Every day the internet produces an astounding amount of goodies and gems. Most hilarious, some amusing, but all worth at least a few seconds of your time. We here at Nerd Bastards try to bring you the best bits of news and nerdery the webz has to offer, with a bit of snark thrown in. But sometimes not everything makes the cut. Monday through Friday we’ll be bringing you our inbox leftovers, our forgotten bookmarks, the nerdy bits that simply slipped through the cracks. You can submit items to Nerdy Bits by emailing us at nerdybits@nerdbastards.com.

ABOVE: Is that what I think it is? A real AT-AT Cat house? I need that. Ok, I need a cat first then I need it. Ok, I need a cat first and then for the dogs across the street to build a snow fort so we can assault.  [ObviousWinner]

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Snow White and the Huntsman screenwriter Evan Spiliotopoulos is replacing Matt Lopez (The Sorcerer’s Apprentice) on the adaptation of the video game classic, Asteroids. The plot involves two estranged brothers that must team up to save Earth from an alien race. How the asteroids come into play has yet to be revealed.

Is it just me, or are they making this more complicated than it has to be? So as a favor to Asteroids producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura (Transformers: Dark of the Moon), I will right now pen the script for Asteroids.

EXT. SPACE, EARTH ORBIT

We open on the blackness of space, with only the twinkling stars in sight. But after a few seconds we start to see one, then two, then a great many asteroids hurtling through space towards the camera. We pull back and see that asteroids of varying sizes are approaching the Earth, What are we to do?

STAR COMMAND (O/S)

Asteroids approaching! Space fighter one we need your assistance!

A spaceship shaped like the letter ‘A’ blasts into sight from the dark side of the moon and positions itself in the middle of the asteroid field. The ship starts turning and blasting all the asteroids, destroying them a piece at a time. A giant asteroid appears and moves towards the ships position. It quickly fires its afterburners, gets out of the way, turns and fires at the asteroid, decimating it.

The ship keeps turning and firing. Turning and firing until almost all the asteroids have been completely destroyed.

Then, an alarm goes off in the cockpit. A UFO appears and moves smoothly across the field just beyond the asteroids. The UFO starts firing on the spaceship, which turns and blasts the UFO until it moves out of range. The spaceship returns to firing on the asteroids, but then the alarm goes off again and the UFO retraces its path just outside the field. The spaceship fires on the UFO before it gets a chance to launch and destroys it.

Only a few asteroids are left now, and the spaceship finishes them off handily. All the asteroids are destroyed when – suddenly – more asteroids appear out of the depths of space, more than before. The spaceship starts to turn and fire again, chipping away at the asteroids one by one.

Then the alarm goes off again. Another UFO appears behind the spaceship and fires before the pilot can react. The spaceship blows apart in several pieces as the UFO does a victory lap.

CUT TO:

Another spaceship is launched and heads towards the asteroid field. The whole process starts again…

This scene repeats four times as 12 different asteroid fields attack the Earth.

THE END

There. Done. You’re welcome.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

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Any self respecting nerd has seen the 2007 documentary The King of Kong (If you haven’t, then I feel the rest of us are in the right to call you an asshole.) For you lesser nerds out there, the film follows the epic  battle between Steve Wiebe and noted Donkey Kong/vintage video game champion Billy Mitchell, over the world record for Donkey Kong. The Mitchell-Wiebe rivalry, with thanks to the film, has made these guys famous. Legends in and outside the gaming world. With notoriety comes money, woman and… an arcade establishment? Yeppers.

While it’s been fun tracking the back and fourth battle between Wiebe and Mitchell for the world record (Steve Wiebe recently reclaimed the Donkey Kong World Record from Billy Mitchell before losing the title months later to Plastic Surgeon Hank Chien) these guys are well aware of their new found celebrity. Further branding their image for monetary gain is only obvious. Thus explains why Billy Mitchell has opened an arcade at Orlando’s airport under the film’s branding – with good guy Steve Wiebe gracing the entrance.

The small arcade is decked out with posters and signage from The King of Kong marketing, and even features a Donkey Kong mural on the walls. Notably, Mitchell’s arcade does not have a Donkey Kong machine – perhaps to keep someone (Hank Chien?) from beating the record in his own establishment. Mitchell’s arcade, as you can see in the video below, features a couple of Dead Heat cabinets, Terminator Salvation, two Super Bikes 1 setups, an Avatar pinball machine, plus an air hockey table and Aliens Extermination.

Seriously, what’s the point of having a Donkey Kong themed arcade with no Donkey Kong? It just further proves what a true-to-life villain Mitchell is. That bastard!

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Being the fat nerd that I am, I love to play video games. Also, being the fat male that I am, I love to drink beer. So finding out that the Gamerator exist, I of course want it and will like anyone to donate about $4000 (to cover shipping as well) to me just to have such a machine. The Gamerator is an arcade cabinet that ships with 85 games initially (which includes the three Mortal Kombat games, Bubble Bobble, Contra, etc.) with the ability to add more game and a subscription to Gametap (yeah, it still exist).

Now that’s not all the cabinet has, it even has the ability to store and cool a pony keg inside the damn thing. Yes folks, this is two awesome things in one. The only way they can make this better for me is that if they added a built in DDR dance pad to it…what? I’m half Asian, so of course I love DDR.

Source: Topless Robot, Gamerator Website

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The Metal Gear series, some people love it and some people hate it, but you gotta say, Metal Gear Solid 4 did have a nice end to the Solid series and hey, you have to love it when there’s a white monkey. Announced at last E3, Konami’s Metal Gear Arcade is getting some exposure and some talks around it. Based on the Metal Gear Online game, players can once again play as Snake and probably other characters but in a 3D environment. Not only are the goggles 3D, but also tracks your movement so that it gives you the feel that you are the character. To check out a quick video of Metal Gear Arcade after the break. (more…)

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Most of us grew up playing Mortal Kombat in some form or another — at the arcade, on Super NES, on the Game Boy, and more. We have fond memories of hearing Scorpion bellow “Get over here!” and doing that awesome thing with his hand and the “zzzzzzhhhhup” and the “sploink” and the “Scorpion wins.” But did you know that the franchise could have looked totally different?

Proposed "Scorpion" - vincentproceart.blogspot.com

Vincent Proce, who used to work for Midway Games, has posted to his blog four new versions of favorite MK characters Scorpion, Raiden, Sonya and Kano that he had proposed to Midway before leaving last year. The characters are recognizable, but they have more of a modern, dark, tattered feel to them. “The basis for the idea was a re imagining of the Mortal Kombat franchise from the original premise but mixing modern muti-player and dismemberment game design with the original fighting mechanic,” Proce said on his blog.

You can see Scorpion above; take a gander at Raiden, Sonya and Kano after the jump. (more…)

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