Eternity with Nerds

One of the best parts of TRON is when the lead
character gets into a disc fight with Sark, and
manages to rip through his defenses and carve
a trench through his forehead. Then the friggin'
MCP brings Sark back as a shambling, super-sized
zombie, with random shapes spilling out of the
massive wound. A dumb, dated movie? Perhaps.
But you can't tell me that scene wasn't
high-octane cool.
(image from Reddit)

First things first... let's pour one out for David Warner, Nichelle Nichols, and Paul Coker Jr., who all died last week. Nichols, best known as Uhura from Star Trek, had been in rough shape for a couple of years, suffering from dementia, but Warner's death from cancer seemed to come out of nowhere. Gamers know him as the triple thread of Edward Dillinger, Sark, and the Master Control Program from TRON, but David Warner lent his Shakespeare-honed talents and commanding voice to countless projects, starring as Jon Irenicus in Balder's Gate II, Jack the Ripper in Time After Time, and Ra's al Ghul in the DC animated universe. Warner's passing is a particularly crushing blow to a nerd like myself, who was utterly OBSESSED with TRON in the early 1980s, and continued to follow his career thanks to his roles as some of the most threatening cartoon villains of the 1990s.

As for Paul Coker Jr., he didn't really have anything to do with video games, but his work as a cartoonist kept me entertained as a child, whether it was reading issues of MAD magazine or watching Rankin-Bass Christmas specials. What's amazing is that he held on for as long as he did... you would have thought he had stepped off this mortal coil and into legend a long time ago, but nope, he died just a few days ago. I'd tip my cap to you, sir, but after watching Frosty the Snowman, I don't dare take it off.

So! Video game stuff. There's not much to report, aside from a solid release date for TMNT: The Cowabunga Collection. That's coming to the eShop, Xbox Live, and PSN on August 30th, and will cost forty dollars. Also, the Sega Genesis Mini 2 will arrive by the end of October, but unless you're willing to cough up $125 right now on a pre-order, it's not likely you'll get one. Sega plans to manufacture only a tenth of the units they previously made of the Sega Genesis Mini, so if you're not already committed to a purchase, you'll have to live without it. Alas, your insatiable hunger for the smash Sega arcade hit Spatter will have to be satisfied elsewhere.