Today is my Moms birthday! Woot!

Read more articles from Lance

Hey everybody Chris here. This isn’t really about video games but in a way it is and is a subject that needs to be brought to everyones attention. Recently the CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission [Ed. Note It's the FCC of Canada]) has decided to implement a pay meter on Canadians internet usage. Stuff like this has been done by various large internet providers in Canada before but now the new monthly limit is expected to fall at 25 gigabytes per month. A little under a quarter of what my typical 90 gigabytes usage now is.

Now I’m not expert on this subject but it smells like some bullshit to me when small internet providers are being forced to compete with these outrageous demands. So in the interest of not crushing innovative services, Canada’s digital competitiveness, social progress, and your wallet, I’d really appreciate it if ya’ll can take a look at these sites below and show your support to stop this idiocy from becoming a reality. You can follow them on Twitter. Please sign up.

Stop The Meter

New videos already? Hell yeah!!! I have no life, and it’s because of all of you! Thanx! WATCH THESE VIDS!!!

Batman Parody: The Dark Knight is Confused-

Green Lantern Movie Trailer… with Pool-O-Vision-

Castlevania II WITH LYRICS-

Contra WITH LYRICS-

Blanka Makes Pound Cake-

Hey all! I thought I would try something new. I’m going to start putting videos that I find on teh interwebs. Tell me if you like, and I might make it a regular thing.

Metal Gear Awesome-

Metal Gear Awesome 2-

Legend Of Awesome-

Super Awesome Brothers-

Left 4 Speed-

Left 4 Speed 2-

Geek And Gamer Girls-

Words can’t describe how amazing this is. The amount of references to the games is just incredible. I watched it three times and surely will watch it more. Thanks go out to JoTho for finding this and linking it on Facebook!

As promised here is a list of all of the gaming deals for this years Black Friday.

DS, DSi, DSi XL
Thanksgiving
Toys R Us
*Kung Zhu for $14.99
* Megamind: The Blue Defender for $14.99
*Monster Jam 3: Path of Destruction for $14.99
*Scribblenauts for $14.99
*Zhu Zhu Pets 2: Wild Bunch for $14.99
*How to Train your Dragon for $9.99
*Percy Jackson and the Olympians for $9.99
*SimCity for $9.99
*Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions for $9.99
*Spongebob Truth or Square for $9.99
*Spore Hero Arena for $9.99
*The Sims 2 Pets for $9.99
*Transformers: War for Cybertron (Autobots Edition) for $9.99

Day After Thanksgiving
Amazon
*Jeopardy for $14.99
*Wheel of Fortune for $14.99

Best Buy
*Limited Edition Red or Green Nintendo DSi Holiday Bundle for $149.99. Includes Mario Party Game (Doors open at 5 a.m.)
*Cooking Mama 2: Dinner With Friends for $9.99 (Doors open at 5 a.m.)
*Disney Fairies: Tinkerbell and The Lost Treasure for $9.99 (Doors open at 5 a.m.)
*Shrek’s Carnival Craze Party Game and Madagascar Kartz for $9.99 (Doors open at 5 a.m.)
*Animal Planet: Vet Life and Animal Planet: Emergency Vets for $9.99 (Doors open at 5 a.m.)

GameStop
* Get a free copy of Fossil Fighters or the Legendary Starfy with the purchase of the Limited Edition DSi bundle.
* Limited Edition Orange or Green DSi w/ Mario Party DS for $169.99
* Pre-Owned DS Lite for $69.99
* Scribblenauts + Super Scribblenauts $39.99
* Buy 2, Get 1 Free on all pre-owned games and accessories
Many more deals at GameStop’s Black Friday ad.

Kmart
*Purchase a Limited Edition Nintendo DSi Holiday Bundle for $149.99. Includes Mario Party Game, plus get a $25 Gaming Coupon when you purchase. DOOR BUSTER DEAL (from 5 – 11 a.m.)
*Get a $25 gaming coupon when you buy any Nintendo DSi holiday bundle. (Offer available Nov. 26 from 5 – 11 a.m.)
*Spider-Man Shattered Dimensions for $12.99
*Transformers Autobots or Decepticons each for $9.99
*Imagine Fashion Designer for $9.99
*Jeopardy for $14.99
*Toy Story 3 for $19.99
*Wheel of Fortune for $14.99

Toys R Us
*Limited Edition Nintendo DSi Holiday Bundle for $149.99. Includes Mario Party Game and free DS Esseentials kit.
*12-in-1 Everyday Starter Kit for DS Lite $14.99
*Folio Starter Kit for DSi for $14.99
*Nerf Starter Kit for DSi $14.99
* Power A Starter Kit for DSi XL for $14.99

Walmart
* Chicken Blaster for $7.00
* Disney’s Phineas and Ferb for $10.00
* Imagine Ballet Star for $7.00
* Monster Lab for $7.00
* Nintendo DS Lite for $89.00 (doorbuster)
* OMG 26 Our Mini Games for $7.00
* Planet 51 The Game for $7.00
* Zhu Zhu Pets for $10.00

Electronics
Day Before Thanksgiving
Sears
*Save $800 on Sony 46″ 1080p LED HDTV when you purchase it for $899.99 (reg. price $1699.99)

Thanksgiving Day
Kmart
*Panasonic 37″ Class LCD HDTV for $399.99
*Panasonic 46″ Plasma HDTV for just $499.99 (reg. $699.99) plus get 50,000 Shop Your Way Rewards points (a $50 value)
Sears
*Panasonic 58″ 1080p Plasma HDTV for $1099.99 (reg. price $1799.99) plus two bonus Blu-Ray DVDs, Kingdom of Heaven and Independence Day. 7 a.m. to noon.
*RCA 19″ Class LCD HDTV for $139.99
*Sylvania 32″ Class LCD HDTV with built-in DVD for $359.99
*Zenith 50″ Plasma HDTV in store only for $499.99 (reg. price $699.99) 7 a.m. to noon.
*RCA 19″ LCD HDTV for just $129.99 (reg. price $199.99) 7 a.m. to noon.

The Day After Thanksgiving
Best Buy
*Panasonic 50″ 1080p Plasma HDTV for $699.99.

Kmart
*Huge savings on a Zenith 42″ Plasma HDTV — just $399.99 (reg. price $549.99) DOOR BUSTER DEAL (from 4 a.m – Noon)
*RCA 22″ Class LCD HDTV with built-in DVD player for $239.99
*Samsung 32″ Class LCD HDTV for $329.99
*Sony 40″ Class LCD HDTV for $549.99
*Sylvania 32″ Class LCD HDTV for $299.99

Sears
*Huge savings on a Zenith 42″ Plasma HDTV — just $399.99 (reg. price $549.99) DOOR BUSTER DEAL (from 4 a.m – Noon)
*RCA 24″ 1080p LED HDTV for $229.99 (reg. price $299.99) DOOR BUSTER DEAL (from 4 a.m – Noon)
*Velocity Micro 7″ Android Tablet for $249.99 (reg. price $299.99) DOOR BUSTER DEAL (from 4 a.m – Noon)
*Purchase a Samsung 40″ 1080p LCD HDTV for $497.99 and receive 25,000 Shop Your Way Rewards Points (a $25 value)

Walmart
* Element 55″ ELDFT551 1080P 120HZ LCD HDTV for $799.00 (doorbuster)
* Emerson 32″ LC320EM1 720P 60HZ LCD HDTV for $198.00 (doorbuster)
* Emerson 42″ LTDN42V68US 1080P 60HZ LCD HDTV for $398.00 (doorbuster)
* LG 42″ 42LD400 1080P 60HZ LCD HDTV for $478.00 (doorbuster)
* Samsung 32″ LN32C350 720P 60HZ LCD HDTV for $328.00 (doorbuster)
* Samsung 40″ LN40C500 1080P 60HZ LCD HDTV for $498.00 (doorbuster)
* Samsung 46″ LN46C600 120Hz 1080p LCD HDTV for $798.00
* Samsung 46″ UN46C5000 1080P 60HZ LED HDTV for $898.00 (doorbuster)
* Samsung 52″ LN52C530 1080P 60HZ LCD HDTV for $998.00 (doorbuster)
* Sansui 19″ HDLCD19WB 720P 60HZ LCD HDTV for $98.00 (doorbuster)
* Sanyo 50″ DP50710 720P 600HZ Plasma HDTV for $498.00 (doorbuster)
* Sony Bravia 46″ 1080p LCD HDTV KDLfor46EX400 for $698.00
* Vizio 37″ 1080p LCD HDTV E370VL for $378.00

Saturday After Thanksgiving
Sears
*Purchase a RCA 32″ LCD HDTV for $297 (reg. price $399.99) DOOR BUSTER DEAL (from 7 a.m. – NOON)

PC
Now through Thanksgiving weekend
Cyberpower Desktop Deals
* FREE Intel Core i7-950 processor upgrade from i7-930 processor
* FREE DDR3/1600 Memory Upgrade from DDR3/1333
* $100 off on Corsair Obsidian 700D Gaming Chassis.
* $200 off on selected CSX Gaming Chassis
* FREE NZXT USB 6-Port Expansion Module
* Free Asus USB Wireless Network Interface Adapter
* FREE Asetek Liquid Cooling Kit
* FREE Shipping – FREE GROUND SHIPPING on selected gaming PCs.
* FREE MS Office 2010 Starter Edition for all MS Windows 7 OS desktops and notebooks

Thanksgiving
Kmart
*World of Warcraft for $4.99
*World of Warcraft Battlechest $9.99

Day After Thanksgiving
Best Buy
*Sony Vaio VPCEB3AFM/WI laptop for $399
*Fallout: New Vegas for $39.99
*World of Warcraft Battlechest for $9.99

GameStop
* World of Warcraft Battlechest $9.99; World of Warcraft Game $4.99
* Buy 2, Get 1 Free on all pre-owned games and accessories
Many more deals at GameStop’s Black Friday ad.

Kmart
*World of Warcraft for $4.99
*World of Warcraft Battlechest $9.99

Walmart
* HP Pavilion Desktop PC Tower w/5GB Memory, 1TB Hard Drive, Windows 7 Home Premium for $498.00 (doorbuster)
* HP Pavilion Slimline Desktop PC Bundle w/AMD Sempron Processor 3GB Memory, 320GB Hard Drive, Windows 7 Home Premium for $398.00 (doorbuster)
* Computers » Laptops
* Acer Aspire 17.3″ Laptop PC w/Intel Dual Core Processor, 4GB Memory, 320GB Hard Drive, Windows 7 for $498.00 (doorbuster)
* eMachines 15.6″ Laptop w/2GB Memory, 250GB Hard Drive, Windows 7 for $198.00 (doorbuster)
* HP 15.6″ Laptop w/Intel Celeron Processor, 3GB Memory, 250GB Hard Drive, Windows 7 for $298.00 (doorbuster)
* HP 17.3″ Dual Core Laptop w/Pentium Dual Core Processor, 3GB Memory, 320GB Hard Drive for $398.00 (doorbuster)

Playstation 3
Thanksgiving
Amazon
*Transformers War for Cybertron for $29.99
*Spiderman Shattered Dimensions for $34.99
*Call of Duty Saga Pack-Modern Warfare 1 and 2 for $44.99

Kmart
*Guitar Hero Warriors of Rock Guitar bundle for $69.99
*The Beatles: Rock Band for $14.99
*Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Saga Pack for $44.99
*Madden NFL 11 for $39.99
*Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood for $39.99
*EA MMA Sports for $39.99
*NHL 11 for $39.99
*Medal of Honor for $34.99
*Dragon Age: Ultimate Edition for $34.99
*Mafia II for $34.99
*Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit for $34.99
*Rock Band 2 for $9.99

Toys R Us
*Madden NFL 11 buy one for full price get another for $5
*Medal of Honor buy one for full price get another for $5
*Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit buy one for full price get another for $5
*Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions buy one for full price get another for $5
*The Sims 3 buy one for full price get another for $5
*inFamous for $14.99
*Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune for $14.99

Day After Thanksgiving
Amazon
*PlayStation 3 160GB Black Friday Bundle w/ Uncharted 2 GOTY, Pixel Junk Shooter, The Karate Kid Blu-ray, $299.99
*Infamous for $10
*Medal of Honor for $29
*Killzone 2 for $10
*Assasin’s Creed: Brotherhood for $49.99
*Red Dead Redemption for $29
*Fallout: New Vegas for $34.99
*Need for Speed Hot Pursuit for $34.99
*The Sims 3 for $34.99
*Madden NFL 11 for $29
*FIFA Soccer 11 for $34.99
*EA SPORTS MMA for $34.99
*NCAA Football 11 for $34.99
*NHL 11 for $34.99
*God of War III for $39.99

Best Buy Doors Open at 5 a.m.
*Playstation 3 bundle (160GB PS3, LittleBigPlanet Game of the year edition, Modnation Racers and Cars Blu-Ray movie) for $299.99
*Fallout New Vegas for $39.99
*Bloodstone: 007 for $34.99
*Def Jam Rapstar for $34.99
*EA Sports MMA for $34.99
*FIFA Soccer 11 for $34.99
*Madden NFL 11 for $34.99
*Medal of Honor for $34.99
*NCAA Football 11 for $34.99
*Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit for $34.99
*NHL 11 for $34.99
*The Sims 3 for $34.99
*Battlefield: Bad Company 2 for $29.99
*Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 for $29.99
*Mafia II for $29.99
*The Beatles: Rock Band game only for $16.99
*inFamous for $16.99
*MLB 2K10 for $16.99
*Mortal Kombat DC Universe for $16.99
*Fallout 3 for $9.99
*Metal Gear Solid 4 for $9.99
*Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Ultimate Sith Edition for $9.99

GameStop
* Buy 160 GB PS3 for $299.99 and get God of War Collection and God of War 3 for free.
* Strategy Guides for: Splinter Cell Conviction, UFC 2010, God of War 3, Super Street Fighter, Halo 3: ODST, Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days, Fable 2, and Crackdown 2 $2.99
* Infamous, Killzone 2, Ratchet & Clank: A Crack in Time, Uncharted 1 $14.99
* $10 off all 2011 EA sports titles
* Buy 2, Get 1 Free on all pre-owned games and accessories
Many more deals at GameStop’s Black Friday ad.

