We at Geeks of Doom love Halloween. The smell in the air, the leaves changing color to mark the occasion, and all of the old edited horror movies playing over and over on your TV make it one of the most entertaining and exciting times of year.

Back in 2006, we compiled a list of some of the best geek costumes on the market for those of you who do not yet have an idea as to what you want to be. It’s already been three years now, so we thought it was about time to compile another epic list of costume options for the undecided (which includes myself).

While checking these costumes out, keep some things in mind — most importantly: pretty much every costume that you see will have multiple styles of varying price and quality. The majority of the ones we have here are in the $30-$50 range, but you can find really high-quality “Deluxe” versions of the costume that will run you in the $100-$200 dollar range. These are for the folks who have money to spare and love authenticity. If you’re out of your freakin’ mind, there’s even Batman and Darth Vader costumes that will run you $700+ dollars. If you don’t like the one we’ve linked to, just search the character and check out all of the others that exist. Most costumes have children’s versions available, too. We’ve included some great kids’ costumes, but if you find an adult one you’d like for the little ones, just search it out!

Also worth keeping in mind: a lot of these costumes have female counter-costumes that would be perfect for couples looking to match up. Oh, and it won’t be stupid like going as a plug and an electrical socket. Tee-hee.

Many, many costume options were found for men, women, children, and pets, so please continue on and check some of them out!

Watchmen
Director’s Cut Blu-ray
Directed by Zack Snyder
Starring: Jackie Earle Haley, Billy Crudup, Patrick Wilson, Malin Akerman, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Matthew Goode
Warner Home Video
Release Date: July 21, 2009

This city is afraid of me. I have seen its true face. The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood and when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown. The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout ‘Save us!’…and I’ll whisper, ‘no.’

What would you do in order to ensure the safety of all mankind? Would you sacrifice millions of lives if it meant saving billions of other lives and creating a perfect and peaceful world? This is the impossibly difficult scenario placed in front of a small group of crime fighters known simply as Watchmen.

Watchmen is based on the timeless graphic novel of the same name by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. The book is the only graphic novel on Time magazine’s top 100 novels of all time — a truly epic feat for its platform. For many years, the novel was also called “unfilmable” by most people who strongly believed that no one could faithfully and accurately adapt the complex story and characters into a movie. Director Zack Snyder was the man to finally try and accomplish this impossible feat, and even better, he did it because he didn’t want to see anyone else try and fail miserably. Any time a director takes on a project simply to protect the legacy of of the film’s source material, you know you’re in for some top-notch passionate filmmaking.

When the Zack Snyder-directed film adaptation of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ classic 1986 DC Comics miniseries Watchmen was released in March, for a while, it was the talk of the town. Audiences and critics alike were sharply divided on the film and much debate was inspired among hardcore fans of the original miniseries as to the flaws and merits of the cinematic adaptation.

In my opinion the film of Watchmen had its problems but still remained a memorable viewing experience that was bound to improve with repeat viewings. One of the problems I had with the film was that in their quest to cram the sprawling and complex adult-oriented storyline into a two and a half hour film, the filmmakers had to sacrifice a great deal of character beats, including a scene depicting the brutal murder of Hollis Mason (the original Nite Owl).

That scene has been reinstated for the Watchmen director’s cut being released on DVD and Blu-Ray July 21. If you cannot wait until then to see it then it is available for viewing now on YouTube right now.

Watchmen: Tales of the Black Freighter & Under the Hood
DVD, Blu-ray, VoD
Directed by Mike Smith & Daniel DelPurgatorio (Black Freighter)/Eric Matthies (Under the Hood)
Starring Gerard Butler, Stephen McHattie, Carla Gugino
Warner Home Entertainment
Release date: March 24, 2009

And you thought we were done with our Watchmen coverage? Well Warner Brothers has a few more dimes they can squeeze out of the property, so now we get a stand-alone DVD release of a couple of glorified special features. Is this disc worth buying, especially knowing that the animated section of this disc will be on the eventual DVD release of Watchmen? I’d say yes, if you’re a big fan of the book or the movie (or, like me, both). More casual fans will probably be okay waiting for these to be included when the regular movie comes out on DVD.

The good thing to say about this is that the two features here — Tales of the Black Freighter and Under The Hood — are both very well done. First you get the main draw of the disc, the animated feature Tales of the Black Freighter. Readers of the book will know what this is, but for those who haven’t read the book, the Black Freighter is a pirate comic that is told in conjunction with the main story and serves as an allegory for those events. It the story of a captain (voiced by Gerard Butler) whose ship is attacked by the titular Black Freighter, and then must struggle to get to his home before the freighter crew kills his family.

Watchmen: The End Is Nigh
Genre: Fighting
ESRB: M for Mature
BBFC: 15
Developer: Deadline Games
Platform: PSN Network: March 5th 2009 (Part One), Xbox Live & PC: March 4th 2009 (Part One)

After writing my short preview on Watchmen: The End Is Nigh, I was really eager to get my hands on the full game… and Xbox Live being its usual laggy self, it decided to download the 1.3GB game at a rate of 1% every 20 minutes — needless to say, I’ve been screaming at my Xbox all damn day.

However, my download literally just finished, so I am now happy to bring you a hands-on review of the first installment of the episodic adventures of Rorschach and Nite Owl II. As soon as you load the game, you’re treated to animated cutscenes just like the Motion Comic DVD, setting the scene on Friday 13th October 1972. The tone of these cutscenes blend well with the dialogue in the graphic novel, and Rorschach’s narration via his journal is spot on. Both Rorschach and Nite Owl II are voiced by their movie counterparts Jackie Earle Haley and Patrick Wilson, which I always see as a valuable asset – I can’t stand it when movie-to-game adaptations use crappy voice actor soundalikes.