Oh! Gizmo

By Luke Anderson

I’ve discovered that I’m the kind of guy who finds himself baking something tasty at least once a month. I don’t really have a love for baking, nor am I usually making something for a get-together. Rather, I just happen to like the taste of cake and cookies, so I’ll just end up making some for myself instead of conning someone else into doing it. As a gamer, I’ve been wondering how to represent my gaming affection with my baking tools. (Okay, I haven’t actually been wondering that, but just play along.) So how does one do that exactly? With Pac-Man oven mitts of course!

The Pac-Man HotHead Oven Mitts are made completely from silicone and resemble our favorite yellow pill-eater. To give the inside of his mouth a bit of extra grip, it has been designed to look like the classic Pac-Man map. You can pick one of these up starting in April for $15.

[ Perpetual Kid ] VIA [ Technabob ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Well, with a bastardized updated version of Oregon Trail coming to the iPhone at the end of the month, I thought it was only fitting that this week’s ‘The Games We Played’ should cover that classic title that taught us all how easy it was to lose family members to dysentery.

But, I thought I’d do something different this week. Instead of reminiscing about the thousands upon thousands of buffalo I killed (while only carrying 100 pounds of meat back to my dying family) I figured the trip down memory lane would be a lot funner for all of us by simply playing the game again. So if you head on over to VirtualApple.org, you’ll actually be able to enjoy a Java port of Oregon Trail right in your web browser. Now you’ll need to have Java installed, but that’s a minor inconvenience to spend some quality time with an old friend. Just be careful on those river crossings!

[ Virtual Apple 2 - Oregon Trail ] VIA [ MAKE: Blog ]

By Andrew Liszewski

I don’t drop the ‘L’ word very often, so when I proclaim my love for the Legend of Zelda series, you know it means something. And that love affair started with this game, The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, which I not only consider to be the greatest Game Boy title of all time, but one of the greatest titles on any platform, ever. Oddly enough, for the longest time I had no interest in the Zelda series, since the top down perspective made me think it was a turn-based strategy game, which I loathe. But I needed a game to pass the time on a long family vacation, and a friend of mine was good enough to loan me his copy. After just a few hours of playing, my eyes were opened.

I haven’t replayed Link’s Awakening since I finished it so many years ago, but I remember it felt like it would never end, and I couldn’t understand how Nintendo managed to cram such a large game into a single cartridge. Of course Link’s Awakening was actually the fourth game in the series, and even though I had a bona fide case of Zelda fever after playing it, I only went back and tackled the previous Super Nintendo title, A Link to the Past afterwards. But since Link’s Awakening, every Zelda title has been a must-have for me. (Except for The Wand of Gamelon, nooooo thank-you Philips.)

[ MobyGames - The Legend Of Zelda: Link's Awakening ]

By Andrew Liszewski

The thing I like most about these silver plated Transformers cufflinks is the bipartisan approach they take. Let’s face it, the war over Cybertron isn’t going to stop until both sides, the Autobots and the Decepticons, come to some peaceful agreement. And seeing people walk around with just a single logo on their hoodie or t-shirt, showing support for one side over the other, does not help the healing process. These cufflinks however feature the logos of both factions, and tell the world that you’re tired of all the fighting and action-packed battle sequences, and just want to see both sides start working together… to take down those G.I. Joe jerks!!

The cufflinks are available from finkstudio’s shop on Etsy for just $20.

[ Etsy - Transformer Cufflinks ] VIA [ The UberReview ]

By Andrew Liszewski

I’ve got nothing against the concept of sequels, sometimes it’s nice to have a new adventure with familiar characters and locales. But when it comes to video games, I prefer titles that provide an altogether new experience. Like say, the experience of being a jockey riding a nearly unsteerable rocket while careening around a gladiator style arena. It might sound far-fetched, but that’s exactly what a game called Rocket Jockey provided. Whether you were simply racing to the finish in the ‘Rocket Race’ mode, enjoying a little deathmatch action in the ‘Rocket War’ mode or attempting to score a goal, or prevent others from doing so, in the ‘Rocket Ball’ mode. (My personal favorite.)

But obviously riding a rocket around an arena while crashing into walls can only provide so much fun. And that’s why the rockets in Rocket Jockey featured grappling cables that could be used to temporarily tether your missile to a wall, pole or other objects in order to ’steer’ it around the course. It was a very unique experience, but thanks to solid gameplay mechanics, it actually worked very well. But the grappling cables could also be used to latch onto other rockets in order to pull them off course, giant balls which you had to maneuver into a goal for points, or even other jockeys who were unfortunate enough to fall off their ride.

