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 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
Destructoid is currently having a Critter Crunch themed contest for folks to win t-shirts, game codes, and more. Lending a helping hand, Capybara's character artist Nick “Qiqo” Stephan created the above illustration for one lucky person to win a print of. Just, wow.
This pertains to my interests for the following reasons:
As mentioned previously, I am now the proud owner of a shiny PS3 slim as of last Thursday. Prompted by the recent release of Uncharted 2 and my satisfactory play of Uncharted while house sitting at Garth's place, there was really no better time to buy. Let me tell you, it has been worth every penny.
By this point you've probably heard all the acclaim going on about Uncharted 2, and every word of it is true. It's been a long time since I've sat down with a game and played as much of it as I could in my free hours to finish it. The entire game is tight, polished, and a full experience in itself, propelled by absolutely stunning graphics and environments, fun gameplay, and an engaging story of adventure and action á la a modern Indiana Jones. If you can, play it as soon as possible.
Uncharted 2 aside, the PS3 has been keeping my happy in a variety of other ways. A few nights ago I rented and watched Drag Me to Hell in that fancy blu-ray schtick everyone's been talking about, and I've already downloaded two of my favorite PS1 classics, Jumping Flash! and Rayman. Finally, I got around to buying Critter Crunch by Capybara Games and it is a puzzle game made of win and awesome (and adorable, I'm using Capybara's cute pixel wallpaper for my desktop as we speak!). As you can tell, I'm overwhelmingly pleased.
Have a great Friday everyone! Here's a little Dre Skull + ODB for the weekend:
If you enjoy drooling over walls of pixelated arcade typography as much as I do, this internet "museum" of fonts used in Namco's arcade games from the 70's to the 80's is your cup of tea. Alas, all descriptive text is in Japanese so it's a bit tricky figuring out exactly where these fonts were used, but the dipslay of them all together is overwhelming and colorful nonetheless.
Thanks Brandonnn!
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!
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.
Some of you might be asking, "Oh Tiff, why haven't you been posting lately?". Well, frankly I'm a bit embarrassed about the lack of posts, and it's been a busy past few weeks aaaanddddohEMMGEEEEE! isn't that tiny little PUG PUPPY pawing at that bottle of beer in the post below STILL the most ADORABLE.COM thing EVER. EVEN AFTER TWO WEEKS! AMIRITE?
*ahem*
Anyhoo. Been working, stressin', but on the flip-side, playing a LOT of games including Canabalt, Beatles Rock Band, Gray, Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story, and soon enough Uncharted 2 and Beautiful Katamari on a soon-to-be-purchased PS3 slim (hang around Steph and Brandonnn enough and you'll find enough good reasons to pick up a new console for the whole family).
A few weeks back I also found these super entertaining mini-games on Party-Tencho, like KOI2 and KISSMA. Even though I don't understand why you would poke a lady's forehead for points, KISSMA keeps telling me I have the "Lowest Grade Kiss", and I can never seem to get a decent score on either, they're fun, colorful, and have silly sound effects. Enough for me!
Couldn't help but post a photo of waffle Tetris this morning. It is the weekend, so don't forget to brunch!
via GamOvr
Also, I now regret assaulting any ears with those Friday videogame mash-ups, so I present to you this cover of Fleet Foxes' "Tiger Mountain Peasant Song" by First Aid Kit to clean your palette:
