first hit the Trail. There was no Internet to speak of, and all we had to eat were moldy Apple IIGS.
The Trail was really hard to survive without basic reading comprehension or survival skills. Why would anyone need anything but guns and ammo to survive a 2000 mile trek across untamed, unforgiving wilds?
There were so many ways to die on the Trail… but I always felt the worst for those poor souls who perished from cholera, diarrhea or dysentery. There were neither toilet, nor toilet paper on the Trail.
The Premise
While returning from the Wall of Sound, Riggs & Co. are attacked by a flock of seagulls; the joke was so subtle I had to pause the game to cackle (if you don’t get it, 
