.tiff

Cavern of the Evil Wizard game from the movie Big

I'm assuming all of you (well at least most of you, hopefully...) have seen that Tom Hanks classic Big, where a kid turns into Tom Hanks, and then Tom Hanks gets a lady friend and an awesome job at a toy company but still misses being a normal kid. It's a classic, and explains why most people attempt to do this whenever they see an oversized keyboard.

Anyway, in one of the early scenes of the movie, the kid is playing a text adventure game on his computer called Cavern of the Evil Wizard, which was never a real game and only put together for the movie. Brother Chow informed me a few days ago that some fellow over at BoMToons re-imagined and created CotEW for all to play online. Unfortunately I don't have too much experience with text adventures so I haven't gotten far, but it's a fun tidbit of culture to play around with.

Thanks Brother!

The Metreon is selling out (all of its arcade cabinets)

When the Metreon first opened in downtown San Francisco back in 1999 I was pretty skeptical. I remember Sony marketing the space as a some all singing, all dancing playground from the future, which ended up being just as futuristic as Dippin' Dots are to being the ice cream of the future. An IMAX theater, a Sony Playstation store, and virtual bowling for $2.00 weren't big enough attractions to convince me that it was worth my time, and gradually over the past decade the Metreon has become an awkard and failed attraction, currently being transformed into a "restaurant-centric" mall before it becomes overrun with cheap sunglasses kiosks and frozen yogurt stands.

Recently I've been browsing around the Metreon since my buddy Steven and I have made a habit to going to the movies at least once a week. Before the show starts, we'll spend a few tokens between the two rooms on the second floor. The first room is the claw-machine room (shown above) which harbors at least 20 (if not more) claw-machines and is always empty. The second room is the videogame arcade (featuring the aforementioned virtual bowling), a dim-lit mix of old arcade cabinets and steam-punk-esque decorations. But now both rooms as of a few weeks ago are entirely on sale.

Claw machine with plush South Park characters? It's yours for a grand. Sega Rally for two players? Under a thousand. Treasure Island Gifts? Well, that one isn't too fun but it's only $195. I mean I have to admit, the idea of having my very own House of the Dead 4 in my basement for $3,495 sounds pretty tremendous (if I had any money after that PS3 Slim, *sigh*), but it's a pretty sad sight that the Metreon is shaking off it's old gamer skin to make room for a Just Desserts. At least Point Break Live! will be showing there later this month.

KILL SCREEN - Looks like a good investment to me

I'll be honest. When my friend Nicholas Felton sent me an e-mail, saying that his buddy's project KILL SCREEN would be right up my alley, it took only a few minutes after I read the Kickstarter description to quick-click and donate. With what appears to be a super solid team of designers and writers, I can't *wait* to get my first hardcover issue of KILL SCREEN:

Here's what we're proposing -- a smart approach to a beloved medium led by folks who've written for the New Yorker, GQ, the Daily Show, Christian Science Monitor, LA Times, the Colbert Report, the Onion, Paste, alongside some lovely photos and even a poster or two! We promise to keep explosions to a bare minimum and limit fawning praise for Modern Warfare 2 to a giggle.

BINGO. Donate today!

The Astronaut, Yeti, Mummy Movement - It's Happening

As if I didn't have enough things to mull over during the course of the day, I've been planning/scheming/procrastinating on posting about my dissatisfaction with pop culture's exhausted fascination of Ninjas, Pirates, and Zombies for about two years now. I too think that all of these characters are "neat", but the surplus of Zom-ninja-rate themed paraphernalia and entertainment is rather tedious at this point, and frankly with all the other options out there, I think we can do better.

So, in a flurry of pent up frustration I called out to my fellow brethren across the web a suggested culture switch, from the Ninjas, Pirates, and Zombies of yesteryear to the noble Yetis, Mummies, and Astronauts of today. My cry turned out to be quite the small victory, resulting in two tremendous incidents:

1. We can more or less deduce from the below Facebook exchange that Yetis of War, Unreal Astronaut, and Mummy Complex are confirmed Epic titles in the coming future, right Mr. Bleszinski?

2. Flickr friend and talented illustrator Andreas Schuster has made my dream a reality in this incredible drawing, which will certainly go down in the history books as the artifact that moved millions in the Yeti-Astronaut-Mummy Movement of 2009 :

3. (NEW!) Dan Paladin insta-drew me his interpretation of a Yeti, Astronaut, Mummy party! Happy!

In other words, my Internet friends are the best ♥, and please, if any of you out there feel inspired to contribute and help us with this turnover I'd be forever in your debt.

UPDATE: Keeping track of all the signs of yetis/astronauts/mummys/-to-come...

• From n0wak: Sam Raimi to produce Yeti flick 'Refuge'
• From Chris & Nathan: Penny Arcade's "A Premonition"
• GameSetWatch: Metanet Offers 'Coming Soon' Pages for Office Yeti
• SPOILERS: If you play a certain awesome PS3 game, you'll know it when you see it.

