The answer is still “Yes, it is”, but Cousens fantastic Photoshop tutorial, in which he walks us through the step-by-step creation of his “Broken Link” digital painting, is extremely helpful in touching on the finer points of advanced techniques. A bit of computer arts knowledge wrapped in a tasty Majora’s Mask coating might just spurn you too to up your Photoshop game.

Cousens’ tutorial warns that this tutorial is not for the beginner, but for those “comfortable with radial gradients, overlay layers and clipping mask layers and have a good foundation level of artistic skill.” Still, even for the Photoshop clumsy, it’s a gorgeous little walkthrough.

Thanks for sending it our way, David.

Advanced Tutorial: Creating ‘Broken Link’ [PSDFAN.com]

Nintendo has never been afraid of mining its own past for new product ideas — take the DS’s dual screen design that echoes Nintendo’s own Donkey Kong multi-screen Game & Watch.

The Wii Vitality Sensor appears to be another Nintendo dip into its own R&D backlogs. As game blog Game|Life points out, back in 1998, Nintendo released the “Bio Sensor” along with Tetris 64. The peripheral read the player’s pulse by clipping onto their earlobe as opposed to the player’s finger. The Japan-only Bio Sensor allowed players to speed up or slow down Tetris 64 based on heart rate speed.

The Bio Sensor was only supported by Tetris 64 before it flatlined. Nintendo is going to need a steady pulse of Wii titles for the the Wii Vitality Sensor to keep this new peripheral alive.

Nintendo ‘Vitality Sensor’ Already Appeared on N64 [Game|Life]

In a word, Perfect Dark looks sharper, thanks to its high-definition upgrades and “sporting a silkier framerate than ever before.” In hard numbers, that translates to 1080p resolution and 60 frames-per-second. The official Xbox.com product page also touts “All the original game features are included plus new Xbox LIVE ones.”

First screens of the Xbox Live Arcade port of the 2000 classic await you in the gallery below.

…things turn out remarkably well. This mash up of Team Fortress 2 classes and the original intro for Nintendo 64 fighter Super Smash Bros. is a near-perfect shot-by-shot recreation created in Garry’s Mod.

Friends and classmates of the video creator tipped us off to the painstakingly rebuilt Super Smash Bros. homage, which wins points for using the Scout’s trademark Six Million Dollar Man “Wananananana…” imitation and inclusion of a biplane from a Team Fortress 2 community made map.

Team Fortress 2 – Super Smash Brothers 64 Intro [YouTube]

This screenshot from developer Rare shows what appears to be an icon for its Nintendo 64 first-person-shooter Perfect Dark in an Xbox LIVE folder.

That’s funny, because the game isn’t out on Xbox LIVE as a re-release. It would make sense though — Rare has started bringing other Nintendo 64 classic titles to XBLA. (Case in point: Banjo-Kazooie.)

IGN contacted Microsoft about the image, and the company replied it had “nothing to announce at this time.” We are following up with Rare.

Perfect Dark Coming To XBLA? [IGN via NextDoorGamer]

Nintendo may be the console king of the mountain, thanks to its runaway success with the Wii and Nintendo DS. But it wasn’t always so, as Edge Online explores.

Before the glory of motion control and touchscreen gameplay reversed Nintendo’s fortunes, it settled for third place in the console wars, delivering the sometimes spectacular, sometimes mediocre Nintendo 64 and GameCube. Edge is currently looking back at the company’s generation transition pains from way back in 1996, some of which you may already be intimately familiar with.

It’s a fascinating read, even for someone who distinctly remembers reading the Next Generation magazine that previewed the Nintendo 64, its slate of games, its “Project Reality” technology, when the 64-bit console was full or promise, but seriously lacking in games.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the article for me is looking back at the list of games promoted as in development for the Nintendo 64 in video publications like Next Gen. These include third-party titles like Dragon Quest VII and Final Fantasy VII, as well as planned Nintendo titles like Kirby Bowl 64 and Buggie Boogie. While the former pair’s relocation to the PlayStation indicated a massive change in console leadership, the latter two show how little of what was promised for the N64 made it to reality.

And Turok: Dinosaur Hunter was a US$79.99 game? Yikes.

It’s a good history lesson and cautionary tale. Worth a read.

Looking Back at 1996: Nintendo’s Fall, Part 1 [Edge Online]

A pair of Mario 64 enthusiasts have reinterpreted the rules of Super Mario 64, resulting in a clever and at times hilarious way to play the Nintendo 64 classic—in short, avoid the 1UP mushroom.

The secondary goal in this particular Super Mario 64 challenge is to collect all eight red coins while being consistently haunted by the mushroom. In the N64 version of the game, the mushroom has the ability to fly—at speeds slower than Mario—until it touches the player. And it will not stop following the player until it succeeds, not unlike an inverted Terminator.

Yes, it takes a little while to get going, but the excitable narration, even in Japanese, is top notch. The entire series of videos can be watched at YouTube.

Super Mario 64 Challenge [YouTube via NeoGAF]

Playing as super buffed up hunky dudes can make men insecure, according to a Kansas State study. But read on, if these stories are correct, this piece of scholarship has some serious problems.

The study’s investigators themselves say other factors may contribute to one’s perception of body-image. But, after watching groups of men and women play video game characters with “extreme” male and female body types, respectively. In as little as 15 minutes, both genders showed negative body-image behavior.

Two things: 1) It doesn’t take 15 minutes of a video game to make a dude conscious of his spare tire. Any reasonably attractive woman strolling into the room produces a response called “gut-suck-in-itis,” which is believed to be vestigial mating behaviour from our days as savage eohippus-slayers and monolith-touchers.

Secondly, I did some searching around, and an AP story vows up and down the male study’s game was — record scratching sound — “WWF Wrestlemania 2000.” That’s right, a fucking Nintendo 64 game. And if that is enough to give a guy a complex, then our self-esteem is far, far more brittle than that of any girl gamer facing down the jiggly queens of Soulcalibur.

Oh, the AP story said the womenfolk played a volleyball game. Please, please, please let it be Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball.

Anyway, I am not a psychologist or a scientist of any kind of training, but as presently described, these findings aren’t worth much. Sure, I don’t make a super-realistic avatar when given the opportunity, but I’m not sent into depression just because I don’t look like Kratos. Come to think of it, it would be depressing if I looked like the Roid Dealer to the Gods.

Study: Gamers Self-Conscious To “Extreme” Body-Types [Endsights]

Check out the late night cable TV spot after the jump. It’s MAXIMUM RISKY stuff, Diddy Kong Racing this ain’t.

The most Risque Nintendo commercial ever [Infendo]