Unfortunately Rocket Jockey had its issues which prevented it from becoming a truly classic title (and dare I say, spawning a sequel) like promised multiplayer that only arrived via a patch months after the title was released, and steep system requirements (yep, those were cutting-edge graphics at one point.) But the fact that there have been several grassroots efforts to remake the game with the Unreal Tournament or Quake engines over the years proves the game has been sorely missed by a lot of us.

[ GameSpot - Rocket Jockey ]

By Andrew Liszewski

It really wasn’t until the infamous third iteration of Grand Theft Auto that the game became a target for the media and the poster child for video game violence. But believe it or not, many of us were stealing cars and committing unspeakable acts of civil disobedience long before GTAIII was even announced. That’s right, while it might have lacked the fancy 3D graphics of its descendants, the original Grand Theft Auto was still a heck of a lot of fun. The game featured a top-down perspective of the original versions of Liberty City, San Andreas and Vice City, and relied heavily on sprite animations for the cars and characters, though 3D effects were sparingly used for the buildings and other elements.

Oddly enough, I don’t remember seeing the original Grand Theft Auto pop-up on the evening news in stories about how it was corrupting our youth, even though you could pretty much do everything you can do in the current versions of the game. I guess sprite-based characters just aren’t as endearing or realistic as their modern 3D counterparts.

One of the reasons I really liked the original GTA (and its sequels) was the sandbox approach to the gameplay that basically allowed you to ignore the missions, and just drive around ‘having fun.’ In fact I rarely completed a single mission in the game, even though I played it for hours on end. And while it might not be the most admirable thing to be remembered for, we can’t forget that it was the original GTA that first introduced us to the phrase, “Kill Frenzy!”

[ MobyGames - Grand Theft Auto ]

By Luke Anderson

The floppy disk has been dead for years now. I still remember working in retail and having to explain to customers why their new computer wouldn’t include a floppy drive. I believe the last time I had to use one was when I installed XP on a SATA drive. If you miss the sight of those ugly black disks, you could always get these Floppy CD-R discs.

What’s interesting here is that someone has decided to take a dying format and disguise it as a dead piece of technology. I’m not necessarily implying that we’re going to stop seeing CD’s in the near future, but I can count the number of times I’ve burned a CD in the last year on one hand. I usually just copy files onto a flash drive, or email the file if it’s small enough. With their relatively small (200MB) size and $10 per disc price tag, they aren’t good for much more than nostalgia.

[ DesignBoom ] VIA [ UberGizmo ]

By Andrew Liszewski

The corporation might be long gone, but Pan Am’s blue and white globe logo continues to enjoy a life of its own. Not only is it an iconic example of great graphic design, but the airline has also become the poster child for large corporations that went belly up. This Pan Am watch, however, tries to remember the better times, and prominently features the company’s signature blue and white color scheme, and the aforementioned globe logo.

Its 2-inch face includes digital and analog date displays, dual-time zone indicators and even a day-of-the-week display marked with a tiny circling airplane and curved jet stream. How cute, it almost makes you forget about those thousands of lost jobs. The watch also has luminescent accents on the face for those overnight red-eye flights, a matching blue and white leather band and is 3 ATM water-resistant. And if the $395 price tag from the Wireless Catalog seems a bit steep for you, just remember the watch does come with the mini Pan Am travel bag pictured above.

[ Pan Am Departure Dual-Time Watch ]

By Andrew Liszewski

To be honest, I always preferred Johnny Lightning’s die-cast offerings over Hot Wheels when I was younger. Sure, they were a bit more expensive, but I felt the extra attention to detail was worth it. But the one thing that Johnny Lightning never had (to the best of my knowledge) was its own video game. Hot Wheels for the Commodore 64 was a slightly more obscure title, and like Nintendogs or GTA it provided a sandbox approach to gaming where there was really no defined goal. You spent your time driving around a small city where you could stop at gas stations, enter demolition derbies and even swap your ride for a firetruck which required you to put out random fires around the city. Basically the same stuff you did with real Hot Wheels cars and playsets in your parent’s living room.

At the start of the game you could choose from a small selection of pre-designed vehicles (which vaguely resembled actual Hot Wheels cars) or you could walk into the factory and design your own, which was probably the best part of the game. Using your joystick as a mouse, you assembled your car from various components and you could even send it to the paint shop and choose from a mind-blowing selection of 12 different colors! Overall Hot Wheels wasn’t the most exciting or challenging game in my giant box of C64 floppy disks, but it’s open-ended nature made it a staple of those occasional rainy Saturday afternoons.

[ Lemon64.com - Hot Wheels ]