November 2005 News

Seems like River City Ransom is getting mentioned everywhere these days. Winamp has just released their very own RCR skin not to mention a few other retro game skins for their media player.

• River City Ransom
• Super Mario Bros
• PacMan
• Earthbound
• Ice Climber
• Space Invaders

Just to name a few. Check out the Winamp website for more game skins

P.S. Somebody should make a PJ themed skin. Any takers?

Boston MIT Media Lab asked eBoy to create something nice for their student lounge. Using 20,020 bricks, the students built up an original design provided by eBoy.

Crazyness!

More Mario Theme Song Madness:

• 11-String Bass
• Piano
• A Cappella medley
• Two Trumpets
• London Symphony

I've actually never heard of a marimba before (it resembles a xylophone), but the Super Mario theme is a perfect fit for it.

Over at Something Awful there's a collection of 16 songs covered using 8-bit NES style audio.

Scientists have recently been working on trying to extend the lifespan of organisms and they claim that they have had a breakthrough. They say they can now extend an organisms lifespan to 5 times longer than normal, which means a Human could live for 500 years. See here for the full story.

I stumbled upon two pixel projects are much different than something like The Joint or Wees. Rather than having people create their own works they involve people voting for each pixel to assemble an object.

• Collaborative world map
• Collaborative objects

The CSU (Christian Social Union) of Germany want to ban violent videogames. Madness, I say! Sheuer stated in an interview that those games "have no place in Germany's bedrooms."

Fortunately enough for all bloodlusted Germans, the vote might not get through. Hang in there, Hans!

News ghetted from 1UP.com.

Since there have been some links posted of old advertisements and commercials, I decided I'd post a place. I've visited this place many times and it's full of all the old cartoons of the 60's-90's.

www.retrojunk.com

You can find anything from C-3PO's Cereal (Cherios with C-3PO on the cover) to the fool pitying Mr. T.

A photographer has traveled around the world takings snaps of people to come up with what an "average" person looks like in different cities. Is it just me or is every composite image way better looking than any average person you'd see out and about?  Maybe I just live in an ugly area.

Post Sedgemonkey's news (Videogame ads 1982), I searched to find more classic ads and came up with this fantastic site.

It features TV ads for video games from all around the world.

Among the vast array of adverts (A lot of which are pure Zany Japanese Weirdness!!(Check out Seaman in the DC section, Dont ask!!)) are such gems as Powerglove for NES, Supermario cereal (WTF!!) and MK shaolin Monks (Over the top but funny!!).

Check it out, with over 3000 adverts, your'e bound to find a few blasts from the past and a lot of newer ads from other countries that you may never have seen before.

Borat's "home" country is getting sick and tired of their portrayal on Da Ali G Show apparently.  I'm sure their booming tourism industry is really suffering from Borat's pranks.

Here's a link directly to the Kazakhstan suit article.

Bah, decent TV can't seem to stay on the air.  Arrested Development is getting the shaft from Fox (the network that cancelled Family Guy prematurely).  It's worth checking out this Arrested Development Season 2 DVD rant by David Cross blasting Fox for not being able to market an Emmy award winning show.

The creator of the PS2 cult hit Katamari Damaci (one of the most unique games out there) wants to create children's playgrounds once he's through with the video game industry.  Anyone who has played either Katamari game knows just how whacky and fun these playgrounds will likely be.

Harold Ramis chats about Dan Aykroyd's Ghostbusters 3 script with InFocus magazine.  Ramis says he'd like Ben Stiller added on, but the snippet doesn't mention the other two Ghostbusters -- Venkman (Bill Murray) or Winston (Ernie Hudson). There's also no word on Sigourney Weaver.  Hopefully they'll all be signed on for the third installment.

Growing up in the 80s and being a huge Bill Murray fan the original Ghostbusters was one of my favorite movies as a kid. I had a Ghostbusters t-shirt, the cheesy soundtrack and even a few of the toys from the crappy cartoon spinoff.  Hopefully the new flick will live up to my unrealistic childhood expectations.

Yep, it took a while, but for anyone who cares I've completed the third episode in my Black Hole series -featuring a new style of art! Although I havent figured out how to update the old flash website, so bare with me.

Click here

And for previous episodes and stuff the old BH site has a new address here

The scare-fest ended last week and finally the winners were decided upon. Check out halfliquid's official announcement over at deviantART. The judging was difficult (especially since we couldn't get all the judges together in one place at the same time) but, in the end, 3 excellent and horrific masterpieces were chosen upon:

• 1st Place: Pixelween2005 by spiv
• 2nd Place: Shaun of the Dead by Arithmetician
• 3rd Place: Thriller by kaileighblue

Official dA prizes will be handed out accordingly as well as some prizes to some runner-ups which will be announced I'm sure by Halfie over there.

Check out all the submissions the way they were meant to be seen at the Official Pixelween Page. Thanks to all who entered. It was a blast to see some awesome pixels from all you guys n gals.

I'm sure a lot of you have been reading about a dickweed named Jack Thompson and his jihad against free speech.  He's the nut who has been suing videogame related enterprises left and right because of their violent subject matter. Apparently gamers have decided to be proactive about protecting their beloved games and have posted their interpretations of "violence free" games. 

Check out fark's Photoshop solution to videogame violence.

Dot Invasion, a pixel-associated site, has released their very much anticipated game, Meteor Busters. The game is in colors that resemble a gameboy game, they even made a small system very similar to the gameboy called the "peopleboy" for which the game is played on. One of the most detailed pixel games I've played in a while. So without further to do, here's the link:

http://www.dot-invasion.com/peopleboy/