Lost Levels is like that friend of yours that has an encyclopedic knowledge of every game that wasn’t released in North America, except they actually have screenshots and downloadable ROMs to back it up. Learn about the truth behind the translated first Earthbound game, the Mario 3 rip-off Squashed, and Neil Gaiman’s experiences with the game industry.
I stumbled upon this cool game in-progress called Rag Doll Kung Fu. Evidently it’s a side project/tech demo from Mark Healey at Lionhead that got some widespread coverage last month year but somehow I missed all that. See the trailer and you’ll want to play it too.
There’s an interview at Lionhead Times with Mark where he expounds on the concept of fighters with strings attached:
This means you get to create your own style, and can act out whatever you feel like, and of course, if you really feel like it, you can have a fight.
If all goes well, and I get the online stuff working properly, then you can act out various silly situations with people all over the world, have dancing competitions, chatting, fighting, that kind of thing.
I already have multiplayer working on a single machine – you can plug in up to eight mice (with a usb hub), and simulate all types of strange behaviour. (Thanks to J STOOKEY for that cool multi mice code he wrote for MAME!)
It’s about Chi power.
All day long you slave in front of that computer. Your body may be chained to the desk, but you yearn to set your mind free with dreams of blasting space pirates, squashing reptiles to save the princess, or spanning the globe in a grand adventure to restore your banana collection. Your coworkers suspect none of these things but you can give them a peek into your soul with desktop gaming, screen grabs from classic games made into conveniently-sized wallpapers.
It’s almost as good as playing games at work.
Jason and the Nihongonauts has a review of the import-friendly game Electroplankton for the Nintendo DS:
To start, I should say this is not so much a game as it is a toy, a completely badass audio-visual toy. There isn’t really any goal or anything for you to accomplish for the most part when playing with each plankton, as such, so think of it more as an experience that is extremely fun to muck about with for a long time.
The screenshots certainly are beautiful and make me wish it was available in Windows-screensaver edition.
Sure, nobody needs this many TV ads about video games (around 2200 according to the proprietor), but it’s comforting to know they’re there, just in case. Also good to know that you can purchase burned DVDs with the whole collection if you can’t suck them down fast enough. That last sentence may have negative connotations without proper context but I don’t care.
Via the SA Forums we may have photos of prototypes for the new Xbox controllers. The colors follow the trend of Sony making the PSP’s earbuds “iPod-white” and wireless is naturally included. Keep in mind that the controller will probably go through several iterations and have more shine and polish by the time the system is released, but this can give you an idea of the general layout and button configuration. From the forum post, “B/W buttons are not gone, just relocated above the triggers”.
Click on the images to see the same image, except bigger.
Psychonauts:
I just pre-ordered my own copy so hopefully you can expect to receive a review 6-8 weeks after the release date since I went for free shipping over the possibility of a timely review.
More info:
Following up on initial reports, The Motley Fool wonders why Sony was so late reporting sales figures:
So why was Sony tight-lipped for so long? That Sony moved as many units in 48 hours as the DS did in seven days should have been shouted from the rooftops. Sony’s feat is even more impressive considering that its PSP is priced $100 higher than the DS, and that it came out in March, when a lot of people are still paying off their holiday bills and there is little gift-giving incentive.
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With all the attention surrounding I Love Bees, you can bet that Microsoft wanted some of that sweet, sweet lovin’ for The Main Event, the next console, and so we have ourcolony. Read all about it at GameSpot or go to the site itself, which may actually load something slightly more interesting than “The Colony is growing quickly. Please be patient.” if you’re lucky. There’s different colonies in competition, leader boards, a count down, and all that other fun stuff that sound more fun in theory than in reality. The people behind it seem to have underestimated how fast it would spread and failed to realize that a virus can’t move too swiftly or the hosts die off and it won’t have a chance to spread widely.
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