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Games Music TV Video

Two Golden Shower Videos

Golden Shower was a Brazilian band that hit the net in the early 2000’s, and over the next few years spent some time creating interesting mashups of video, electronica, and graphics. 

In 2002, Golden Shower released the song and video entitled TOTAL CONTROL, and began to win even more awards and recognition for their work.  The video is a tribute to the classic Tyco TCR race sets from the late 70’s-early 80’s.

Those of you who remember those Tyco TCR race car sets should have fond memories of the excitement an awesome TCR layout could be.   And it was always your friends who had the cool track setups, wasn’t it? 

Categories
Gambling Games TV

Lessons Learned from THE BEST DAMN POKER SHOW

I’ve been watching THE BEST DAMN POKER SHOW on Fox Sports Net. 

It’s a tournament-based series, with two teams of (mostly) amateur poker players competing against each other and coached by poker pros Annie Duke and Phil Hellmuth.  For whatever reason, I can’t watch most poker programs on TV, but shows like this one or Bravo’s prematurely cancelled CELEBRITY POKER SHOWDOWN that offer decent, approachable advice for the casual player (along with a little bit of personality and humor) are more entertainly watchable for me versus the more serious World Poker Tour or High Stakes Poker shows.

Besides, who wouldn’t want to get free poker advice from Annie Duke, Phil Hellmuth, or Phil Gordon (an early commentator on CPS)?  As such, I turn you to one small piece of advice learned from season 2, episode 5, of The Best Damn Poker Show

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Games How To News Websites

How to Improve Your Scrabble Play

All you need to do is learn some new 2- and 3-letter words.

In what appears to be a bad case of timing from their reporters, The Wall Street Journal finally reported this week of a dramatic change in the world of Scrabble that took place in October 2005: 

THE ADDITION OF NEW WORDS TO THE SCRABBLE DICTIONARY

Words such as “ZA”, “QI”, and “ZZZ” were added recently, according to the WSJ.  Apparently, “recently” means “in the past 4-5 years” to them.

Regardless, here at Web Watch we believe in making sure that you are not sucked into the same vortex of bad Scrabble-playing that the WSJ would lead you down if you had to wait a few years to discover that there had been a Scrabble dictionary update.  So here are the list of handy two- and three- letter words that you should have at the ready the next time you need to impress your Scrabble-playing friends…along with the unexpected WSJ followup:

Categories
Games

Flash Fun: Hex Empire

hexempireHEX EMPIRE is a Risk-like strategy game, where the object is to destroy your three computer opponents and take over their capital cities.

Unlike RISK, each map is randomly generated, which tends to keep the game fresh.  At the beginning of the game, you select which of the four capitals you want to defend.  Your capital, and every other city under your power, will automatically generate new armies each turn.

Each turn, you can move up to five army units.  You can move a unit up to two spaces away from their current location (either to an empty space or to initiate a fight by moving onto an enemy-occupied position), you can combine units into a larger single unit, or you can move units onto or off of a boat if you would like to attack by sea.

Each unit can grow up to 99 strength. There is also a secondary number associated with each unit: courage.  You will win a fight if your strength is higher than your opponents’, but if the opponents have more courage than your units have, then you may find yourself in trouble.

The gameplay is fairly straightforward, but there is a little strategy involved with how to best use your five moves each turn.  You’ll often find yourself with a bounty of 99-sized units sitting in the back of your defense area, but not enough moves to get them where they can be useful in a fight.

Still, if you’re looking for a few minutes of diversion, it’s a good implementation of a turn-based strategy game.  Each game can take up to 20 minutes or so to play.

Categories
Games

Flash Fun: DISINFECT THE CORE

disinfectcoreDISINFECT THE CORE is a quick little brain teaser/game that should keep you occupied for a few minutes over your lunch hour.

Your opponent is the red “virus” that has infected the computer’s core.  You are the green “antivirus” trying to prevent the red virus from taking over the 300+ spaces on the game board.

Each turn, all you have to do is click on one of your arrows.  The arrow will rotate clockwise 90 degrees, changing its connection from one dot to the next.  You can only click on arrows of your own color (neutral or opponent arrows won’t move for you).  Every connection you make has the potential of expanding your green influence across the game board – but remember, red is doing the same thing with its arrows.

If you run out of green arrows to click on, or if the gameboard turns completely red, then you have lost.

Strategy?  Make sure you always have an arrow or two pointed 90 degrees away from the red infection.  That way, you won’t waste a turn or two merely rotating an arrow into position.

Categories
Games

Flash Fun: Totem Destroyer 2

Totem Destroyer 2
Totem Destroyer 2

TOTEM DESTROYER 2 is a Flash puzzler that asks you to destroy different types of blocks in such a way that the golden idol will land on the final black block.

Some blocks are normal, some explode things around them, while others want to follow their own laws of physics. 

The nice thing about this game is that it resets each level for you automatically, so you don’t have to continually go back to the level menu to select your starting place.  And if your idol starts to fall the wrong way, you can just press R to instantly reset the level.  It’s a good game design for puzzles of this type, as it helps to eliminate that do-over frustration that some puzzles have.

Categories
Games Music

Game: Guess the Band

Here’s another game you can play on long road trips:  GUESS THE BAND

All you have to do is rattle off the names of people in the band, and have people guess.  The first person to guess correctly gets a point.  This one should only be played by people who really are into their music and claim to know their bands inside-and-out.

Let’s try some examples:

Categories
Games Music

Game: Guess the CD

Here’s another game you can play with your friends on long road trips: GUESS THE CD.

Just rattle off the names of the songs on the CD (in any order you choose, preferably from obscure to common).  The first person to guess the name and artist of the CD wins a point.

Let’s try it, shall we?