Points of Interest – 11/28/07
Assorted Mushrooms
- “Stupid Car Crash” video. It’s always the suspense that gets me on these, as you’re not sure just when the vehicle’s going to hit.
“Is it that one? No… that one? No… well when is– oh, there it is.”
- 5th Turtle has a peek at Donatello from the ’07 holiday card, as well as an explanation for the ’86ing of Jagwar from the Global Mutant Missions line from a fellow at Playmates.
- Trouble sleeping? Maybe this method will help. Have your own? Feel free to share it (here or there).
- More talk with David X. Cohen about the future of Futurama.
- Ever since the biggest crisis to hit the DC universe (until the next one), there has been 52 alternate universes established, and Newsarama checks out what they are.
- This is a neat Mickey Mouse collectible; oldschool black-and-white, and packin’ heat, no less!
- This past Monday, Chris Jericho got to meet Santino Marella for the first time, and it was pretty funny.
Video Power
- Capcom has found a new (or newly reborn, it’s new to me either way) Street Fighter fan site known as “Street Fighter Devotion:”
“Featuring interviews, exclusive art by UDON Street Fighter artists, and journalistic character profiles, the centerpiece of the site is an exhaustively researched and stunningly extensive Street Fighter museum”
Definitely worth a look if you’re a fan of Street Fighter.
- Mega Man and Metal Man face off in this neat beadcraft.
- Hmm, I don’t think I have a copy of the Castlevania II Worlds of Power novel. I ought to remedy that, one of these days. Just ’cause.
I still have my Worlds of Power: Mega Man 2 book. I actually loved it back in the day, mostly for lack of anything else that gave me a little more of a look into Mega Man’s world.
…I think it was around Mega Man X that I realized everyone else wasn’t wrong about Mega Man still being a robot, just that Worlds of Power was full of it. But on the upside, rendering the cover for a “book cover” contest in elementary school netted me the winning prize, so it wasn’t without value. I won a copy of the Guiness Book of World’s Records, inside which I could discover just how big a Scholastic sucker I was.
- A few days ago, I added a new feature wherein I looked back at some of my favorite video game advertisements which were essentially short comics (you can find it in the Articles section in the sidebar on the left. Hell with it. Just click here). Deliberately left out were some of the lengthier insert-type comics which defied the traditional limitations of most print ads, which usually take up only about one or two pages.
One such exception that I neglected was Johnny Turbo, the spokesguy for the TurboGrafx16 and TurboCD that you might have heard about on Virtual Console. Fortunately, these have been collected and discussed online.
I don’t get it. What kind of focus group did they use to determine a guy like this was the way to go, and at what point during the meeting did they all get together and decide to totally mess with the people conducting the research? Johnny Turbo looks more like Uncle Ed, come back from trekking through the backwoods of the future, half-crazy from starvation for his days lost in the wilderness and unable to kill the robodeer, what with their air-to-air missiles and whatnot.
And the Blues Brothers are apparently to blame.
- It’s interesting to see a smalltown company repurpose a license character for promotion their own trade (no matter how abstract the relation may be), but what does that make you think of the company itself? Surely if you saw an orange Sonic peddling tacos, you wouldn’t be swayed into eating there. So why do they do it?
- So, whatever happened to the “Sonic Killer” known as Bubsy the Bobcat, anyway?
- Super Mario Galaxy makes tons of references to past Mario titles without relying on them to make the game. Error Macro has compiled a list of such recurrences, and their origins. How many did you catch/know?
- I had no idea that they made Double Dragon for the Atari 2600. Oh well, if Mega Man could, why not?
- o/~ They call him Sonic… ’cause he is faster than sound, he keeps on jumping around… blue hedgehog Sonic… with incredible speed, he’s moving his feet… o/~
Anyway, Racketboy has gathered up a collection of what he finds to be the most stunning Sonic the Hedgehog artwork. And some of these are pretty nift; I rather like the first, actually.
“Home Sweet Home” and “The Doomsday Zone” are awesome, too.
- According to a developer for Battalion Wars (aka Advance Wars), a lot of developers aren’t taking full advantage of the Wii’s capabilities.
- ScrewAttack brings us a new Top 10, this time looking at Fighting Games.
- At the airport, a Rabbid finds true love.
And who ever thought that the Raving Rabbids would get their own single?
- Missed previous entries in the Street Fighter: The Later Years series? Catch up at GameTrailers.
Hmm, I still need to grab the Xbox and 360 Dead Or Alive games…
And you’d think that with Rare’s extremely low game output, they’d have some room to have SOMEONE port the Killer Instinct games… well, anywhere.
Regarding Street Fighter IV being in 2D or 3D? Well, I did like Rival Schools quite a bit (despite never owning it), having it something akin to that wouldn’t be so bad.
- IGN takes Hyrule’s #1 hero and looks back at the many styles and incarnations that spirit has dawned over the years.
- Could an upstart company known as “Play N Trade” take over the #1 spot among video game retailers?
- Next Generation has a new interview with Shigeru Miyamoto, wherein they delve into “what does the master think about how other entertainment media have influenced his work on the Mario games,” as well as his most famous creation and why Hollywood can’t seem to get it right.
Interesting is that his thoughts on the Super Mario Bros. movie are that they followed the game TOO closely.
- Looking for gift ideas? Game Daily has a few frugal suggestions.
- Today, Games Radar offers ten games to help you relax a little.
- Who knew that K-Fed rocked at NES classic Pro Wrestling back in the day? Guess that would help explain why he was so ready to go up against John Cena. How prophetic.
- Retro Studios reflects in an Gamasutra interview about the path taken when developing Metroid Prime.
- At the Montreal International Game Summit, Ben Sawyer gave his thoughts on why kids games don’t have to be crap.
Another thing I miss about the NES days: the only “kids games” were those with a Sesame Street or somesuch license, so there wasn’t quite such a division where “adult games” would be better than “kids games” in the sense we seem to see today.
Sawyer is calling for games with a more forgiving input method: A controller with one large button, for example, or a dance pad with one square to jump or step on. He also sees a place for educational games, but not ones that teach math or typing, he wants educational games that teach “game literacy.”
I think that’s just a bit TOO simple.
He wants games that teach his son about power-ups, and game mechanics and make him better at playing videogames.
So get him an NES. Or Virtual Console.
- My giant Companion Cubes, let me show you them.
- PlayStation 3: A hacker’s dream?
–LBD “Nytetrayn”