I'm A Nerd: Defence Grid

(picture courtesy of mthec.files.wordpress.com)

Defence Grid: The Awakening is a great single player game. Originally released in February 2008, the graphics aren't the greatest. Still, its the type of game that graphics don't make or break the replay value. If you ever played UMS starcraft you would have basically played the same style of game but if you haven't I will quickly explain. Basically you have an opposing army that walks from point A to point B. Once they get to point B they grab one of your limited "cores" and then try to return it to point A. Although they don't attack you, they are heavily armored and you have to destroy them before all your "cores" are stolen. So, you build various defences that do different levels of damage to different units. For this reason it is called a "Tower defense" game.

Anyways, if you are a hardcore game the 20 levels can be beaten pretty quickly, but at the same time they are very challenging levels for new gamers. The game has very low computer requirements so it can be enjoyed by all while still receiving great reviews from gaming magazine all over the world. The game is only $10 on steam and should give the user a ton of value. The 20 levels can be beaten in several different ways while challenging you with 15 different types of enemies.

I'm A Nerd: Titan Quest

(picture courtesy of dorkclub.com)

If you ever played Diablo 2, then you have to play titan quest. TQ is pretty much act for act the same as Diablo except with better graphics. Well, I mean that graphics aren't that great but its certainly better then the choppy graphics from blizzard. Titan Quest gives the gamer the ability to combine professions and customize their skill trees to come up with a unique warrior. Obviously, having this much customization makes the game have a lot of replay value. In addition, the game really challenges you to synergize these skills and become an effective warrior. If you know what you are doing you can blow through the game but if you combine the wrong skills you could spend an unpwards of 90+ hours just trying to get through the three levels of difficulty.

Don't get me wrong though, as fun as this game is it could have been much better. The items are saved to your harddrive so its really easy to cheat and modify items. If you do this the game is pretty much ruined. It also makes trading non-existant. I would also have to say their setup for multiplayer makes it VERY hard to communicate with other players. Also, if you delete the game your character is lost forever. The characters are not saved online. For example, I had a level 55 Templar that could easily make his way through any difficulty but was sadly lost when I reformatted my computer. The templar has 100% block and is pretty much invincible. You can farm bosses and almost put the game to shame. In fact here is a video of what he would have looked like:



Anyways, check out titan quest if you can't wait for the release of Diablo 3. I loved Diablo 2 and liked Titan Quest even more. It will bring back those old school RPG tendancies that you love. Its a fun game that allows you to just kick back, let your character level and gather new gear. You can purchase it though steam for only $14.99 and it tends to go on sale quite a bit as well.

I'm A Nerd: Super Meat Boy

Team Meat released this single player game in October, 2010. It pretty much cleaned up for every kind of award for indie games. It has sold over 600,000 copies last I checked and was considered the most challenging game of 2010 according to IGN. It has very simple controls but every move has to be precise or you little meat boy will go slashing into saws. I love that the saws are all covered and meat and that the gore doesn't disappear if you fail the level. Certainly worth trying... now I just have to get good at it.

I'm A Nerd: Angry Birds

Believe it or not but over 12 million copies of Angry Birds has been sold to date. Originally released on the Apple iOS in December in 2009. Even though it is one of the most mainstream games out their it is considered to be one the great runaway hits of 2010. Essentially you have to use your angry birds to blow up paths to get the hard to reach pigs. It's a challenging puzzle game that is a whole lot of fun while your stuck on the bus or have a few minutes to waste while on the move. It also has stars for each level and easter eggs to increase the replay value.

I'm A Nerd: Guild Wars

So this is probably just as bad as world of warcraft. Sure, you can get into the whole argument that WOW is cartoony and takes years longer to level but at the end of the day their are a lot of similarities and both are big time sinks. I thought however I would post my characters that I have worked very hard on. Yes im nerdy and yes you can make fun of me for wasting my time. I had a great time pimping out all my characters and met some good internet amigos along the way. The cool thing about my characters is that each one is named after an Edmonton Oiler. It not only allowed other people on GW to know I was an oiler fan, but helped me spead the wonderful world of hockey to others. My characters aren't in any way supposed to resemble the actual player but do have Oiler names. These names cannot be duplicated in game. I tried to get Ryan Whitney and Shawn Horcoff but both were taken by other users. Luckily I was able to get all three kids. Each one of my characters are level 20 with max/prestige armor. They also have all their primary skills for their given profession.

