- Kick off your week with a roundup of the geek news you may have missed -

Putting together the first news post after April Fools Day is always a challenge. There were some great stories out there this week but many of them turned out to be not-so-much true. One of my personal favorites was the story from Comic Mix about Warner Brothers lawyers handing out cease and desist orders to people with “unlicensed” tattoos of DC comics characters. This, in my mind, is how you do it right. The story was juuuuuust plausible enough that it really gave me pause. Think Geek also did a fine job again this year with their lightsaber popsicles and the Angry Birds pork rinds.

I’ve done my best to sort through and find some actual news stories but if something in here seems too good to be true it probably means someone’s joke slipped past.

Books

• The short list for the first Terry Pratchett Anywhere but Here, Anywhen but Now First Novel Prize has been announced. The six nominees are:
  • Postponing Armageddon by Adele Abbott
  • The Platinum Ticket by Dave Beynon
  • Half Sick of Shadows by David Logan
  • Apocalypse Cow by Michael Logan
  • Lun by Andrew Salomon
  • The Coven at Callington by Shereen Vedam

  The winner will be chosen by Sir Terry Pratchett and four other judges and announced at a party to be held on May 31.

Comics

• IDW Publishing announced at Wondercon this weekend that they have acquired the rights to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and would be publishing new TMNT stories along with reprints of the original Eastman and Laird comics. Comic Book Resources is reporting that IDW’s take on the Turtles will be based on the original series but there was no comment on whether or not Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird themselves would be involved in the relaunch. The new series is scheduled to debut this Summer.

• According to an official press release, Too Much Coffee Man creator Shannon Wheeler has signed a three-book deal with BOOM! Studios. Wheeler will be publishing Too Much Coffee Man: Cutie Island & Other Stories and a follow up to I Thought You Would Be Funnier as well as an all new graphic novel titled Grandpa Won’t Wake Up under BOOM!’s BOOM! Town imprint. Grandpa Won’t Wake Up and Cutie Island & Other Stories are scheduled to be out this year and the I Thought You Would Be Funnier follow up will be out in Spring 2012.

Movies

• Warner Brothers released four minutes of footage from Green Lantern into the wild. This is a “condensed version” of the footage that was a huge hit at Wondercon. Enjoy!
  

Tabletop

• Twilight Creations’ Deadlands boardgame may finally make it in to stores. From their website;
  

  After many delays we are happy to announce that Deadlands: Invasion of Slaughter Gulch (affectionately known as DL2) is at the printers. We expect to have it sometime in late May. We think you will find that it was worth the wait.

  The game, which has been listed as “coming soon” since 2009, has players vying for control of a frontier town and the supply of “ghost rock” in the surrounding area.

TV

• The BBC continues to crank up the hype for the new season of Dr. Who with a new extended trailer that was released into the wild on Friday. Enjoy!
  

- Kick off your week with a roundup of the geek news you may have missed -

One last bit of Emerald City ComiCon news to start off. We got word on attendance numbers from the man himself, Jim Demonakos the founder and organizer of ECCC. He tells us that 32,000 people were at the convention center over the course of the weekend versus 20,000 last year. To put that in a little broader context, San Diego reported 130,000 attendees last year but in my book being smaller than San Diego is not at all a bad thing.

The Monday News is under the fold

Comics

• Stumptown Comics Fest has announced the final list of 2011 nominees for the Stumptown Comic Arts Awards and you get to decide the winners! The nominees include:
  Best Artist:
  • Emily Carroll – His Face All Read
  • Roman Muradov – Etc and A Cave
  • Stuart Immonen – Moving Pictures
  • Brian Hurtt – The Sixth Gun
  • Brecht Evans – Night Animals

  Best Writer:

  • Carla Speed McNeil – Finder: Voice
  • Cullen Bunn – The Sixth Gun
  • Greg Rucka – Stumptown
  • Aaron Renier – The Unsinkable Walker Bean
  • Ben Marra – Benjamin Marra’s The Incredibly Fantastic Adventures of Maureen Down (A Work of Satire and Fiction)

  Best Letter:

  • Johnny Ryan – Prison Pit Vol. 2
  • Madeline Flores – The Girl and the Gorilla
  • Carla Speed McNeil – Finder: Voice
  • Aaron Renier – The Unsinkable Walker Bean
  • Brittney Sabo – Francis Sharp in the Grip of the Uncanny, Vol. 1

  Best Colorist:

  • Brecht Evans – Night Animals
  • Emily Carroll – His Face All Read
  • Alec Longstreth – The Unsinkable Walker Bean
  • Ben Costa – Pang: The Wandering Shaolin Monk
  • Sarah Glidden – How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less

  Best New Talent:

  • Michael DeForge
  • Adam Hines
  • Emi Lenox
  • Sarah Oleksyk
  • Julia Gfrörer

  Reader’s Choice:

  Voters are asked to list up to three of their favorite comics from April 2010 to April 2011. Any graphic novel, trade paper back collection, single issue or ongoing series, small press or online – whatever title has the most votes as determined by the readers will win this special prize.

