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Let's close things out today with this, an attempt to rationalise Pac-Man into an actual narrative: Bottom line, drugs and outer space are a bad combination.
This picture comes from an animation that gets annoying after about like 2 seconds. Turn down your speakers if you have easily startled house pets or children around. Fair warning.
Don't Do Drugs in Space! PLEASE! [ytmnd.com]
And nine other songs, including a RickRoll (although, it's not really a RickRoll if you know its coming). Thanks to reader Mrjuandrfl for spotting an anthology of classic songs composed on Mario Paint.
It takes talent and patience to lay down these tracks with that kind of interface, is all I can say. I'm trying to imagine someone working on the percussion for "Never Gonna Give You Up." and can't believe they lasted more than six runs through that opening drum roll without quitting in disgust. Guess that means they got it right on the fifth try.
(And I can't believe I made it through a post about Chocolate Rain without the obligatory move away/breathe in joke.)
We've linked the YouTube video of the Zelda theme and Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" after the jump. The rest can be found at the link.
Theme from Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!
Chocolate Rain
Rick Astley: "Never Gonna Give You Up"
Theme from Sonic the Hedgehog
The Beach Boys: "I Get Around"
Theme from Super Mario Bros. 3
Genesis: "Land of Confusion"
Queen: "Bohemian Rhapsody"
Nirvana: "Smells Like Teen Spirit"
And weekends are made for lists, too. GamesRadar put up the seven top unrequited lust moments in gaming. The Sims, Leisure Suit Larry and, of course, the final rescue sequence in Super Mario Brothers make the list, but I think they missed about half a dozen more:
I can't friggin wait for this game to come out. Seriously. Tristan and I have actually been watching through the trilogy to prepare for the game, not the movie. LEGO Star Wars is one of the only games that the two of us played through all the way (three times, including once on the DS). I sure hope they don't tinker with the formula... and they add more multiplayer options.
Interesting read over on 1up — the history of packaging trends in PC gaming. No, really. Remember the code wheels (I had one in Legacy of the Ancients and the Legend of Blacksilver, for C64). Remember Marathon's absurd box? Remember the boatload of instruction manuals for something like Pirates!
I really love the too cute for words Grow games — nothing complicated, but cute and fun to play. There's a new game from the same creator — while not a grow game, it's a cute and quick little puzzle. And if you haven't experienced such classics as Grow Island, there's even more to go and click.
Meet In ver.0 [Eyezmaze]
You know, I can't really argue with the claim that Wes Cherry created the most-played video game ever: Solitaire for Windows (PC) which came out in the early 1990s and was installed on millions of machines worldwide. I think IGN gave it a 10/10 at the time. I kid! I kid!
But the Web site B3TA tracked down Mr. Cherry and, by all appearances, got a legit Q&A with him. A bunch of their commenters sent in questions and according to the article, Cherry got back to them about a year later. The big question, would he play ball with this kind of an interview? Oh yes, he did.
Rock, Paper, Shotgun has posted a two part interview with EA's Rod Humble on The Sims, among other things — the first half of the interview covers a lot of (non-Sims related) gaming territory, while the second focuses on the Sims. On designing the death bits:
SEGA America's blog gives gamers a look inside work at Secret Level, which just finished Iron Man for them and is cranking on Golden Axe: Beast Rider. A cool Flickr slideshow shows the team and some concepts, both in hard copy and rendered on computer. And two new screen caps, which is the video game porn you're here for.
Fondant make your blood run cold? Like something a little less labour intensive for cute desserts? Screw the game cakes, say hello to pixel cookies made using a Play-Doh Fun Factory. A photo how-to shows you how to take extruded dough sticks and turn them into the lovely creations above. Next up on the original baker's to-do list? Mario cookies using the same method.
Pixel Cookies [SeattleJonman's Flickr photostream via Wonderland]
Naturally, no one's going to chop together video of this, Youtube it and get it in Jack Thompson's hellfire-and-damnation spree of legal motions. But Popular Mechanics wrote up a list of five nonviolent pastimes in Grand Theft Auto IV and, surprisingly, you can spend a lot of time entertaining yourself with them.
