Achievement Unlocked: Meeting Jane Jensen, Legendary Game Designer

Last Sat­ur­day I was among the priv­i­leged few invited to Pinker­ton Road , the game stu­dio and home of famed game designer and author Jane Jensen–one of my per­sonal heroes of the video games indus­try. She’s the ex-Sierra Online designer behind the suc­cess­ful ‘90s com­puter game series Gabriel Knight and more recently, one of my per­sonal favorite adven­ture games of all time, Gray Mat­ter . Last year she launched a Kick­starter project ( which I cov­ered here ) for the devel­op­ment of a new adven­ture game, which I was more than happy to sup­port. Jane’s games are like no oth­ers I have ever played, each one a blend of super­nat­ural mys­tery, puzzle-solving and sto­ry­telling that keeps you on the edge of your seat.

For the higher-tier Kick­starter back­ers, Jane invited us to an exclu­sive open house event at her beau­ti­ful Pinker­ton Road farm.

We really lucked out with the weather. After a deli­cious catered bar­be­cue lunch, we got to pre­view and play an alpha build of her upcom­ing game Moe­bius ( check out the first trailer here ) , get a tour of her home and stu­dio, and meet and greet with Jane her­self and musi­cian Robert Holmes, Jane’s hus­band who com­poses all the music for her games.

The high­light for me, which you can tell by the ridicu­lously stu­pid grin on my face, was shak­ing Jane’s hand and get­ting my pic­ture taken with her.

(Thanks to fel­low Pinker­ton Road devo­tee Michael Shaw, aka Veritas1325 for tak­ing the pic­ture and send­ing it to me!)

Here’s com­poser Robert Holmes giv­ing an impromptu con­cert on his grand piano, play­ing the main theme to Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers . I was sit­ting about ten feet away, off to the left side of who­ever shot this video (and freak­ing out a lit­tle on the inside over what was hap­pen­ing before my very eyes):

We were also treated to a con­cert by The Scar­let Furies , whose music is fea­tured promi­nently in Gray Mat­ter . Jane’s step-daughter, Raleigh Holmes, is the lead singer. They played an amaz­ing set that included orig­i­nal songs, the music from Gray Mat­ter , plus a few out­stand­ing cov­ers of clas­sic rock songs like “Sym­pa­thy for the Devil” and “House of Ris­ing Sun.”

“David’s Theme” from Gray Matter

“Safe in Arms” from Gray Matter

More pics:

The Walking Drunk and Disorderly Dead

I was on my way to the bank this morn­ing when I saw this sign:

My first reac­tion was excite­ment, think­ing the zom­bie apoc­a­lypse had finally come. Then I got a lit­tle fur­ther into town–where all the bars are–and real­ized it’s St. Patty’s Day week­end, and by “walk­ers” this sign is refer­ring to drunk and dis­or­derly white peo­ple. That’s all Bel Air, Mary­land has to offer, really. But it was fun for a few sec­onds to think  at any moment I might have to start run­ning down undead bitches with my Civic.

While I’m on the sub­ject of The Walk­ing Dead , I recently added the board game to my col­lec­tion. I picked it up at Best Buy, of all places, because I had some Rewards money. It’s pretty rare for me to walk in there and not come out with a video game of some sort, but it wasn’t for lack of try­ing. I must have hit it on a bad day because their selec­tion of games  sucked.

So instead I set­tled for some good old-fashioned ana­log entertainment.

It’s a shitty, depress­ing day out­side, so I thought it was per­fect for pho­tos con­sid­er­ing the sub­ject mat­ter. Enjoy the serene beauty of my muddy back­yard and rot­ting deck.

I haven’t yet had the oppor­tu­nity to play game, as you can prob­a­bly tell from the un-punched play­ing pieces, but already this game has a huge strike against it:

No Daryl.

It does, how­ever, have a Sin­gle Player mode just for losers like me!

The actual “board” part of this board game is pretty cool, too, because it’s made of flex­i­ble fab­ric and rub­ber, like a mat. It rolls up for stor­ing neatly in its own com­part­ment in the box. I guess you could also attempt to used it as a weapon when the real zom­bie apoc­a­lypse hap­pens, but I would not rec­om­mend that.

Accord­ing to the back of the box, this game is a “Zom­bie Apoc­a­lypse Sur­vival Kit.”

I don’t know where the game mak­ers are get­ting their infor­ma­tion, but I doubt there’s much inside this box that would save you from one zom­bie, let alone mul­ti­ple zom­bies who all want to eat your face off. If you have a good arm, maybe you could throw dice at them hard enough and take out an eye?

Are you ready to go on a World Wide Webscapade!?

Reblog­ging because 90s!

You’re still run­ning Win­dows 95, right? Some­one over at Col­lege Humor –pre­sum­ably named Dou­glas Engelbert–has cre­ated a browser-based game (and I’m using the word “game” pretty loosely here) where lit­er­ally all you have to do is scroll your mouse! Note the extreme mid-90’s aes­thet­ics. You haven’t seen graph­ics this intense since Game Genie.

[Start Scrollin’!]

Take a ride on the infor­ma­tion super­high­way to hone your scroll­man­ship and do bat­tle with the evil Scrollex! Just be sure not to miss the Jam Break at the halfway point–you’ll be rewarded with awe­some music and there’s just enough time to go get some Dunkaroos.

I was just kid­ding about Win­dows 95, by the way. Though I’m kinda secretly hop­ing there’s one of you still out there who never upgraded for some crazy rea­son, brows­ing this page on Netscape.

[via Top­less Robot ]

100 Romantic Couples from Video Games

Note to read­ers: re-publishing this list from last year! :)

It’s Valentine’s Day!  And what more could you want than YET ANOTHER list about video game cou­ples?  I know you’re excited. Don’t try to hide it.

I real­ize there’s no short­age of lists out there about video game cou­ples.  I’ve seen them all:   “Best Cou­ples”, “Great­est Cou­ples”, “Top Cou­ples”, “Worst Cou­ples”, and my per­sonal favorite, “Prob­a­bly Gay Cou­ples.”  (Etc, etc, etc.)

But on my list you’ll find roman­tic cou­ples span­ning decades of video game his­tory: cou­ples from huge, well-known fran­chises to small indie games,  as well as rare, older games you’ve prob­a­bly never played or even heard of.  There are mar­ried cou­ples, doomed/ill-fated romances, cou­ples you know/suspect are more than just friends, cute cou­ples, dead cou­ples, on-again/off-again cou­ples, and a few silly ones thrown in as well.

I began this project with a sim­ple mis­sion: put together the biggest and best unbi­ased list of canon­i­cal, roman­tic video game cou­ples that I pos­si­bly could.   And what did I learn from all this?  That romance is alive and well in video games, and I’ve got a list of 100 video game cou­ples to prove it!

(Listed alpha­bet­i­cally by game/series.)

Alan & Alice (Alan Wake)

from Alan Wake  

Elc & Lieza

from Arc the Lad

Ezio & Sofia

from Assassin’s Creed: Broth­er­hood

Dar­ren & Angelina

 from Black Mir­ror II

Ryu & Nina

from Breath of Fire

Eddie & Ophelia

from Bru­tal Leg­end

Alu­card Tepes & Maria Renard

from Castl­e­va­nia: Sym­phony of the Night

Vin­cent & Catherine/Katherine

from Cather­ine

Chrono & Marle

from Chrono Trig­ger

Max & Monica

from Dark Cloud 2

Isaac Clark & Nicole Brennan

from Dead Space 2

Dante & Trish

from Devil May Cry

Laharl & Etna

from Dis­gaea

Don­key Kong & Candy Kong

from  Don­key Kong Coun­try

Diddy Kong & Dixie Kong

from Don­key Kong Coun­try 2

Kite & Black Rose

from Dot Hack

Hero & Lady Lora

from Dragon War­rior

Dirk & Princess Daphne

from Dragon’s Lair

Earth­worm Jim & Princess What’s-Her-Name

from Earth­worm Jim

Mon­key & Trip

from Enslaved

Cecil & Rosa

from Final Fan­tasy IV

Locke & Celes

from Final Fan­tasy VI

Cloud & Tifa

from Final Fan­tasy VII

Squall & Rinoa

from Final Fan­tasy VIII

Tidus & Yuna

from Final Fan­tasy X

Gabriel Knight & Grace Nakamura

from Gabriel Knight

Dom & Maria Santiago

from Gears of War

Kratos & Aphrodite

from God of War

Ryudo & Elena

from Grandia

Dr. David Stiles & Laura Stiles

from Gray Mat­ter

Manny & Mercedes

from Grim Fan­dango

Gor­don Free­man & Alyx Vance

from Half Life

Mas­ter Chief & Cortana

from Halo

Ico & Yorda

from Ico

Lucas & Carla

from Indigo Prophecy/Fahrenheit

Jak & Keira

from Jak & Dax­ter

Roger & Jeanne

from Jeanne D’arc

Sora & Kairi

from King­dom Hearts

Edgar & Rosella

from King’s Quest VII: The Princess Bride

Maxim & Selan

from Lufia

Alex & Luna

from Lunar: The Sil­ver Star

Hiro & Lucia

from Lunar II: Eter­nal Blue

Nall & Ruby

from  Lunar: The Sil­ver Star, Lunar II: Eter­nal Blue

Mappy & Mapico

from Mappy-Land

Max Payne & Mona Sax

from Max Payne

Zero & Iris

from Mega Man

Solid Snake & Meryl Silverburgh

from Metal Gear

Samus Aran & Adam Malkovich

from Metroid 

Guy­brush Three­p­wood & Elaine Marley

from Mon­key Island

Liu Kang & Katana

from Mor­tal Kom­bat

Atrus & Catherine

from Myst

Jun­pie & Akane

from Nine Hours, Nine Per­sons, Nine Doors

Ryu & Irene

from Ninja Gaiden

Oswald & Gwendolyn

from Odin Sphere

Oki & Ameratsu

from Okami

Pac-Man & Ms. Pac-Man

from Pac-Man/Ms. Pac-Man

Kyle Madi­gan & Aya Brea

from Par­a­site Eve

Don & Adrienne

from Phan­tas­mago­ria

Phoenix Wright & Maya Fey

from Phoenix Wright: Ace Attor­ney

Ash & Misty

from Poke­mon

James & Jessie

from  Poke­mon

Popo & Nana

from Ice Climbers

Chell & Com­pan­ion Cube

from Por­tal

Prince & Farah

from Prince of Per­sia

Her­shel Lay­ton & Claire

from Pro­fes­sor Lay­ton

Jack Rus­sell & Rid­ley Silverlake

from Radi­ata Sto­ries

John Marston & Abigail

from Red Dead Redemp­tion

Chris Red­field & Jill Valentine

from Res­i­dent Evil

Leon Kennedy & Ada Wong

from Res­i­dent Evil

Claire Red­field & Steve Burnside

from Res­i­dent Evil: Code Veron­ica

Jaster Rogue & Kisala

from Rogue Galaxy

Brian & Gina

from Run­away

Yuri & Alice

from Shadow Hearts

Wan­der & Mono

from Shadow of the Colos­sus

Ryo Hazuki & Nozomi

from Shen­mue

James & Mary Sunderland

from Silent Hill

Vyse & Aika

from Skies of Arca­dia

Sonic the Hedge­hog & Amy Rose

from  Sonic the Hedge­hog

Shadow the Hedge­hog & Rogue the Bat

from Sonic the Hedge­hog

Spyro & Cynder

from Spyro the Dragon

Fox McCloud & Krystal

from Star Fox Adven­tures

Ryu & Chun Li

from Street Fighter

Mario  & Princess Peach

from Super Mario

Toad & Toadette

from Super Mario 

Lloyd & Colette

from Tales of Sym­pho­nia

Jackie Esta­cado & Jenny Romano

from The Dark­ness

Link & Zelda

from The Leg­end of Zelda

Neku & Shiki

from The World Ends With You

Johnny & River

from To The Moon

Derek & Angela

from Trauma Cen­ter

Nathan Drake & Elena Fisher

from Uncharted

Lucien & Lenneth

from Valkyrie Pro­file

Amon & Sara

from Van­dal Hearts

San­dor & Elin

from Vay

Thrall & Jaina Proudmoore

from World of War­craft

Fei & Elly

from Xenogears

Shion Uzuki & Allen Ridgely

from Xenosaga

Did your favorite cou­ple make my list?

If I don’t return your calls, texts or comments for a while…

…don’t take it per­son­ally. It’s because of this game.

Today being release day, my copy of   Ni No Kuni — Wrath of the White Witch   was wait­ing for me on my doorstep when I got home from work, just like I knew it would be. This was one of my most-anticipated games of 2013, ever since I  first caught a glimpse of the screen­shots  last April, and I can­not wait to see how glo­ri­ous it looks on my 60″ HDTV .

But this being a week­night, it’s one of those times when I have to remind myself that “grown up” things come first. As much as I want to spend the rest of tonight couch­ing it with con­troller in hand, I’ve still got some free­lance work to knock out, stuff around the house to do, and Cult Film Club duties to tend to. Being an adult sucks.

So, I just wanted to apol­o­gize in advance for when I inevitably do remove the shrink-wrap, i.e., this week­end. I might tem­porar­ily disappear!

Fun with PowerUp, the 8-bit & 16-bit Retro Camera App

I’m a sucker for cool cam­era apps, espe­cially the kind that will pixel-fy every­thing you shoot so that it looks like it belongs in an 8-bit (or 16-bit) video game. That’s what this new iOS app called PowerUp does.

Fea­tur­ing the lat­est in Blast Pro­cess­ing Tech­nol­ogy, PowerUp fil­ters your cam­era in real-time so that you can take pho­tos using the same res­o­lu­tion and color palette as your favorite retro video game sys­tems!

The app costs $1.99 and comes with four dif­fer­ent cam­era fil­ters that emu­late clas­sic retro video game systems–NES, Sega Gen­e­sis, Sega Mas­ter Sys­tem, and Turbo Graphx 16. Here’s what they look like:

Nin­tendo Enter­tain­ment System

Sega Genesis

Turbo Graphx 16

Sega Mas­ter System

I KNOW, I’m much more attrac­tive as an unin­tel­li­gi­ble blur of pix­els. Can you tell what I’m doing in this one?

I Spy an Awesome Kid’s Movie: Cloak & Dagger (1984)

You might recall this movie as that time the kid from E.T. got chased by spies, and some­thing or other involv­ing an Atari game of the same name. Cloak & Dag­ger is a 1984 kid-centric, spy-themed movie that stars Henry Thomas (who played Elliott in  E.T: The Extra Ter­res­trial and is really good at cry­ing ) and Dab­ney Cole­man , who I’m sure needs no intro­duc­tion (but for some rea­son I feel the need to point out I will for­ever asso­ciate him with the short-lived early 90’s sit­com,  Drexell’s Class .)

As far as lesser-known, under­rated kid movies from the 1980s go, you’d be hard-pressed to find one with as cool a plot as Cloak & Dag­ger .

11-year-old Davey, whose mother is dead and whose father is pre­oc­cu­pied with his own prob­lems, has retreated into a world of video games and an imag­i­nary hero-pal, the swash­buck­ling super­spy Jack Flack. When an FBI agent about to be mur­dered slips him a video car­tridge con­tain­ing top-secret data, Davey is sud­denly plunged into the intrigue and dan­ger of real-life espi­onage. No adult believes his story, so he must run a gaunt­let of vio­lence and vil­lainy aided only by a younger girl and the encour­age­ment of “Jack Flack” at his side. How long can a comic-book role model guide him through this encounter with reality?

[source: IMDB ]

(I know it’s kind of a cop-out to sim­ply copy & paste the descrip­tion from IMDB and not do my own full review, but here it is after mid­night on a Sun­day night, and I’m punch­ing the clock to get this post done on time. It’s been a hel­luva week.)

Awe­some kid spy stuff aside, I love this movie because of its obvi­ous ties to video game pop cul­ture, and that it’s like a cin­e­matic time cap­sule of vin­tage 80’s elec­tron­ics. I mean, look how huge those walkie talkies are! And I really like Henry Thomas as an actor too.

To make up for my lack of review, here’s a crap ton of screen­shots for you:

And here’s one last screen­shot of Dab­ney Cole­man doing that whole ” cool guys don’t look at explo­sions ” thing.

Jack Flack always escapes!

Won­der­ing what this is all about? This week’s assign­ment from The League of Extra­or­di­nary Blog­gers was a sin­gle, cryp­tic word: “spies.” Here’s how some of my fel­low Lea­guers inter­preted this obvi­ously secret message:

• The Crooked Ninja Tur­tle Gang shows off his Under­cover Donatello toy.
• Redis­cover the 80s helps us redis­cover Spy vs. Spy.
• AEIOU and Some­times Why  gets nos­tal­gic for 60’s spy films.
• For­tune and Glory Days plays with awe­some spy tech toys!
• Cool and Col­lected shows off the insanely cool James Bond 007 Secret Agent board game.

Because I’ve been a good girl this year…

…also because Tar­get was hav­ing a sale.

I finally pulled the trig­ger on the 3DS. I’ve only been lust­ing after it for the entirety of 2012, here , here and here .  I’ve been work­ing very hard lately, so I think I deserve it. I’ve been too busy and stressed out to really get into the hol­i­day spirit this year–or at least, I haven’t truly felt it yet, if that makes sense–but gift­ing myself a shiny new elec­tronic toy cer­tainly helps. The candy canes on my head were nec­es­sary, trust me.