  To vote in this year’s awards visit stumptowncomics.com/awards_ballot. After voting, you will receive an email which must be confirmed in order for your vote to be counted. Winners will be announced at the Stumptown Comics Fest, the largest creator-focused comics convention in the Pacific Northwest, which will be held April 16-17 at the Oregon Convention Center.

• The Stumptown Award nominated writer Greg Rucka is returning to Marvel with a new ongoing Punisher series. The announcement was made at the Marvel’s Cup O’ Joe panel at C2E2 this weekend. Rucka said that he will be taking a “back to basics” approach on the book;
  

  There is a baseline that is very clear in this character, in my opinion, and I have no urge to f*ck with that at all. In all sincerity. It’s working, it’s dynamite for the character, it defines him well — I’m not going to go in there and mess with that, no way.

  Newsarama is reporting that the series will have art by Marco Checchetto of Squadron Supreme fame and will debut in August.

Manga

• Publisher Kodansha USA announced in a press release that it will be reprinting the entire run of Naoko Takeuchi’s Sailor Moon. In addition to “deluxe editions” of the series, which has been out of print since 2005, they will be releasing the two-volume prequel series Codename: Sailor V which has never been published in the United States. The original 18 volumes have been condensed into 12 volumes covering the main storyline, and two volumes dedicated to short stories. They will be released bi-monthly starting in September of this year.

Movies

• Warner Brothers has released a behind-the-scenes teaser video for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 into the wild. Enjoy!
  

Tabletop

• Atlas Games has announced Cthulhu Gloom, the newest addition to their line of “transparent” card games. Cthulhu Gloom can be played either as a stand alone game or as an expansion for the basic Gloom card game. It continues with the basic Gloom mechanic of having players try and inflict the most suffering on the members families they control before engineering their tragic deaths and will also add two new mechanics, Story cards and Transformation cards. Cthulhu Gloom was designed by Keith Baker and will be in stores this August.

TV

• The first picture of actress Adrianne Palicki in her role as Wonder Woman for the new NBC series has been making the rounds (click the thumbnail for full size). Reviews have been mixed from fans and other interested parties. On the positive side, original TV Wonder Woman Lynda Carter told E Online that she liked the new costume;
  

  ‘I think she looks fabulous,’ said Carter, who originated the role in the classic (and oh-so-campy!) series in the mid-’70s. ‘It’s a new look and, jeez, her body looks fantastic.’

  On the negative side we have Fox News. Fox responded to the photo by republishing an article from July about the Jim Lee-designed costume from the Wonder Woman comics on which the new TV costume is based. In the article they complain that Wonder Woman has “been stripped of her patriotism” with the removal of the stars-and-stripes motif of the original costume. I would make the attempt explain to the Fox writers that Wonder Woman is not actually an American but I’m afraid if I did they would start calling for her to be deported.

• Good news for fans of Being Human. Both the BBC and *shudder* Syfy have announced new seasons for their respective incarnations of the series, a fourth for the BBC and a second for *shudder* Syfy. Both versions of the show will begin airing new episodes next year.

What am I looking for in a Boardgame News reporter? Someone who wants to write about one or two specific publishers, covering both game announcements and general news items related to rules releases, delays, preorder info, and so on. The folks listed above are covering only one or two publishers, and by having that focus, the reporting doesn’t take much of their time. They submit material to me, and I edit it for publication; over time (and once the site is running faster) I plan to set them up to post material on their own.

If you’re interested in writing for Boardgame News along the lines laid out above, write to me through the Boardgame News contact form, choosing “Writing for BGN” as the subject line, and let me know which publishers you want to cover. I’ll get back to you and we’ll take it from there. Hope to hear from a few (dozen) of you…

I know there are some pretty serious boardgame geeks in the Seattle Geekly audience and Boardgame News would be a great site to contribute to.

Your Monday News is under the fold.

Boardgames

• Wizards of the Coast has announced that they are discontinuing the Heroscape boardgame. Straight from the official announcement:
  

  After a thorough evaluation, we have made the decision to discontinue our Heroscape line in order to focus our efforts on our core brands. While this decision means that we will no longer be developing new content for the game, existing Heroscape products will still remain available from Wizards of the Coast and sold in the hobby game channel while supplies last.

  The final Heroscape expansion, Moltenclaw’s Invasion, is still going to be released and should be in stores later this month. The Heroscape community, while decrying the decision, has pledged to keep the game alive with fan run tournaments and user created content.

Books

• If you have ever wanted to be a character in a book, this could be your chance to achieve that goal and contribute to a good cause at the same time. Authors for Autistica is a group of authors who are auctioning off the opportunity to be written in to their next novel to benefit autism research. Participating authors include Glenn Cooper, who is auctioning off an appearance in The Fate Keepers (with the additional benefit of allowing the winner to specify if they wish to be good/bad/or neutral), Peter Hamilton, who is auctioning off an appearance in his new science-fiction novel Great North Road, Darren Shan who is auctioning off an appearance in book 4 of The Saga of Larten Crepsley (with the added benefit of having the character named after the winner killed off in the book) and many more. The auction opens on November 11.