You mean, I'm gonna stay this color? - Kirk Demarais' Cult Movie Family Portraits

Kirk Demarais' contribution to Gallery 1988's art show Crazy 4 Cult in Los Angeles is a tremendous set of family portraits from some of my favorite cult movie classics. All lovingly rendered in colored pencil, Demarais cleverly captures the spirit of The Emersons (The Lost Boys), The Torrances (The Shining), The Freelings (Poltergeist), and more.

Unfortunately my favorite of the bunch, The Johnsons from The Jerk, has already been sold, never to sit high upon my bedroom's mantle where it rightfully belongs. The Jerk was a Chow family favorite when I was growing up. It's a tradition between Papa Chow and myself that every year on my birthday he admits to me with a heavy sigh that I was really adopted (while of course, I'm not), to which I naturally reply "You mean I'm gonna stay this color?"

Secret Fun Blog via Brandonnn (reblog his tumble if you like!)

Videogames and the Female Audience

Most of you out there know that I tend to have a few strong opinions when it comes to the videogame industry and women. The last opportunity I had to explore these ideas publicly was with my post about "Girl Gamers" back in ye olde days of Destructoid, but unfortunately since I haven't really taken any time to sit back and reasses how I feel about the situation aside from small conversations with others who share my sentiment.

Thankfully there are folks out there like my trusty colleague Leigh Alexander over at Sexy Videogameland, who recently helped Daniel Floyd put together this video concerning videogames and the female audience. I think the discussion here is really terrific, and covers a large arena of theories as to why the game industry is as male-centric and testosterone fueled as it is today:

The only point where I have to quickly disagree with is Daniel's nod to Ubisoft for developing games marketed to young girls. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for bringing girls up as gamers ( I turned out alright... right?), but there has got to be a better way to expose women to gaming outside of painfully stereotypical titles like Imagine Babyz and My Weight Loss Coach. I mean, come on.

Tetris inspired fashion by Timothy James Andrews

According to Dazed Digital's interview with fashion designer Timothy James Andrews, his most recent collection titled "A-BLOCK-A-BRICK-TOE" is inspired by everything from Transformers, Mel Gibson's Apocolypto, and most notably Tetris. As is demonstrated in his piece above, Andrews works crystal patterns into his collection to create a colorful homage to Tetris, saying that he "...had great fun placing the beads together in a pattern, almost like playing the game!"

If it came between Andrew's outfits and Giles Deacon's Pac-Men heads, I'd probably choose the former to supply my wardrobe of high-end retro game fashion. What can I say, crystal pixels are pretty hot stuff.

Spotted on Style Bubble

Waxing nostalgic - Flashback and Night Trap

Last night my friend Ben and I were brainstorming about a super-great game concept we have. If it goes anywhere I'll be sure to report our progress here, but for now we're just in the research stage. We kicked things off last night by romping around the YouTubes in search of game art inspriation, my first contribution being a few clips from the claymation PlayStation platformer Skullmonkeys (which has an incredible soundtrack if you haven't heard it yet.)

Ben followed up with two games which may be familiar to some of you but were entirely new to me. The first was Flashback, which he played on the Sega Genesis. I was absolutely taken aback by the opening animation and the stunning detail that appears during small moments in the gameplay. The intro video is shown above and the style is simply breathtaking.

On the flipside, Ben showed me Night Trap, a Sega CD videogame released in 1992 that allegedly brewed lots of controversy in its time due to some offensive scenes of vulnerable women coming to violent ends. After viewing a few of these scenes it's all very reminiscent of a tacky horror film about sexy co-eds, and at times seems to be understandably offensive. That being said, the "Party Scene" is pretty cheesy funny, especially with all that FMV paired alongside that corny user interface.

Are we having fun yet?

Anyway, if any of you all have other quirky games to look at in terms of style, I'd love some suggestions!

Play Mario off, 8-bit Keyboard Cat

You bet. It's our friend Keyboard Cat, and this time he's back in the boots with the 8-bit furrrr. Jude Buffum provides a perfect pixelated rendition of the Internet's most recent favorite feline, with Doctor Octoroc bestowing his chiptune support. Not a bad treat to wake up to first thing in the morning.

Via Gynecologist Cobra

Game Boy Pocket Commercial via David Wain

Hi! I'm back! I was spending a lot of time and effort developing one of those Sorry I haven't been posting Hallmark Card posts to make up for my lack of content, but I'll have to post that later because this is too good. This morning David Wain posted an old Game Boy Pocket commercial he developed 14 years ago with the help of good ol' Micahel Showalter, Michael Ian Black, Ben Garant, and Kerri Kenney, and boy is it the best thing I've seen all week. Oh Mr. Wain, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways...

Thanks Jon!