Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 8, 2008 in Videogames
Yes I know: You eat, sleep, and drink videogames! But dreaming about videogames isn’t enough so to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Space Invaders Taito has created the above pillows to ensure that you spend your REM cycles in style:
“The pillows are colored black and decorated with pixel images of Space Invaders in a shade of drab yellow and drab gray. There’s a reason why the pillows are colored black – they provide the perfect contrast for the Space Invaders designs which glow in the dark when the lights are low. Two styles are in stock and shipping today as follows:
(A) Two large Space Invaders (Top Pillow)
(B) Space Invaders logo with rows of invaders (Bottom Pillow)
Each pillow measures 53cm (20.86″) in length and 33cm (13″) in width which is larger than Taito’s original measurements when they started accepting preorders. The pillows are big enough to accommodate human heads, pets, and assorted wide loads.”
Ummm, I hope those ‘human heads’ are attached to bodies!
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 5, 2008 in Videogames
Little Busters! (リトルバスターズ! Ritoru Basutāzu!) is a game based on a visual novel — the plot focuses on six female characters. The game has done so well that it has already inspired a manga. Here’s an official commercial for one of their titles to give you a better taste:
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 5, 2008 in Videogames
You can see from the above commercial that Sony is trying to go after the “girl game” market more and more — the above spot is for Monster Hunter Portable 2G from Capcom. The game allows you to hunt for monsters and other wild creatures.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 4, 2008 in Videogames
There are three cool things about the iPhone game Anime Match 勝負 (caution: link launches you to iTunes):
1. It’s for free! Granted you get what you pay for these days, but if you’re a cheap fanboy that’s a plus in my book.
2. Despite the fact that the game has an Japanese interface it’s very easy to use. By the way it should be noted that Jirbo, Inc. who makes the game also has an English version — but that would make the game itself less cool, no?
3. The ever so cute icons of anime animals have a nice moe factor to them.
“Retro Remakes is your number one source for freeware Retro Remakes news and downloads. All the latest news from the Remakes scene, classic games, retro and freeware for your pleasure. ”
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 21, 2008 in Videogames
As a fanboy I always enjoy seeing a fine artist exploring pop culture: In the above oil painting “Rough Night Out” artist Bob Dob takes on Nintendo icon Mario. The other Mario brother can be seen below in the next painting “Rougher Night Out”:
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 19, 2008 in Videogames
I think this qualifies as a baffling mystery Sam! To tell you the truth I haven’t heard much out of E3 this year that’s very exciting. My theory is that last year was a real breakthrough with the excitement of the Wii, in fact it seems odd that there was any question just how well Nintendo would do. Which brings us back to E3: As a show E3 was always about the older hardcore guy gamers — so with the popularity of the Wii and titles like Guitar Hero the industry as become much more family oriented in spite of itself.
However as a long time gaming fanboy I rather like the state of the industry right now. Sam and Max is a good example of this — the first time I fell in love with the game was in the CD-ROM era back in the 90s. The game was as much about story as the game play itself, however back in the day sadly titles like this were swept away by Doom and and later the Playstation platform. So it’s nice for me to see Sam and Max re-emerge again on the Wii while poor Duke Nukem is a bit of a joke.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 17, 2008 in Videogames
With the fears of childhood obesity you could never get this commercial made today: There mere idea of having advertising featuring kids drinking chocolate milk while spending hours in front of a video game would make sponsors run in the other direction. But alas in a more simple era (1983 to be precise) this sort of behavior was thought of as normal — in fact some may have argued that it was a good way to trick the kids into drinking milk which was thought of as healthy. And this we have the above commercial from over twenty years ago when two kids and cartoon bunny could enjoy some Nestle Quik while playing with their Atari 2600.
So you’d think that this commercial was a one shot deal? Wrong! Of course this fanboy marriage of chocolate milk and fanboy goodness was too good for Nestle to pass up again:
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 15, 2008 in Videogames
If you’re a Nintendo fanboy then you’re going to need to visit Wiibrew which is an amazing wiki devoted to hacking the Wii. They have over 300 articles at this point on everything from emulators to Bluetooth specs for the Wiimote.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 13, 2008 in Videogames
I love this brilliant expletive filled review of a vintage 1987 copy of Mega Man (known as ロックマン Rokkuman in Japan) which was published by Capcom for the NES. You can tell that while he’s having a hard time with the game that Chris is enjoying every retro minute of Mega Man.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 12, 2008 in Videogames
The above video shows an amazing real world demo of someone hacking an old school C-64 computer to make a retro version of Guitar Hero. What’s funny about this to me is that the first time I watched Guitar Hero being played my first thought was “this is just Space Invaders with musical instruments!”
“These awesome vinyl restickable wall-stickers. Featuring Mario and his friends and enemies through his evolution from 15 pixel high sprite to fully 3d-rendered hyperbeing. Do a faithful recreation of your favorite levels, or create your own, using your own space as a template.”
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jun 12, 2008 in Videogames
Yeah get him LEGO Batman! I like how they always have to have the ESRB rating at the front, as if we couldn’t figure out that LEGO wasn’t real or something. Anyway plenty of action here, the game is due out September.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jun 4, 2008 in Videogames
I love the conceptual idea of taking Rubik’s Cube which is an analog game and turning it into a pixel representation of Pac-Man one of the early digital video games. This sculpture was designed by Omino71 who is an anonymous Italian artist.
Posted by Michael Pinto on May 31, 2008 in Videogames
It’s berry good news! In 1988 Ralston Cereals (yes the pet food folks!) produced the Nintendo Cereal System. The box featured fruity-flavoured Marios on one side and Zelda berry-flavored boomerangs, keys, and shields. Each box also featured a sticker of a Nintendo character and a set of trading cards. You have wonder why with all of those goodies they bothered to even have cereal in the box?
Posted by Michael Pinto on May 19, 2008 in Videogames
A good sign that something is good is when I get jealous looking at it! What I like about the look of LittleBigPlanet is that it combines a sense of humor with a ton of wonderful eye candy (check out the cute character design below). The game is being developed by UK based Media Molecule for the Sony Playstation 3 and should be shipping in October this year. From an industry perspective what’s interesting about this game is that it looks like Sony is getting more and more serious about making more non-gamer family oriented titles in the Nintendo tradition.
Posted by Michael Pinto on May 18, 2008 in Videogames
You blew it Charlie! I think a good sign of game design is when it’s as much fun to loose as to win — and Operation which was designed by John Spinello for Milton Bradley is a good example of this principle. Spinello designed a prototype of the game in 1962 when he was an industrial design student, the game featured a “Death Valley” motif. Operation hit the shelves in 1965 and is still on sale today over 40 years later.
“A pair of Harvard researchers say violent video games don’t turn children into killers. According to a newly published book, ‘Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games and What Parents Can Do’, psychologists Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl Olson dispel common myths about violent games. In their two-year study, they found that there was no data to support any causation between games and real-life violence.
Kutner and Olson studied 1200 middle-school children in a $1.5 million federally funded study. Instead of studying the children in the laboratory, like other studies, the pair actually sat down and talked to kids after long bouts of game playing – sometimes in excess of 15 hours a week. The lucky kids played a variety of games from the very non-violent The Sims to grandma shooting, pedestrian bashing Grand Theft Auto.”
Posted by Michael Pinto on May 10, 2008 in Videogames
I still have high hopes for this film based on other things that I’ve seen and have heard, but frankly the above video game trailer doesn’t get me too excited. I wish that Disney and Pixar would get more directly involved with their games ala LucasArts.
Posted by Michael Pinto on May 9, 2008 in Videogames
I dare you to knock this battery off my shoulder! This Canadian fanboy took a bear suit and modified it for futuristic combat situations ala Halo. I have no idea if this invention would work, but man would he clean up with the cosplay awards at any convention!
Posted by Michael Pinto on May 3, 2008 in Videogames
When you’re mayor of New York City there are so many real things to worry about like terrorism, the economy, a deteriorating infrastructure, unaffordable housing for the middle class, improving our impoverished public school system and the recent disturbing Sean Bell case.
Q.So what does New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg worry about the most?
“As was the case with the previous games in the series, activist groups, police, politicians, and surviving victims of violence criticized Grand Theft Auto IV last week, beginning shortly after the game was launched nationwide. Regarding the game’s violence, the NYPD association president Pat Lynch told the New York Daily News on Wednesday that, “being involved in a shootout in a video game has no consequences and that is the wrong message to send to young people.”
New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg and the mother of a killed NYPD officer echoed similar sentiments in the same report, saying GTA IV “doesn’t exactly teach the kind of things that you’d want to teach your kids,” or more descriptively put, “teaches children to kill”.”