MMO

• With Cryptic’s other big MMO, Champions Online, joining the ranks of free-to-play speculation is rampant that Star Trek Online might be next. Cryptic head Jack Emmert addressed that speculation in an interview with Eurogamer
  

  “We’re not sold one way or the other with Star Trek yet. If people want Star Trek to go free-to-play then get in and play Champions and help make it a great success, because that would send a strong message, [but] there are more people than just I on that decision and I can’t begin to say it would be an automatic ‘Yes, we’d do it.’”

  In the interview he also spoke about hoping to have the same level of success with Champions that Turbine had with their recent relaunch of Dungeons and Dragons Online as a free-to-play game. The free-to-play version of Champions will launch in the first quarter of 2011 and we’ll be keeping our fingers crossed for FTP Star Trek!

TV

• Spinoff Online is reporting that Disney will be launching an animated Tron series produced and directed by Samurai Jack’s Charlie Bean in the summer of 2012. The series, titled Tron: Uprising, will expand the Tron universe and will feature voice acting from Elijah Wood, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Mandy Moore, Paul Reubens and Lance Henriksen, with Bruce Boxleitner returning as Tron. There is no word if Tron: Uprising will follow the storyline of the previously announced 10-part Tron micro-series airing next fall or if it will be something entirely new.

Video Games

• Capcom Arcade is now available as a free app for the iPhone/iPod Touch. The app includes full versions of the classic arcade games Street Fighter II, Ghouls ‘n Ghosts, 1942 and Commando and will have new games added every month. The free version of the app allows you to play each of the games up to three times per day and you can download ten tokens that allow additional plays for $.99. You can also buy a fully unlocked version with unlimited play for $2.99.

The popularity of boardgaming is on the rise in the U.S. but still when you mention boardgames most people think of Monopoly or Life or one of the other “family games”. This week we’ll be talking to Kevin Schlabach, the founder of the boardgaming news site Seize Your Turn about his campaign to raise the profile of good boardgames.

Shannon watches her last bad movie before the month of good horror movies in October and, as always, we have the weekly geek news!

Our Geek Week

• We have joined the 21st century and ditched our land line phone
• Read The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
• Reading The Devil’s Alphabet Daryl Gregory
• Watched Frozen (2010) on Blu-ray
• finished draft of an article for City Arts magazine on the Steampunk scene in Seattle. Look for it in the November issue!
• Reading Cobalt City Timeslip Edited by C. Dombrowski
• Watched the first two episodes of Journey Quest
• Went to the Fremont Oktoberfest
• Watched the premiere of Dexter

Play In Public

• Seize Your Turn
  • SYT on Twitter
• Play In Public Campaign
  • Play in Public on Facebook
  • #PiPCampaign hashtag on Twitter

Dare Shannon to Watch a Bad Movie

This week’s bad movie was Death Bed: The Bed That Eats (1977)

If you want to dare Shannon to watch a bad movie, e-mail us at seattlegeekly@gmail.com or call us at (206)201-2352 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              (206)201-2352      end_of_the_skype_highlighting

Check our Dared Movies Page to see what is on the list and what Shannon has already watched.

Next week starts the month of GOOD horror movies for October! We’re still looking for suggestions of for GOOD horror movies to watch over the course of the month. Each week Shannon will be reviewing a movie suggested by a listener on the podcast. This will be kind of the reverse of daring her to watch a bad movie. If you know of a horror movie that you don’t think Shannon has already seen (and she does watch a LOT of movies) she’d love to hear about it. Any type of horror movie will do, foreign, old, silent, indie, big box office, whatever.

As an incentive, the people who first suggest movies that get reviewed this month will be put in a drawing to win a Seattle Geekly prize package! Since we have more than a month to accumulate prizes I can’t really say what all will be in the package, but I know it will include one of our Seattle Geekly t-shirts, a Seattle Geekly button and whatever other cool stuff we can come up with!

Send your suggestions of GOOD horror movies to seattlegeekly@gmail.com or message @seattlegeekly on twitter!

Contest!

Our 2010 PAX Swag Bag Giveaway!

The bag has as much swag from PAX as we could scoop up and includes (but is not limited to) 9 t-shirts from various games, signed copies of The Mark of Nerath by Bill Slavicsek and Swordmage by Richard Baker, a full version of Killing Floor for the PC from Tripwire, an inflatable Dragon Age 2 sword, a King Raskull bobblehead, a couple beta codes, various pins, stickers and other swag all contained in a Torchlight II tote bag!

This contest will run through October 7

Check our Contests page to find out how you can enter to win!

News

• Lucas Converting ‘Star Wars Saga’ To 3D
• Nintendo 3DS Release Date, Price Announced
  • You Are To Blame For The 3DS Price Point
• Banned Books Week: Challenged graphic novels

Music

Music this week was ‘Villain of the Day: Episode I’ by Death*Star off their album The Fandom Menace. Death*Star will be playing live, opening for Beefy and Kirby Krackle at The High Dive in Seattle October 14. Doors open at 8 and Tickets are 7$.

