With my brother working in the video game industry, there’s bound to be a gaming nugget or two that interests me.
Mikey D sent over this timelapse Colors! digital painting done entirely on the Nintendo DS. This was the video that convinced me to purchase a DS and install Colors! Love the brush strokes and color palette. Brilliant work.
[Via Jason Dunn]
Never been much of a fan of Second Life, but this is pretty damn cool. Reader Elliott Fox send over news that a research group headed by Assistant Professor Junich Ushiba at Keio University successfully demonstrated technology that allowed a man suffering from a muscle disorder to walk in Second Life and use “voice chat” all with the power of his brain meats. To read the patient’s brainwaves, electrodes are attached to the scalp. The computer interprets waves associated with forward movement and hand movement and manipulates the virtual Second Life avatar accordingly. And look, we have video!
While it is somewhat disconcerting to know that now Skynet has the ability to map our brain functions, this technology is great news for the physically disabled. It’s all very Ghost in the Shell, but it’s easy to imagine a future where you can jack into a computer with your brain meats and manipulate data without ever touching a keyboard. With a proper set up, a physically disabled person could get around just as easily as the rest of us without assistance. Of course, then we start blurring the line between man and machine and things get all cyber punky and awesome. Or Skynet becomes self aware and decides its tired of taking out the trash while we sit in bed jacked into a machine and Judgement Day comes. Damn tricksy Skynet!
[Via Science Daily]
Last Friday, Audrey and I hopped on a Jet Blue flight up to Boston to spend the weekend with Audrey’s aunt and uncle, ten year old cousin, and another one of Audrey’s aunts. Pictured above is one of the mini-frogs we found sneaking around their basement. So cute. So deadly. Deadly cute if you will.
Not pictured is Audrey’s ten year old cousin’s score in our death matches of Halo 3. Although I did manage to eek out one win, he completely destroyed me the other two games of death match. This is either proof that ten year olds are just better equipped to play video games or that you should probably never listen to another video game review I ever write ever.
Also not documented were the Roman candles somehow mysteriously lit off in the back yard. No officer, we have no idea how those Roman candles were lit. Maybe it was those alien Lite Brites from a while back.
Much love to Jet Blue. I really hate flying but they somehow made it bearable. The seats were nice and comfy and actually roomy. Both the flight up and back I was put next to giant behemoths whose large bodacity would have spilled into my tiny space on other planes, but on Jet Blue, I was free from their gravitational pulls. I loved the personal little TV that came with every seat even though our flight was a mere hour and a half. And we got Direct TV channels. Word is that Jet Blue will be closing its doors sometime soon which will suck balls. But until then, we’ll be booking with them some more. Until, of course, they piss us off. Then we’ll start taking paddle boats.
As for Boston, what little we saw was full of mighty awesomeness. For example:
We had a great time in Boston and we’re looking forward to returning sometime hopefully in the near future.
I watch Yahtzee’s game reviews every week because they amuse me greatly. This week, he decided to take on gaming webcomics that aren’t Penny Arcade. Somewhere along the way, he calls out Tim Buckley for doing a miscarriage story arc in a comic known for slap happy gaming humor. Yahtzee doesn’t call Ctrl-Alt-Del or Tim by name, but I can’t think of another gaming comic that has done a miscarriage story arc. Yahtzee then goes on to dismiss gaming webcomics altogether for clogging up the internet and wasting space. I can’t wholly disagree. And his overall assessment of the genre is quite accurate and funny. But let’s get into this miscarriage thing.
I don’t read Ctl-Alt-Del on a regular basis. I’m not much of a gamer so I don’t get the jokes. I did see the comic in question and I thought, from an artistic standpoint, it’s a very powerful four panels. Some of the best stuff I’ve seen Tim draw. But should a creator change the tone of his comic so abruptly just for one arc? And can the comic ever return to its happy days after such a devastating story?