Kmart
*PS3 160 GB bundle with Uncharted 2 and a $25 gaming coupon for $299.99
*Call of Duty Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare 2 bundle for $44.99
*Madden NFL 11 and a $10 gaming coupon for $39.99
*EA MMA Sports for $39.99
*NHL 11 for $39.99
*The Sims 3 for $39.99
*Medal of Honor and a $10 gaming coupon for $34.99
*Dragon Age: Ultimate Edition for $34.99
*Fallout New Vegas for $34.99
*Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit for $34.99
*Beatles the Rock Band game only for $14.99
*Batman: Arkham Asylum for $14.99

Toys R Us 5 a.m. to 1 p.m.
*Blue PS3 Dual Shock 3 Controller for $32.99
*Power A Pro EX Controller for $11.99
*Power A Pro Elite Wireless Controller for $26.99
*Video game chargers $11.99 to $35.99

Walmart
* PlayStation 3 160GB Video Game System w/Bonus for $299.00 (doorbuster)
* Band Hero Game Bundle for $75.00
* Call of Duty 4 for $10.00
* God of War Collection for $10.00
* inFamous for $10.00
* Killzone 2 for $10.00
* Madden 11 for $29.99
* Medal of Honor for $29.99
* Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction for $10.00
* Red Dead Redemption for $29.99
* WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2011 for $29.99

PSP
Thanksgiving
KMart
*PSPgo for $149.99

Black Friday and Saturday
Sears
*PSP 3000 Core holiday bundle (includes LittleBigPlanet, and Karate Kid the movie) for $129.99
GameStop
* Limited Edition PSP-3000 Bundle w/ LittleBigPlanet and The Karate Kid UMD for $129.99.
* Buy 2, Get 1 Free on all pre-owned games and accessories
Many more deals at GameStop’s Black Friday ad.

KMart
PSP 3000 Bundle with LittleBigPlanet and $15 gaming coupon for $129.99

PS2
Day After Thanksgiving
KMart
*PS2 bundle with Toy Story 3 The Video Game for $99.99

Walmart
* Bakugan for $7.00
* Brunswick Bowling for $7.00
* Disney Sing It for $7.00
* Guitar Hero 2 for $7.00
* Pinball Hall of Fame for $7.00

Wii
Thanksgiving Day
Amazon
*Dance on Broadway for $16.99
*Raving Rabbids Travel in Time for $35.99

Kmart
*Get a $25 Nintendo Gaming coupon with purchase of any Nintendo Wii system
*Wii with WiiSports Resort and Wii Sports for $199.99 (includes $25 gaming discount card)
*NBA 2K11 for $29.99
*NBA Jam for $29.99
*NHL Slapshot for $39.99
*Spider-Man Shattered Dimensions for $29.99
*The Sims 3 for $29.99

Toys R Us
*Cabela’s Dangerous Hunts 2011 buy one for full price get another for $5
*Goldeneye buy one for full price get another for $5
*Madden NFL 11 buy one for full price get another for $5
*Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit buy one for full price get another for $5
*Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions buy one for full price get another for $5
*The Sims 3 buy one for full price get another for $5
*Battle of Giants Dinosaur Strike for $14.99
*Cabela’s Monster Buck Hunter for $14.99
*How to Train a Dragon for $14.99
*iCarly 2:iJoin the Click! for $14.99
*Shrek Forever After for $14.99
*MySims Party for $9.99
*Scooby Doo! First Frights for $9.99

Day After Thanksgiving
Amazon
*Jeopardy for $14.99
*Wheel of Fortune for $10
*Just Dance 2 for $29.99
*NBA JAM for $27
*Madden NFL 11 for $29
*Super Mario Galaxy 2 for $35

Best Buy Doors Open at 5 a.m.
*Nintendo Wii (white or black) with Wii Remote Plus, Nunchuk, Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort for $169.99
*NHL Slapshop for $39.99
*Babysitting Mama (with doll) for $34.99
*Cabela’s North American Adventures 2011 Bundle for $34.99
*Dance on Broadway for $16.99
*Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 for $16.99
*Madagascar Kartz for $16.99
*Tetris Party Deluxe for $16.99
*The Beatles: Rock Band game only for $16.99
*Medieval Games for $9.99

GameStop
* Buy any black or white Wii bundle for $199.99 and get Wii sports, Wii sports resort, and Just Dance for free.
* Pre-Owned Wii for $99.99
* Buy 2, Get 1 Free on all pre-owned games and accessories
Many more deals at GameStop’s Black Friday ad.

KMart
*Wii with Wii Sports Resort and $25 gaming coupon for $199.99
*Big Game Hunter for $14.99
*The Beatles: Rock Band for $14.99
*Gold’s Gum Dance Workout for $19.99
*GoldenEye for $39.99
*Jeopardy for $14.99
*Madagascar Kartz for $9.99
*NHL Slapshot for $39.99
*NBA Jam for $29.99
*Wheel of Fortune for $14.99

Toys R Us
*LEGO Play and Build Remote for $23.99
*Power A Pro Pack Mini Controllers for $29.99

Walmart
* Nintendo Wii Limited Edition Console Value Bundle (Red) for $249.00 (doorbuster)
* ATV Quad Kings for $7.00
* Balloon Pop for $7.00
* Band Hero Game Bundle for $75.00
* Chicken Blaster for $7.00
* Go Play Circus Star for $7.00
* Little League World Series Double Play for $10.00
* Madden 11 for $29.99
* Major League Baseball 2K10 for $29.99
* Monster Trux Offroad for $7.00
* NBA Jam for $29.99
* Red Steel 2 for $10.00
* Saint for $7.00
* Spongebob Squarepants Globs for $10.00
* Toy Story 3 for $29.99
* Transformers: War for Cybertron for $29.99
* Up for $10.00
* Wheel of Fortune for $10.00

Xbox 360
Thanksgiving Day
Amazon
*Transformers War for Cybertron for $29.99
*Spiderman Shattered Dimensions for $34.99

Kmart
*Get a $25 gaming coupon when you buy an Xbox 360 4GB Kinect bundle
*Get a $15 gaming coupon when you buy a Microsoft Kinect sensor
*Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood for $34.99
*Dragon Age: Origins complete edition for $34.99
*EA Sports MMA for $39.99
*Fable III for $39.99
*Guitar Hero Warriors of Rock Guitar Bundle for $69.99
*Halo Reach for $39.99
*Madden 11 for $39.99
*Mafia II for $34.99
*Medal of Honor for $34.99
*Need for Speed Hot Pursuit for $34.99
*NHL 11 for $39.99
*Tony Hawk Shred with skateboard controller for $69.99

Toys R Us
*Xbox 360 4GB and a $50 gift card for $199.99
*Xbox 360 250 GB and a $50 gift card for $299.99
*Fable 3 buy one full price get another for $5
*Halo: Reach buy one full price get another for $5
*Madden NFL 11 buy one for full price get another for $5
*Medal of Honor buy one for full price get another for $5
*Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit buy one for full price get another for $5
*Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions buy one for full price get another for $5
*The Sims 3 buy one for full price get another for $5

Day After Thanksgiving
Amazon
*4GB Xbox + $60 gift card for $199.99
*Medal of Honor for $29
*Halo: Reach for $35
*Assasin’s Creed: Brotherhood for $49.99
*Red Dead Redemption for $29
*Fallout: New Vegas for $34.99
*Fable III for $35
*Need for Speed Hot Pursuit for $34.99
*The Sims 3 for $34.99
*Madden NFL 11 for $29
*FIFA Soccer 11 for $34.99
*EA SPORTS MMA for $34.99
*NCAA Football 11 for $34.99
*NHL 11 for $34.99

Best Buy Doors Open at 5 a.m.
*Xbox 360 3 bundle (4GB Xbox 360, LEGO Star Wars the complete saga, LEGO Batman the video game, LEGO Indian Jones) for $199.99
*Fable III for $39.99
*Halo: Reach for $39.99
*Fallout New Vegas for $39.99
*Bloodstone: 007 for $34.99
*Def Jam Rapstar for $34.99
*EA Sports MMA for $34.99
*FIFA Soccer 11 for $34.99
*Madden NFL 11 for $34.99
*Medal of Honor for $34.99
*NCAA Football 11 for $34.99
*Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit for $34.99
*NHL 11 for $34.99
*The Sims 3 for $34.99
*Battlefield: Bad Company 2 for $29.99
*Mafia II for $29.99
*WWE Smackdown Vs. Raw for $29.99
*The Beatles: Rock Band game only for $16.99
*MLB 2K10 for $16.99
*Mortal Kombat DC Universe for $16.99
*Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction for $16.99
*Fallout 3 for $9.99
*Tekken 6 for $9.99

GameStop
* Buy any 4 GB Xbox 360 for $199.99 and get your choice of Madden NFL 11 or Medal of Honor for free.
* Pre-Owned Xbox 360 external 120 GB HD for $59.99
* Pre-Owned xXox 360 for $99.99
* Strategy Guides for: Splinter Cell Conviction, UFC 2010, God of War 3, Super Street Fighter, Halo 3: ODST, Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days, Fable 2, and Crackdown 2 $2.99
* $10 off all 2011 EA sports titles
* Modern Warfare Collection $49.99 (regularly $79.99)
* Fable 3, Fallout New Vegas, and Halo Reach $39.99 each
* Buy 2, Get 1 Free on all pre-owned games and accessories
Many more deals at GameStop’s Black Friday ad.

Kmart
*Get an Xbox 360 4GB console and Call of Duty: Black Ops for Xbox 360 for $199.99. (Offer available Nov. 26 & Nov. 27)
*Batman: Arkham Asylum for $14.99
*Dragon Age: Ultimate Edition for $34.99
*Fable III for $39.99
*Fallout New Vegas for $34.99
*Halo Reach for $39.99
*Mass Effect 2 for $9.99
*Medal of Honor for $34.99
*Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit for $34.99

Old Navy
*Free copy of Dance Central if you spend $25 (limited supplies)

Toys R Us
*Black Xbox 360 controller for $29.99
*Video game chargers $11.99 to $35.99

Walmart
* Xbox 360 4GB Video Game System w/bonus for $199.00 (doorbuster)
* Band Hero Game Bundle for $75.00
* Ghost Recon 2 for $10.00
* Halo Reach for $35.00
* Madden 11 for $29.99
* Medal Of Honor for $29.99
* Modern Warfare 2 for $29.99
* NBA 2K11 for $29.99
* Prototype for $10.00
* Red Dead Redemption for $29.99
* Star Wars The Force Unleashed for $10.00
* Tetris Evolution for $10.00
* Tomb Raider for $7.00
* Transformers for $10.00

Whats up? Miss me? Thats right, after a long hiatus, im back with more posters. This week, we grab our machetes and takle Horror!!! And, as an apology for being away for a while takin care of business (AKA school) Im givin ya TWENTY! Enjoy!

Freddie sent this to me and I just had to share!

As I sit here in Starbucks watching my terrible blackberry storm infinitely reset all while waiting for my car to be inspected I am reminded of a couple of things. First Starbucks now offers free wifi which makes the wait less annoying.

Secondly, as I see that a ton of people are walking around with strange stickers on their chest that say “I voted” it must mean it’s election day in the US. For those of you that follow this site in foreign countries (like Canada) you maybe unaware that we have a designated day were we “elect” our leaders through “voting”. It must be a strange concept for you canadiens who live without freedom in an evil socialist state. So if you are able to go vote. I don’t care for who just vote.

Lastly, in case you needed a reason why to vote, today is the day the Supreme Court is hearing that video game law (the one where it restricts our freedom of speech – not sure what it’s called Roe v wade I think). I don’t think the court will make it’s ruling today but it is something everyone should be following.

Remember how I always say that our favorite wallpaper maker – Orioto – should be hired and be a lead designer on games? Well he still hasn’t yet but someone is ripping him off and it’s awesome.

EDIT – Yes this is a real game and I forgot to link to the site! Here you go!

