While a digital facsimile could probably be created in Flash in an afternoon, I like that Jeff Highsmith took a completely (well, almost completely) mechanical approach to his Peak 97 arcade game. It features a couple of articulated climbers with sharp pointy hands and feet that climb a sloped plywood wall covered in carpet. The climbers are controlled by a twin dial remote, and two players can compete to see who gets their mountaineer to the top of the peak first. It’s powered by Arduinos and other cheap electronicy bits, as Jeff’s goal was to build it with as little investment as possible. But it still looks like it would be a great addition to any games room, and since the climbs are timed, there’s plenty of room for competition.
While the sun may have set on the WoW culture of non-stop, never leave the house obsessed gamers, the love of PC gaming still lives on. Fans of faster games are as competitive as ever and always looking for every edge to get them one more capture or one more kill. Razer thrives of the frenzy of hardcore gamers and produces some of the finest gaming accessories available. Recently they released a new version of their wildly popular Mamba mouse with dual sensors: laser and optical. Again the Mamba mouse has a split personality, it can operate in both wired and wireless modes.
Razer has also included highly customizable software for programming its 7 buttons and even the LED backlight color of the scroll wheel. Adaptive sensitivity and variable acceleration as well as other values can be saved into multiple profiles to accommodate different needs for games or work. Razer threw in more than a few updates to this now classic palm-fitting mouse and retained almost all of the attributes that made it great. To see more details on the upgrades and performance, check out the full review at Everything USB.
Since it’s not available on Nintendo’s Virtual Console, and probably never will be, my old N64 is the only way I can still play Rare’s classic shooter Goldeneye. But this most recent portable N64 conversion, as massive as it may be, is probably the only way I’d ever consider sacrificing my old console. The ‘who’ part of the conversion is currently lacking in details, but the ‘how’ is elaborately detailed in over 75 photos you can find here. I mean some of the more technical bits are obviously lacking, but if you’re confident enough to even try and attempt a mod like this, you’re probably already competent enough to figure that stuff out on your own.
While I don’t necessarily ‘get’ the appeal of video game simulators, I understand that it can give enthusiasts an experience they would otherwise not be able to afford in real life. Case in point, flying. The Cessna Skyhawk is arguably one of the cheapest and simplest airplanes you can buy. And even though it’s the best-selling aircraft of all time, a new one will still set you back close to $300,000. Not to mention the cost of fuel, insurance, hangar rental etc. The list goes on and on. But you can recreate a slightly similar experience at home with a decent gaming PC, a well-respected flight simulator title, and about $450 worth of Mad Catz new officially branded Saitek Cessna flight sim controls.
The trio includes a yoke, rudder pedals and a trim wheel/throttle control panel, all modeled off the real things found in the cockpit of a Cessna 172 Skyhawk. The yoke also comes with the addition of extra buttons on the ends of the controls, including a hat switch for easily changing your point-of-view mid-flight. And if you order them now from Mad Catz’s GameShark online store they’ll even throw in a $100 switch panel for free. All you need to provide is a desk to clamp everything to. (And the smell of aircraft fuel and the deafening roar of the engine to complete the Cessna experience.)
Do you always find your thumb sliding off the Nintendo 3DS’ analog control stick during an intense gaming session? Of course you don’t! But Cyber Gadget still wants to sell you this set of add-on covers that supposedly add a bit of extra grip to the 3DS’ sliding analog control stick. Available in 3 colors, presumably to match the color options of the 3DS itself, the pads appear to mimic the finishes of the analog sticks on the Xbox, PS3 and even the PSP. And since I’m assuming the 3DS’ clamshell design won’t close with this attached, it includes a strap holder so it can dangle off the side.
Available 5 days from now on July 30, though pricing information has not been specified just yet. They’ve got plenty of time though right?
Kotaku has a great post this morning about the CVC, or Control Video Corporation’s GameLine Atari 2600 cart which let you download games over a phone connection, way back in 1983. The $60 cartridge was both a storage unit and modem in one, and rolled into the cost was a year’s subscription to the GameLine service which was the only way you could download titles. At launch there were about 75 games available, and the idea seemed very promising, even given what we would consider pretty dated technology at this point.
Unfortunately you’ve probably never heard of the GameLine cart because it wasn’t exactly a runaway success. The company was never able to sign any of the big game publishers of the time, and there was an additional $1 fee to download a game. A game that would actually ‘expire’ after a week’s time, requiring you to buy it again if you wanted to keep playing. (So in fact it was more like a rental service.) The crash of the video game market in the mid ’80s took the GameLine with it, but apparently many of the people behind CVC went on to form a new company called Quantum Computer Services, which also dabbled in online gaming. Never heard of them either? That’s because in 1991 they changed their name to America Online, and eventually, AOL…
Half art piece – half playable game that actually looks pretty fun, ‘Tetris analógico’, or ‘Analog Tetris’, is exactly that. A larger version of the game that launched the original Game Boy requiring you to physically position and assemble the tetromino pieces as they slide down an inclined playing surface. Pieces are fed by dealers, complete with stylish visors, and instead of clearing lines the goal is to get all of the pieces to assemble together below the yellow line. So if you leave too many holes open, or aren’t quick enough, you’re going to lose.
But besides turning Tetris into a more physical activity, I particularly like that Analog Tetris opens up more opportunities when it comes to cheating. Don’t have room for a specific piece at the moment? Throw it away or hide it in your jacket until you’ve got the space for it. Or, a large cash donation should put you in cahoots with the dealer, ensuring that the piece you need will always fall at the opportune moment. The downside? You don’t get that oddly satisfying sound effect when you clear four lines at once like in the digital version of the game.
There’s no paddles, no score and no ultimate goal, but Niklas Roy’s PONG! Augmented Pixel game still looks like it would be incredibly fun to play with, and hard to walk away from. He describes it as a sort of sandbox game, not unlike GTA, but not anything like it either. Built as a standalone hardware box, the game has a single video input which takes a live feed from a video camera, and a video and audio out for connecting it to a television. In fact the electronics inside are fairly simple by today’s standards, and Niklas believes his device could have easily been built back in the 70′s. Though it would cost heaps more than it does today.
Instead of paddles, the white ball seen on screen bounces around between two white lines, but it can also interact with a dark object in the video feed. So you can use your hands, fingers or anything with adequate contrast to be a makeshift paddle. The lack of scoring might make it seem like a useless tech demo, but seeing it in action below makes it look pretty addictive. The old school video game sound effects at boot-up and while playing are a nice touch too.
A day doesn’t go buy when I don’t find some random gadget, device or contraption that I want. I guess it’s the nature of writing about this stuff for a living. But today’s ‘WANT’ is probably even more intense because it’s something I can’t actually buy anywhere. This impressively detailed miniature Space Invaders arcade cabinet was created by YouTube user ‘vcoleiro1‘ who posted a clip of his creation online. If you’re like me, you’ll be wishing you’d taken up soldering years ago so you could pull off a mod like this yourself.
The 7-inch tall cabinet was built with 6mm MDF, painted and then decorated with official SI arcade machine graphics which were printed on glossy decal paper. The best part of the mod however has to be the tiny joystick and arcade-like buttons which were purchased from Digikey.com and eBay, and wired onto the GBA SP’s mainboard. Providing a more authentic gaming experience than previous mods that just used the GBA’s standard button layout. The back of the cabinet also opens allowing you to easily swap in other game carts, or let’s be honest here, a supercard so you can load it up with thousands of easily accessible titles.
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