When I saw the comic, I was reminded of sitcoms. Every once in a while, they’d sneak in some deadly serious episode with a poignant message or lesson to teach. There’s the famous pedophile episode in Different Strokes, Good Times had a child abuse arc, Fresh Prince took on driving while black, Roseanne examined domestic abuse. The list goes on. Although these episodes might be controversial, audiences tend to accept them and move on. Why should it be any different for webcomics?
UPDATE: Aha! I see that Yahtzee has a deep seeded hatred for CAD. Scroll down to his post entitled “You CAD” in which Yahtzee describes why it lacks the funny.
The Hawkster twitted up this fun trailer for Rolando, an upcoming game from Handcircus for the iPhone and iTouch. How fun! I love the character designs. The game looks deceptively simple, but I’m willing to bet it becomes an instant classic.
Looks like Handcircus is a one-man studio run by Simon Oliver. Awesome! Seems like the iTouch and iPhone are well suited for smaller gaming studios.
So here’s a question. Is the user base for iPhone and iTouch big enough that Oliver can make a living off of making exclusive platform games? Also, can it do realtime 3D like the DS? Finally, are there any programmers out there that can make my dream of a Kamen Rider bowling game a reality?
Okay, that last one was rather random, but I have a fun idea for a little game full of SD Riders and bowling!
[Via Rolando]
Ah, Diablo. That brings me back. I used to play quite a lot of Diablo II when it first came out. I had a group of friends who worked in UMD’s Computer Science department and we would play Diablo II and Star Craft into the wee hours of the night. Nothing beats pizza, Moutain Dew, and Zerg rush at 3 a.m. We got the expansion pack for Diablo II, but after beating it a few times, we moved on to other games. Haven’t thought about those days in a good while until now.
Diablo III is knocking on our doorsteps and from the looks of these 20 minutes of gameplay, it’s going to be messy fun. Ah, that squishy sound of fallen enemies is so satisfying. They introduce a new character class, the Witch Doctor, which doesn’t seem all that fun. But I’m more of a mele guy. I don’t need minions to do my dirty work when I have a perfectly good war hammer equipped. I love the look of the armor which was always one of my favorite features of the game. It also looks like they’ve made bosses gigantic! Check out that last guy they fight. Freaking awesome!
Now that I have my own PC and don’t have to depend on friends to set up the computer lab, I foresee many hours of Battlenet smashing demons. AZM Clan anyone?
Compiled from true and mostly true tech support calls, The Website is Down demonstrates the ungood that occurs when the incompetent people you work for demand you fix something that isn’t broken.
[Via The Website is Down]
The lads at Egoraptor give a much more in depth review of Ninja Gaiden than I could from the just playing the demo. Looks like it’s a definite rental. Thanks to reader Michael Tricksey for the link!
So now I pretty much have to get this WWE game. Anyone know which one it is?
An Ultra sized Ultraseven would probably squish Kamen Rider right quick even if Hongo is taking the ‘roids. People sized, Kamen ‘Roider and Ultraseven match up fairly well. And then stupid Dipsy comes in to fuck it all up. Curse yous, Teletubbies! Curse yous!
UPDATE: Of course, the real battle already took place.
AZM ally Mike Dent sent over some pictures.
Oh look, it’s Tekkaman kicking the shit out Ryu!
And here’s a different Ken getting ready to go all Gatchaman on Ryu!
That’s right people, Capcom continues its versus series with Tatsunoko vs. Capcom!
Tatsunoko is the animation studio behind Gatchaman, Tekkaman, Casshan, Speed Racer, and a whole mess of other mind blowing anime! And of course, you know Capcom. So far, we’ve seen Ryu, Chun Li, some Rival Schools guy, Casshern, Ken, and Tekkaman in action. Can’t wait to see who they reveal next. I read on their Wikipedia entry that Tatsunoko also did Macross. Could we get some sweet Zentradi action in the house? It looks like they’re using sweet cell shaded 3D sprites for the fighters which looks absolutely gorgeous. Must see game play footage!
Unfortunately, the license nightmare almost guarantees that we won’t be getting this states side. Boo! This is such an awesome pairing, much better than MK vs. DC.
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