Juan Gril has an interesting look up at the current state of indie games, both on the PC and on this current crop of consoles — what's currently cooking, and potential and pitfalls for the future. And where is the hotbed of radical innovation?:
Nintendo honcho Satoru Iwata, in an interview meant for an investment audience, says that if a rumoured Xbox 360 Wiimote clone in fact becomes a reality, by itself it's not much of a threat to the company's top position in console sales.
Innovating on that console is the key, Iwata explains. And if Nintendo can keep beating others to the punch on new ways to play new games, it will do just fine.
"What matters to us is whether or not we can continue to constantly create and offer new surprises one after another. If we can, then (other company's attempt to launch Wii Remote-like controller) should not be a big threat.The efforts in this field to try to appeal to a wide variety of customers are something in which we saw potential early on and that we have been working on the longest, so there appears to be no reason whatsoever why we need to be concerned."
Economic issues in MMOs and virtual worlds get a ton of attention, but less attention is paid to the 'single player economies.' Richard Knight argues they're no less important — while a bad economic setup won't ruin an otherwise good game, it can put a damper on the proceedings. I can certainly think of a few games that had economic setups that were mind-bogglingly bad in a number of respects:
Clearly, Sony has been looking to bootstrap the PS3 to Grand Theft Auto IV's launch, even if this is the first time that title hasn't released exclusively on its platform first. A news release sent Thursday by Sony's agency pointed out that GTA IV's launch provided "a vigorous lift in PS3 console sales" (according to an exec with Sony channel partner Gamestop, in the kind of comment that was clearly written and approved by no one actually connected to it).
In the same release, an analyst points out that the three previous titles, launching exclusively on Playstation first, has helped build up an installation base of loyal GTA Playstation gamers. That brings up a nagging question: If Sony and Playstation can claim (and I certainly think they can) such a strong connection to the GTA franchise, how does the inexplicable lock-up problem, which seems to disproportionately affect the PS3, affect consumers considering a purchase of that console?
Is it — I'll go ahead and put it out there — at all equivalent to Xbox's Red Ring of Death PR nightmare?
Just about everything in the Chinese gaming market is on the rise, according to a new report by Niko Partners: with the exception of internet cafés (numbers are down thanks to a ban on issuing new licenses), everything is growing by leaps and bounds. The online market jumped 71% in the past year, which is no great surprise, but the grey market success of consoles may be:
So my day job (Frengo Corp.) is like, not even a block from Capcom supreme world U.S. command in San Mateo, Calif. And equidistant to us both is the above Trader Joe's grocery, which Californians know as a go-to stop for tasty lunchtime treats for not a lot of dough. I enjoy the barbecue chicken pinwheels, even if they do pack 53 percent of my RDA of fat.
But I was in there Thursday and I noticed something.
Reader Captain Duck spotted a possible fix in the Something Awful forums: Disable your access to the Playstation Network. SA Goons (an accredited rank in GTA: Vice City) surmise that the game is looking for multiplayer connections "every two minutes or so," and if something is wrong there, voila, lockups.
Kotaku doesn't vouch for the efficacy of this measure on all consoles but the SA commenters sure do:
"THIS TOTALLY Works.""Yep, until they patch it, disabling internet access on the PS3 seems to do the job. It has worked fine for me, helped with a lot of the frustration I was having. Thanks guys"
Hola cheet meng, we gotta wholatta originals this week. Sixty-two in all. Here are some fine examples of our wares, with more after the jump. I'm gonna keep the intro short because, hey, we're putting these out in case you missed some of our work and of course you'd rather read that than listen to me talk and I'm not one of these people who doesn't know when to shut up so I'll just leave you alone and let you read what you want here and come back in an hour ...
Industry Insiders Discuss ESA, E3's Future
Five Publishers Drop Out of E3 This Year, Some Blame ESA President
Capcom Fuck Clover's Sad Panda Corpse
How To Visit The Beating Heart Of Liberty City
God Of War III To Feature Online Play?
GTA IV Multiplayer Impressions: What You Should Play First, Last And For Forever
Mario Kart Wii Review: I'm Not Angry, Just Disappointed
Rockstar Support: No GTA Freeze Fix in Sight
EA: We're After More Than "Game Of The Year" GTA IV
My Second Gaming Tattoo - Reader's Choice