On a very awful day for me this put a smile on my face. Thanks to Fred for sending me the link!

I pretty much hate Jersey Shore. But this may have made me like it!

With all the recent smack talk Bobby Kotick Activision CEO has been dishing out, I find it appropriate that IGN’s Travis Fahs has put together a little history on one of the biggest gaming companies. The History starts with the humble beginnings of four underpaid dudes at Atari going off to make it on there own. One of there first big releases was the classic PitFall and the history jumps to Koticks saving of the company in the 90′s to the eventual merger of Blizzard and the West/Zampella Infinity Ward fiasco. A  really cool read of ongoing history.

Here is an exclusive inside look at the recent Tokyo Game Show! Exclusive because it comes from our very own contributer Jesse!

Christopher Nolan, the creator of oh so many great films, has mentioned in a press conference that he would like to do something with the world of Inception, a video game perhaps. More on the story can be found here.

Some may argue that this game has already been created by Tim Schafer and Double Fine. Psychonauts was a critical success but financially didn’t do to well, unfortunately I never got a chance to play it but with talk of a inception game could this almost completely forgotten game see a resurgence? Regardless I’ll be sure to pick up the original right quick.

Hey folks, Lance here. As you know an ongoing series where we find some old Easter Eggs and share them with you. This week we present you with three funny clips! The first one (above) comes from the classic NES game Kirbys Adventure. As you may recall Jesse did a write up of this game in his excellent series NESessities of LIfe. It’s a fun little easter egg that developers used to do.

Next (below) we have a more recent example of an easter egg from last years Ghostbusters. The game got a bad rap but I rather enjoyed it – even with Bill Murray’s lazy performance – and would grade it a solid B/B-. It’s a great subtle easter egg that references the classic NES game that I owned.

This next one isn’t much of an easter egg but further proof that people have too much time on their hands.

I say “gameplay” footage up there but a lot of this seems scripted. Can’t be sure though, they could have just found a way to make genuine unscripted events look as good as scripted ones to the point where I can’t tell when the game yanks control. Either way, I was a hater of this game and the general idea of a Bioshock sequel until I watched the above video. I don’t know why I had doubts, the atmosphere the trailer delivers is palpable just as it was in Rapture. I’ll be curious to see where we are when release hits in 2012. FUCKING TWO YEARS FROM NOW.

I have a confession to make, yes, another one. I’ve never played any of the Deus Ex games. No, not even the first one that is supposed to be a classic. I think I just got into them too late. By the time I was presented with a copy of the CDROM I was in the middle of the original Splinter Cell. Dated graphics, stealth and RPG based FPS mechanics? No thanks. I was all about Sam Fisher and his third person brand of stealth.

Enter Deus Ex: Human Revolution and I have to admit, I have a jonesing going on for this game that parallels my need for oxygen. Set in a cyberpunk world with all the trimmings of a great Gibson novel the world and atmosphere drip with nuance. Stealth combat, RPG elements. First and Third Person hybrid. I’m in. I’m SO FUCKING IN.

I only wish this is what the Ghost In the Shell Game could have been. My love for anything cyberpunk is only magnified by my love for anything GitS. Every time I see our protagonist up there I can’t help but picture the Major doing all the same shit, only way more bad ass and half clothed. But instead we got this on PS1:

and this on PS2:

FUCKING FAIL!

Enough about that though, here’s another video get your boner going again:

There was a time that instead of doing animations for cut-scenes game companies hired actual LIVE PEOPLE to act out the scenes. Some games did this with some success (Gabriel Knight 2 – The Beast Within) and others did it so horribly that it killed the whole idea (Resident Evil). For a while the live action FMV seemed to be the way of the future but after a bunch of failures bundled with rising costs this approach has all but been abandoned in gaming. The video above comes from that era and might be the first true blooper reel for gaming.

Late last night (or early in the morning depending on where you live) Sony made the official announcement that the rumored Team Ico collection is coming to the PS3 next year. Both Shadow of the Colossus and Ico will run at 30 FPS and have updated textures to make these last gen games look as good as possible on the current gen. If you have a 3D TV set up both games will take advantage of that fledging technology as well. If you are worried that the game will have some janky cover art don’t worry. As series head Fumito Ueda “has some concerns about that”, and will “hopefully be addressing that problem”. Click here to head to Kotaku to see what the games look like in HD.

Lastly, Team Ico’s next game, The Last Guardian, was confirmed for a ‘Holiday Release’ for next year. So those hoping to see it soon just had their hopes and dreams dashed.

The Guys at AIgamedev.com have compiled a list of 42 tips from the minds of Halo. James Griesemer and Chris Butcher (Halo Designers) and Damian Isla (Halos lead A.i Designer). Reading over this list you realize the level of minutia and pull Halo has had over the industry since its release. Check it for some heavy nerding out. You might be surprised at what you fine, and the depths these guys go through to make gameplay compelling and fun.

What’s better than two weird dudes in leather jackets flying in on iPads and playing some weird football game while surrounded by lightning and leather jacket wearing spectators?  That’s right.  Nothing.  I don’t have an iPad and have never played this game, but I’ll watch this parody ad over and over again.

Steve Young Football. Get it. It may suck but you should just buy it to encourage them to keep making weird homages to 80s commercials. Check out the original Crossfire commercial after the break.

If you have an iPad and have played the game, let us know what you think in the comments or call us at 432-301-WARP.

Here we have David McCandless a journalist who collects assloads of Raw-data. He then makes very visually appealing diagrams and graphs to show the beauty of data collection. Now most of this is a lot of various subjects but if you go about four minutes in to find some cool stuff about violence and video games.

Now anyone who has been listening to the podcast knows I got myself a nut-buster for anything Kirby’s Epic Yarn related so when I found out do to other peoples research (cause I’m a Game-Journalist). That the game is based on an old Kirby commercial for another one of there games I thought that hey others should know about this. So check out the video cause its just so damn adorable.

Martin via Facebook pretty much dared me to prove that I can’t draw, even if I went to an art school. So I accepted his dare and drew Peach with a tramp stamp. All because I needed to assault your eyes today.

[Ed. note - click the image to see the full body shot.]

Anyone remember Laser-Quest? The indoor laser gun game in the dark that ever kid would want to get for their birthday? You’d strap on a vest that act as your hit detector and try to take out 20 other little hellions, with amped up laser pointers. Good wholesome fun.

Well the military along with laser shot have giant “kill houses” that are the final evolution of Laser-Quest. Where armed soldiers breach rooms and take out Terrorist Silhouettes with quick and calculating strikes for the ultimate simulation. For the last ten years they have been refining and fine tuning this project. Making sure bullets fly right, also making sure all the physics add up. It requires a ton of processing power to crunch the data, but it must be precise for the simulations to have real life validity.

Even the A.I’s are expertly crafted to react with the utmost authenticity. They are programmed to kill and will think creatively to do so. The actual detail of these simulations is not at the forefront since the soldier won’t care for specific textures but more of how it reacts realistically. The walls have high-end projectors showing enemies and the walls are bullets-proofed so the soldiers can fire of live rounds.

The “kill house” is being updated again with vests for the soldiers to wear that will mimic bullet impact when an A.I shoots a soldier. These layers of depth show some really slick technology but also are kind of reminiscent of a metal gear solid feel of simulation and dehumanizing enemy troops. It’s both interesting and terrifying at the time and money being spent on something little kids would play for fun on Sunday afternoons.

In one way it gives videos games better funding to make better games but the counter-point is the obvious negative conation it can take to show video games and murder simulators. Damn Jack Thompson was right.

Full story here on Kotaku.

While attending the fantastic Bit Gen Game Fest a few weeks ago Jena and I came across a merch table that was selling just the cutest stuff! Yes I said the cutest stuff. We picked up a sweet Mario magnet when he was wearing the Tanooki suit at one seller only because I didn’t have enough cash money to pick up a couple of this sellers awesome stuff! Winter is quickly coming so it might be a smart idea to stock up on some winter items. And I suspect these would make sweet gifts for the lady gamer in your life as well. Here is a direct link to the sellers ETSY store which is chock full of goodies like this!

Yeah, I saw this last night while watching Tosh.0 and I almost made a love stain on the sofa. Jess can attest. Dear people who produce video game commercials, THIS IS HOW YOU DO IT! STOKED!

On Saturday August 14th was the fifth annual Bit Gen Gamer Fest in Baltimore Maryland. You may recall the post we did about it two weeks ago. At the end of that post I asked Jena if we could go to this awesome experience. She thought it was clever and cute that I would ask in such a way and relented to my request to attend.

Apparently cute and clever is a good way to counter extraordinary geeky.

The festival was held at Sonar in Baltimore. It’s kind of a seedy club just a few blocks away from the block. For those who don’t or haven’t lived in Baltimore “the block” is where all of the porn stores and strip clubs are. A kind of small red light district. The club itself isn’t all that big. Probably could fit around 500 people in there if everyone was crammed in like sardines. It’s really just an oversized bar with a stage.

The organizers who put the festival on went all out. I’m not sure if sonar always has free to play arcade games but at Bit Gen they did. They even had an old Marble Madness cabinet that would’ve made contributor Jesse proud. They even did cut out drawings of all of your favorite 8-Bit heros, an example of which is at the top of this post. They had a short video montage around 3 minutes long that was on a loop that contained a bunch of old commercials and video shots of gamings early days. When a band would play this would changed to a graphic of the bands name in purple with the background being gameplay footage from various games. To the left of the stage there was a whole area dedicated to console games that you could play – similar to PAX’s try it area. The area was sponsored by MAG Fest. Overall the feel of the event was spot on and the organizers should be proud.

The first band up was a local Baltimore band called Armadillo Tank. They were the opening act for the show and served that role well. They got you excited for what was to come. I got the feeling that they were a newly formed band still trying to find their sound. Interestingly they had two female members which were two more members than any other band we saw that night.

The band Rare Candy came out next and while they weren’t my favorite of the night they were the most surprising. So much so I bought there CD. It’s hard not to like a band where they start out their set rocking out hard with a Keytar. The band was a three member group who really seemed in sync with what they were doing. At the end of their short 20 minute set I didn’t want them to get off the stage. Their sound is more typical of what you would expect from this kind of thing. If you heard this weeks podcast you heard a sample of their sound as they were this weeks opening.

X-Hunters were next on the schedule. Jena did not like this group. They are essentially a heavy metal group who specialize in Mega Man covers. It’s funny because I didn’t like them at all live. They were loud and kind of noisy. But I listened to some of their tracks on their MySpace page and I dug them a lot. But I give them credit they did something I never thought possible – mosh pitting to video game music.

The Ultraballs seemed like they were trying to be the Andy Kaufman act of the night. They didn’t stand on the stage and sing. They attempted to be apart of the crowd by mixing with the people up front. But because the microphones weren’t wireless they just stood in the front of the crowd so those in the back couldn’t see them. I’m not going to pull any punches here – they were awful. They scream sang over pre-recorded tracks and I believe their target audience is the 420 crowd. The only interesting part of their awful set was when they pulled out the Pokémon cartoon theme and the crowd sang it. You don’t know nerd until you’ve heard 100+ nerds scream sing the Pokémon theme.

After the crap that was The Ultraballs we got graced with the awesome Year 200X. They are similar in style to The X-Hunters in that they have a metal sound but they have a more lyrical style with their riffs. I found myself head banging (much to Jena’s chagrin) and rocking out hard to them. They felt like a cohesive band who’ve played plenty of shows together and know exactly who they are. I totally loved what they did and and everyone should expect to hear them as an opener to a future netcast.

The One Ups came out next and just blew the lid off the joint. Brentalfloss (who MCed the event) described them as the only video game music that he would have sex too. After much careful thought, that is indeed the best way to describe them. They had a rock jazzy flavor that was different from the rest of the bands that night that tended to drift towards the heavy side of music. They did an amazing cover of Super Mario Worlds Castle Theme that just blew my skirt up. Also it should be noted that they were the only group to take advantage of the duel screens flanking the stage. They had a DVD that would show a short montage from the game they were covering while displaying the name of the song. After about 30 seconds it would go to a static screen displaying their logo and web information. Classy and useful.

This Place Is Haunted came out after The One Ups which was a hard act to follow. TPIH is a bit more like the rest of the bands where they had a heavier sound but had a singer. We weren’t entirely feeling them as they played a lot of the same songs that other bands played. But then they busted out a melody of Disney songs and blew the place off the map. First, Disney toons are pretty awesome. Second, chicks dig Disney toons so all of the ladies who were dragged there loved it. Third, they fucking kicked ass at doing it. I was unaware that Disney songs and Video Game music had a cross section but at 8-Bit Gen Gamer Fest showed me that there was. If I can find their cover of Aladdin you will hear it on a future podcast.