(Side note — Ew. Jesus. I shouldn’t be allowed to take pho­tos at 2 a.m.)

I decided to go with the XL model, mainly because I skipped the DSi XL and kinda always regret­ted it. Also my eyes aren’t get­ting any younger and I know the 3DS has been known to cause eye strain, so I’d rather not squint at a smaller screen. This par­tic­u­lar model is the spe­cial 2012 hol­i­day bun­dle that includes Mario Kart 7 pre-installed on the 3DS. Kinda sucks that it’s only avail­able in blue and not red, but what­evs. The color won’t affect my enjoyment.

I’m a big fan of the Pro­fes­sor Lay­ton series of puz­zle games and have played all of the pre­vi­ous ones, so nat­u­rally this was the first game I put in my cart:

I’ve also been dying to play the Adven­ture Time game ( Hey Ice King! Why’d You Steal Our Garbage?)  so I couldn’t resist pick­ing this one up too:

Oh 3DS, how I’ve longed to hold you in my arms and now I finally have you! You know, using black and white for this photo was a good move. It really helps cap­ture the moment.

We’re going to need some time alone here, guys.

‘Robot Unicorn Attack’ Now in 8-Bit!

I didn’t think it was pos­si­ble to improve upon the per­fec­tion that is  Robot Uni­corn Attack , Car­toon Network’s famous free game that com­bines two of the most mag­i­cal (also gayest) things ever–unicorns and Era­sure music–but HOLY SHIT they did. Behold the pix­e­lated, 8-bit majesty of RETRO Uni­corn Attack!

In my world, down­grad­ing the graph­ics means upgrad­ing the fun. Seri­ously, there needs to be a retro ver­sion of EVERY game. Also — there needs to be an MP3 of this chiptune-y ver­sion of “Always” I can down­load. Like, NOW.

You can play Retro Uni­corn Attack right here , by the way. It’s free and totally worth at least 5 min­utes of your time.

(Filed under: things I didn’t get around to blog­ging about last week.)

The Modern ‘Streets of Rage’ Game We’ll (Probably) Never Get

This sur­faced on YouTube today, and as a huge fan of the orig­i­nal Streets of Rage games ( espe­cially the music ) for Sega Gen­e­sis, my 90’s nos­tal­gia was instantly kicked into high gear. Appar­ently this clip is from a pre-alpha ver­sion of a next gen Streets of Rage game that was being devel­oped by Ruf­fian Games . “It was some­thing we built very rapidly and rep­re­sents pre-pre-pre-pre (lots of pres) pre-Alpha qual­ity,” says the video description.

As much as I want to like the idea of a 3D, mod­ern­ized Streets of Rage ,  I think I’ll have to pass if this thing ever gets a Kick­starter. Dou­ble Dragon Neon proved there’s still a demand for these types of old school, side-scrolling brawlers, and retro gam­ing is hugely pop­u­lar right now. Some­times I don’t care about gor­geous graph­ics, I just want to beat she shit out of thug­gish guys with mohawks. I’d give my money to a 2D throw­back ver­sion of Streets or Rage before some­thing like this.

Anyway…cool to see some­thing Streets of Rage –related again, even if it never pans out.

5 Awesome Free Ninja Games in Honor of Ninja Day

Happy Ninja Day! If I were a real ninja you’d be dead before you fin­ished read­ing this sen­tence, but alas, I am not, so I have to set­tle for pre­tend­ing to be one in video games. I’d prob­a­bly be a pretty fail ninja any­way, what with my being a fat dis­gust­ing slob and all…maybe a slight step above Bev­erly Hills Ninja . Slight.

Any­way, to mark the occa­sion, I thought it’d be cool to share some of my favorite casual ninja games. They’re fun, they’re free, and most impor­tantly, they’re 100% ShezCrafti Approved™.

Fruit Ninja

Everybody’s played this, right? I assume no expla­na­tion is nec­es­sary, but just in case you live under a water­melon, Fruit Ninja is Halfbrick’s insanely pop­u­lar slasher where you swipe furi­ously at tossed fruit while avoid­ing bombs and try­ing for those juicy fruit com­bos. Highly addic­tive, highly rec­om­mended. Free ver­sions are avail­able for iOS and Android .

8 Bit Ninja

A sim­ple but addic­tive lit­tle game with retro style graph­ics. Move your 8 Bit Ninja left and right to avoid falling fruits and col­lect coins, which you can use to cash in for power-ups like shurikens and sai. The free ver­sion is ad-supported and avail­able on iOS and Android .

Ban­zai Blade

From Car­toon Net­work, who con­tin­ues to crank out awe­some free games like Robot Uni­corn Attack, comes Ban­zai Blade , a ver­ti­cal point-and-slash run­ner with beau­ti­ful graph­ics and sound. Slash at demons and drag­ons to skill up and unlock new blades, but watch out for bombs! Sorry Android users, this one’s cur­rently only avail­able for iOS .

Lit­tle Ninja

I like the style of Lit­tle Ninja more than the game­play itself, but it’s still pretty fun. You’re a lit­tle ninja (no shit) who floats around on a cloud as you try to sneak up behind other float­ing nin­jas to slah them into obliv­ion. My biggest com­plaint is that it can get tire­some to keep you fin­ger glued to the screen at all times, so I’d rec­om­mend play­ing with a sty­lus. The free ver­sion only pro­vides you with one minute of game­play at a time, but hey, free is free. It’s avail­able on iOS only .

NinJump

A fast and furi­ous end­less run­ner where you scale the ver­ti­cal wall and jump left and right to avoid obsta­cles and slash through ene­mies with your ninja speed. Run through shields to pro­tect your­self from enemy hits and use tra­jec­tory to cut down ene­mies. After a few min­utes of game­play (if you can last that long) you’ll prob­a­bly have seri­ous doubts about the struc­tural integrity of build­ings that tall, as I did. Free ver­sions avail­able for Android and iOS .

Now go forth, Grasshop­per, and hone your ninja screen-swiping skills!

Awesome Animated Evolution of Nintendo Hardware

Saw this over on Kotaku today and thought and it’s so awe­some I couldn’t resist re-posting. It was cre­ated by graphic designer Anthony Veloso, some­one who clearly has a deep appre­ci­a­tion for all of the col­or­ful, whim­si­cal but still classic-looking Nin­tendo hard­ware designs we’ve seen over the past 30 or so years. Start­ing all the way back in 1980 with Nintendo’s Game & Watch, this ani­mated video shows us the evo­lu­tion of Nintendo’s con­sole and hand­held designs up through 2012 with this month’s release of the Wii U.

The way it’s ani­mated and cut together is really impres­sive, and just makes me want to go home to my own col­lec­tion of Nin­tendo hard­ware (which you can check out pics of  here ) and just bask in all of that plas­tic, retro gam­ing good­ness. It’s set to some pretty kick-ass music, too.

[via Kotaku ]

Did you own a Vectrex in the 80s? Me either, but now you can on iPad.

Retro gam­ing fans rejoice, for now you can redis­cover Vec­trex , the failed, extremely short-lived game con­sole from 1982 on your iPad. The Vec­trex wasn’t any­where near as pop­u­lar as, say, the Cole­co­v­i­sion or Com­modore 64 and dis­ap­peared from store shelves by 1984–around the time I was pick­ing up an Atari 2600 con­troller for the first time. It’s a rare con­sole with a small library of even rarer games, and some­thing of a prize among retro gam­ing collectors.

Just released, Vec­trex Regen­er­a­tion is the iOS app that emu­lates the Vec­trex con­sole gam­ing expe­ri­ence, much like the equally awe­some Atari’s Grestest Hits and Activi­sion Anthol­ogy apps I’ve posted about before. The app itself is free to down­load ( get it here ) and comes with a few free games like MineStorm , but if you want the whole col­lec­tion it’ll cost you $6.99. In addi­tion to orig­i­nal titles like Ripoff and Solar Quest , there’re a few indie titles as well.

Prob­a­bly the coolest thing about the app is how it’s designed as if you’re inside a kid’s bed­room from the 1980’s, com­plete with posters all over the walls and retro-tastic elec­tron­ics.  Here’re a cou­ple of screen­shots from my iPad to show you what I mean:

I love too how you can actu­ally use the wood-paneled VCR to play old Vec­trex com­mer­cials from that shelf of VHS tapes:

Obvi­ously I never had a Vec­trex, but I think it’s pretty cool I can now get acquainted with this par­tic­u­lar slice of retro gam­ing his­tory on my iPad. Beats pay­ing out the ass for one on Ebay, anyway.

