The Smarmy Carny

A while ago, The Smarmy Carny covered two Tower Defense games worth playing, and strategically the best game out there is Desktop Tower Defense.

At long last, the Casual Collective website has opened its virtual doors for anyone to register and enjoy. Previously, I had been playing under the "invite only" beta version of the site.

MPDTD — Multiplayer Desktop Tower Defense

MPDTD

The Multiplayer version of Desktop Tower Defense is much more thrilling and fast paced than the original single player version when the Arcade version is selected. In the original, the higher your tower upgrade, the longer the upgrade took, and when you sold your towers, you got back less money than you spent on the tower. In MPDTD with the Arcade option, all upgrades are speedy and you get all your money back when selling towers. This makes gameplay much more exciting, especially if you are nimble enough to sell and build towers to suit the upcoming wave of creeps.

Another feature of the multiplayer game that creates urgency is that the next wave starts whenever any player completely kills off a wave of creeps. So there's an urgency to finish the wave off before anyone else, thus sending more creeps before your opponent is ready for them.

Desktop Armada and Desktop Armada Missions

Desktop Armada

With Desktop Armada, 2 players each have six "ports" on their own side of the playing board. From each port, you can choose to build and launch one of a variety of different ship types in a variety of routes. Patrol boats are very fast and build quickly but are easily destroyed. Destroyers and missile boats are medium sized ships — the former take plenty of damage and the latter have a long firing range. Battleships are large ships that take a while to build but take a large amount of damage.

The goal is to get your ships through to the other side, where your boats will fire upon the enemy's base. The trick is to not run out of money and to send enough firepower to overtake your enemy or to send your ships on paths that will avoid detection by enemy ships. A fog of war also makes things more interesting and make the puny patrol boats valuable in scouting the terrain.

Desktop Armada Missions is quite similar to Desktop Armada, but as the name would suggest, you get certain missions or challenges to take on instead of the straight out war.

Buggle

Buggle

Buggle is a great game that players can jump right into without much training. A multitude of little buggles (ball-type characters) fly around the board and eventually freeze. You click to place your marker, as do the other players. Your marker converts the nearest buggles to your color, and those buggles in turn convert other nearby buggles. The buggles freeze again, and each player places a second marker on the board. You get more points for controlling more buggles.

This game is a fairly mindless game that involves a small amount of strategy and a large amount of luck. Even if you place your marker in the best location on the board, two other players' markers could flank you, leaving you buggle-less. Sometimes the other players place their markers in a group, allowing your marker to grab the lion's share of the points for a round.

Flash Element TD 1 and Flash Element TD 2

Flash Element TD

Flash Element TD 1 is the single player tower defense game that was the precursor to Desktop Tower Defense. Unlike the newer Desktop Tower Defense, bad guys follow a pre-determined path and your towers must be off the path. You can upgrade towers and have only a small selection of tower types to choose from.

Flash Element TD 2 is still in production, but promises more variety from the fairly limited Flash Element TD 1. Keep an eye out for this new version, as it will certainly improve upon the monotany of the original game.

What would a multiplayer game be without rankings? The Casual Collective keeps track of your own personal score and rank as you win or lose games. Each player gains or loses points based on the ELO system, a sort of prorated points system used in chess rankings. You get more points for defeating players with a higher ranking and you can also lose many points for losing to players with a lower ranking.

It's Cyber Monday, and that means that the online retailers (or "e-tailers") have set out their best deals today to try and compete with the Black Friday deals you may have missed.

Check out a selection of the Cyber Monday deals at The Black Friday Podcast. You can also get links to additional information on Cyber Monday sites there as well.

So if there's any money left in your pocket after going crazy on Black Friday, be sure to check out the Cyber Monday specials today before they're all sold out!

Happy Thanksgiving week! That also means that Black Friday is this Friday.

If you haven't started preparing already, be sure to take a look at the various ads and get ready for all the big sales! Here are some sites and forums to help you get your Black Friday strategy set:

• The Black Friday Podcast (site operational, but the podcast is coming in 2008)
• GottaDeal (and forums)
• Black Friday Ads (and forums)
• SlickDeals (and forums)
• DealTaker (and forums)

Spend time with family, stuff yourself silly, and be sure to rest up in preparation for Black Friday!

Chuck Norris endorses Mike Huckabee in a new YouTube campaign video. In this video, "Chuck Norris Approved," Huckabee gives several Chuck Norris facts and Norris gives various Huckabee facts. The video calls the mash up "HuckChuckFacts." Take a look.

