Archive for May, 2012



08
May
12

iPad Game Review: Kingdom Rush

kingdom rush squareI heard about Kingdom Rush from a tweet I picked up from @wobblyonion, managing editor of www.lazygamer.net, who tweeted that while he generally doesn’t play iPad games, he was going batshit for Kingdom Rush.

I hit up the iStore to read some user reviews and was pretty blown away by the fact that EVERY REVIEW published had given the game 5 stars.

There had to be a catch. There’s no way an iPad game could legitimately get 5 star reviews across the board. Thing is, having played it for the last 3 weeks I can vouch for it. It IS legit. Kingdom Rush is that awesome. And here’s why.

In a nutshell

Kingdom Rush is a tower defence game, meaning you build different towers at specific points along a pathway to stop the advancing hordes of bad guys who get bigger, faster and meaner with every oncoming “wave”.

Your four basic tower types are Archery, Barracks, Mage’s Guild and Artillery. Each has different strengths and weaknesses that follow standard RPG lore.

 

 

The Archery Towers don’t do a lot of damage but are fast, Barracks towers deploy troops that engage and slow down the badguys, but unless you upgrade them the troops die quickly, Mage’s Guilds do medium damage but are slower than Archery Towers and Artillery Towers do massive damage but are the slowest of the lot.

Your placement of your towers is crucial in deciding the outcome of a level, as is your choice of which tower to upgrade when. Upgrade a tower three times and on the fourth upgrade, two new tower types become available.

So instead of just making standard troops, on your fourth Barracks upgrade you can turn it into a Barbarian Hall, which makes axe-wielding Barbarians, or a Holy Order that spits out armour-clad Paladins.

 

 

You are given a set amount of gold at the beginning of a level to get started and you earn more gold with every bad guy you obliterate.

Ideally, you don’t want more than one or two bad guys at the most to make it through the gauntlet of towers you set up. Get this right and you’ll earn 3 stars at the end of every level.

You then use those stars to buy permanent upgrades for your towers that increase the strength of your attacks and reduce the amount of gold it costs to build them, a sneaky incentive to make you want to ace every level.

 

 

What makes it awesome

The attention to detail in this game and the tight-as-a-drum level and character design are what make Kingdom Rush awesome.

It also scales up in difficulty enough that it doesn’t scare you off from the outset, but does offer a solid challenge that veteran gamers will sink a good couple of hours / days / weeks into.

What I also loved is that an update was recently released for the game that allows you to unlock “Hero” characters once you’ve earned 15 stars. These characters level up and add a nice extra layer to the gameplay. The only downside is that three of the six heroes have to be bought for $0.99 once you’ve unlocked them, but to be honest I’ll gladly chip in the extra $2.97 for this awesome game.

 

TOTAL TIME SPENT PLAYING: I’d estimate I’ve sunk about 30 or 40 hours into this game so far and still have about another 15 or 20 to go before I’ve unlocked the whole game
TOTAL ENJOYMENT LEVEL: 97%
FINAL VERDICT: I love the quote Jayisgames gave Kingdom Rush: “Kingdom Rush can be filed in the thin folder marked ‘games that are pretty much perfect’”. I agree 100%. If you have an iPad why are you still reading this? Go buy this game immediately and smash it in your FACE!

-ST

07
May
12

Python Eats Alligator (And You Thought Your Monday Sucked…)

yo-dawg-thats-fucked-up1There was a time when two good friends of mine, Peggles and Manfred, locked horns in a vicious battle to see who could find the most fucked up content on the internet to send to the other guy.

Collateral damage ensued as the foul shit that they unearthed got forwarded to us, scarring us in ways not even our psychiatrists can fathom.

The war eventually ended when Manfred hit Peggles with the 1man1jar video, and both parties backed down. Once in awhile though that sick, dark and twisted part of Peggles comes out and he sends a video like the one I’m about to show you.

Probably don’t watch this video if you enjoy sleeping…

 

 

Happy Monday everybody!

-ST

04
May
12

Facejacker – The funniest shit you’ll ever see

facejackerThat’s a pretty bold statement right there but I’m comfortable making it because here at Them’s Fightin’ Words we do not fuck around… much…

While I was over in London a few weeks back, I got introduced to this killer show called “Facejacker” by my good buddy Stuza and my life has been changed for the better ever since.

The concept of Facejacker is pretty simple. Actor Kayvan Novak adopts a whole bunch of different disguises to completely change his appearance and then terrorises the general populace with fucking hilarious results. You HAVE to see this shit.

Though he acts as ten different characters on the show, my personal favourite is Brian Badonde, a flamboyantly homosexual art critic who suffers from “Bourettes”, a speech impediment that makes him start certain words with the letter “b”.

Here’s one of the first skits he did at an art gallery:

 

 

How he keeps a straight face throughout is a total mystery to me. How fucking funny is that shit?!

And it only gets better. Check out the pottery episode:

 

 

The whisky episode also made my literally piss myself laughing:

 

 

And the one that got me hooked when I saw it a few weeks back. I present to you. Brian Badonde. Art critic. Learning the art of. Boetry.

 

 

I swear to god, when he gets the guy to recite Postman Pat, he gets this close to packing up laughing, just watch his face, priceless!

Have a killer weekend party people Winking smile

-ST

04
May
12

Tomorrow’s Free Comic Book Day!

free-comic-book-dayOnce a year, comic book shops the world over unite to give away free comic books to the masses on the first Saturday in May, which is tomorrow bitches!

