more geekathon-normal going on here, this screengrab is from the options menu of Activision’s late-2007 release Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, at times set in parts of the world that pit US marines (or UK SAS operatives) against Russian ultranationalist forces, ironic considering the current political turmoil and conflict in North Ossetia, Georgia, the former Soviet bloc country.

It would seem “Normal” is a standard term in gaming development to describe menu options and variables, and so being somewhat of a geek gaming enthusiast, I reckon there’ll be more where this came from!
Continuing today’s geekathon-game posts:


Type or Die. Write or I’ll Bite!
Just a couple of the taglines for the SEGA franchise title House of the Dead (1996) which was later ported and modded to kill zombies with your keyboard instead of a game-gun. Originally an arcade game (no shit, see image below), the above images are from a PC (Windows) port of the game. A more-recent version has been ported to the Nintendo DS Lite for Japanese players looking to improve their English writing skills (see here) - but some of us are forever attached to our keyboards (be they Qwerty or… Dvorak!) so if you’re looking to improve your typing skills while killing zombies and zombie-bosses:

image from Wikipedia entry for Typing of the Dead
(also see Typing of the Dead gamespot page)

From one of the opening sequences of the CAPCOM title Okami, this shot shows Issun, the game’s guide embodied as a bouncing bug, asking the sun god Amaterasu, “The tree’s returned to normal, huh?”
Just before, the Kamiki Village tree was under some sort of curse. Issun would often ask or state things in a reverse manner, but it must be questioned, what is a “normal” tree?