Theo Peckham


Taylor Hall


Sam Gagner


Tom Gilbert


Magnus Paajarvi


Ladislav Smid (My Main Character)


Ales Hemsky


Jordan Eberle


Ryan Nugent Hopkins

I'm A Nerd: Settlers of Catan

(picture courtesy of fanpop.com)

Settlers of Catan is a multiplayer board game designed by Klaus Teuber in 1995. The game has sold over 15 million copies worldwide and has even been called "The board game of our time". The game also had expansions: Seafarers, Cities & Knights, and Traders & Barbarians. These give the game a new dynamic and also increases the size of the board to allow 5-6 people at a time.

Essentially the board is made up of different tiles of land with numbers on each tile. You can then place a settlemen in between the tiles (so that your settlement usually touches 3 tiles at once). This could mean that is touches one tile with a 6, one tile with a 12 and one tile with a 4. Thus, whenever one of these numbers is rolled you get a resource that corresponds to that tile. You then use these resources to expland your settlemens and beat your opponents to new areas of the board.

As of July 2010 it is also available on the playstation network as well as xbox live.

I'm A Nerd: Portal

So you might not understand what you saw, but this is portal. I would like to start off by saying a big thank you to my buddy David for giving me his free copy of portal! When you pre-order portal 2 (which everyone here should go do), you get a free copy of this wonderful game. You essentially have a gun that has a portal entrance and a portal exit. Simple? Wrong. Although it is a pretty simple concept, the physics and tricks you have to use in this game are ridiculous. You can create infinite loops and really think outside the box in order to get past obstacles. You might have to do something with gravity like this:



Anyways this game really plays with your mind and makes you really think about physics in a whole new way. Although you can beat the game in about 10 minutes (if your pro) it could take hours if you don't know what your doing. I hope to see what Portal 2 brings.

I'm A Nerd: R.U.S.E

R.U.S.E is a real time strategy game that was released in september 2010 for the PC, Playstation 3 and Xbox360. It allows the gamer to take the role of a World War II general that tries to raise through the ranks in hopes to end the war. But it doesn't just stop their, the general still has some odds and ends to finish after the war as well. The game offers a great multiplayer where you can take control of different nations against your friends. The best part of this is that each nation (or faction) has different units that are better suited for different styles of players. These nations include United Kingdom, United States, Germany, Italy, France, and the Soviet Union. The French for example have upgraded bunkers that allow for easier defending while the Germans have much stronger tanks. Panzer General anyone?

Although this game may just seem like your typical WWII strategy game at first, it provides two very unique aspects that allow the user to enjoy the game on a whole new level. First, the user has full control off the camera. What I mean by this is that the player can zoom all the way until their units look like chips on table. A typical view would look this this:



But the player can also scroll in to watch the battle first hand. This is not to say that you only have two options, but rather you can look at the board from every single angle and any zoom that seems comfortable. This allows the gamer to pay attention to both the micro and the macro in the game.



Unlike games like Starcraft that you can just mass as many units as you possibly can and try to overrun a city or town, you are unable to use such simple strategies in this game. With Recon your units are unable to see hidden units and your army can be absolutely slaughtered. In addition, the board has forests, mountains and rivers that can cause huge problems for units. If you place the lonliest footsoldier in a forest it can easily ambush a tank. The same is true for artillery. Response times are also much longer. If your army becomes ambushed you aren't going to be able to get another army to a different town in the matter of seconds like a lot of strategy games.

The second biggest thing with R.U.S.E is of course the ruses. What are ruses? Well basically they are decoys that are handed out every couple of minutes that add a more dynamic gameplay. The user can choose between a wide range of ruses that reveal information, hide information or create decoys. So essentially one user could use a spy to see what a use has while another user could launch a fake assault on a town. Other ruses make small units look like bigger units and vice versa. You can also make your units move faster. Their are many different strategies you can use and you have to react to other peoples ruses accordingly.