Of course, in order to understand this video, you'd have to be familiar with the various Chuck Norris facts that have been flying around the internet for the past couple years.

The only problem I have with this video is that we've got the humorous Chuck Norris facts combined with actual Mike Huckabee talking points. The writers for this video really should have tried to get Huckabee's talking points across in a humorous manner that would match the Chuck Norris facts.

Thanks to Delirium for bringing this one to my attention.

While watching television this week, I was surprised by the conflicting views in a Wal-Mart commercial. Wal-Mart shows the twisted way in which they view "family togetherness."

In the commercial, the mother of a family of six discusses her family and a deal she found at Wal-Mart:

You know what I love about Wal-Mart?
They know how to bring a family together.
See, this year, we're getting a [insert brand name here] HDTV.

The woman continues about the affordability of HDTVs at Wal-Mart. As annoying as it was to hear Wal-Mart claim that buying an HDTV would bring a family together, my jaw dropped when I heard the mom's conclusion to the commercial:

You know, it's hard to stop everybody from running every which way at Christmas . . . but it helps when you can put a big HDTV in their way.

So not only is an HDTV a great way to bring your family together, but it accomplishes it by trapping them on the couch. Nice. Wal-Mart's current campaign (included at the end of this commercial) is "Save money. Live better." Save money? Probably. Live better? Not like that.

Keep in mind, I'm not at all anti-Wal-Mart and I'm not part of the "Kill Your Television" crowd, but I can assure you that sitting in front of the TV is the best way to be completely disconnected with your family while still being in the same room. When you watch television with your family, you're not talking with them about their day or about their dreams or problems. I guess that Wal-Mart views "family togetherness" as nothing more than a physical state, not a relational state.

Wal-Mart is having a bad quarter. Last month, they proved that Wal-Mart dislikes diligent shoppers.

It's National Pizza with the Works Except Anchovies Day!

If you don't know what to order from the pizzeria today, you're probably just not paying attention.

So call up your local pizzeria and ask for a large pie with:

• pepperoni
• sausage
• mushrooms
• extra cheese
• bacon
• onions
• ground beef
• ham
• chicken
• green peppers
• red peppers
• jalapeno peppers
• tomatoes
• garlic
• black olives
• green olives
• pineapple
• salami
• prosciutto
• turkey
• artichoke hearts
• feta cheese
• spinach
• oranges
• oregano
• capers

. . . but don't ask for anchovies!

Just when you thought network TV was about as low as it could get, Hollywood's ineffective and misdirected attempts to push environmental issues this week brought network television to a new low.

NBC celebrated "Green Week" this week. It was one of the oddest campaigns or ratings stunts of television history, all under the motto "Green is Universal" — perhaps a reference to NBC Universal, the company that owns NBC, Universal Studios, and other media companies.

Probably the only successful change is that NBC's "The More You Know" PSAs were environmentally focused. They are, after all, PSAs, so they can easily fit the theme. Granted, the environmental topics pale in comparison to the standard TMYK themes of domestic violence and drug use, but that's no matter.

The worst of Green Week is that NBC has directed their shows to adopt an environmental theme in this week's episode. What this accomplishes is that each show on NBC suddenly creates an awkward, contrived environmental situation. These environmental themes have been shoved into this week's episode, regardless of the episode's plot or the show's season-long plot arc.

• ER — The ER experiences a blackout after an unseasonably hot Chicago Day. Sam spends some time with a conservationist doing an energy usage study on County General and Morris has a run in with door of a Hummer.
• Heroes — The Heroes logo turns green — literally — for the week.
• Life — Charlie randomly decides to purchase a solar farm because of a dream he had.
• My Name Is Earl — The Warden instructs Earl to toss in some environmental teachings into their "scared straight" program.

The silly theme only thrives in silly, random shows that enjoy being silly, random shows like Scrubs and Deal or No Deal. One of the worst examples is My Name Is Earl: The warden randomly orders that Earl insert an environmental theme into their "scared straight" program for young children. Furthermore, the awkward, forced moments degrade the episodes' content and don't do much to increase awareness of any sort. These are theme's we've heard for the past 15 years. I'd expect environmental snippets like this in a children's program, perhaps, but not in programming geared toward adults.

I'd love to see the writers of any show stand up against this theme — not the environmentalism theme, mind you, but the NBC-mandated "Green Week" theme. No wonder the writers are on strike this week.

TV Envy also has a great article on NBC's Green Week this that delves into the subject that is worth the read.