The last group we stayed for was The Megas. When they took the stage we had been rocking out for a solid six hours and our feet and ears really needed a break. We’ve used their music as opening songs many times before because I’ve found them to be delightful and funny. Musically they do great renditions of Mega Man songs. But their twist is that they write lyrics for every theme crafting an elegant story for the entire album. This transitioned surprisingly well to a live set. It didn’t hurt that when they were singing Crashman a person in a excellent Crashman costume crashed the stage and crashing my low expectations for their entire set to a new high. Yes I just wanted to use the word Crash as much as possible. They ended their set (and our evening) with a mash up of their main Mega Man theme track with Brental Floss doing his Mega Man 3 song. It was awesome.

The whole evening was fantastic and really brought to light a bunch of new bands and styles for Video Game music. It made me even more aware that I am not the only one who fondly remembers these old games. Also I learned about MAG Fest, a Music And Gaming Festival that is planning their ninth annual festival this coming January. And the best part? It’s here in Alexandria, just a few blocks from where I work! It’s four day’s long so I won’t be attending the whole thing but I will definitely check it out and anyone in the area should think about it as well.

This is a treasure trove of what life was like 22 years ago. It contains subtle hints to the video games are terrible for our kids meme of the time (while Barbie who is the worst roll model ever for girls was an institution) and that it makes them speak a weird unknown language. Also how the Japanese are trying to take over America – a common fear of the late 80s. Greg Fischbach, founder of Acclaim and Peter Main are interviewed. It’s long but kind of amazing to see how adults back then were fearing kids my age would turn out.

OH YEHHH, its that time again, time for this weeks Feeling Motivated! In the FACE!!!!!!

Not sure if this classifies as an easter egg or not. But it cracked me up and I thought it was worth sharing. Hard to remember when these two Japanese giants were on such good terms.

Welcome to the poster side, young Padawan. Get ready to blow up my death star in this weeks Feeling Motivated!!!

This really brought the Lulz for me. I especially loved that it was in 1080p as well.

If you listen to our podcast then you know how much we love game music. In Japan game composers are treated with the same level of respect as film composers. I know I maybe more of a film dork than most but I would bet if I ask everyone to name as many film composers as they could they would come up with at least five just off of their head. But if it was game composers maybe we could remember one and it probably would be Nobuo Uematsu. Even though we probably can hum more themes from video games than we can from movie’s we’ve seen 1000 times.

My Mom was a piano teacher when I was growing up. She had something like 1.3 billion students and she taught out of the home. She love’s playing the piano and loved teaching it. Sadly I can’t play for crap (except for the Top Gun theme). My sister really doesn’t play and my brother probably can play a few songs he heard in movies only because he is OCD. I just didn’t have the patience to learn how to play Für Elise on the piano. But this was back in the early 80′s early 90′s when gaming was still in it’s infancy and my Mom didn’t have access to stuff like this. Some lady named Rachel Bell has taken it upon herself to create sheet music to some of the best games of yesteryear and today. Her website contains over 100 pieces of music that she has transcribed into sheet music. Man if my Mom had access to this stuff when I was a kid I may have been the world’s greatest pianist. But sadly all I am is someone who can’t stop laughing at the word pianist.

It’s no secret that I am a big Marvel comics fan. They are just hands down better then DC comics. Just look at the crap they’ve done with Batman and Superman in the past couple of decades. I also love Mega Man and the 8-Bit style of art. So the combination of the two equals a quantifiable nerdgasm for me. Click the above picture to see a ton of Marvel characters in 8-Bit glory!

Here’s a video I found on YouTube based on the old PC game where you, as settlers, must travel from Independence, Missouri, to Oregon’s Willamette Valle. The Game was made as edutainment to teach kids about the trials and tribulations of a 19 century pioneer. It was a game loaded with cheap deaths like your settlers getting dysentery or loosing wagons to high waters.

Apparently these guys have taken their fandom to the next level with a movie trailer to Oregon Trail. Man you Americans are fucked up.

It’s slowed down but that is the laugh of the most evil bastard ever in gaming. I know I haven’t played the game since the 90s but I honestly can’t remember that location Cloud is in. Is that from Final Fantasy 7 or one of the spinoffs?

Would you kindly enjoy these Bioshock posters? Thats right, Mr. Bubbles, we tackle Raptures finest in this weeks, Feeling motivated! So grab some Adam and scack cakes and enjoy!

Our resident superfan Peter brought this to my attention and I immediately had to share. There is an epic gamer concert coming to Baltimore’s Sonar club August 14th. Here is a list of the performers -

1. Powerglove*
2. Entertainment System
3. The Megas*
4. This Place is Haunted
5. The One Ups
6. Year 200X
7. The X Hunters
8. Ultraball
9. Rare Candy
10. Armadillo Tank

And the MC for this event? Brentalfloss*.

Tickets are 18 bucks if you buy in advance and 20 at the door. The even starts at 4PM Saturday the 14th. The only thing left to say is Jena can we go?

*Music has appeared on Bonus Level Radio.

Last week we found a little easter egg in Mario Kart 64. Today we bring you two easter eggs in one. Well one people probably already knew about but I didn’t know. Did you know that if you had Yoshi eat a green berry it gave you 20 more seconds in the level? Yeah I didn’t know that either. Check out the above video to see an interesting use of this little trick.

Clint Hocking is for all those not in the know are mad smart. Like crazy crack your skull open and eat the good on the inside smart. Ego-stroking aside he was a Lead Designer on Far Cry 2 until he handed in his resignation early this year. Now Far Cry 2 is a game that tried some very interesting things and though mostly didn’t succeed still was a bright unique game in a sea of sameness. (Noble Failure…hmmm)

Now Mr. Hocking is always talking about game design with all his big old smart talk and he has just put up an hour and half talk about game immersion. It’s a great listen and will defiantly go over some people’s heads. Enjoy!

Thats right Chillingo’s Joe Wee has announced that amazingly addictive iPhone game is being brought to the DS, PSP and the PS3 in addition to the announced Android port. No date on when it will drop but its all moot since I just got an iPhone. The game costs only a dollar US and comes with over 150 levels. They also update the game all the time with new levels for free!

Paul and Jess are huge fans of board game gaming. Jess has even admitted to playing the awesome game Settlers of Catan via the actual board game, ignoring the lengthy setup time. I’m not sure where they find the time to play these board games but I am extremely jealous of them.

I saw the video above on Paul’s reader account and it is amazing. I love how the game plays and love how the developers worked around the problem of hiding your cards. I wish the future was today and this kind of tech was affordable to everyone because this would be my coffee table.

This is a short little documentary of the demo setup for something called RACER. It’s essentially an interactive video game that features an Arcade Cabinet, some RC cars and a crap ton of cardboard. It’s a pretty epic setup that’s pretty awesome. Could this be the future of arcades or is it too cumbersome to be anything more then a cool tech demo?

This may not interest everyone here but I found it to be really fascinating. Besides that this is a whole new level of nerd mixed with slick engineering that it should be called enginerding.

Even though someone says am way too old for toys (except those that are labeled toys but have no moving parts and are more akin to statues made out of vinyl) this is kind of awesome toy I need. It’ll fill some random hole in my heart that I didn’t know existed until I found out about this toy.

One of our illustrious correspondents sent me this link saying “Hello good sir. I know you are very awesome and enjoy partaking in the occasional hilarious T-Shirt. Because of my prior knowledge of how awesome you are I felt that you would enjoy the following internet link. I myself would love to propagate it on the internets you’ve provided but I am far too busy recovering from the anal rape that Comcast so graciously provided me with last week.” That’s pretty much verbatim on what he sent me from what I can remember. The link he was talking about was this. It’s a full blown clothing line dedicated to 8-Bit glory. If you are like me and are a huge Project Runway fan SLASH observer of all things fashion chic then you would have undoubtedly noticed that the 80s are making a comeback in style. This sweet ass collection helps prove that to me.

I’m taking over the poster game with my own maxi-series, feeling motivated. This is my first entry in the series and it’s Pokémon. Gotta catch’em all!

So admittedly this video isn’t for everyone. It’s mainly for the craft makers among us. What it is is a detailed guide on how to make your very own Castle Crashers Doll! If I was pregnant and had skills at crocheting I would totally make this for my spawn.

I’ve bought a lot of hard drives in my time. I buy 2-10 hard drives a month for work plus I have so many externals I’ve retired a few of them due to age. None of them are as awesome as the one above. Some industrious ETSY member has taken upon his or herself to hand mod old SNES carts into a self-powered portable USB drive. You’d think this kind of amazing craftsmanship would come at a high premium and you’d be wrong. The seller is only charging 139 dollars plus 5 dollars shipping for this awesome drive. Yes it’s more expensive than similar drives on Amazon but those are not in awesome SNES carts. Also if you don’t like Super Mario World or just rather have a different game the seller claims to have a large inventory of games and is willing to track down your game of choice. So if you are in the market for a new pocket drive why not get the coolest drive around?

Also if you are looking for an awesome thumb drive as well the seller also makes GBA thumb drives!

Here is the final 10 awesome motivational posters featuring everyones favorite plumber! If you missed this awesome mini-series click here for part 1 and part 2!

If you come to this site (thank you to those who do) or listen to the podcast you know by now that I love all aspects of video games. Not just the games themselves but the history behind them and the people too. So when I came across this MASSIVE flowchart showing how the Development Studios fit into each other I couldn’t pass it up.

If you are like me than you loved the first Bioshock. [Ed. Not - You better mean up until I had to become a Big Daddy and the whole game came to a crashing halt all in the name of adding 2 hours of game play then yes. -- L] Apparently the boys at Irrational had another idea when they first penned the Bioshock story. That’s what this document that talks about the story they wanted to tell. This is an unique find indeed, so check it out.

Part 1

Part 2

Here is the next 10 of 30 awesome Mario Motivational Posters! If you missed the first 10 click here!

While the above video may not be viewable in every region it is hilarious none the less.

So we all love video games, and when we were kids we all loved toys. But outside of of a few exceptions kids today may have better toys then when we were younger. So is it wrong for me to try and have my cake and eat it too? Or perhaps am I looking for justification for wanting all these? Regardless of all that I bring you a bunch of sweet looking video game toys, or Interactive media display figures!

Bioshock

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker

Bayonetta

Halo: Reach

And if you got the scratch check this out -

I love how developer diary’s evolved from the very static .plan files to excellent youtube videos that mix in entertainment and show off their creativity. Still wish some publisher would recognize the potential if a full blown behind the scenes documentary similar to the old ones Lucasfilm did for Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Something serious and in-depth. Something the opposite of what G4 would do.

It’s no secret that my favorite game character is Mario. The first superstar of gaming has never disappointed me with his awesomeness. And now we I feel unmotivated he can now motivate me!

Check back tomorrow for ten more awesome posters!

I found this fella on youtube, a one Daniel Floyd. a Guy who makes videos in a Zero Punctuation fashion to teach us about video games and the depth and credibility they have. His videos go into moral choices, controversy and women in games. And all highlight points that are interesting and are built into quick edible ten minute videos.

Here is his YouTube page.

And this is his own personal blog.

Also I’ve talked to him recently and he says hes going to be teaming up with the The Escapist to bring more out more great content.

If you are like me then you love all things Nintendo. If you aren’t like me you still probably loved Mario Kart 64. It was the first game in the series to go full 3D and was a must have game for the console. You probably played the living crap out of the game. Probably knew that you could drive around Peach’s castle if you veered off course in Royal Raceway. The shortcuts on Kalimari Desert, Rainbow Road, Yoshi Valley, Koopa Troopa Beach, Royal Raceway and Wario Stadium. Hell you probably knew about the secret 4th place overall hidden ending. But I truly doubt you knew about the easter egg above. At the end race screen where the game tells you how many points you earned and have total if you let the music loop for 50 some odd minutes the music changes into a rendition only heard there. Why 50 minutes you ask? Because it is the 64th loop of the original music. As Robert Muldoon said in Jurassic Park, “Clever Girl.”

Check out the sordid behind-the-scenes life of that dastardly dog and those crazy ducks in the Nintendo classic. Once you watch this, it’ll all make sense.

We have all heard about video game remakes. The time honored tradition of taking some of our most treasured classics and rereleasing them up for modern audiences. Sometimes it’s a complete overhaul like the remake of Resident Evil 1 on the GameCube. While others go for graphical updates a la God of War Collection.

The indie video game site Gamejolt.com has some different ideas towards remakes and held a contest at the beginning of the month to demake various indie titles. The idea behind a demake is to break the game down to its simplest mechanics, so it would appear as a predecessor to the game being demade. There were many entries but I weaned them down to my top 8 in no particular order. (Arbitrary number for the win!)

Blok Asylum: You’re a square escaping an asylum jumping on other squares, no crazy innovation but tight controls and sweet music.

AAAA demake: A demake of AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA! A Reckless Disregard for Gravity. A sweet game I actually played at PAX. It’s a fun time killer with all the basics and fun of the original. Jump from high up and hit glass plates to build a score.

Glitchyescpae: Though arguably not a straight demake as it uses the original engine, insanely fun and super unique. A must try with awesome gravity physics and a trippy soundtrack.

Hellarious: Run to the left and jump to avoid obstacles, requires twitch reflexes and will frustrate some. Perhaps in the good way.

Plants Vs Zombies Demake: If you can’t get the real version this will suffice with its strip down enemies and plants, but seems to have no actually end game.

Specter Spelunker Resized: This is one of the more interesting games. The way you progress is changing the size of your character to get through obstacles. Play it simply for its originality.

Crytza: Use enemy attack against them as you are a white speck. Would have been allot better if the music wasn’t horrendous

Hold off Brownish Yellow: feels like you’re playing on a game boy, but that defiantly doesn’t stop it from being great. There’s a small level up system to tackle stronger and faster foes.

Genre
Puzzle

Dominant Algorithm
Tile placement/Goo

Gameplay
Tapping into the same sense of wonder that all children associate with the field of blue-collar labor, Pipe Dream tasks you with the ever-thrilling enterprise of connecting steel pipes so that fluid can flow through them freely. Knowing that just placing pipes on a grid wouldn’t be enough to pump kids up, the programmers added a challenge – the fluid that will be carried through the pipes is already flowing. You have to work quickly to make sure the slow-moving goo doesn’t spill everywhere.

Basically, your responsibility is to turn mundane this:

Into fabulous that:

You may now return from the edge of your seats. I know that this is really exciting.

Sweetness
Menial, repetitive task allows the user to experience the trance state that a plumber experiences. Unlike actual plumbing, user’s muscles may effectively atrophy by not making them actually pick up a wrench.

Weakness
While taking a few fantastic liberties with the vocation, the game is pretty effective in how well it emulates the thrill of plumbing.

Invaluable Life Lessons Which I Still Apply To This Day:

1. With a bit of practice, you can do anything. Even plumb!
2. Plumbers are rewarded for making loop-ditty-loops to confuse the fluid passing through the pipes.
3. Just sit back and imagine gallons of sticky white goo pumping endlessly through long, hard tubes. That’s it. There you go. So much sticky white goo. Focus on that image. endlessly flowing sticky white goo. And, if you aren’t careful, **SPLASH** sticky white goo will come out of the pipe and slop everywhere! **SPLASH SPLASH** Goo everywhere! That sticky white goo mess is so sticky and gooey that cleaning it up is impossible. Just leave it there to crust over and get started on pumping the next load of sticky white goo through the next tube.

Still Fun?
Not fun, per se, but an excellent menial task to occupy your mind with if you’re riding the train or laid up in a hospital bed.

Actually, scratch that. I played this game for two days straight when I was laid up in a hospital bed. The combination of gaming, heavy medication, and my own biological systems collapsing internally led to a nightmare that I was a tile in the game. The pipes were connecting me to hundreds of corpses and pumping our innards to and fro. I felt so many levels of decay pass through my body in that dream that I haven’t played the game since.

Relevance Satellite to the Paradigm Shift from my Youth:
The title of the game is an idiom in the English language that means an unrealistic dream or overly-fantastic idea. The origin of this phrase is from opium dens where people would smoke opium pipes and then have balls-out nutty ideas and dreams. Between the thoroughly explored issue of sticky white goo pumping out everywhere and the types of ideas you have while cranked out on opium, this game is amazing.

One can assume that this game was made based on the popularity of Mario, who was by trade a plumber. Perhaps the folks at LucasArts thought the concept of laying pipe would really resonate with the children.

Fan Art:
Unfortunately, the concept of hewing pipes together was not incredibly resonant with budding artists in the late 80′s/early 90′s. However, there are a couple pictures floating around the internet that are related. These are those:

See? Now, that’s just cute.

Though not a gaming site, www.thereifixedit.com is pretty fun to look at.

“That’s the mentality here. That’s the reality here. Did I hear somebody say they want to challenge me here?” – Eminem

I don’t know why that picture makes me think of that quote.

Jesse Koester is a film producer working in Tokyo. His work can be seen at www.iceblockfilms.com. Jesse’s most infamous problem is a blinking red power light.

Do you have hundreds of NES, SNES, and Genesis cartridges just lying around, without any of the systems to play them on? Have you ever been playing Chrono Trigger and had a sudden urge to play Moonwalker, but didn’t want to unplug the SNES and plug in the Genesis? Well, have I got the answer for you!

Introducing, the RetroN 3!!! Coming in the 2 stylish colors of red and black, the RetroN 3 plays all of your favorite games! (Disclaimer: Only if your favorite games are on the NES, SNES, or the Sega Genesis.) It has all of some of the best things about the 3 consoles, without the hassles of actually owning them! It comes with 2 controller spots for ach of the controller types, or you can use the 2 generic wireless controllers included in the package.

So you may be asking yourself, “How much will this cost?” $19.99? Nope! $29.99? Nope! “Okay I give up how much will it cost?” Surprisingly, just one easy payment of $69.99! So you can get it all; 1 game system, 2 wireless controllers, the plug-ins, and a cardboard box. A friggin’ CARDBOARD BOX!!!!!!!!!!! So go out and get yours today, or whenever they come out.

[Ed. Note - The site seems to be down due to excessive bandwidth. Check back in a few days and if anyone gets one of these we want pictures!]

“A videogame invasion has hit Mt Hood and High Cascade!”

This is a pretty sweet snowboarding and skate video from Knife Show Inc.  Great homages to Super Mario, Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Portal, and more.

Hey does anyone remember Fist of the North Star the anime series from the early eighties? I sure as hell don’t but that is mostly due to the fact I was still floating around in my father’s nut sack. Anyway that is neither here nor there. The series has Kenshiro wandering the wastelands of a post-apocalyptic world dolling out ass-kickings by continental load. To simplify it even more, imagine a world where Goku exists but everyone else is still normal. It’s crazy over the top action where each of Kens blows cause enemy’s torsos to convulse swell up and explodes in a mist of blood. He can survive fire, electricity, tank rounds and even Arnold Schwarzenegger.

So the guys over at Koei, most known for their Dynasty Warriors series, are making Fist of the North Star: Kens Rage (PS3 and 360). A beat ‘em up that looks like it goes hand in hand with what the shows was all about. The game looks pretty fun and will defiantly get me to get some hands on time with come its fall release date. The reason I’ve begun to get some interest in this game is theses clips on YouTube where Ken feet’s of awesome are shown for all those to see. Typing in Kenshirowned will yield some sweet results. They’re pretty great in a bat shit insane kind of way.

Something to warm you up to Ken -

Arnold goes to town on him -

Black Zangeif gets drilled -

Some sweet kills -

A Fucking Tank -

It’s no secret that I love threadless.com.  For those of you not in the know, designs are submitted by artists and the community votes and decides what gets made into a sweet shirt.  This little baby is entitled “Let the Game Continue” is designed by Eduardo San Gil aka Graja.  I love the concept of our 8-bit friends being massacred into tetris blocks.  It’s brilliant.  You should go buy it now.

And if you do get the shirt, send us a picture of you wearing it and you’ll get a Bonus Level achievement.  Just kidding.  There’s no such thing…or is there?

[Ed. Note - There is now.]

All you need now are the overalls, gloves, hat, and the sweet, sweet stache to finish. These custom mario are possibly the only thing to give me a shroom-gasm.

For some more pics, click on this link.

I heard Koreans were insane about StarCraft. I knew that it was a national sport. But I never ever thought those who play were Androids. Seriously, who remembers Star Trek The Next Generation? Every once in a while they would point out how much faster Data was at doing stuff by speeding up his hand movements. Effective filmmaking and trickery sure but he is still slower then this AVERAGE pro-StarCraft player. Mind. Blown.

PAX Boston was my first PAX and it was a amazing experience for oh so many reasons. The most notable is meeting the goon of Bonus Level which brings me joy beyond imagining.

Well we all knew it was returning but this article says we got it for at least three more years. Lets just hope they moved our ass to a bigger venue in Boston. Is anyone planning on attending PAX East next year?

Whether or not this was just done to be as am After Effects test it is pretty amazing and fun to watch.

Typically we have some sort of preview image for the video giving the reader a quick sense of what it is they are about to watch. I struggled with this because I wanted to put an image up but I didn’t want to spoil the awesome surprise that is this video. I LOLed all around this one.

A new JRPG called Ni no Kuni is being made by game developer Level 5, it was previewed about a year back on the Nintendo DS but now the PS3 is getting its own copy. Level 5 are the guys who brought us greats like the Professor Layton series and serious turds like White Knight Chronicles. The only difference that made this newsworthy is the fact that studio Ghibli is adding their own personal touch to the project.

Studio Ghibli are the creators of My Neighbor Totoro (best use of a Totoro), Princess Mononoke (best use of Billy Bob Thornton voice), and Spirited away (best animated movie ever). The art style is enough to sell me on the game, not to mention the probable stellar story with Studio Ghibli involvement. Unfortunately for my wallet though I may be forced to buy the game twice. Seeing as teams have been broken up to design two different games from scratch, only keeping the skeleton of the story.

The game is set to follow a boy named Oliver story as he tries to bring back his mom from the dead with the help of a magic book to summon monsters. Now I’ve only seen a couple of videos but from what I can gather it looks like a variation of Pokémon. Monster placement is also an essential strategy to combat. The DS combat seems based more around using the stylus to draw out symbols.

This is one JRPG I will defiantly follow, man I never thought I’d say that again. So here’s hoping for Totoro being a playable character, hell I’ll even take Catbus. Click here for the DS trailer.

I recently came across this awesome music video that really blew my skirt up.

Everyone that knows me knows I got a massive erection for anything Team Ico. So when I first heard the rumors that they were going to bundle Ico and Shadow of the Colossus in an HD bundle I was creaming myself in anticipation. But as the months past I heard less and less about the bundle aside from small time rumors. And since E3 came and went without even a rumble of news on it. I was left dismayed and saddened, but a silver lining has been shown to me – by none other then the French.

That’s right the French Amazon site has put this up for a June 2011 release. Now nothing has been confirmed on Sony end. But this is the first hard evidence that it’s a legit thing. So here’s to the French for finally coming through for us, or so I hope.

[Ed. Note - The listing seems to have been taken down but Sony has come out saying how much they would love to see an HD collection of the games]

viva usted uso de boina, banguet bastardos comestibles.

Ever think to yourself “Hey I’m an awesome person and I know more about games then the next guy?” If you have then do I have a little web trivia game for you! I just stumbled upon this little game from ArcadeAid.com where it’s an awesome Where’s Waldo-esqe drawing hiding games of yesteryear and today. At first I found it pretty easy but then there were 20 something games hiding out. It was a pretty awesome distraction and worth checking out!

In an age where video games are bombarded by bad publicity and constant watch dogging by over protective parents, where do we turn to find intelligent arguments towards detailing gaming’s worth? Well, thanks to a good friend, our prayers have been answered in the form of Well Played 1.0 (free online version) (purchase the hardcover).

The book is a collection of essays wherein the writers explain their love and reasons for love in video games. They bring up many interesting ideas like why super Mario world is perfect game design to character development in games like Bioshock. A pretty significant read that was done with allot of heart and defiantly and necessity for anyone that can appreciate games as more than just time sponges.

Have you ever been playing the original Super Mario Brothers game and gotten so frustrated that you wanted to shoot a goomba in the face? Well now you can! In this suprisingly awesome flash game (Super Mario Crossover, for those who didnt read the title) you can play the entire original game , warp pipes and all, as Link, Bill, Megaman, Samus, Belmont, and Mario. While many people may remember playing the game when it first debuted on Newgrounds.com you may not realize that the games author has a whole website setup just for the game and has been updating it as well! Samus is now looking more like herself from Other M and you can play as Ryu from Ninja Gaiden!

Try it out by following this link.

I’ve run across a random selection of Mario-related art and cool stuff in my interweb travels and thought it would be a shame not to share it.  Here’s 5:

1. Man in a white tuxedo scores Super Mario Bros. with a violin.

I love it.  I love how he manages to get most of the sound effects and everything.  And he’s in a white tux.

2. “Bit and Run”

“bit and run” — Mario’s Ladder from Cory Godbey on Vimeo.

I’m not entirely sure what’s happening here but I like it.  Maybe it’s the animation or maybe it’s the music.  I just think it’s beautiful.

3. Historical Reconstitution Threadless Tee

I love threadless and I love this t-shirt.  Designed by Vincent Bocognani, this t-shirt shows a medieval ”Mario” and Princess on a pretty fierce looking Yoshi-like dinosaur.  It’s beautiful way to say that you’re a gamer, I say.  Go get: Historical Reconstitution.

4. Seven Marios Made From Common Household Objects

Behold! Toast Mario!  Seven Marios Made From Common Household Objects

5. Super Mario Land Rap

Super Mario Land Rap – Watch more Game Trailers

8-Bit Duane lays down some ridiculous rhymes about that old black and white Gameboy game.  What IS a lion doing in that game?
[Ed. Note - 8-Bit Duane used to be a member of the super group The Adventures of Duane and Brand0. Their work appears regularly as one of the many opening songs used on Bonus Level Radio.]

Bonus Level

I thought I post the original picture from which my header graphic came from!

I recently came across two internet web games that I just had to share with everyone here at Bonus-Level.

One is Transformice a unique game where you and 20 other real people are mice attempting to grab some cheese in tons of different levels with various obstacles in your way. The mouse with the highest score becomes the shaman and can summon objects to help you through the level. It’s a perfect blend of addictiveness and chaos. Also a severe case of lemmings.

Next is more of classic game, Robot Unicorn Attack. Where you’re moving to the right at faster and faster speeds. The difference is you’re a robotic unicorn with some crazy dance beats in the background.  Charge or jump the obstacles in your way.  I can only promise happiness and an urge to become euro trash from 93 after playing this game.

Rubber banding for all those who don’t know is the act of the A.I (mostly in racing or sports games) where the A.I. will go faster, hit harder or just go beyond their original programming to keep the game competitive or “fair”.  The general idea is that players will become bored if you’re doing too well in a game, so the A.I will in essence cheat to keep the game competitive.  Whether it’s a car getting an unnatural speed boost or a QB with laser-precise precision, Rubber Banding has been in numerous games.

The first Rubber Banding in video games was probably the Bitmap Brother game “Gods” released in 1991 (on Snes, Amiga, Pc and Genesis). The game was a run and jump side-scrolling platformer that at predetermined points would give you health if you were doing poorly or spawn more enemies if you were doing well. Critics at the time praised it for this innovation and it all should have been downhill from here on. So what happened to the Rubber Banding in video games?

Well years later it was brought back in various forms in an attempt to balance out games like Final Fantasy 8. Wherein the enemy’s level was based on your group level averages not just your initial party. This left the game rubber banding featured worked against it, allowing you to walk all over most enemies along as you had the same party members.

The Need for Speed Series was synonymous with constant A.I “cheating”. Toted as an actual feature and referred to as the “Catch Up” mode, this feature would allow the A.I to get speed boosts near the end of the race catching up with the player winning. Cop cars with slower acceleration would gun past your Lamborghini Diablo with ease and shunt you into a wall. The ability to turn off “Catch Up” mode was thankfully given in the later incarnations of Need for Speed.

Even fighting games had it. Street Fighter 4 boss Seth would in the first round attack normally using just a few special moves. But based on how well you did the entire game against other opponents, his difficulty would ramp up or slide down to stay on your level. Earlier, in King of Fighters 94 the end boss Rugal would go down easy in the first round and, just like Seth, go all out on your ass in the second round.

Everyone who has played Left 4 Dead knows that the games A.I “Director” is the epitome of the Rubber Band effect. This “Director” would monitor players and how well they were doing. Based on this monitoring the A.I. would send out more or less zombies and special infected. Valve defined this feature as Procedural Narrative, constantly changing the flow of the game. This idea was transferred over to Left 4 Dead 2 but was given a higher learning curve which split a lot of people on the sequel. To me, this is Rubber Banding at its finest.

Of course no one can forget any version of Mario Kart. Being in first would only land you green shells and bananas while being in dead last the game would hand you blue shells, POW blocks, bullet bills and lightning bolts. Though one of the more obvious games that you could call out the A.I. for cheating, it still remains an amazingly popular game.

Love or hate it Rubber Banding is a mainstay of video games. Us gamers can only hope that it will be used wisely in future releases and not just as a lazy mechanic to keep you from pointing out a games short comings. With recent racing releases like Blur, Modnation Racers and Split/Second we will see if we will get the promise of a balanced and enjoyable game.

P.S Fuck the Blue Shell.

Upon my many ventures on the internet I’ve seen many things, both wonderous and horrible. But none could prepare me for an original playstation game that was realesed back in 1998.

The name of the game is 98 Koshien, a 3-D baseball games including stats on 4129 japanese high schools. Made to include a level of strategy and tactics also, you could train players for better teamwork.

But the main selling point of the Magical Company (an actual Publisher and Developer) baseball release was edit and creation features. You could edit your logo, uniforms and Pitch stance

Unfortunatly the game was a japan exclusive, So will have to wait till MLB The Show picks up this hot feature of yesteryear.

Ok I know some people hate the price of Xbox LIVE. Feeling that it is too expensive at 50 bucks a year for what you get. I disagree thinking its a small price to pay for what the LIVE experience brings to home gaming. So for those of you who are holding out let me ask you something, would you get LIVE if it was say only 30 bucks for a year? Today over at Newegg.com (use this link to get the coupon) there is a sale going on that brings a 12 month subscription of Xbox LIVE down to only 30 bucks. You can in fact get two 12 month cards so you would only be paying 60 dollars for two years of online gaming. The deal ends tonight at 12am PST so you will have to decide quickly.

This isn’t the first time we have seen this deal. Amazon does this from time to time. The only problem is they only let you buy one card at a time. Newegg has no such restriction so stock up!

So… ‘The Mortal Kombat’ from the newly formed NetherRealm Studios  is a return to the hay-days of completely destroying and humiliating your competitor. Thanks to the guys at Screw-attack, we now get a live (but somewhat shaky) video from E3 Showcasing some of the insane ways in which you’ll be able to terror apart your opponent.

Enjoy.

Freddie Carlini is web/graphic designer at The Black Hat Creative, based out of Bethesda, MD. Favorite games range from Punch-Out and Bubble Bobble to God of War and Shadow Complex.

So I’ve been busying myself lately with playing all the latest games to review for all you fine people (also I really love the attention).  Games with amazing graphics, impeccable voice work and game worlds the size of most big cities. So through my trolling of the internet’s looking for these hot new games, I have stumbled about a true gem. Cave Story.

Now I know this game isn’t fresh out the gate since it was released in 2004 on PC. And with its rerelease in March on Nintendo Wii Ware, I feel I’ve missed the party. But you don’t come to Bonus Level for the most up to date news; you come for stories with heart and conviction (it’s what I tell myself).

So for a little back story first. Cave Story was created by one man named Daisuke Amaya or known to the internet as Pixel. The game was praised from 1UP to EGM for its retro feel while still feeling fresh. The game has you as an amnesiac that awakes on a floating island, where you’re cast as the protector of Mimigas (the bunny looking people). From this relative simple plot you’re tossed into a “metroidvania”-esque game acquiring items and weapons as you progress. Cave Story‘s three-level weapon system allows the player to increase the power of their weapons, decreasing when damage taken. There are even multiple endings for the truly hardcore.

The game is so astoundingly put together with tight controls and great mechanics. Each boss you face in the game offers a unique fight strategy that is always making you think. The music is one of the more memorable parts, offering a variety of tunes that will both excite and chill you. But the best part of this game? It’s free. That’s right all you have to do is download an English translator to get the game in English.

But the only real way to experience it is the touched up version on Wii Ware which is only about $10. Please check this game out and support it in any way you can.

Click here to download the game and it’s english translator.

Yeah, so, this is bad ass. Watch it if you haven’t seen it. All I’m saying is, Bioware should be in charge of everything Star Wars related from here on out. Seriously, kick Lucas off that throne forever. He’s become drunk with power and like a roman emperor his mind has become clouded by sex with young boys.

Ahem.

Too soon?

I mean, I don’t even want to play the game, I’d be content watching these CG trailers for the rest of my life. But couple that with the fact that we all know Bioware makes great games? I think we have a winner on our hands.

Considering cancelling those tickets for your July trip to Louisiana? Weather outside so hot it feels like an Arizona heat wave in your pants? Then summer gaming might just be the right vacation for you as it promises to deliver some hot, anticipated gems to the gaming world.

Here are 7 reasons summer might just be more fun if it is had indoors:

GAME: Earthworm Jim HD
PLATFORMS: XBLA, PSN, DSi-Ware
RELEASE DATE: Available Now

Our favorite 16-bit dirt dwelling hero returns to the video game arena in this HD remake of the original classic, Earthworm Jim.

I’m sure there are cheaper way’s to play emulators. In fact some phones allow you to play them without jail-breaking or hacking. But this way is pretty and it reminds me why I keep an eye out for the android tablet. Now that really would be a game changer.

With the upcoming release of SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD (based… and looking pretty spot on to the graphic novel series of the same name) also comes word of a movie tie-in video game. For most gamers, “move tie-in” has forever left a bitter taste in our mouths and ears.

But sometimes, a surprise or two can come through the valley of sh!t that can knock us off our feet (I really liked Jurassic Park for the SNES and ROBOCOP for the NES, haha).

Well it turns out the SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD tie-in is taking a cue from CASTLE CRASHERS, and the brawlers before it (The Simpsons Arcade Game and River City Ransom) to give us XBLA and PSN fanatics some love. From the 8-bit music and sound effects, to the 16 bit graphics, this looks like it could be a winner.

Enjoy.

Freddie Carlini is web/graphic designer at The Black Hat Creative, based out of Bethesda, MD. Favorite games range from Punch-Out and Bubble Bobble to God of War and Shadow Complex.

1. Wario-Ware - The Mario clone / nemesis, would take 10 people hostage and make them solve puzzles and minigames. After  solving ten puzzles out of one of his “co-workers” themes, they would get told which of the three different colored wires in the bombs attached to their legs to cut to save their lives, Saw style. How many will make it out of this sick game alive?
2. ‘Splosion Man- In an ungerground lab in the middle of area 51, secret tests are going on witch only a select few know about. The government hired a group of scientists to create super soldiers who could control the power of explosions. When the first creation, made with an accidental attention span lower than a goldfish, escapes his holding cell and starts going on a hilarious rampage only his determination  and love of using fat people as shield will help him escape.
3. Shadow Complex - When one mans quest for the almighty poontang take a strange twist, he must save his girly  “aquantince”. Or so he thinks. Follow Jason Flemming as he starts to find out the truth about his “special friend’s” past life and the secret base that is found underground. Will he survive? Will he find the ‘Bloody Axe Wound”? Will he find enough gold bars to get golden weapons? We may never know. Unless you beat the game.
4. Left For Dead - Samuel Jackson, Jessica Biel, Sean Connery, Chuck Norris + zombies + guns. ‘Nuff said.
5. Portal - Chel was just an average girl with big dreams. She had a husband and two lovely kids. She had a cushy job with a big pay. It was a perfect life, until she got a mysterious package with a strange code and a promise of cake. If only she knew the cake was a lie. After going to the location where the “party’ was being held and putting the code into a computer at the front door, she smell something funny. Next thing she knew she woke up in a room with a strange gun that created portals in walls. Using only the guidance of a seemingly friendly computer program, the companion cube and the gun, Chel hopes to find her way back home and , most of all, the promised cake.

I didn’t include some games like Halo or Gears of War because those are games that waill more than likely be made because they would be easy movies to make because they have rich story lines and amazing cutscenes in the actual games. These were just my idea of a few games that would be awesome but out of the box movies.

Are there any games that you think would be better ideas for a movie? Are you someone who actually enjoyed Prince of Persia?

When you saw the title of this article, did you not just imagine that kid standing in the middle of the street with his flannel shirt and long curly hair screaming? I DID! Now all we need to do is cue the ALL SAINTS REMIX, haha.

So after the new viral video going around of the pitch for the new Mortal Kombat movie (from the guy who directed FAME!, W-T-F?!) we now get an even better video. The new MORTAL KOMBAT video game, which from this video, looks like it’s definitely going back to it’s roots, 2D Action (with a slight 3D twist) blood, gore, and the reason we loved it from day one, ‘Fatality.’

ENJOY!

The other day I got a press release in my inbox that actually stood out a bit from the other 50 or so that I got. It’s an XBox Indie game that is being developed by two people who helped bring us Bioshock. Heres a by-line for the game, its 1937 and the game takes place at the Zero Point Lunar Harvesting Facility. So it’s retro future in the vein of Bioshock or Sky Captain And The World of Tomorrow. The game is billed as an action/strategy hybrid that includes split screen co-op. The game looks great and very polished to me even if it’s billed as an XBox Indie game. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if this game doesn’t mosey up to a full blown Arcade release.

The trailer for the game isn’t embed-able so you’ll have to point your browser over to the developers website to check it out. As far as developer websites go I actually found their site to be enjoyable and their Dev Journal to be a fun read. Never knew that games have their own version of a “playoff beard” but apparently they do.

Have you been waiting for something ‘new’ to be done with the Mortal Kombat franchise? Have the ‘Teen’ rating and censored fatalities of Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe left a bad taste in your mouth (not to mention the horrible story and the fact that Midway went the way of the Dodo)? Yeah, me too (though I did enjoy the fighting in the game and throwing people through walls).

Well it looks like someone wants to give it the make-over treatment. Whether it’s going to be a movie, or someone is pouring some money into a promotion leading up to an announcement concerning the franchise, no one knows for sure. But this trailer sure does leaving me wanting more… a lot more.

From the introduction of characters such as Reptile, Shang Tsung, Baraka, Johnny Cage, Sonya Blade, Sub-Zero, Scorpion, and Jax (played by Michael Jai White from Dark Knight, Spawn fame) this ‘movie/video game promo’ looks 10x better than any previous fighting game turned movie, and it even adds some elements of reality to it to explain the ‘supernatural’ abilities of some of the characters. What this video leads to, we really don’t know, as of yet. But it sure has left one fan pretty excited. Watch the video above to get a taste of MORTAL KOMBAT REBIRTH.

The Mario Marathon is my personal favorite Childs Play event. Not because it’s Mario but because the people involved genuinely love Mario. At first at least. Last year they raised almost 30,000 for the gamer charity and were forced to play Super Mario Sunshine. This year they have two more Mario games to play through. I think since this is their third year doing this there is a real good chance that they may complete all of the games. They are great gamers doing something for a great cause so if you got a few bucks lying around why not donate and get them over 30,000 this year?

www.MarioMarathon.com

Ever wondered what a real life Super Smash Brothers would look like? Well apparently so does artist Greg De Stefano, who did a cosplay piece on 23 characters from the famous Wii game. Who do you think looks the coolest? Who would you have liked to see in the line-up instead? I think they all look pretty amazing.

Tons more can be found by clicking this link.

Those people that know me, know that I love Shadow of the Colussus and would love a HD remake of it. So when I was trolling the internet like any good game writer does, I stumbled apon these two links that may rekindle my love with this game. The basic idea is for Sony to make a HD remake bundle of Ico and Shadow of the Colussus, much like in the same way they made the God of War Collection. So heres hoping E3 announces this long awaited remake.

And click here if you want to see what it would look like in HD. I’m not alone in waiting this right? Is there any other games that deserve this kind of HD treatment?

Congratulations 2010 college grads!  You’ve worked hard to get that BA degree.  And now?

Welcome to the suck.

At least you’ll have games to pass all the free time you’ll have not working.  You can also spend that time reliving your glory days checking out these fun illustrations by Conor McKeon for CollegeHumor.com entitled Videogame University: The New Class.  It’s good stuff.

This kid needs a friend who plays guitar and another to play keytar and they will form the greatest band of all time.

Entitled Pixels and with a running length of just under 11 minutes this short pixel art documentary takes us through the history and future of what is essentially the equivalent to gaming on a cellular level. Comprised of clips from notable pixel artists such as Paul Robertson and Superbrothers, animator Simon Cottee speaks with Jason Rohrer of Sleep is Death, Joe Brumm creator of “Dan the Man” and chiptune musician Alex Yabsley AKA Dot_AY about their respective relationships with the pixel art movement. The film brings up good points about the genre’s fit into art history proper and makes excellent arguments for games and even pixels as art.

Worth a watch.

With the eternal struggle here at Bonus Level to not portray gamers as misogynistic, agoraphobes — a struggle that is eternal indeed — it’s semi-refreshing to see something come along like this. Enter: Dan the Man, a digital short that shows just what happens after that princess is saved. Mario was lucky that bitch was always in another castle. For REAL.

Video after the break.

As most of you are aware of now, the ‘father’ of the XBox and Zune has left Microsoft, a company he has worked for for over 19 years. The man was a visionary for gaming and helped bring typical PC gaming elements to consoles forever changing the social aspect of home gaming. Below is his goodbye letter to his team that I found uplifting while being sad.

From: J Allard
Date: May 25, 2010 8:56:08 AM PDT
To: “Robert (Robbie) Bach”, Entertainment & Devices Division FTE
Cc: Senior Leadership Team
Subject: Decide. Change. Reinvent.

Reinvent.

If you’ve been following along, you probably understand just how difficult it was for me to decide to leave the tribe and explore new territory, but the time has come.

My passion for our cause combined with my obsessive nature has put many of my other interests on hold for a long time. I don’t know exactly what tomorrow looks like – but if my focus has been 95% MSFT, 5% life until now, I know that the first step is to flip that ratio around. After wrapping some projects up, I will shift to 95% life and 5% MSFT. With that 5% I’ll be working for SteveB on a couple of projects beginning this fall…..

In response to the curiosity, no chairs were thrown, no ultimatums served, I am not moving to Cupertino or Mountain View, I did not take a courier job and I require no assistance finding the door. I do know that I’m going to help a couple of friends get their startups going (e.g. The Clymb), I’m planning some races (by foot, bike and off-road trucks), and I’m going to put some energy into my passion for design, the arts and philanthropy. For those of you reporting into one of my organizations, I am committed to working through all of the transition issues and assure you that The Tribe remains committed to the work you are doing and our purpose going forward.

If, at the next juncture, I decide to join a corporate tribe again, this place will definitely top my list. There are a lot of great companies out there doing terrific and meaningful work with better pizza, nicer décor and great implementations of “ls” on the desktops, but The Tribe? No one can touch our talent, our impact or our ambition. We’re the only high-tech company with the track record and self-confidence to reinvent ourselves as we have. If you want to change the world with technology, this is still the best tribe out there.

Please, put my headcount and that cardkey “invitation” to good use. Find a college student that claims we don’t get it and blogs tirelessly about our lack of agility. Track down an EE that has been focusing on fuel cells and has radical thoughts about power management. Or a social networking whiz who is tired of building little islands that go hot and cold and can’t break the mainstream. Hire a designer who’s given shape to 2 decades of beautiful automobiles and thinks we can sculpt technology to better connect to users. Infuse them with our purpose. Give them the tools. Give them lots of rope. Learn from them. Support where they take you. Invite them to redefine The Tribe.

Decide. Change. Reinvent.

I wonder how many years from now until we see a video like this for graphic cards?

Today brings you Part 2 of our 3 Part series on video games and their movie adaptations. If you missed Part 1, you can find it right here.

The next year brought us the most successful video game movie franchise of all time, Resident Evil. There have been three movies based on this franchise so far, with a fourth one coming out later this year. The first movie wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t particularly any good. Leeloo from the Fifth Element, played by Milla Jovovich, wakes up from a coma and all hell has already broken loose. She and a bunch of Umbrella commandos go through spooky sets and sound effects until the end of the movie happens. Side note: if you pause it on the right frame near the end of the movie, you will see a glimpse of Leeloo’s lolo. If you listen to the commentary track, Leeloo herself will tell you when.

The zombie designs were nice and the movie did capture the feel of the series, minus shitty controls and bad voice acting. The movie strayed a way from the game a little too much and I think that was its biggest weakness. The movie needed to be either a straight-up adaptation or an official part of the games storyline. Instead it was half-adaptation and half-doing-its-own-thing, so it just pissed off gamers, also known as the film’s core audience, because it bore little resemblance to the games upon which it was based.

Here is the trailer for the fourth film in the franchise with the subtitle “Filmed with the James Cameron / Vincent Pace Fusion Camera System”

I have no idea whats going on with that trailer. But it is the most successful game/movie franchise so even though they’ve run out of good subtitles, I bet there will be a fifth movie.

I had thought about doing each one of following films individually but frankly everything can be said about them in two words: Uwe Boll. The man should be on every gamers most wanted list. The man has done as much damage to video games in the public eye as Jack Thompson. Well, in his own way, that is. Here is the list of movies he has directed: House of the Dead; Alone in the Dark; Bloodrayne; Postal; Far Cry; and In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale. All of those movies are some of the worst movies ever made by any human being. This is coming from someone who has sat through thousands of student films. Granted these games weren’t really the best ones to make into movies in the first place, but did they deserve to be grounded up into a pile of shit? Probably not. Well, maybe House of the Dead. His “best” film has been Postal mainly because of its satical nature, as well as its willingness to go too far. The film opens up with a 9/11 joke.

Admittedly it is a little clever and I chuckled at it at parts, but it is in extreme poor taste. Ifthat offended you or made you recoil in horror, just remember that that film is widely considered to be his best film.

Now the question everyone asks, why the hell does he get to keep making movies? For a short period of time, Germany had an amazing tax credit that would allow any film investor of a German-owned film to be able to write off 100% of their investment as a tax deduction. They would only have to pay taxes on any profit the film would make. If the film bombed, the investors would owe nothing, meaning that most investors would automatically get 50% of their investment right back from the government. Uwe Boll used this tax credit to fund most of his movies. It was a great way for companies to get rid of money tax-free and for German filmmakers to make films. That tax loop hole recently was closed, which is the real reason why Uwe Boll’s film output has slowed down.

I used to play Doom 2 on my old 486/66 IBM computer in my Mom’s bedroom in New Jersey. It was one of my first games for that old mule of a computer. I loved the ability to make my own levels for the game and my friends at the time would do everything we could to make our levels ever more impossible to overcome. If the level was deemed to easy then you would get called evil names only a middle schooler could think of. I spent most of the time making levels for the game instead of playing it. Why? Because the game would give me terrible, splitting headaches. First person shooters for the longest time did that to me. Perhaps it was the faux 3D aspect of them or the inability to look up. In any case Doom 2 and its clones gave me terrible headaches for most of the 90s. In 2005 that terrible headache came back.

The Doom production crew said all the right things leading up to the movie. They pointed out how many video game movies had sucked. They believed that was because they were cheaply made and with a budget of nearly 70 million, this was going to be different. They also insisted that the movie be R-Rated. Leading up to the movie I thought this was awesome. How could you do an invasion from Hell as a PG-13? You can’t! As it turned out you can’t do it as an R-Rated movie either, as they completed dropped that element from the movie. Instead they choose the more plausible root of alien/zombie/human/infection hybrid. Why there were afraid to go the hell invasion route is beyond me. Did they not want to make it seem like it was a Christian-only movie?

The movie contains many inside references to the game from Dr. Carmack to the Bio Force Gun. The biggest reference – and as I recall a major selling point to the movie – was the sequence at the end of the movie when the movie goes all FPS. For what seems like an eternity the move becomes a shooter as you follow the protagonist around as he kills things. All from the familiar FPS vantage point. At this point I wanted to throw up. I have trouble with fast cutting or too much shaky cam. I still don’t know what the hell was going on with the opening of Quantum of Solace for example. I do give the filmmakers some credit– going to this point of view so late in the movie was ballsy. You take the hero out of the story in a lot of ways. It was supposed to be a cool homage to the game series that spawned this movie but it just made me sick, and I wanted out of the theater fast.

Doom in a lot of ways exemplifies whats wrong with video game adaptations in Hollywood. Hollywood has never ever respected its source material. The screenwriter, who actually creates the world films live in, are usually treated like dogs. Movies based on novels rarely don’t suck and even more rarely resemble their source work. With Doom they bought a high profile name only to change its basic premise. Doom isn’t known for its story but that shouldn’t have hurt the filmmakers. It should’ve been liberating. You have a setting, a hero and the villains. The inspiration for making this movie should’ve been the 1980s, a time when action movies really knew how to kick ass. Instead it was just lame and ended up giving me a terrible headache.

That’s it for Part 2 of this epic series! Come back next week for the final part of this series!

Since it’s the season of graduation here in the United States I’ve been seeing lots of sites do gift lists of what is the perfect gift for your grad. The other day I saw one of those lists mention that the perfect gift for a nerd would be an a320 Pocket Retro Game Emulator. The device is sold via Think Geek and is a pretty sleek looking device. it supports NES, SNES, GBA, Sega Genesis, and Neo Geo ROMs and seems to get decent battery life. What really shocked me was how brazen Think Geek was about what this system really is, a device to facilitate thievery. While emulation isn’t illegal and having ROMs isn’t illegal as well – as long as you own the original product in some form – Think Geek wasn’t exactly shy about saying how one would get ROMS. Regardless of all that the device is pretty cool. They claim it has decent controls and with 4GB of internal storage with a Mini SD slot as well this thing can play a lot of games. I wonder how long this will be allowed to be sold before Nintendo or Sega get this device banned a la the R4 card and why they haven’t already.

Via Fred

Early this morning I got an interesting press release in my inbox about a game claiming to be first indie game to put your Avatars behind the wheel. The trailer above looks fun enough especially considering it’s only 80 points. But it got me thinking, where are all the games that use your avatar? When the NXE was coming out they made a huge fuss about the Avatars saying that they will be your true online identity. It seems that idea has been dropped in favor of encouraging the end user to buy clothes for them. I don’t know why I love the games that use my Avatar and I’ll probably throw some money towards this indie developer just because it uses our Avatars. Full press release after the jump.

Avatar Racedrome Released On Xbox Live Indie Games

May 17, 2010 – The first indie racing title to put avatars behind the wheel has just been published on Xbox Live Marketplace, and is available for the purchase price of 80 Microsoft Points.

From Spanish developer Rendercode Games, Avatar Racedrome features 16 reversible racetracks, adaptive AI competitors, championships, online multiplayer modes, optional autobrakes for an easy learning curve, and the ability to rewind in the race.

For more information, including screenshots and contact details, please visit:
http://www.rendercodegames.com

One of the big stories to hit in recent weeks was that the proposed Gears of War movie has hit the skids. The movie was to be helmed by Len Wiseman of the Underworld movies and Live Free or Die Hard. He recently decided to leave the project after the budget was slashed to under 100 million, and the story, allegedly, was changed to a more straightforward alien invasion story line. No word if chest-high walls were still in the film.

While I actually dig the story to Gears of War very much why did it deserve a movie before Halo or Mass Effect?

I don’t know the answer to be honest. Halo is one of the most successful franchises of all time and was this close to being a movie. But the studios balked at spending nearly 200 million on a movie based on a game. For a long time I thought the studios were just being obtuse and ignorant about games. How could they not see the potential?

That got me thinking about the track record of games being made into movies. Does anyone remember the Super Mario Brothers Movie? If you don’t, then you should go back and watch it again. It is a special kind of terrible. It has the power of killing you with awfulness while at the same time reviving your dead corpse with powerful face rape and visual vomit. I know I’ve mentioned on the podcast that I find it odd that they were so willing to diverge from the games main story and visual design on every level, yet they still felt they had to shoehorn in the fact that Mario and Luigi jumped a lot with awkward feet jump packs. And this disaster of humanity is one of the first examples of video games being turned into movies. In a way we should be grateful for the great crash of 1983 because it probably forced the Pac-Man live action film to be put on hold.

Super Mario Bros. The Movie came out in May 1993. I remember because I was there. General Cinemas, Bridgewater, New Jersey. I can only remember Nick going, but I shudder at the thought that I made my whole family go. So how do you follow this travesty up? You cast a pre-Party of Five Scott Wolf in Double Dragon. He plays Billy. Frankly, the movie is just terrible. Its one of those early 90s movies that felt that LA would be completely destroyed by a big quake and change its name to San Angeles or New Angeles. There were so many of these movies that its practically its own genre. Double Dragon is god awful and should not be viewed by anyone.

Only a few short weeks later, the Raul Julia performed in his last role in a movie called Street Fighter. I’m curious as to how many people actually saw this movie. I actually own it on DVD because I found it at Wal-Mart for two dollars. I only bought it because there was Directors Commentary and I just had to listen to it. Boy, was it worth it. First of all, the movie is terrible. It has such weird production design that it feels like a 60s Bond film with no money. Plus they had to shoehorn in every single character from the second game. Even a couple of the characters from Super Street Fighter 2 make an appearance. The “world famous” Kylie Minogue is in this flick as Cammy. For some reason, they also made Guile the main character of the film. Which as a kid made no sense to me. I always felt that Ryu was the main character. Only later in life did I realize that in the first Street Fighter he was indeed the main characters, so making Guile the main hero was their first of many mistakes. I guess it made more sense to cast JCVD as Guile instead of Ryu. The movie takes an especially stupid turn when they introduce Blanka into the movie. He even does his special barrel roll move. Yes, he flies through the air a great distance spinning around in a ball like motion at someone. Even with all of that the movie was actually quite successful. It made nearly three times the amount it cost to make. The director even openly discussed a sequel. However, he mentioned that the commentary was for the Laserdisc several times in the commentary, so it probably was recorded a long time ago.

Next in line was Mortal Kombat. This movie stars Chris Lambert playing Raide, Pete Sampras’ old girfriend as Sonya Blade, and the crazy guy from South of Hell as Johnny Cage. Basically, the movie was awesomely cast Unlike the previous movies this one did stay pretty close to target with the storyline of the game. In fact it translated pretty well all things considered. It even has Reptile. Each one of our heros has a big fight with a villian and they beat the crap out of the villian. Johnny cage even does his ball-buster special move in a hilarious moment that you have to witness to believe. In the end the movie isn’t terrible, but the fight scenes are ancient compared to anything we see nowadays. The movie was pretty successful and even had a sequel and a TV Series. The TV series is the series that TNT (We Know Drama) wanted to keep over the Babylon 5 spin-off Crusade. Yes, 11 years later I am still bitter.

To close out the 90s came the strangest of all of the Video Game movies – Wing Commander. Wing Commander was one of the most acclaimed video games of all time. The first three games form one of the best examples of video game storytelling that you can ever find. The third game even successfully used Full Motion Video to tell its story. As anyone who played computer games in the mid 90′s can tell you that is no easy feat. I remember Dick Clark hosting one of those blooper shows and they pulled out a clip from Wing Commander 3. He herald it as a new beginning for entertainment and used it to show the audience how far games had come. The clip was pretty mundane as it featured Biff from Back to the Future getting an earful from Mark Hamil about something and then Biff going, “Hey, wasn’t he in Star Wars?”. It’s barely funny even with canned laughter.

The movie was supposed to usher in a new age for video game movies. It was directed by the games creator Chris Roberts so you know it had to respect the source material. It had a fairly decent budget and a decent cast. At least that’s what I thought going into the theater. The Kilrathi looked like oversized muppets but without the fur or realism. The acting wasn’t nearly as good as it should have been. And the science fiction at times seemed more like science fantasy. The production design didn’t bother me all that much. I dug the World War 2 influenced fighters, and on some level having the carrier look more like a Submarine makes more sense. I didn’t get why they still had a runway, in space. The plot was weak and inferior to most of the games it was based on. Seriously, what the fuck was that pilgrim shit? He has some evolutionary power to do space math fast? You’d think by the 27th century Intel would have space math down pat. I can buy Freddie Prinze Jr as a space pilot but I can’t buy him being a natural at Space Math. That’s like Denise Richards playing a nuclear scientist named Christmas Jones.

After Wing Commanders’ loud thud came the biggest success story yet for video game movies, Tomb Raider. Everyone knew that this game was going to be made into a movie. British chick with big boobs and treasure hunts? Even without a game to base it on Hollywood would have made that movie. The movie stars Angelina Jolie before she started collecting children and lost a ton of weight and became less hot. The movie is an adventure movie that has Jolie going around the world finding artifacts to save the planet. Nothing really special. With that being said the movie is still the highest grossing video game movie of all time, topping around 300 million world wide. I haven’t seen the movie in nearly ten years, but I seem to recall that Jolie’s boobs seem to get bigger and bigger as the movie goes along. That’s basically the whole point of the movie. Boobs.

Now at this point you may start believing that I’ve left some movies off of this grand list. You’d be half right. Generally, video game anime hasn’t been all that bad. The Street Fighter 2 animated film was quite good if I remember correctly. So this column is intended to only discuss the live action movies based on games. But there is one animated movie that needs discussing, Final Fantasy – The Spirits Within. If you believe that the Final Fantasy games have been missing something since the PS1 era you have this movie to blame. The movie is about future earth being invaded by aliens called the Phantoms that have driven humanity to barrier cities and some chick has to find a way to save humanity. The chick was voiced by Ming Na. At the time the character Aki was featured on magazines – even dirty ones – because she was so lifelike. Everyone thought that these virtual actors would replace real actors and directors would finally have all the control in the world. Only Robert Zemekis still believes this to be a feasible way to make movies.

Well the movie came out in July of 2001 and was a huge flop. It forced Square to have its first profit loss in nearly two decades and closed the studio that was created to make the film, Square Pictures. The director of the film was Hironobu Sakaguchi, who created and oversaw the Final Fantasy franchise up until Final Fantasy IX. IX came out in 2000 and this movie came out in 2001. After its disastrous box office return it was rumored that Square took away all of his duties and put him in a closet to die. He eventually left the company in 2004 and started his own company, Mistwalker. Square would later use some of the technology and artists from the movie to create one of the Animatrix shorts, Flight of the Osiris. That was back when we all thought the Matrix sequels were going to be good and not the turds they became. The short was attached to the movie Dreamcatcher and is to be blamed for any money that film made.

That’s it for Part 1 of this awesome three part series! Join us next Thursday as I take you through the Resident Evil and Uwe Boll era.

The First 10 Minutes of 3D Dot Game Heroes tells a sad tale of how the 2D RPG went the way of the buffalo due to lack of interest and the emerging 3D polygonal worlds of tomorrow.

Sad panda.

So yeah, I found this on the internets over on EuroGamer’s Youtube page.  It’s the first 10 minutes of the game, as if you needed any more reason to pick it up.  Also, it’s in 720, so full screen that shit, yo.

Ok, so I was going to do a post about Little Big Planet 2 but I was too late to the party, like Iowa to the man’s face. So let’s see where this goes.

I’m all jacked up on green tea frapachino and surfing the intertubes for a story to steal. I came across Gameloft’s 10th anniversary giveaway. So from the 10th to the 21st of May they are giving away free I-phone games. What better way to give this stuff away than twitting about it. So check out the @Gameloft tweet feed every day for your chance to win.

Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way I can talk to you about a game, a real game, one of massive appeal and world domination. A game that has changed the world in many ways. Chuck Norris: Bring on the Pain!

By just looking at this picture the pain is brought on. I mean look, you’ve got a healthy Fidel Castro smoking a Cuban cigar rolled, more then likely, by a bountiful Cuban virgin. Also of note, a tiny Napoleon-like tank-man and the Amazon! What do all these things say to you? Communism. I mean, look at all the red on this thing. Red Saloon, Red rockets (no – pun intended) Red beady eyes, red trees, and OH YEAH! GINGER NUTS! Do you think the game developer is trying to imply something here?

Just saying.

But anyway, this game is pretty much about Chuck Norris jokes. One level starts out in the Jungle. At first I thought maybe it was the Amazon but the goal of the game is to save some POWs trapped in a bamboo cage. You go around shooting people that are dressed in green with red on their hats. You learn chuck Norris abilities as you progress.  More and more levels have you fighting other communist-like people around the world . I’m starting to think someone is into McCarthyism.

Or someone really wanted to see Captain Planet as a ginger.

Anyway you can get the game for free. Just search for it in the app store.

We all knew this was coming sooner or later and it looks like it’s sooner. One of the best reasons to own a PS3 is getting a sequel that looks to expand on everything that made the first one so cool. My initial thought when I first heard about this was it better have 3D platforming abilities or GTFO. But my thinking was way too small. I’ve watched the above trailer around 10 times this morning and every time it puts an odd smile on my face. It’s just a perfect trailer. Watch it in HD and see if it moves you like it moved me.

Whatever happened to this Beat ‘Em Up franchise?

For those who don’t remember Moby he was a guy who shot to fame in the late 90′s early 00′s remixing old songs. He then preceded to disappear. But he has now returned to make us all sad.

Beware the song is a tad infectious and you will be humming it all day.

This might be the funniest damn thing I’ve ever seen from these guys.

Once you see it you can’t unsee it.

A year ago today Bonus Level officially launched. At the time I honestly had no idea how long this whole thing would last. We just knew we wanted to have a place to share our idea’s and to host a fun lively podcast. It started off as a blast and has turned into my favorite day of the week. We started off slow but in the last 52 weeks we have produced 33 episodes. The last podcast I was on did 5 episodes in 9 months and listened to by Mr. “Street”. Maybe 3 other people listened to it but thats it. Our first podcast which was recorded a year ago has been downloaded nearly 50 times and Bonus Level Radio 18 “I Can Only Think Of Men” has been downloaded 114 times and counting. Probably has something to do with the title though. But our average is getting close to triple digits with no sign of slowing down. We may fall down the rabbit hole from time to time but we try to stand on topic and actually talk about the video game news each week. This site also gave me an opportunity to share and have an excuse to gather hundreds of wallpapers for everyone. The number of posted wallpapers is over 250. Pretty soon there will be enough for a different background for every day of the year.

All of this is to say we have come a long way in a short time. We have lots of plans to improve just about everything. We are tinkerers by our very nature. In the coming weeks we will finally lock down the new record day for BLR. We have a few Guest Reviews coming as well as Pauls Final Fantasy 13 review which is going to be a scream. I also have two long form articles (which is to say rants to make Rick want to throat punch me) that I’ve been working on. But before all of that I just wanted to take a moment and say a big hearty thanks to everyone who is reading this. When we realized people actually were listening to the podcast’s and reading the site (the analytics are, honestly, staggering) it reinvigorated us to do better and better. So again, from the bottom of my heart THANK YOU.

Lastly, while I’ve been talking for all three of us here I just wanted to take a moment and say thanks to both Paul and Jess. Without them this place wouldn’t be possible.

God bless Target. For those who don’t know whats what about Target, it is essentially the classy Wal-Mart. You don’t feel bad about buying their clothes or goods because they are hip and look nice. This week they are offering a steep 15% discount on all three major consoles point cards. That means you can pick up 1600 MS points for $17 instead of $20, 2000 Wii Points for $17 instead of $20 and $20 of PSN um dollars for only $17. It’s not a huge discount but a pretty nice discount nonetheless. If you were going to buy points for any of these consoles this week you really should just go to Target and get what amounts to be essentially free points.

I personally don’t care to wage in on the Video Games as art or not debate. Don’t really see a point as I don’t feel I am intelligent or articulate enough to adequately defend my personal position. However, the above video does a really good job at doing just that.

Also, sorry I missed Friday’s wallpapers. Just got slammed at work and didn’t get a chance to do them. So expect a double dose of them this week.

Okay, so we really mean it this time. In our ongoing mission to bring you fine folks a podcast on a weekly basis — through snow and ice, hellbeasts and manticores — we’re doing a show tonight. No fails allowed. It’s going to happen. The show may or may not star Martin as our fabulous guest host. We plan to start around 8:15pm this evening, Thursday, April 15th. Please feel free to call in and join us as we have plenty to discuss. On a side note: we’re going to pick a day and probably move the show recording to the weekend as this works better for our fearless leader, Lancimus. Look for that soon.

As always, anyone can join us in the chat below and give the world your point of view on our favorite pastime. Also, if you have any stories you’d like covered or sound effects you want added to the sound board send an email and let us know.