Oh! Gizmo

By Andrew Liszewski

It seems the radio just isn’t enough to satisfy today’s tech-savvy passengers. So while adding a mobile entertainment center is a solution offered on a lot of new vehicles, retrofitting one into an older ride can be kind of messy. Unless of course you manage to cram everything into a package that can easily replace the passenger side sun visor. Not only does this replacement visor include an actual DVD player with a 7-inch 16:9 display, but it also serves as a classic gaming machine with a built-in emulator. I’m not sure what classic games it can actually play (I’m assuming it runs MAME) but I know it does include a disc that’s already full of titles you just know will be amazing.

There’s also a remote control if you can’t reach 2 feet, or happen to be sitting in the back seat, as well as an integrated FM transmitter so you can play the sound through your car’s stereo. On the side you’ll find an SD/MMC slot for loading games, videos or MP3s via a memory card, but the DVD drive can also handle mixed media discs. For gaming the visor includes 2 controllers that connect to mini USB ports, but anyone playing in the back seat will have a distinct disadvantage because of the 7-inch display.

It’s available from Chinavasion for about $100.

[ Sun Visor DVD+Game Player ] VIA [ technabob ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Here’s an easy (albeit expensive) way to class up your board game night. Just throw away that old cardboard Clue game and replace it with this Premier Edition. The gameboard is a wood-paneled box that features nine sunken three-dimensional rooms complete with decorations and even miniature furniture. Unfortunately all of those miniature rooms are off-limits since they’re covered by a non-removable piece of tempered glass. Also, I suspect that Colonel Mustard has been replaced with Colonel Grey Poupon, and instead of killing people with weapons, the characters all commit various levels of corporate crime. Now that’s classy!

Clue Premier Edition is available from Restoration Hardware for $149.

[ Clue Premier Edition ] VIA [ Uncrate ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Javier Segovia is a graphic designer working in Spain who occasionally turns his attention to concept designs for actual products. The reNESED is his take on the NES gaming console from yesteryear, and is hands down a big improvement over Nintendo’s original design. Of course it’s a bit easier to design shiny, curvy hardware these days thanks to 3D software and advanced manufacturing techniques (see the PS3) but the reNESED is still a nice piece of eye candy. Of course if I was redesigning the NES console I would have to incorporate some kind of automatic blowing mechanism to minimize the risk of me getting light-headed while playing. That, or actually fix the problem that caused games not to load correctly.

[ reNESED ] VIA [ Kotaku ]

By Andrew Liszewski

While Doom usually gets most of the credit for being the first great first person shooter, 16 years ago yesterday Id Software released Wolfenstein 3D which deserves just as much credit. It technically wasn’t the first FPS either, but thanks to a shareware version the game spread across PCs like wildfire. I also think it helped to foster the concept of the ‘adult’ or ‘mature’ game since it had you running around shooting Nazis and even attack dogs with all manner of machine gunnery. (It was even banned in Germany because of the Nazi themes.) Of course Wolfenstein 3D paved the way for Id to make Doom and Quake which also helped the PC to become the place for first person shooters. (Until Goldeneye on the N64 showed up.)

So Happy Birthday Wolfenstein 3D. And if you’re in the mood for a little nostalgia while at work, I recommend checking out the WolfenFlash 3D flash game which is a pretty close facsimile of Wolfenstein 3D that can be played right in your browser.

[ May 5, 1992: Wolfenstein 3-D Shoots the First-Person Shooter Into Stardom ] VIA [ Kotaku ]

By Andrew Liszewski

A few weeks ago Microsoft announced a new partnership with the non-profit organization Companions in Courage which is dedicated to supporting families with children who are dealing with life-threatening medical conditions. As part of the partnership, Microsoft will be supplying hundreds of standalone Xbox 360 kiosks to children’s hospitals across the country. The first wave of kiosks have been installed at the Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital of New York-Presbyterian, the Children’s Hospital & Regional Medical Center of Seattle and the Children’s Hospital of Orange County, California. Not only will the kiosks feature games, TV shows and movies, but they’ll also be all connected to each other with a special version of the Xbox LIVE network allowing kids from one hospital to interact and play games with kids from another.

The customized and hospital-friendly Xbox 360 kiosks are pre-loaded with a variety of E and E10+ rated games, Y-rated television programs, G-rated movies, as well as Xbox LIVE Headset and LIVE Vision Camera capabilities, which enable patients to communicate over a dedicated Xbox LIVE network. This network, created just for Xbox 360 kiosks and consoles in children’s hospitals, allows patients to play games over Xbox LIVE, but limits chat via voice, text and video to only those children playing from select hospitals across the country. The Xbox 360’s industry-leading parental controls, known as Family Settings, will be used to help restrict access to content outside of ratings parameters, as well as the times during which patients can use the kiosks or consoles.

And if you want to help bring more 360 kiosks to other hospitals you can visit the Companions in Courage website at http://cic16.org and make a donation.

