Part Of A Well-Balanced Breakfast
My mother always told me not to waste food, and well, I imagine that the mother of this creative dude did so as well. Still, after seeing her son’s epic creation, I imagine that she’ll forgive him. Toast Mario stands as a delicious monument of creativity, and I can’t even begin to imagine the time and attention that would have to have gone into this. I don’t even have the attention span to count how many pieces of bread went into this thing! Now, just imagine how much patience you’d have to have to get every piece cooked to just the right color.
Oh man, mad respect to these guys. Alas, I can’t properly credit them, as the Walyou post doesn’t name them and the original source is currently down, but I hope that their toast was delicious.
Speaking of delicious, a couple of my other favorite nerd breakfast treats are past the cut.
source: Walyou
This Cylon-themed toaster should be no surprise. Come on, robot-branded toast and clever wordplay? Perfect.
I’m also a fan of the Hello Kitty waffle iron. Let me tell you, from experience, that those kitty-shaped waffles are delicious.
Chime In: Playing Games On More Than One Device
Posting about Puzzle Quest 2 yesterday got me thinking about something. With all of the interconnected devices that we have now — the Wii and DS, the PS3 and PSP, and the Xbox and PC (through Live) — why don’t we have games that we can start playing on one device and continue on the next?
Square Enix did something like that with FFCC: Echoes of Time on the DS and Wii, where both devices could play the same game together, but I’m looking more for a way to start playing on your console at night and pick up on your handheld on the way to work the next morning. Take Puzzle Quest, for instance. I bought it on both my DS and on my 360. The reason I got the 360 version was to play online, but I had to go through the whole game again, just so I could use my character to duel some friends online. Wouldn’t it be nice if I could have uploaded my save game and started from where I was in the DS version?
Thinking about it, the only game I can think of that does something similar to this would be Pokemon Stadium. It would take your existing Pokemon and upload them to the console so you could duke it out on the big screen.
Is cloud gaming the solution to this? Last week, Greg mentioned that Steam was coming to Mac. Valve said that with Steam Cloud, you’ll be able to continue playing your games from either Mac or PC. Microsoft is also introducing this with their newly announced Windows Phone 7 device on the Live platform, allowing you to start from where you left off on any Live-enabled device.
So I guess we’re getting there. I’m just wondering why it took this long, since we’ve had interconnected devices for years. What do you think?
GDC 2010 - Puzzle Quest 2
Puzzle Quest 2 kind of slipped past my radar during GDC, but a friend told me that it had been announced and shown, so I decided to dig up the info available.
Being a fan of the first one, I was glad to hear there would be a bigger focus on the RPG and story part of the game, while keeping the game mechanics unchanged. The change in mechanics in Galactrix was what turned me off.
You’ll start by choosing your class and gender, either a Templar, Sorcerer, Barbarian, or Assassin. Some of the new mechanics involve being able to use your weapon via the new gauntlet tile. Let’s say you have an axe as a weapon, and it takes 3 gauntlet to deal 5 damage -> like skills, once you get enough gauntlet your weapon will light up and you’ll be able to trigger it to deal some damage.
The overworld map is gone, with the game taking place in a single town and its deep dungeon. So this would make it a dungeon crawler. The quest you’ll get in town will send you exploring the depths of the dungeon. Once in the dungeon, you can either focus on doing your quest or just killing monsters that are on the screen. Once you engage a monster, the battle begins in regular puzzle quest fashion, on the battle grid.
The game is coming out on the DS and XBLA this spring, with some minor difference.
On the DS you can only carry 27 items compared to the unlimited storage of the XBLA game. Multiplayer is adhoc on the DS and online on the 360.
IotD - First Scott Pilgrim Poster Spotted
“An epic of epic epicness” pretty much says it all.
All except the sexual and/or violent actions that I would do to get my hands on one of those posters. If you happen to have one… E-mail me, won’t you?
Update: High quality versions of the poster are now available on the official site. (and wallpapers too!)
PSA - Donkey Kong Country 2: Serious Monkey Business
As much as I hated the pre-rendered look of the old Donkey Kong Country games, I have to admit that that series had some seriously awesome music. So, I was pretty excited to see that OverClocked ReMix has finally released their epic remix of DKC2’s soundtrack.
The album, Serious Monkey Business, has been in the works since late 2007 and has involved a ton of blood, sweat, and tears on the part of the artists involved (including the game’s actual composer, David Wise, as well as Rare’s Grant Kirkhope and Robin Beanland). The end result is a melting pot of a bunch of styles, from trance to rock ballad, and the little bit I have listened to so far this morning is pretty interesting.
The remixed album is completely free, so go download it or go check out a preview.
[Update] Their site appears to be down right now, keep trying the link until it works.
Game Commercials That I Wish Were On TV
I have to be honest, I hate most game commercials. They’re usually uncreative at best and outright misrepresentations of the content at worst. It’s amazing that some of the best video game advertising I’ve seen has come from commercials that developers have made for fun, clearly never intending that they appear on TV. A couple of examples of this have come out in the past week, leaving a huge grin on my face.
First up, we have Capcom’s Mega Man 10 commercial. It’s all part of the game’s faux-80’s shtick, which is probably why I dig so much. Sadly, Mega Man 10 does not include actual lasers and will probably not make your TV explode.
Dos Equis tastes like horse urine, but I have to give them props for those commercials with the “most interesting man in the world.” Atlus’ latest promo video for 3D Dot Game Heroes lampoons that ad campaign while showing off more of their 8-bit love fest, and I love it.
Both commercials are embedded past the cut. Oh, and while we’re on the topic, what are some of your favorite video game ad campaigns? Let us know in the comments.
4cr Podcast - Episode 2.01: The High Plains Gamer
I bet that’s a headline you never expected to see again.
The 4cr Podcast returns, sort of. Yeah, that’s noncommittal, but while we plan to do these every two weeks or so, we also don’t want you to be disappointed if it takes another two and a half years to put the next one out. I’d like to say that we’ve been planning this for a while, but this really came about from Jamie and I deciding to just record something and get it out there.
What should you expect from our premier episode? Well, we’re a little rusty, so we’re starting off slow. No real segments, no Vinnk (there goes 75% of our audience) - just three of us chatting about recent gaming happenin’s.
Topics discussed: 2010 Game Developers Conference, Playstation Move, Metroid: Other M, our irrational love for Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, the comfort zone of the casual gamer, Tucker’s crippling Tron addiction, and - oh god - Nick Rumas is holding me hostage at gunpoint.
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Producer Jamie Love
Director Gregory Gay
Contributors Gregory Gay, Jamie Love, Michael TuckerRunning Time 1:14:41
Podcast Timeline
Podcast 2.01 - The High Plains Gamer
00:00 Intro
01:29 Roundtable
1:12:05 OutroGDC: Metroid Creator Yoshio Sakamoto Speaks
One of the most interesting things to come out of this year’s GDC for Nintendo fans has been Metroid creator (and Other M producer) Yoshio Sakamoto’s openness regarding just about everything. He’s talked about the fabled Metroid Dread, his diverse inspirations and body of work, and he’s even shed some positive light on the prospects for Kid Icarus Wii, while seemingly shooting down any rumors of its existence in the process. He’s also hinted that Other M may have
been on-railsfeatured classic controls if not for Team Ninja’s input, and provided a comical demonstration of his Japanese hit Tomodachi Collection for GDC attendees. This guy runs the gamut.Nintendo to Develop Doctor Who Game?
Doctor Who, the quirky British science fiction series about a time-traveling drifter and his human companions, is pretty much my favorite thing on television. I’ve always loved its characters, humor, and brains - it isn’t a show about shooting aliens, and I kind of appreciate that from time to time. Ever since the rumor popped up that Telltale was seeking the license, I’ve been craving the chance to play an adventure game based on The Doctor’s travels.
Well, it looks like a game is coming out and, while Telltale isn’t on the case, the BBC might have found an even better caretaker. According to an article published today in The Sun, Nintendo has signed a £10 million deal to develop a Doctor Who game for the Wii.
Don’t expect a shooting fest from the deal, according to the showrunners, they want a game that captures the Doctor’s more cerebral style. As former Doctor, David Tennant put it:
“The video game was quite actively developed, but it’s difficult to nail as the Doctor doesn’t blow things up. He’s not Batman, who goes around smacking people in the head.”
No screenshots have been spotted yet, and Nintendo has yet to officially confirm that the game is in development. In fact, I’m still expecting that the newspaper was confused and that a 3rd party is working on the game, and that it will just happen to be on the Wii.
The article states that the game is being aimed at a Christmas release in the UK. I’m praying that BBC America can bribe Nintendo into bringing it out here. We’ll give you guys an update when this either confirmed or busted.
source: The Sun
Chime In: PlayStation Move
You’ve heard all about it, you’ve seen the pictures, and you’ve witnessed the backlash.
Sony’s PlayStation Move launches in the fall of this year, and for all intents and purposes, it appears to be a more technologically advanced take on what Nintendo did with the Wii four years ago. Its flagship title is a PS3-style take on the Wii Sports concept, and other launch titles cover the standard bases — party game, shooting game, fighting game, etc.
So what do you think? Is this something you find exciting, or is it too similar to what’s come before? Do you dig the lollipop design, or are you put off by it? Will games like SOCOM and LittleBigPlanet be enough to justify the estimated 100-dollar price tag? Chime in.