The Legend of Zelda + Skrillex = Skrillexquest

Jason Oda, the same guy who designed the AWESOME AS BALLS  Per­fect Strangers game  I’ve posted about here and here , is back with an even more awe­some game, as if that were pos­si­ble. But there are two prerequisites:

1. You must love Zelda
2. You must be able to tol­er­ate Skrillex

[Side­bar: Skrillex may be the punch­line to every joke about bad musi­cal taste (as well as jokes about bad awe­some hair­cuts ), but he’s always wel­come on ShezCrafti’s playlists–especially the emer­gency one I made that just loops ” Ban­garang”  to infin­ity. It’s amaz­ing how much more enjoy­able my morn­ing commute’s been since dis­cov­er­ing that song. So fuck all ya’ll Skrillex haters.]

Now what the hell was I talk­ing about? Oh right, this awe­some game. The premise is that a piece of dust has got­ten into a Zelda car­tridge and cor­rupted the game. No, blow­ing the car­tridge won’t work this time! You must take on the role of Link and bat­tle it out with glitches inside the game world, rid­ding the king­dom of cor­rup­tion as Skrillex pro­vides the music. It’s pretty great, actu­ally. The war­bled, bendy sounds of Skrillex’s dub­step is the per­fect sound­track for a game about cor­rupt cir­cuitry. It’s as if “Scary Mon­sters and Nice Sprites” was MADE for this.

Check out these screen­shots, then do your­self a favor and play the game :

[via Joys­tiq ]

Look at all the amazing dreams Balki helps make true!

It’s been a while since I checked in with Balki Bar­toko­mous  and asked him to help me make one of my dreams come true, but after wrap­ping up my first guest appear­ance on the  Nerd Lunch  pod­cast (which cer­tainly qual­i­fies) I was feel­ing par­tic­u­larly tri­umphant and wanted to do some­thing to cel­e­brate. The Per­fect Strangers game was the first thing that came to mind. Also fly­ing. And col­lect­ing stars. Prefer­ably col­lect­ing stars while flying.

Since I’ve already achieved my dream–well, mul­ti­ple dreams really, if we’re count­ing my scor­ing a box of Cap’n Crunch’s fabled Christ­mas Crunch cereal at the gro­cery store this past weekend–I decided to keep things casual and enter in a silly dream I made up on the spot:

Evi­dently to “fart” is not an accept­able dream, so I had to make mine a lit­tle more ambitious:

There we go. I went on to earn a respectable 72%. Not my high­est score, but enough for Balki to make my dream come true. But what­ever, that’s not why I play this game. The real fun is see­ing The Dream Board that puts everyone’s hilarious/terrible dreams on dis­play for all the world to see.

My favorites from this batch include “eat poop”, “mur­der Justin Bieber”, and the clear win­ner, “get 50 amaz­ingly hot porn stars preg­nant.” That guy was obvi­ously dream­ing big. I’m still a lit­tle unclear on how exactly one fucks a pizza, though. Also, I think some peo­ple got con­fused and inter­preted “dream” for “things you want to eat right now.”

Finally, a Game for People Who Want More Cowbell

I mean really, who doesn’t want more cow­bell? Oh, look, NOBODY.

Com­ing next month to iPhones and iPads every­where, Cow­bell Hero is the mobile gam­ing time-waster nobody asked for but every­one will play because we’ve all got a fever…you know the rest. Nat­u­rally the game’s 16-song track­list includes “Don’t Fear the Reaper,” even if it is just a cover.

It’s prob­a­bly just a mat­ter of time before Gui­tar Hero pub­lisher Activi­sion sues the shit out of Dig­i­tal Hero Games , so enjoy your cowbell-ing while you can. And hey, if Dig­i­tal Hero Games needs a Plan B when that hap­pens, they could eas­ily turn this game into Bob Ross Hero.

My search for the perfect Christmas gift has ended.

True, it’s the per­fect Christ­mas gift to myself , but still…

Those  cun­ning bas­tards at ThinkGeek  have done it again.  I don’t think $40 is too unrea­son­able for a USB-powered motion-detecting Por­tal tur­ret gun that looks and sounds just like the ones from the game and actu­ally  does cool things . Sadly, one of those things is not shoot­ing real lasers.

I’m post­ing this on the slim chance some­one in my fam­ily will see it in time for Christ­mas.  One time I tried to explain to my fam­ily what a blog is. Never again.

Own any of these video games? You could be sitting on a lot of cash.