[ Xbox 360 Kiosks Bring Games and Entertainment to Children’s Hospitals ] VIA [ Kotaku ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Speaking of driving, it seems the days of drivers ed courses involving gory safety videos and folding chair simulators are long gone. Today’s teenagers will soon be able to prepare for the written portion of their driver’s license exam with the recently announced Drivers Ed Portable for the Nintendo DS. The game was developed by DreamCatcher Games and JoWooD Productions with the intention of providing a fun way for new drivers to study the material. And while I don’t have anything against edutainment, I just hope this title also manages to get across how serious the rules of the road really are. (Note to new drivers, you won’t ever have to deal with red shells in real life.)

Drivers Ed Portable will feature two modes: Test and Train. Test mode will include sample tests for the written part of the driver’s license examination for all 50 US states, 13 Canadian provinces and territories, as well as Spain, Italy, France, Germany and the United Kingdom. User progress will be tracked, so the player will know where they need to improve their study in order to be successful in their actual test. Train mode will include three fun and educational mini-games targeted to new drivers.

Drivers Ed Portable should be available in the Fall of this year, presumably in all of the supported countries.

[ MAXCONSOLE - Drivers Ed Portable announced for DS ]

By Andrew Liszewski

You probably already know about the online flight simulator that lets you ‘fly’ a virtual plane over the satellite images provided by Google Maps. Well here’s a similar idea, but instead of flying a plane, you actually get to drive a miniature car over the standard street maps view. Once googleDrive is loaded you simply enter the city where you’d like to cruise around and you’re off to the races. The car is confined to the actual streets (the yellow and white areas) though I have noticed you’re able to drive across the occasional shopping mall and other gray areas that usually indicate a structure. You’ll probably tire of it pretty quickly unless you’re especially bored, but can you think of a better way to earn your paycheck on a Thursday morning?

Head over to phatfusion where you can try out googleDrive yourself.

[ googleDrive ] VIA [ OpticalPoptitude ]

By Andrew Liszewski

I guess ‘controversy’ isn’t the best way to describe this, but apparently if you look very closely at the cover art for the Wii version of Okami you’ll actually see an IGN.com watermark in the background. I first read about the discovery on Kotaku last week and I had to check it out for myself. Sure enough, if you find a copy of the game and look exactly where my finger is pointing, you’ll see the logo. It’s pretty faint and easy to miss, but it’s definitely there.

I can only assume that the artist responsible for creating the cover art for the Wii version of the game had a hard time tracking down the artwork used for the original PS2 version from a couple of years ago. And IGN.com just happened to have a hi-res version of the artwork available on their site. A lot of people think the artist responsible for this should lose their job, but anyone who’s worked in graphic design knows that getting hi-res or vector artwork from a client isn’t always easy. (Even if it was all done internally at Capcom.) There have been too many times when I’ve asked for a print-ready version of a logo only to get a 200px wide JPG taken from a company’s website. So while I’m willing to give the artist the benefit of the doubt, I am kind of surprised they didn’t at least try to hide or blur the watermark before it went to print.

And if you’ve already purchased a copy of the game featuring the offending IGN.com logo, you can actually request a free replacement sleeve from Capcom via their website.

By Andrew Liszewski

Got a stack of NES carts at home that you’ve been dying to play while traveling? I didn’t think so. Given the capabilities of the PSP and even the DS, I’m kind of surprised anyone would even want a portable way to play old NES carts when they can be so easily emulated. But the FC Mobile portable system does just that. It looks like a slightly fat, overly curvaceous version of the Game Boy Micro, but that’s mostly because of the slot on the back designed to accommodate NES cartridges.

You can either play the games using the FC Mobile’s 2.4 inch LCD color screen, or use the included AV adapter cable to hook it up to a television and enjoy all that 8-bit goodness on your hi-def display. It’s powered by 3 AA batteries, comes in a red & white or silver & black color schemes and appears to only play North American NES games.

Unfortunately the only place to pick one up right now is on eBay, where they range in price from around $30 to $60.

[ FC Mobile NES Game Portable LCD System ] VIA [ technabob ]

By Evan Ackerman

I haven’t been this excited for a video game in, I don’t know, forever? It’s been a long, long time coming, but Will Wright’s epic, epic bacterium-to-universal-domination game Spore is… Um… Still not ready to go. But the good news is that the Spore Creature Creator, the core of Spore if you will, is going to be release stand-alone in June. The retail version will be $10, or you can try out the demo version, which allows access to only 25% of the available body parts.

I got to try out the Creature Creator at Yuri’s Night, and it was very easy and very, very fun, with almost unlimited possibilities for designing both the simple and the complex. From what I saw, little kids were by far the most creative, able to sit down and (with zero practice) create some of the most awesomely bizarre life forms. Adults, on the other hand, seemed very concerned with practicality and mostly made creatures that resembled dinosaurs. Check out a few pics of took, after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »