What to Watch: Arrow

This week’s geeky TV show offering is: Arrow

This show is loosely based off the DC comic Green Arrow. Rich playboy Oliver Queen, played by Stephen Amell of Private Practice, is lost at sea and ends up on a small island in the Pacific. 5 years later, when he returns to his family and home in Starling city, the billionaire playboy is changed. He’s returned home with a mission: To make amends for the sins of the socially elite who have been stripping Starling City of its wealth and glory, and to bring justice to those who have brought these injustices onto his city.

The new Oliver Queen finds himself trapped between the playboy he is expected to be and his dark, secret persona, the vigilante, The Hood. Juggling his family, friends, and secrets turns out to be constant and painful struggle for him.

Can he save Starling City or is he doomed to betray those he loves most and dig himself an early grave?

I have only just started watching this show. I don’t really know much about the Green Arrow, but I also worried after Smallville, which I detested, that it would be another show filled with wooden pretty boys and stupid comic book plots. My best friend, however, suggested I get over myself and get into drooling over Stephen Amell.

I am very, very glad I took her advice.

The story is pleasantly dark, as I prefer my heroes to be tormented, with plots that are emotionally charged enough to get and hold my attention while presenting a nice overarching theme that I can watch unfold in all its angsty goodness. The series provides plenty of people to hate and even more to question their motives on, keeping the viewer wondering who is truly to blame and who is not.

I definitely recommend this comic book based TV series to anyone who enjoy comics, a dark version of the Green Arrow, or awesome man hotness with lots of angst and scars. (Thank you Stephen for being my newest favorite man hunk. I could just eat you up!)

If you’d like to watch, it airs on the CW on Wednesdays at 8p or 7c. You can find all the episodes on iTunes or Amazon. Or if you don’t to pay for them by episode, Season 1 can be found on Netflix and the last 5 episodes of Season 2 are up on Hulu.

There is also an official Facebook page that you can visit for more information and updates if just watching isn’t enough.

This is another 3 thumbs up find. Go and enjoy!!

Kickstarter Pick of the Week: Japanese: The Game

This week’s Kickstarter pick of the week is Japanese: The Game. Japanese: The Game is a language learning card game brought to us by Bernard Hamaker.

Bernard lived in Japan, and finally managed to learn the language. Once he returned to the states he found that the systems that could be purchased were expense as well as aimed as teaching singularly. He took up the quest 6 years ago to come up with a new system that would allow people to learn with friends, or alone as well as much less cost prohibitive, allowing more people to learn the language with greater ease.

Japanese: the Game is the result of that six year project. It is a live-action version of Mad Libs which can be played either: solo, cooperatively or competitively. There will be expansions and Bernard has already made one using Japanese food.

Here’s a quick preview:

If you love games, love Japan or love languages, Japanese: The Game brings these things together to create a system that allows learners to learn Japanese in a fun and easy atmosphere.

They have already funded and reached their first stretch goal. Everyone who orders a core deck will also forever be subscribed to all updates to the print and play version of the game. With 30 days left on this Kickstarter, there is nothing to lose and everything to gain!

What to Watch: Almost Human

With the coming of the age of the nerd/geek, it can be difficult to pick from the geek TV offerings.  Geek Chic is here to help! We logged, collated, and judged each show until we picked the very best one to critique, for you our loyal listening public…

(Okay, so really I just randomly picked on of my favorite shows to watch and now I’m going to pimp it… whatever.  Back to topic.)

And here it is:  Almost Human

Almost Human is a near future sci-fi tv series brought to us by J.J. Abram and Joel Wyman.  Karl Urban of Doom and Star Trek plays John Kennex, a gritty police officer, who wakes up from a 2 year coma to find his previous life was a lie. He’s been fitted with a cybernetic leg to replace the one he lost in the explosion that killed his partner and took two year of his life.

When he returns to work he learns from Captain Maldonado, played by Lili Taylor of The Haunting and Hemlock Grove, that his new partner will be a life-like android, an MX model. It becomes quickly apparent that Detective Kennex doesn’t trust his silicone partner and after an incident Captain Maldonado reassigns him with an older model, DRN.

Dorian, played by Michael Ealy of Underworld Awakening and The Good Wife, turns out to be almost more human that his human counterpart. Given a “synthetic soul” and able to make intuitive connections that the logic based MX’s aren’t capable of.

Each individual episode is free standing; however, as one might suspect with J.J. Abrams involved there is also an over arching plot as Kennex tries to understand who and why his partner was killed.

In an interview with Karl Urban by Christina Radish of The Collider Karl explains his enthusiasm with the character of John Kennex:

“I’m excited, every week, when I get a new script. I’m like, “Oh, wow! Cool! That’s really, really interesting.” I just look at John like he’s a character who’s trying to find himself. He’s a character who’s trying to regain elements of his former life and find his humanity. The irony is that he’s learning lessons in humanity from a synthetic life-form. That’s such a genius idea.”

I recommend this TV show to anyone who likes sci-fi, action dramas or Karl Urban. Three thumbs up from me!

GeekChic Ep02 – My Geek Is Tabletop Roleplaying…

Welcome to our second episode of Geek Chic… a podcast for girls, geeks, and everything in between! In this episode, we spotlight the geekdom of tabletop roleplaying from a woman’s perspective . We also offer some reviews to keep you up to date on geeky things you might have been thinking about getting or didn’t even know existed.

Links from the show:

Chalk Butterfly by Audra Red
Leverage: The Roleplaying game

Tsunami Gameday Winter 2014

Kickstarter Pick of the Week – Sunrider

This week’s Kickstarter pick of the week is Sunrider – A Space Visual Novel brought to us by the independent game developer Love in Space.  Sunrider will be a freeware PC game upon completion.

Director, writer and programmer, Sam “Samu-kun” Yang describes his game as one where you as the player will get to captain your own ship, the Sunrider, as well as command your own squadron of mechs as you attempt to make allies, save yourself, your crew, and your world from the conquering PACT.

Love in Space has offered a variety of buy in levels starting at just one dollar. At the 15 dollar buy in you get early access to the game, including all betas. At the 25 dollar level you get actual physical media, a cd and dvd of the game as well as the early access and all other benefits from previous levels.

Here’s a quick preview:

With beautiful graphics brought to the game by artist Ashton “melonbunny” Wilson and an amazing soundtrack that is as grandiose as any movie sound track it is easy to see why Sunrider has already funded and reached almost all of its stretch goals. With only six days left this is a great opportunity to support a small, independent game developer and get a great product as well.

GeekChic Ep01 – What Is Geek?

Welcome to the very first episode of our brand new program, Geek Chic… a podcast for girls, geeks, and everything in between!  In this episode, we tackle the question of geek identity and how it’s changed through the years.  We also offer some advice for holiday shoppers looking for something to give the geek girl in your life this Christmas.

Links from the show:

4 Reasons 2013 Officially Marked the Death of the Nerd | Cracked.com
The Yoda Hoodie!

The Last of Us and Metro: Last Light
I Kissed a GEEK and I Liked It
Kickstarter
Corporia and Ryuutama RPGs
Song of Ice and Fire and The Dresden Files
BEYOND: Two Souls