(pictures courtesy of digitalchumps.com and play2compete.com)

I'm A Nerd: Starcraft II

So after years of wait the sequel to the popular starcraft was finally released. Despite the build up I was surprised to see how few of the original starcraft players not only play but try the new game. Not only are the graphics MUCH better but it has a great single player option. Actually, from everyone that I've talked to, they were impressed with the single player but really let down on the multiplayer. Despite not being able to fully play a campaign as the Protoss or Zerg in single player their were a lot of cool options. First, you are able to upgrade your units based on the research that you have done. This means that the the vespene gas would be able to collect itself ot that bunkers would have secret turrets hiding on top. Your upgrades would actually even determine which units you would have all together. If starcraft goes forward I would love to see the multiplayer reflect these upgrades and make it so that each player has a unique series of research that would make for interesting matches. Here is a quick video that demonstrates a few of the units:



If this game was as good multiplayer as it was single player it would easily be the best game on the market. Having said that, the UMS maps were very limited and playing with other people IMO was a huge hassle. One very important part of SC2 is that the graphics can be played on a very low quality or have state of the art graphics. This means that you usually run into players that have very bad lagg and aren't running the game on optimal settings. Even though the multiplayer gameplay was similar to that of the original, I was expecting more. I really like the void ray's in the new game and could really like a lot more of the new units.

Unfortunately for me I only recommend the single player and am still waiting on the UMS maps before I go and play this online. I do have to say though, I really liked the unlocking and achievements aspect in SC2.

I'm A Nerd: McFarlane Toy Figures

(picture courtesy of figurineforall.com)

Despite this figure being worth $38 at figurineforall.com, I was able to grab this beauty at the Edmonton toy and collectable show yesterday for only $10. As a big hockey fan and given my nerdy life the two have come together through Mcfarlanes. I have been collecting the things for the past 5 years or so and have quite the collection going. Even though I still have Sheldon Souray, Dany Heatley, Chris Pronger and a few Calgary/Leaf players that I'm not really proud of, I have mastered quite the collection. If you are a hardcore collecter you probably want to collect an entire series but I just tend to grab the players that I like the most. My favourite McFarlanes probably consist of Nikolai Khabibulin the jets jersey, my Alexander Ovechkin varient (since he's my favourite player), and my Joe Sakic variant (one of my favourite players of all time no discussion needed lol).

Anyways these things are pretty cool and I hope I can continue to add to my collection. It was a great afternoon with the wifey and I'm glad she took me to hang out with all the other nerds. Their were a ton of comic books (not a huge fan) but it was made up for with the large collections of vintage video games and cool toys that brought me back to my childhood. I wish I hung onto a few of those things now because apparently people pay big money for them! I was kind of disappointed by the amount of people buying counterfeit or knock-off NHL jerseys... but what can you do about it?!

I'm A Nerd: Dragon Age II

(picture courtesy of gamerreaction.tv)

So I have to say, getting this game for the PC has brought back RPG gaming for me. Since I had DA: Origins on my ps3 I feel like I need to go back and try to whole thing on the PC. Don't get me wrong I loved it on a consle but it is waaay better on PC thus far. I admit that I haven't gotten too far in the sequel but I am already falling in love with it. Definitely worth the money. Here is a sweet trailer (I think I just creamed my jeans ahahaha):

I'm A Nerd: COD Black Ops ZOMBIES

So if you haven't seen this creepy monkey in COD, then you are missing out. Incidently, the monkey also made an appearance in Toy Story 3 (But that is for another day). Anyways, no matter how many zombie games that people make, the easter egg in black ops is probably the best zombie game that I have ever played. If you can get a group of friends together to play 20+ rounds of this thing, it gets intense. I'm sure that this game needs no introduction for all you nerds out there!

I'm A Nerd: Team Fortress 2

I't seems like every time I play TF2 their is something new and crazy going on in this game. Like right now they have spartan helmet selling for $7.49 USD... do people actually pay that? Is this like one of those facebook games that you have to pay in order to unlock things- I'm looking at you farmville! Anyways, I'm really starting to like the Spy and Demoman in this game alot more. :D



(picture courtesy of gamespy.com)

I'm A Nerd: Left 4 Dead 2

Played some left 4 dead 2 last night for a bit. Brings back some good memories haha. I always loved this bile jar trick. Check out the zombies jumping off the edge. Glad they haven't fixed it yet. :D