Remem­ber that news story from a few weeks ago about a guy who dis­cov­ered the incred­i­bly rare  Air Raid for Atari in a stor­age unit and went on to sell the game for over $30,000 ? (Shit like that just depresses the hell out of me.) Yeah, well you’ll prob­a­bly never be that lucky–but!– there was an arti­cle on Yahoo this week, Eight Video Game Trea­sures You Might Actu­ally Own , which lists some rel­a­tively com­mon games you could very well have lay­ing around your house.

Here’s what’s on the list:

• Halo Triple Pack (Xbox) $80 — $150
• Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance II (PS2/Xbox) $25 — $100
• Metal Gear Solid 3 Sub­sis­tence: Lim­ited Edi­tion (PS2) $100 — $500
• Final Fan­tasy VII — Orig­i­nal Black Label (Playsta­tion) $50 — $500
• Tac­tics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together (Playsta­tion) $50 — $300
• King­doms of Amalur: Reck­on­ing — Collector’s Edi­tion (Xbox 360) $500 — $1,000
• Steel Bat­tal­ion (Xbox) $100 — $700
• Game­cube com­po­nent cables $100 — $150

Hey, I’ve got two!

That’s like…um… *does math* $75 — $600 in my pocket, if these dras­ti­cally dif­fer­ent price ranges are to be believed. Of course, mileage will vary depend­ing upon your game’s con­di­tion and find­ing a will­ing buyer. I guess you also have to be will­ing to, you know, like actu­ally let go of stuff , which I never do.  My games are like my babies.

What video game trea­sures do you have hid­ing in your house?

I’m Going the ‘Distance’, I’m Going for Speed…

…I’m going to need more money.

I just recently found out about this Kick­starter project for Dis­tance , a futur­is­tic “sur­vival” rac­ing game that’s being made by friends of a friend…of a friend. Yeah. Some­thing like that. You know what? The rela­tion­ship is not impor­tant. What is impor­tant is that this rac­ing game looks BAD ASS, so I am more than happy to help spread the word and toss a few bucks at it.

I was already impressed with the visu­als and game­play. But the dub­step sealed the deal.

Dis­tance  is a Windows/Mac/Linux sur­vival rac­ing game that com­bines the intense action of arcade rac­ing with the explo­ration of an atmos­pheric world. You con­trol a unique car that allows you to boost, jump, rotate, and even fly through a chaotic and twisted city. The world has a mys­te­ri­ous his­tory, and as you explore you’ll be able to uncover pieces of its past. The roads are treach­er­ous and unpre­dictable with obsta­cles around every cor­ner. Instead of doing laps on a loop, you’ll be try­ing to sur­vive to the end in the quick­est time. Since your car has sev­eral abil­i­ties, it allows you to not only drive fast on the track but also upside down and on build­ings and walls! You can also fly to dis­cover new short­cuts and paths.

You can have your Gran Tur­is­mos and your Forza Motor­sports. I’m  not really into cars , so the more real­is­tic a rac­ing game tries to be the less inter­ested I become. I’ll take styl­ish, inno­v­a­tive rac­ing games like Wipe­out or cute, ridicu­lous kart rac­ers over rac­ing sims any day.

This Kick­starter project only has 3 days left. If you’re inter­ested in back­ing it , $15 gets you a copy of the game on PC or Mac, early access to the beta, AND your name in the credits.

UPDATE 11/14/2012 — They made it!

These Nintendo Roombas can vacuum my floor anytime.

I’ve wanted a Roomba ever since I saw one of those YouTube videos of cats rid­ing around on them , not to men­tion the fact that I’m lazy, but now I have a new, much cooler reason:

For SUPER iam8bit , a group art exhi­bi­tion fea­tur­ing over 100 artists remix­ing their 80’s videogame mem­o­ries, we col­lab­o­rated with iRo­bot and fab­ri­ca­tor Kelice Pen­ney to cre­ate a series of “char­ac­ter cov­ers” for sev­eral dif­fer­ent Roomba models.

Hand-made and intri­cately detailed, their func­tion­al­ity was unal­tered. And while the pres­ence of a clean­ing device might usu­ally be poo poo’d in a party sce­nario, the thou­sands of guests at the SUPER iam8bit open­ing wel­comed these crea­tures with mouths agape.

I sup­pose it was only a mat­ter of time before some­one real­ized “Roomba” rhymes per­fectly with “Goomba,” which is one of the char­ac­ters from the Mario games fea­tured in this video, along with red and green Koopa shells and an Octorok from The Leg­end of Zelda . Sadly, none of them are Metroids.

I pre­dict an imme­di­ate demand for cus­tom geeky Roomba cov­ers on Etsy.

[Thanks  OHMZ ]