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Lady Galaga

via jeffkatz.typepad.com

Lady Ga Ga meets Lady Galaga, "The first game that plays itself out!" 'Nuff said.

Via GeekWeek, thanks Miz G!

Sick and cloudy Friday salutations

via gamovr

Mueh. Despite all efforts to avoid the plague going around my house, I'm sick. And it's going to be cloudy and rainy for the next few days. *Grump grump*.

My plans for the weekend? Staying inside to repair my HP (laffs! euh, *sigh*), diving into my new Processing book, and booting up Might & Magic: Clash of the Heroes (by my favorite, Capy!) and PixelJunk Shooter. 

In the meantime, enjoy the wacky Govinator/Bayonetta mash-up above, and the Jay-Z/Link's Awakening mash-up by one of my readers, Aquma, below:

 

Aquma - Roc Feather

Chunk's advice to Nathan Drake: Don't piss off China

How many of you knew that the actor who played the distinguished truffling and shuffling Chunk from The Goonies is now considered one of the top 35 entertainment executives under 35 and looks like this! I didn't, nor did I know that by attending UCLA law school Chunk now has extensive legal advice to offer to various videogame characters with questionable habits.

These are all things I now know, thanks to Kotaku's clever post featuring Jeff B. Cohen answering legal questions from the Paperboy, Nathan Drake, Princess Peach and more. Check out all of the letters here, but my favorite is Cohen's advice to Mr. Drake regarding a few treasures he "collected" during his travels:

Also, please keep in mind that pissing off China is usually a mistake. They invented Kung Fu and have nuclear weapons. It is also generally a good idea to avoid legal entanglements with Turkey. Although it is a lovely country famous for its luxurious Turkish Baths it is also famous for its decidedly non-luxurious Turkish Prisons.

Thanks Bradonnn, for the tip!

Ghost Pirate LeChuck Tattoo made of Scumm and VooDoo

via Geekologie

Normally when I see a gamer tattoo I think to myself, "Yeaaaaah, I love games too and all, but I would really regret getting Three Starfox Moon inked all over my back." This tattoo, for obvious reasons, is an exception. First off, it's the pixelized Ghost Pirate LeChuck from the Monkey Island series, but more importantly it's my favorite and arguably the most badass version of the VooDoo Villain from the second game, Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge.

Anyway, props to the person who had the guts to get him inked all up and down their entire arm. I just hope they have enough VooDoo rootbeer available if they want to remove it! Wakka wakka wakka!

Thanks to Max Capacity of Analog Medium for this one!

Happy Friday - PixelJam's MOUNTAIN MANIAC

Yesterday my friend Rich Grilliotti over at PixelJam Games let me know that they just released Mountain Maniac, the second game in their series of "8-bit Rejects" for Adult Swim. Rich admitted that Mountain Maniac is his favorite of the two (the other being Sausage Factory with another two on the way), so you should take that as a cue to play it, now.

My best interpretation of the game's scenario is that you're a cabin fever-ed lumberjack who has gone all "King of the Mountain", sledge hammering boulders down the mountainside to destroy any cars, park rangers, bald eagles, or yeti's (++) that could potentially threaten your monarchy. The game is pixelated, humorous, and fun. Well done Rich and Miles!

In other news, today's Friday is brought to you by my favorite diddy from the Steak soundtrack:

Skatesteak - Steak OST

Update: This just in... I'll have a special little *exclusive* post on Monday from PixelJam :D

A rather large summary of games and gaming

Simply put, I've been playing a lot of great games recently but have yet to take the opportunity to summarize my experiences with them (aside from a few tweets here and there). The iPod Touch and the Wii are my top two consoles of the last couple of months, but the full array of games I've been playing include: New Super Marios Bros. Wii, Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story, A Boy and his Blob, Canabalt, Critter Crunch, Spelunky, Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor, Edge, and Borderlands. Hit the jump for the full list!

"No One Wants to Play Sega with Harrison Ford" painting by Brandon Bird

Little BAD ROMANCE, music, and Happy Thanksgiving!

I've been coming back a little empty handed lately when looking for content to post, but the ever faithful Brandon saved the day by showing me this Little BAD ROMANCE video, which brings a bit of that RAWR RAWR-AH-AH-AH-ROMA-RO-MA-MA to the adorable antics of the Little Big Planet sack-kids. Haw!

Aside from listening to "Bad Romance" all day on repeat for about two weeks (shhh, don't tell anyone), I've started to slip back into the habit of listening to electro after prepping to see Röyksopp last Tuesday. The concert was swell, particularly with a guest appearance from Karin Dreijer Andersson of The Knife and Fever Ray.

Yesterday however, at the very same venue, I had my first GWAR experience... which was definitely something else. My friend Ben describes GWAR as the "Cats (the musical) of Metal", which is very true as long as you replace the cat costumes with monster faces, gigantic armor, and outlandish prosthetic alien penises. But really, it was fantastic, and I've never been soaked in so much blood/alien bile/robot fluid/??? in my life.

Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving folks! Here's "Trucker's Delight" by Flairs for your days off!

Flairs - Truckers Delight

NES Dudes by Mitch Loidolt

Mitch Loidolt is a talented illustrator with a bounty of impressive work, but his series of NES Dudes are bad. ass. Check out this gallery of dudes on his Flickr account. My favorites are his rendition of Bowser, Qbert (the colors are great in this one), and of course the Mario Brothers (shown above).

Shout out to CTZ and our old shared feature Art Attack Fridays for this one!

Avatar Machine by Marc Owens

Avatar Machine is a system created by designer Marc Owens to emulate the sensation of the virtual avatar in real life. Owens describes on his site that "the system potentially allows for a diminished sense of social responsibility, and could lead the user to demonstrate behaviors normally reserved for the gaming environment."

Avatar Machine [LONDON] 2008 from MARC OWENS on Vimeo.

As made evident by the video, the camera feed is pretty effective in rendering the third person perspective of self that's so familiar in virtual spaces. However, I'm curious what the experience is like when the actor isn't dressed up like a polygonal Cloud Strife doppelgänger.

via  It's Nice That

Soccer Hero

Behold! This be Soccer (or Football) Hero. The good stuff gets going at 1:14, but it turns out using a fake guitar peripheral is probably the best way to execute at the end of the day. Who woulda thunk.

via Buzzfeed