Friday Links: 48 Hour Game Edition
This is just incredible: the 48 hour game competition. Not only is it a great and extremely challenging sounding idea, but Sid Meier participates in this one. His game looks ridiculous for just 48 hours in production.
Keep reading for the Hall of Meat, Japanese slap guitar, and the worst Jungle Book clock in the world.
Videogame Links
Interesting
The former heads of Infinity Ward found Respawn Entertainment. What are the odds that their first game is an FPS? For review, here are the credits of Modern Warfare 2 edited to show who remains at Infinity Ward. ‘Deep bench?’ Laughable.
Korea is going to impose a curfew to prevent videogame addiction for minors. Just because the occasional person games themselves to death it’s ruined for everybody. Thanks a lot, guys.
Cliffy B on the Jimmy Fallon show. Say what you want about the Cliffster, but he puts forward a respectable face for the game community.
Blizzard is changing the fee structure for Starcraft II in Russia to combat piracy. I can’t tell whether this is the first step down a slippery slope, or whether I’d rather pay for most games in this manner.
Retro videogame propaganda posters. Frogger is pretty epic.
While the frogger propaganda poster is impressive, it has nothing on some of the classic revolution posters of yore
Nobuo Uematsu, the composer for most of the Final Fantasy games, says he would love to Cosplay as a Chocobo. I have a website where for the low low price of $9.99/month you can see him do that.
Meta games. Games within games. I haven’t seen any examples of this in a while.
Funny
This might not be the best of the Mega64 clips but as a rule I post them all. This is the second time they’ve been ragging on the Nintendo 3DS … or is this one promotional?
This short Family Guy clip shows Peter getting ‘pwned’ in Modern Warfare 2. Too bad they didn’t go full realism and break into racial epithets and obscenities.
Family Guy is always topical. Remember this episode from 1981?
I have brought great shame to my family
Say what you want about Skate 3, but their ‘hall of meat mode,’ where you try to intentionally injure your skater, is a great addition to the game. They’re just encouraging what we were all hoping for.
I just wanted to remind everybody that there used to be a Super Mario cartoon, and this was the theme song. Notice that when he hits the star, he turns into fire flower Mario. You’d think the official cartoon could at least get the power ups right.
Non-Videogame Links
Interesting
Interactive Alice in Wonderland on the iPad. I can’t tell whether it’s really cool or really depressing that this is likely the wave of the future for all children’s books. I like interactive stuff, but it’s tough to replace imagination.
Chinese culture is not that great for developments in science. It would be so depressing to have to work in that environment.
Yet another brilliant new innovation from China. I'm glad the creative environment over there remains healthy
Fantastic Japanese slap guitar. Never heard of this guy before but it’s not bad. This links article seems to have a musical theme.
Wired looks back at Jennicam, the first instance of a big loser broadcasting their full life on the internet. Why is it always the weirdos who are the ones to recognize the potential of new inventions? I mean … have you heard what Eric Schmidt is into? You don’t want to know …
The candle see-saw. This is a cool little trick I’m going to have to try sometime, once the police allow me to use open flames again. It’s almost been 3 years since the incident …
South Park’s creators are launching a musical with the guy who did Avenue Q (which was great). I, for one, can’t wait.
Infographic of just how Iceland ruined everybody’s fun.
Yet another in a long string of failures for Iceland
Funny
Washington. The stuff they don’t teach you in school.
Conan’s standup tour comedy intro video is pure gold. I didn’t even know this was happening, maybe I would have tried to get a ticket.
While I don’t really care that Exxon Mobil gets to pay their taxes abroad instead of in the US (as long as it’s legal do what you want), Jon Stewart’s analysis is fairly amusing.
Vandals add Pedobear to advertisements for the pope. The news thinks they’re ’small pandas’ and isn’t really sure why anybody would add them.
I have brought great shame to my family
This instrument the Electone is ridiculous looking. I can’t imagine playing 2 keyboards and also using my feet and changing what instrument I’m synthesizing, but these people do it. The Star Wars theme and also some incredible Final Fantasy music (played by Godzilla).
All Godzilla wanted was to play Electone and be treated with a little respect. He could destroy, but he also wanted to create. The only thing man could not learn from Godzilla ... was love
I’d seen the advertisement for these things before a long time ago but I can’t help wondering why this didn’t really catch on. Seems like a great toy.
Somebody really could have put a little more thought into this Jungle Book clock.
North Korean propaganda. I wonder if the American version of this is working on me? Although I think we’re aware of our image abroad.
That’s all for this week. Did I miss anything good? Hit up the comments!
