The people of Lyon, France, recently got to experience a high-tech treat. Carol Martin and Thibaut Berbezier from company CT Light Concept created an interactive installation that projects the image of a giant pinball machine onto the face of a theater, the Celestins. The setup uses 3D mapping tech and conforms to the contours and reliefs of the theater, turning these into various bumpers and ramps. What’s even better is that the whole display is playable, with the controls in the hands of people in the crowd. Yes, even sound effects are included.
Dubbed the “Urban Flipper”, the project was part of the city’s yearly lights festival.
Rovio is sure having a good old laugh all the way to the bank. Just last November we heard they had passed the 500 million download mark. Plus the Angry Birds merchandise seems to be doing quite well. And now there’s news that the company will be teaming up with activity park manufacturer Lappset Group to open two such parks in Finland in 2012. Plus a bunch more in the UK with location and exact time undisclosed.
Hopefully the new activity parks will not feature giant slingshots, lest enterprising kids actually try to hurl themselves around, as kinds tend to enjoy doing.
While it might be unfair to compare apples to oranges and gaming franchises to Hollywood movies, that’s what the cool public relations’ companies are doing these days, so let’s roll with it. It took James Cameron’s Avatar 17 days to cross the $1billion milestone and now Activision’s one-upped the man by taking one day less with Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 3. We are actually somewhat surprised as we recently reported that it took MW3 just 5 days to cross $775million. Sales tapered off rather quickly as it took another 11 days to add $225million. Still a very impressive figure and a sure sign that the franchise is nowhere near death. With next generation consoles undoubtedly in the making, get ready for many more years of this craziness.
It’s very seldom that virtual surround gaming headset gets such high approval but the Corsair Vengeance 1500 Gaming Headset proved to be a real head-turner. This latest gaming-centric but still multipurpose headset has garnered high marks for sound quality and compatibility. Almost every physical feature of it has been upgraded. The padded ear cups fit better and are more comfortable than previous models and do an excellent job of sound isolation without actually requiring noise canceling features. The cable has a nylon mesh wrapping for tangle free flexibility but warns against unwanted feline affinity.
The 5.1 and 7.1 audio driver flexibility seems to be the key feature of this headset allowing for compatibility for many old and new games alike. The 1500 provides game changing environmental awareness for games but movies and music are similarly enhanced. They appear to be very evenly balanced without favoring treble or bass. The reviewer actually seemed to struggle to find flaws with the Vengeance. In fact, the only complaints seemed to be around some of the nuances of microphone performance. Gamers that use the microphone for in-game communication are rarely concerned with music hall performance so that should be a non-issue for most. See the entire review at Everything USB for more details on this new prodigy from Corsair.
Sure to please any geek worth his salt, these Space Invaders chocolates have had a lot of effort put into their manufacture. There’s an entire section dedicated to this (which is in the links below, but impossible to link to directly, so just scroll down a little), but you should know that there’s 3D CAD, a CNC machine and thing called a “granite melangeur” involved. The Costa Rican beans are hand sorted and the finished product is packed in a limited edition, laser engraved gift box, along with a postcard, a sticker and a mini poster. All this hard work obviously translates into quite a bit for what you’ll essentially just melt in your mouth: $25.
There’s talk that the recipe and cad file will be released at some point so you can try your hand at tempering (read: not such an easy process) your own Space Invaders chocolates.
So this took about 20 years too long, but here’s a portable Super NES. Yeah, as in the entire system in your hands. The SupaBoy can use any of your own SNES cartridges and even Japanese Super Famicon. Enjoy portable gaming the way you wished the Gameboy could have been, in full color on a 3.5 inch display. There’s even a TV out socket and two slots for classic controllers, in case you want to travel back in time a couple decades. The battery should be good for a disappointing 2.5 hours and if your friends start getting annoyed at the Super Mario Bros. music, there’s a headphone jack. Although quite frankly, if you have friends like that, you need to upgrade…
If we’re in an improbable future, and the Mario Bros. franchise has taken a penchant for the slightly macabre and gritty, then this is what the player selection screen looks like. It’s the creation of one Jonathan Fletcher, and it’s “made in UDK, characters modeled in 3ds Max/Zbrush and textured in Photoshop.”
Oh, but that picture doesn’t do it justice. Do yourself a favor and watch the short video below. Only don’t expect anyone to press “Start” like we did; it can be disappointing.
Now that trampling season is over (aka, Black Friday and alternatively, pepperspray season), it’s time to fully turn our attention to the Holidays. Some would argue that this has been the case since Halloween ended, but who’s really counting? The important thing is that it’s now time to spend lots of cash while remembering Santa’s birthday or something. And in true spirit fashion, it’s time to put the wreaths out. Gamers at heart should check this out:
Crafted of durable EVA foam, the 8-Bit Wreath features shiny gold coins with blinking yellow LEDs, cherries, a controller, a pair of cherries, and a certain green mushroom in a Santa hat, among other goodies.
It’s only $15 but it’s currently out of stock. Should be back on the virtual shelves soon enough though, around December 1st.
While it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, we find it frustrating to discover that Sony will likely be selling overpriced, proprietary and (worst of all) sometimes required memory cards with the upcoming PS Vita. Prices will range from $30 for a 4GB card, all the way up to $120 for the 32GB version. Bad as this is on its own, 7 of the 21 launch titles (in Japan) will not work at all without one of the memory cards. A standard 32GB SD card costs somewhere in the $40 to $60 range. Prospective owners of the PS Vita are going to get gouged, once again.
This is nothing new, as anyone who’s been watching Sony over the last few decades well knows. From the failed Betamax, to MiniDiscs to freaking MemorySticks, Sony always goes its own ways and follows no standards. While there was a time when they could almost get away with it, the consumer electronics landscape is changing and we look forward to the day when these clearly abusive and arrogant tactics come back to bite them in the ass.
The PS Vita launches December 17 in Japan, and February 2012 in the US.
Related Tags: Art, cool, Gaming
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