Next show: Episode #80 – Haunted October! We check out the Stocker Farms Field of Screams and talk about some other cool stuff going on this month around the Northwest and around the country

Seattle Geekly by http://www.seattl-geekly.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

First up, MC Frontalot and his new single Spoiler Alert from the album Zero Day

Next, Kirby Krackle and their new video for Zombie Apocalypse

Your Monday news is under the fold.

Boardgames

• If you happened to stop by the Steve Jackson Games area at PAX you might have seen them playtesting the latest Munchkin expansion Munchkin Zombies. As with all the Munchkin games it will work both as a stand-alone game or can be mixed in with existing Munchkin sets. Cards reportedly will include Garbage Can armor, severed arms that can be used as clubs and, of course, a nearly endless variety of zombies, Strong Zombies, Fast Zombies, Plague Zombies, Smart Zombies and even zombie strippers. Munchkin Zombies is scheduled for release in April of 2011.

• Rail game addicts will soon have a new two player option coming from Lookout Games. Railroad Barons is a card game designed by Helmut Ohley based on the 18xx system. The players take the roles of industrialists competing to add railways to their portfolios rather than building rail networks. The game will be published in a bilingual English and German edition and should be out sometime next month.

Comics

• Seattle’s own Fantagraphics is going to be publishing a lost graphic novel by William S. Burroughs with art by Malcolm McNeil. The book is an adaptation of Burroughs’ story ‘Ah Pook Is Here’. The project started in the early ’70s and, according to the press release from Fantagraphics, was “conceived as a single painting in which text and images were combined in whatever form seemed appropriate to the narrative. It was conceived as 120 continuous pages that would ‘fold out.’ Such a book was, at the time, unprecedented, and no publisher was willing to take a chance and publish a ‘graphic novel.’ Burroughs and McNeill finally abandoned the project after collaborating on it for 7 years”. There is some amazing sample art on the Fantagraphics site. The book will be published in the summer of 2011.

Video Games

• One of the biggest and most popular exhibits at PAX was Bioware’s Dragon Age II and now the game trailer has been released into the wild. Enjoy!
  

Shannon tried out Revolution from Steve Jackson Games at Gamestorm earlier this year but it was completely new to the rest of us at the table. Revolution is a bidding game in which the players are trying to gain enough influence to take over a city. You gain influence by winning the support of various town officials and the areas they control in the town. The officials are “persuaded” to support you each turn through force, blackmail or bribery. It was very quick to learn, a grand total of maybe 10 minutes, but as the game progressed it turned out to have a pretty good depth of strategy. All of the players bid secretly and bids are all revealed simultaneously, certain officials are immune to one or more methods of persuasion and you have to balance the short term goals of acquiring more force, blackmail and bribery tokens with the long term goal of building influence in the various areas of the town. Over all it was a lot of fun.

Next up was a few rounds of Zombie Dice also from Steve Jackson Games. Zombie Dice is a super fast paced dice game in which each of the players is a zombie trying to be the first to eat thirteen brains. The thirteen dice that come with the game can either show a brain, footprints (meaning your human victim escaped) or a shotgun blast (meaning your human victim was armed and dangerous) and there are three types of dice; green (mostly brains with few shotguns), yellow (evenly split between brains and shotguns) and red (mostly shotguns with few brains). You have to balance trying to get as many brains as you can before you roll a total of three shotgun blasts which ends your turn and prevents you from adding any brains you may have rolled to your score. This is a great game for filling short time periods or for large groups, since any number of people can play. Unsurprisingly, Zombie Dice has been turned in to an iPhone app which I can just about guarantee Shannon is going to be getting as soon as she reads this.

There isn’t going to be a Seattle Geekly game day at Wayward next month because we are going to be at the Maelstrom International Fantastic Film Festival (which is where all of you should be that weekend as well) but keep an eye on the Event Calendar for future dates.

Your Monday News is under the fold

Anime

• Anime News Network is now streaming all 43 episodes of the second series of Fist of the North Star dubbed in English. Fist of the North Star 2 originally ran in Japan from 1987 – 88 and has been difficult to find in the U.S. If you don’t care to watch the streaming episodes, Discotek Media announced late last year that they have licensed the entire Fist of the North Star TV series and that they plan to release the 109 episode first season and the 43 episode second season in a total of four box sets the first of which was released in July.

Internet

• Not sure how this managed to fly under our radar but a new web show, Otaku: The Series, premiered last month. It follows the adventures of Coco, Chike and Ron and the members of their college anime club. The first episode shows some promise.

MMO

• Aeria Games is bringing Dynasty Warriors Online to the U.S. The game, based on the tactical action video game franchise by Omega Force and Koei, promises “unique tactical combat”, “Multifaceted leveling” and the opportunity to “Battle live opponents in the world of Dynasty Warriors”. Beta applications are already being accepted and there is a game trailer!
  

Video Games

• Gamescom 2010 kicks off this week in Cologne, Germany and they have announced the nominees for the gamescom award. The nominees include:
  • Best of Gamescom
    • Gran Turismo 5
    • Portal 2
    • Crysis 2
    • Star Wars: The Old Republic
    • Civilization 5
  • Console Game
    • Mafia II
    • Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood
    • Fallout: New Vegas
    • FIFA 11
    • Kirby’s Epic Yarn
      Gran Turismo 5
  • PC Game
    • Civilization 5
    • Portal 2
    • Crysis 2
  • Online Game
    • Guild Wars 2
    • Poisonville
    • Black Prophecy
    • Star Wars: The Old Republic
    • World of Warcraft: Cataclysm

  The full list of nominees is up at the official GamesCom site.

• The first official game trailer for Bioshock Infinite has hit the web and really there is only one thing I can say about it. HOLY CRAP! AIRSHIPS!
  

In more Comic Con related news, it has been known for some time that Comic Con International’s contract with the San Diego Convention Center expires in 2012 and that the cities of Anaheim and Los Angeles have been vigorously trying to lure the con away from San Diego. A decision by the CCI board of directors regarding possible relocation has been expected since April and they were hoping to be able to make an announcement at the convention. Now it looks like the decision has been delayed yet again and will not be made until sometime after this weekend.

Finally, this video came through our in-box and I think it does a fine job of captruing the spirit of the con. Enjoy!

Your Monday News is under the fold

Boardgames

• Steve Jackson Games has announced the latest expansion for thier Illuminati card game, Illuminati: Mutual Assured Distraction. The expansion will introduce the New World Order mechanic from the collectible card game version of Illuminati to the stand alone version with cards like Supermajority, Health Reform, Bank Collapse, Superpatriot Act and Economic Stimulus. NWO cards add effects that influence all players, not just the one who laid the card down. Mutual Assured Distraction will contain 18 NWO cards and 5 “special cards to trigger, add, or remove NWO effects”. The suggested retail price is $6.99 and it will be in stores soon.

• Quicksand by Erik Oosterwal has received the first ever ICE Award for best fan-designed Icehouse pyramid game. The original Icehouse was a turnless abstract strategy game conceived by Andrew Looney and designed by John Cooper that used nested pyramidal pieces. The pieces are still sold by Looney Labs in their Treehouse game and fans continue to design new games using Icehouse pieces. Currently there are more than 300 variants listed on the Icehouse wiki. The ICE award will be given annually for the best variant designed in the previous year.

Books

• The nominees for the 2010 Endeavour Award have been announced. The Endeavour is given out “for a distinguished SCIENCE FICTION or FANTASY BOOK written by a Pacific Northwest author or authors and published in the previous year”. The nominees are:
  • City Without End by Kay Kenyon
  • Eyes Like Sky and Coal and Moonlight by Cat Rambo
  • Hunting Ground by Patricia Briggs
  • Mind Over Ship by David Marusek
  • Push of the Sky by Camille Alexa

  The winner will be announced at this year’s OryCon in November.

Comics

• PvP Online creator Scott Kurtz is ending his publishing relationship with Image Comics and will be self-publishing the latest PvP collection. Kurtz explained his decision in an interview with Comic Book Resources
  

  Over the last three years our business has shifted. Sales through brick-and-mortar stores are declining and online sales are increasing. Readers who discovered PvP in comic shops have shifted from monthly readers to online readers, and their buying habits have changed. The monthly floppy is selling less and the trade paperbacks are selling more.

  The previous PvP collections will still be available through Image.

TV

• The second season of the BBC series Being Human premiers on BBC America this week. the first season of the show, which follows the lives of a ghost, a werewolf and a vampire living as roommates, was something of a surprise hit for th BBC and the show has already been renewed for a third season. The U.S. premiere of season 2 is this Saturday at 10pm on BBC America, right after the season finale of Dr. Who.

Video Games

• Plants Vs. Zombies is finally making it over to XBox Live Arcade and the list of achievements you can earn has been leaked. From the list it looks like the XBLA version will have co-op Wall Nut bowling, straight co-op and a versus mode. No official release date or price has been announced.

• The long awaited Starcraft II comes out next Tuesday but the system requirements have been released now, just in case you need to upgrade the apparatus before then.
  Minimum System Requirements*:
  • PC: Windows XP/Windows Vista/Windows 7 (Latest Service Packs) with DirectX 9.0c
  • 2.6 GHz Pentium IV or equivalent AMD Athlon processor
  • 128 MB PCIe NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT or ATI Radeon 9800 PRO video card or better
    

  • Mac: Mac OS X 10.5.8, 10.6.2 or newer Intel Processor
  • NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT or ATI Radeon X1600 or better
    

  • PC/Mac: 12 GB available HD space
  • 1 GB RAM (1.5 GB required for Windows Vista/Windows 7 users, 2 GB for Mac users) DVD-ROM drive
  • Broadband Internet connection
  • 1024X720 minimum display resolution

  *Note: Due to potential programming changes, the Minimum System Requirements for this game may change over time.
  Recommended Specifications:

  • PC: Windows Vista/Windows 7 Dual Core 2.4Ghz Processor 2 GB RAM
  • 512 MB NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX or ATI Radeon HD 3870 or better
    

  • Mac: Intel Core 2 Duo processor 4 GB system RAM
  • NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT or ATI Radeon HD 4670 or better

  Starcraft II will also require the use of Blizzard’s Battle.net service, the “Real ID” portion of which was the center of controversy when Blizzard announced that it would be requiring Real ID (that is, a user’s real first and last name) to post on official forums, a decision which they have since reversed. Real ID will still display your real name to people on your Battle.net friends list but Blizzard has said that they are working on an “opt out” for those who want to prevent thier names from being displayed to friends-of-friends as well. According to the Real ID FAQ, the friends-of-friends opt out should be available “shortly after release”. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Blizzard spent around $100 million just on development of Star Craft II which sounds like a lot until you hear that they are expecting to make at least $500 million and possibly as much as $1 billion from the game.

Okay, so really it was more of a “game afternoon” but who wants to be out all night on a Sunday? The return of the Seattle Geekly game night was a huge success, mostly thanks to the kindness of the great people at Wizards of the Coast who provided us with some awesome door prizes including a gargantuan Orcus “mini”.

We’re going to be doing these on the third Sunday of the month at Wayward Coffeehouse. The next night will be August 15, again from 1 – 5pm. There won’t be a game night in September because we’re going to be at the Maelstrom International Fantastic Film Festival that weekend but keep an eye on our Event Calendar for dates in October and beyond.

Tonight, the group was large enough that we broke into two. One group played an epic game of Super-Vampire-Pirate Munchkin followed by a round of Tsuro and Kill Doctor Lucky. The other group played a ton of Magic: the Gathering including two rounds using the new Archenemy rules.

Archenemy is a four player, 3 vs 1 game with one player taking the role of the Archenemy. Archenemies start with forty life instead of the usual twenty and have access to a twenty card deck of over sized “scheme” cards in addition to a regular 60 card deck of standard Magic cards. At the beginning of each turn the Archenemy gets to put a new scheme in motion by drawing one of the over sized cards and it is from these cards that they get the extra boost needed to be a challenge for the three opposing players to bring down.

Click to enlarge

There were some truly vicious schemes in the two decks we played (Trample Civilization Underfoot and Assemble the Doomsday Machine). The Archenemy won one of the games and the players won the other, but both games were surprisingly close.

Since the three players opposing the Archenemy play cooperatively, these rules are ideal for teaching new players the game and it is also an excellent variant to throw in on experienced players looking for something a little different.

There are currently four Archenemy decks available. the decks come with a 60 card pre-constructed Magic deck and a 20 card pre-constructed scheme deck. They retail for around $20.

This week marks the end of our two week hiatus and the return of the Seattle Geekly podcast. July is going to be all about women in geekdom and this Thursday we’ll have interviews with authors Adrian Phoenix, Marjorie M. Liu, Jennifer Brozek, Seanan McGuire and Mira Grant (*wink, wink*). Stay tuned for shows later this month with women comic creators and women geek musicians!

Another podcast is also celebrating it’s return this month. We discovered James Durham’s podcast audio drama FETIDUS not long after we started doing our podcast and have been huge fans ever since. We were dismayed when it seemed like James had stopped releasing new episodes but much to our relief he has not vanished from the internet. Here is word from the man himself;

It is time!

FETIDUS is relaunching under the cover of the smoldering, humid night of July 9th, 2010. I’m thrilled to bring you FETIDUS: The Damned Heir, starting with a revised Episode 1, with one episode every week, until the grand finale.

Yes, FETIDUS is back. All the episodes have been recorded, even the finale.

Join us from the beginning. Starting July 9th, 2010, every Friday is FETIDUS Day until the thrilling conclusion. Begin with Episode 1, bring your friends, and join Art Blanchard in the fetid back streets of post-apocalyptic Washington DC at FETIDUS.org.

If you hadn’t been listening to FETIDUS previously, this is the perfect opportunity to start. You can also hear our interview with James back in Episode #12 of our podcast.

Your Monday News is under the fold

Boardgames

• Avalon Hill’s Betrayal at House on the Hill has been one of our favorite games since it’s release and we have never hesitated to recommend it in spite of the fact that it has been out of print for years. We mentioned briefly the announcement that it was coming back in to print and now it finally has an official release date. The game will be back in stores October 5, just in time for Halloween! The new version of the game will include an updated haunt book with eight new haunts – some of which feature a new “hidden traitor” game mechanic, several new items, completely redsigned game play tokens, and new artwork.

Comics

• The announcement that Marvel Comics had acquired the rights to Marvelman (previously known as Miracleman in the U.S. when the rights were not owned by Marvel) was one of the biggest pieces of news to come out of last year’s San Diego ComiCon. Since then there have been rumors but not much activity with either republishing the old stories or creating new ones. The good news is that finally, just this month, the first issue of “Marvelman Family’s Finest” will be hitting stands. The bad news that this ISN’T going to be reprints of what everyone wanted to see, the Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman stories from the 1980s. Instead this will be a chronological reprinting of the ORIGINAL Marvelman stories written by Mick Anglo in the 1950s. One can only hope that reprints of the Moore/Gaiman stories will be forthcoming.

• Nominations for this year’s Harvey Awards have been announced. Nominees include
  • BEST WRITER
    • Jason Aaron, “SCALPED”, Vertigo/DC Comics
    • Geoff Johns, “BLACKEST NIGHT”, DC Comics
    • Robert Kirkman, “THE WALKING DEAD”, Image Comics
    • Jeff Kinney, “DIARY OF A WIMPY KID #3: THE LAST STRAW”, Amulet Books
    • Mark Waid, “IRREDEEMABLE”, BOOM! Studios
  • BEST ARTIST
    • Robert Crumb, “BOOK OF GENESIS”, W.W. Norton
    • Guy Davis, “BPRD: BLACK GODDESS”, Dark Horse Comics
    • Brian Fies, “WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE WORLD OF TOMORROW?”, Abrams ComicArts
    • David Petersen, “MOUSE GUARD : WINTER 1152″, Archaia Studios Press
    • Frank Quitely, “BATMAN AND ROBIN”, DC Comics
    • JH Williams III, “DETECTIVE COMICS”, DC Comics
  • BEST NEW TALENT
    • Kevin Cannon, “FAR ARDEN”, Top Shelf
    • Rob Guillory, “CHEW”, Image Comics
    • Reinhard Kleist,”JOHNNY CASH: I SEE A DARKNESS”, Abrams ComicArts
    • Nathan Schreiber, “ACT-I-VATE: POWER OUT”, http://act-i-vate.com
    • Matthew Weldon, “NEW BRIGHTON ARCHEOLOGICAL SOCIETY”, Image Comics
  • BEST NEW SERIES
    • “BATMAN AND ROBIN”, DC Comics
    • “CHEW”, Image Comics
    • “IRREDEEMABLE”, BOOM! Studios
    • “SWEET TOOTH”, Vertigo/DC Comics
    • “UNWRITTEN”, Vertigo/DC Comics
  • BEST CONTINUING OR LIMITED SERIES
    • “BEASTS OF BURDEN”, Dark Horse Comics
    • “DIARY OF A WIMPY KID”, Amulet Books
    • “GANGES”, Fantagraphics Books
    • “INVINCIBLE”, Image Comics
    • “SCALPED”, Vertigo/DC Comics
    • “THE WALKING DEAD”, Image Comics
  • BEST ON-LINE COMICS WORK
    • “HARK! A VAGRANT”, by Kate Beaton, http://harkavagrant.com
    • “HIGH MOON”, by Steve Ellis, David Gallaher and Scott O. Brown, http://www.zudacomics.com/high_moon
    • “POWER OUT”, by Nathan Schreiber, http://act-i-vate.com
    • “PVP”, by Scott Kurtz, http://www.pvponline.com
    • “SIN TITULO”, by Cameron Stewart, http://www.sintitulocomic.com

  The complete list of nominees is available at Bleeding Cool

Internet

• Season 4 of The Guild starts tomorrow! The season 4 trailer is below. Enjoy!
  

MMO

• Those who have been eagerly anticipating the release of Bioware’s MMORPG Star War the Old Republic will be delighted to hear that beta testing of the game started this weekend. ToR was announced in 2008 and Bioware started accepting beta applications in 2009 so this has been a long time coming. Coinciding with the start of beta testing is an interview by CVG with Old Republic lead writer Daniel Erickson who says, among other things, that The Old Republic is the “dream game” for Bioware fans, especially fans of its Mass Effect and Dragon Age series. I, for one, am waiting impatiently.

• In other MMO beta news, Shannon was selected to play in the World of Warcraft Cataclysm beta. She will be keeping those of use who were not so fortunate updated on the chages and new content she encounters right here on Seattle-Geekly.com. The first of these updates is up now.

