Archive for March 3rd, 2007
Arcade Flyer Art Saturday: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
In honor of the upcoming film, the new game and the possibility of it appearing sometime soon on XBLA, I bring you the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade game flyer.
Produced by Konami in 1989, it was the first in what would be a long line of TMNT video games. The machine took advantage of Konami’s two and a half sized screen and could accommodate up to four players at the same time, much like it’s predecessor Gauntlet. In this side scrolling beat em up you could choose to be one of the four famous turtle brothers: Leonardo, Raphael, Michaelangelo or Donatello, each with his special signature weapon. The object of the game was to plow through the scads of enemies to save April O’Neil and Master Splinter from the clutches of the evil Krang and Shredder.
Fans of the TV show plugged countless quarters into these machines back in the day and led the way for it’s eventual arrival on to the NES under the name Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game. A series of sequels followed including NES’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project in 1990 and Super NES’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time in 1992.
Boy the art on this one really takes me back. As was popular in this time period, this flyer is done with the airbrush style like we saw with Vs. The Goonies flyer, but obviously rendered by a much more talented artist. The inclusion of the terrifying live action April O’Neil (and her truly tragic hair don’t) with the drawn turtles was also mirrored in the cabinet art and the machine’s marquee. Nothing says 1989 quite like giant hair, a canary yellow pantsuit and a nice white belt. Put Turtle Power to work FOR YOU!
Papercraft: Bahamut
I was pretty impressed by the Wolf Link papercraft, but then Kotakuite Jane sent me a link to this one that really knocked me over. This is Bahamut, and for those of you who are not Final Fantasy literate, he is a summon creature who has made an appearance in almost every Final Fantasy game (Ok, so I didn’t know it either, I had to look it up).
The model file doesn’t come with any instructions and you have to have the Asian/European language pack installed on your Acrobat Reader to open it. I downloaded it and it seemed pretty easy to figure out and not too difficult to put together. Ron over at Paperkraft.net has posted a Flickr gallery with a bunch of pics of this bad boy that you can sort of use as a guide. The Moogle model he’s got with it here is really great too. (Moogle not included.)
If anybody out there has the gumption to put this thing together, definitely send us some snapshots, the ones on the Flickr Gallery are a little dark. I’m always on the lookout for these guys, so if you happen to run across any particularly good papercraft models that you’d like to see posted here, drop me an email with a link at flynn@kotaku.com.
Bahamut Papercraft [Rapidshare]
Watch 300 Videos, Win Crackdown
Thankfully, you don’t actually have to watch three hundred videos, you only have to watch five videos for the upcoming Spartan masterpiece, 300 for your chance to win a copy of Crackdown. Sign on to Xbox Live and download the five 300 movie clips and get the special codes from each clip. Then, head on over to the official contest page and enter the codes in any order for your chance to be one of the big winners. There will be a total of three hundred copies of the game given away (clever, eh?). Oddly enough, they aren’t giving away copies of the actual 300: March To Glory PSP game. I wonder why? Hmmmm…..
300/Crackdown Contest Official Site [Warner Bros.]
[via Major Nelson]
Clip: Japanese Super Metroid Commercial
This Japanese Super Metroid commercial doesn’t have quite the same panache as last week’s Metroid II clip, but it’s still a pretty good one. The funny thing about this clip though is that while the voice overs are in Japanese, there is nary a Japanese person in the entire commercial. At first I thought perhaps this was filmed for North America and then re-purposed for Japan, but I was unable to find an English language version. I did however find the North American commercial for the same game that you can see after the jump.
More Amazon Deals: Elite Beat Agents
Not too long ago, Amazon.com started a new feature in their video games section called Deal of the Day where they offer a popular game for a really cheap price for 24 hours. Recently we saw Rockstar’s Bully for $25 and several other really great bargains. Definitely a feature to keep your eye on if you are looking to get some great games you may have missed on the cheap.
Today’s featured Deal of the Day is Elite Beat Agents for $20. For the record, I am much more enamored of Ouendan! than Elite Beat Agents, but for twenty bucks I might be able to swallow my pride and sit through the likes of Ashlee Simpson and Cher. Combine this with the earlier Castlevania deal and you can get three DS games for the price of one PS3 or 360 game with no shipping! Pretty sweet!
Deal of the day: Elite Beat Agents [Amazon.com]
JayIsGames’ Flash Game Finalists
JayIsGames, that purveyor of all things casual gaming, has been accepting entries recently for it’s second Flash Game Design Contest. While the graphic indicates that it is a January-February contest, entries have been appearing on the site as late as yesterday. The entries have all been created surrounding the “grow” style of games personified by the highly addicting Grow Cube. While it might be too late to enter that little game you’ve been tinkering with for the last few months, if you are a fan of flash based games, there is sure to be a few of the entries that will interest you. Head on over to JayIsGames to check out all thirteen entries including my favorites, Sprout and NOBuzzle Tree. Be sure you have some time to spare because nothing eats up your time quite like a really fun flash based puzzle game.
Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin On The Cheap
Here’s a hot deal for all you Castlevania fans out there. Amazon.com is currently offering Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin for the DS at the low, low price of $21.99! Also available is the sometimes hard to find Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow for $20, which seems to be the regular going rate for this title now. Both games are eligible for free shipping so you can get both of these solid Castlvania DS titles delivered to your doorstep for a mere $41. If you haven’t checked out either of these games yet, they are well worth having, especially at such a cheap price. So, fire up that credit card and get your Castlevania on!
Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin [Amazon]
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow [Amazon]
[via CheapAssgamer]
This Day in Gaming, March 3rd
1998: A study is published in major journal Pediatrics claiming that children who are obese by age 5 are twice as likely to be obese as adults. The study blames video games despite their limited historical existence during the surveyed youths’ 1965-1971 birthdays.
2000: Capcom releases Final Fight Revenge for Sega Saturn in Japan. I can’t really quip about this game because it was never released in the US, though Final Fight in 3D doesn’t sit right in my gamer stomach. Anyone out there import/rom it?
Have gaming history, trivia, or famous birthdays you’d like to see in TDIG? Drop us a line at tdig@kotaku.com
Zelda music nails the golden ratio [update]
Filed under: Culture
Video game music has gradually evolved from background noise to the focus of professional composers and entire communities of remixers. Some tunes are far more recognizable than others, and a few have become so famous that professional orchestras perform them. But what makes one song better than another? The Tanooki thinks it’s a little thing called the golden ratio.
In short, the formula illustrates a relationship between the parts and the whole of anything from buildings to faces, paintings, apple pie, and bunnies. Artists and thinkers such as Leonardo da Vinci and Salvador Dalí have known about this ratio and incorporated it into their most famous works. Whatever exhibits proportions close to the golden mean seems more beautiful, satisfying, and memorable to us. Music is no exception, and this article shows that composer Koji Kondo has incorporated the magical formula into several songs from The Legend of Zelda series.
It’s an interesting theory and certainly a great excuse to use when your grandmother wants to know why you listen to the Minibosses so often. But the real question is: do we like a game’s soundtrack because of the music itself, or because it accompanies a great game?
[Update: TheTanooki has posted a follow-up article explaining the golden ratio in more detail and answering a few reader questions.]
[Thanks, Christian]
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Weekly Webcomic Wrapup: poison mushroom edition
Filed under: Culture, Online, Polls
Last week we got a little bit bloated and decided to sign up for a crash diet. We now welcome you to the smaller, most lightweight webcomic wrapup!
For those who did not make the wrapup today, especially the avid supporters who are continuously letting us know of their comic updates, know that we still love you as we love all of our children, but that this week we wanted to go from one extreme to the other in search of that happy medium. It’s nothing personal and you don’t look fat in that dress.
Here are our picks, however few, for the week’s best webcomic, be sure to vote for your favorite!
* Note: followers of the wrapup might find this strip familiar to a Fanboys Online strip from some time back. It’s not plagiarism, it’s just a broad and easy-to-satire subject matter. [Update: Fanboys Online Scott has written a great piece defending VG Cats Scott in the comments below. Also, take note of Level 99's similar joke and VG Cats' own public admittance of the coincidence, as well as an explanation as to why this week's comic replaced the Lost Planet gag.]
Permalink | Email this | Comments
Student Postmortem with DigiPen’s Toblo
Filed under: Culture, PC, Action
Walking the fine line between simple and just plain boring gameplay is a delicate issue, especially with independent game makers. How do you make a game appealing without stripping it of the elements that keep players coming back for more? GameCareerGuide’s postmortem with the Toblo design answers just those questions, discussing the high and low points in the development process.
“Light-hearted” and “easy to play” were two key phrases in the design of Toblo, a simple capture the flag game created by a group of DigiPen students. Played in a world of colored blocks, your only goal is to capture the other team’s flag. Your weapons are the very blocks that surround you, simply walk up to anything and tear it down to load up on ammo, then dash into the enemy’s fort and let ‘em fly. Although Toblo isn’t a full-fledged game, it’s proof that a concept doesn’t need to be elaborate to be interesting.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Planetside monthly subscription going up by $2
Filed under: PC, First Person Shooters, MMO, Business
Sony Online Entertainment announced that the cost of playing Planetside is going up by $2.00 USD. For those still fighting it out in the MMO-shooter four years after the game premiered, consider this reasonable inflation. The cost as of April 2, 2007 will be $14.99 a month.
Although we’re sure that there aren’t as many people playing Planetside as there were when the game first came out, it is nice to see that SOE is continuing support. Although it’s very rare to see an increase in an MMOs monthly subscription, it certainly sounds like this action was done to allow the game to continue. They could have just unceremoniously canceled the game like EA did with Earth and Beyond years ago. Goodnight sweet Jenquai, we hardly knew ye.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl goes G.O.L.D.
Filed under: PC, First Person Shooters
Delayed once to avoid the holiday rush. Delayed a second time to add some spit and polish. Since 2003 this poor little game has been repeatedly shoved on the back burner and ignored. But now, according to publisher THQ, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl has wrapped up development is is sitting around just waiting to be shipped. This month. Seriously!
Set in an alternate-reality post-apocalyptic Chernobyl, the gritty first person shooter promises weather effects, intelligent AI, destructible objects and a robust multiplayer mode. The stuttering S.T.A.L.K.E.R. release smells a lot like the Prey delays or the now-laughable Duke Nukem Forever, but if it turns out as interesting as it sounds, maybe it can actually make a dent in the crowded FPS market.
[via Shacknews]
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
AP ignores Paris, who should we ignore?
Filed under: Culture
Yesterday the Associated Press, the wire service depended upon by almost every news organization on the planet, admitted to experimenting with a weeklong blackout on the “celebutant” Paris Hilton. GameSetWatch took note of this and discussed how former head of the Electronic Software Association, Doug Lowenstein, condemned the gaming press for granting legitimacy to Jack Thompson by writing about him and thus feeding the beast. In essence, saying the gaming press should have put a blackout on Thompson ages ago.
The thing is that if the gaming press ignores Jack Thompson, he doesn’t just go away. By reporting on Thompson and his antics, which get ever more desperate over time, we chronicle the man. When mainstream media organizations Google search Thompson, they find the gaming press’ work. It gives them a better understanding of Thompson and his work. So, other than Thompson, is there anyone or anything the gaming press should take a cue from the AP and ignore within the industry?
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