I checked Free Comic Book Day out last year and ended up dropping about R500 on graphic novels because they were going for 50% of what you’d normally pay for them in some cases.

It’s totally worth checking out, not only for the discounted comic books and graphic novels, but also for the fan boys and girls who get ass dressed up for the occasion like they’re at Comic Con or something.

 

 

Best place to head to if you’re in Cape Town is probably Reader’s Den across from Cavendish shopping centre in Stadium on Main and if you’re in Jozi, hit up Outer Limits in Melville.

See you crazy kids there Winking smile

-ST

03
May
12

7 Things The Alien Movies Taught Me

alien_from_the_movieLike I mentioned in my last post, over the long weekend we hired all 4 Alien Movies, watched them pretty much back to back and came away from that experience with some profound insights.

I mean, when you stop and think about it, have YOU seen all 4 Alien movies? And if you have you hardly remember them right? Mmmyes, that’s what I thought…

It wasn’t easy tracking them all down, that’s the first thing you need to know. Aliens, Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection are widely regarded by movie critics the world over as being ok, shit and godawful respectively, so most video stores only have the first one.

If you live in CT, DVD Nouveau was the only store that had all 4, so bank that if you wanna watch them like we did, but you probably won’t because the next thing you’re about to read is The Tiger’s List Of 7 Things The Alien Films Taught Me:

 

 

1. Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is the hardest woman known to man

Not only does she survive three separate alien attacks, but after she voluntarily swan dives backwards into a gigantic furnace to prevent an alien queen from bursting out of her at the end of the third movie, they bring her back from the dead by cloning her in Alien Resurrection so she can create and kill another shipload of aliens.

2. Numero cuatro es el mejor!

The first one is a classic. The second one is cheesy, the third one is vacuous, but for me Alien Resurrection was the best. Movie critics be damned, the fourth one is the only movie that hasn’t aged, doesn’t take itself too seriously, introduces new and significant plot twists and kicks more ass than the other three combined.

3. Ron Perlman can only play two characters: Hellboy and a jerk

I’ve seen him play a jerk many times, but his portrayal of the jerk “Johner” in Alien Resurrection is what finally made me realise how amazingly jerky his jerk-based acting style actually is.

 

 

4. Robots are evil. No wait, they’re good. No wait, KILL THEM ALL

The robot Ash in the first Alien movie is a total asshole who loses his shit, rolls up a magazine and forces it into Ripley’s mouth in an attempt to somehow kill her (?), making him a very bad robot indeed. Fifty-seven years later, robots are rad (“Bishop”, the robot in Aliens actually saves the day) but fast forward 200 years and robots are whiny, emotionally insecure and constantly questioning the validity of their existence. Needless to say, choosing Winona Ryder to play that role was nothing short of genius.

5. Somewhere between Prometheus and Alien, technology regresses back to DOS

The “technology” in the original Alien movie (which was released in 1979) looks like it was salvaged from a plane in the mid 60s. You interact with it by typing questions onto a black screen with green writing. Would you trust technology like that to keep you safe in space? That shit was scarier than the alien!

 

 

6. For the love of God, you cannot use aliens as weapons!

Alien = let’s send a towing ship to this creepy planet to bring back some aliens for us to study on the off chance that we can use the aliens as weapons. Don’t tell anyone. Aliens = let’s send Ripley to the planet the aliens came from because we colonised it to try and study the aliens on the off chance that we can use them as weapons and now everyone’s dead. Don’t tell anyone. Alien 3 = let’s go on a 5 week drinking binge and try make a movie. Alien Resurrection = let’s just not even lie about it this time – clone Ripley, cut the alien queen out of her, get it to lay eggs so that we can make as many aliens as possible and study them on the off chance that we can use them as weapons because you know, things will be different this time…

7. Airlocks are your friend

End of Alien Ripley survives thanks to bum luck and a handy airlock that she opens and schloomf! Sucks the alien into space. End of Aliens Ripley survives thanks to bum luck, being a bit of a badass and a handy airlock that she opens, thus schloomfing the alien queen out into space. End of Alien 3 Ripley dies, possibly because there were no airlocks in sight. End of Alien Resurrection Ripley uses her ACID BLOOD to burn a hole through a glass porthole behind the human / alien monster, thus creating a vacuum that sucks the creature out into space similar to, you guessed it, a vacuum cleaner.

Needless to say, watching all those movies just made me all the more excited to see Prometheus. Watching those movies and THIS trailer:

 

 

June couldn’t come faster 😉

-ST

02
May
12

The History Of Whistling

boss-photo-9The great thing about having your own blog is the fact that you’re essentially your own boss and no one can fuck with that.

As such, I gave myself the past couple of days off and spent them sleeping in late, catching up on series, indulging in an ALIEN MOVIE MARATHON and avoiding the rainy weather we’ve been having.

But now it’s time to get back to the serious business of populating this site with fucking incredible content and blowing your guy’s minds on a daily and sometimes twice-daily basis.

Here’s a video I just found of a buncha guys taking is through the history of whistling that I thought was pretty cool.

 

 

Not too bad eh? Only thing is they missed out one of my favourite whistling songs of all time which has to be Live with “Waitress”.

Anyone remember this song? Hello? (Is this thing on…?)

 

 

Have a wonderful day back at work! If anyone needs me I’ll be cowering under my desk, taking generous swigs from this bottle of drain cleaner I found in the storage closet.

-ST