TV

• The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences announced the nominees for the 62nd annual Emmy Awards. Nominations relevant to the geek set include;
  • Batman: The Brave and the Bold
    • Music Composition for a Series, Original Dramatic Score (Michael McCuistion, Lolita Ritmanis, Kristopher Carter, Michael Jelenic, and James Tucker for “Mayhem of the Music Meister)
  • The Big Bang Theory
    • Art Direction for a Multi-Camera Series (“The Gothowitz Deviation” and “The Adhesive Duck Deficiency”)
    • Makeup for a Multi-Camera Series or Special, Non-Prosthetic (“The Electric Can Opener Fluctuation”)
    • Lead Actor in a Comedy Series (Jim Parsons as Sheldon Cooper)
    • Guest Actress in a Comedy Series (Christine Baranski as Beverly Hofstadter in “The Maternal Congruence”)
    • Technical Direction, Camerawork, Video Control for a Series (“The Adhesive Duck Deficiency”)
  • Caprica
    • Special Visual Effects for a Series (“There is Another Sky”)
  • Chuck
    • Stunt Coordination (Merritt Yohnka for “Chuck vs. the Tic Tac”)
  • FlashForward
    • Cinematography for a One Hour Series (“No More Good Days”)
    • Music Composition for a Series, Original Dramatic Score (Ramin Djawadi for “No More Good Days”)
    • Stunt Coordination (Danny Weselis for “No More Good Days”)
  • Fringe
    • Sound Editing for a Series (“White Tulip”)
  • Heroes
    • Art Direction for a Single-Camera Series (“Brave New World”)
  • Lost
    • Art Direction for a Single-Camera Series (“Ab Aeterno”)
    • Directing for a Drama Series (Jack Bender for “The End”)
    • Single-Camera Picture Editing for a Drama Series (Stephen Semel, Mark J. Goldman, Christopher Nelson, and Henk Van Eeghan for “The End”)
    • Music Composition for a Series, Original Dramatic Score (Michael Giacchino for “The End”)
    • Lead Actor in a Drama Series (Matthew Fox as Jack Shephard)
    • Supporting Actor in a Drama Series (Terry O’Quinn as John Locke)
    • Supporting Actor in a Drama Series (Michael Emerson as Ben Linus)
    • Guest Actress in a Drama Series (Elizabeth Mitchell as Juliet Burke in “The End”)
    • Drama Series
    • Sound Editing for a Series (“The End”)
    • Sound Mixing for a Comedy or Drama Series, One Hour (“The End”)
    • Writing for a Drama Series (Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse for “The End”)
  • The Prisoner
    • Cinematography for a Miniseries or Movie (“Checkmate”)
    • Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie (Ian McKellen as Two)
  • Robot Chicken
    • Voice-Over Performance (Seth Green as various characters in “Cannot Be Erased, So Sorry”)
    • Short-format Animated Program (“Full-Assed Christmas Special”)
  • Star Wars: Uncut
    • Creative Achievement in Interactive Media—Fiction
  • Stargate Universe
    • Special Visual Effects for a Series (“Air”)
    • Special Visual Effects for a Series (“Space”)
  • True Blood
    • Art Direction for a Single-Camera Series (“Never Let Me Go”, “I Will Rise Up”, and “Frenzy”)
    • Casting for a Drama Series
    • Prosthetic Makeup for a Series, Miniseries, Movie or a Special (“Scratches”)
    • Drama Series
    • Sound Editing for a Series (“Beyond Here Lies Nothin’”)
  • V
    • Special Visual Effects for a Series (“Pilot”)
  • Warehouse 13
    • Original Main Title Theme Music (Edward Rogers)

First off, it seems that 4,233 people did NOT survive the weekend. That is the number of “registered zombies” that turned up for the Red White and Dead zombie walk in Fremont on Saturday. KOMO news is reporting that this number unofficially reclaims the Largest Zombie Walk title for Seattle, easily topping the previous record of 4,026. The record still has to be officially verified which will most likely happen sometime early this week. The KOMO video of the event even made it as far as CNN’s website. Enjoy!

In non-undead news, SF Site is reporting that the Seattle Westercon Organizing Committee has won their bid to host Westercon in Seattle in 2012!

Westercon, the West Coast Science Fantasy Conference, has been held annually since 1948 in the western half of North America as a less travel intensive alternative to Worldcon for west coast fans. Westercon 65 will run from July 5-8, 2012 and will be chaired by Bobby DuFault.

The rest of your Monday News is under the fold

Anime

• If you were not among those lucky enough to see the world premier of the Trigun movie Trigun Badlands Rumble at SakuraCon this April you are in luck. Anime News Network is reporting that distributor Funimation is planning on releasing it in theaters. No release date was given but it would almost certainly not be before sometime next year at the earliest.

• We mentioned the film Karigurashi No Arrietty (The Borrower Arrietty) back in February when the first teaser trailer came out and we’re mentioning it again now that a full trailer has been released. The movie was written and produced by Hayao Miyazaki, based on Mary Norton’s novel The Borrowers and will be directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi who worked as a key animator on Princess Mononoke, Howl’s Moving Castle and Spirited Away.
  

Boardgames

• Fans of Dominion may want to keep an eye out for Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer, the new deck building game from publisher Gary Games. The game was designed by Magic: The Gathering pro-tour veterans Justin Gary, Rob Dougherty and Brian Kibler. The full rules haven’t been posted but there is some information on the Ascension Facebook page. The game is for 2-4 players and “features multiple factions, demons, heroes, and constructs from different planes in a battle to determine which player will ascend to godhood”. It will be debuting at Gen Con this August.

Comics

• DC has officially pulled the plug on their webcomic site Zuda Comics. The site stopped their popular webcomics competition in April and now the site will be closing down entirely. This appears to be a consequence of DC’s move to digital distribution through the iPad, iPhone and PSN. Issues of former Zuda titles High Moon and Bayou are already available on Comixology, and will soon be joined by Black Cherry Bombshells, Azure, Bottle of Awesome, Supertron, and Lily of the Valley, with each installment priced at 99 cents. DC Creative Services VP Ron Perezza made a post announcing the closure on the Zuda blog.