The Asian Power Hour

Found in Frat Row around USC.

Awesome.

When going to pick up a delicious Coke Slurpee at the local 7-11, I was amused by this dandy little lenticular Halo 3 cup.

But what really got me was when the clerk asked me if I wanted to put down some monies to pre-order Halo 3. Just another sign at how far games have come out of "hardcore" nerd culture. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you, the future, and a blurry shot of the 7-11 pre-order sign.

All you need to know is that is works, and that it's made from Legos. Only one word can describe this; "Fanfuckingtabulous". Original link below.

Geek Craft: Functional LEGO Guitar Hero Controller

A friend linked me to this collection of fan made amazingly done game themed animated gifs. I'm basically in tears right now as I type this. Check it out!:

gamers: for lolz

Koji Igarashi, producer of the insidiously fun Castlevania series is going to be in Los Angeles next Wednesday for a open to the public meet and greet, autograph session. Times and place are below:

Universal Citywalk EB Games
Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2007
6:00-8:00 P.M.

This means that I'm now currently looking around frantically for a whip.

Here's a link to the full size promo poster

From the Xbox Fanboy Blog:

Awesome.

While not directly related to any sort of Interactive Media, this article may be worth reading since it will directly affect all of us spending far too much time at the ZML or thesis space.

Diet-conscious Los Angeles eyes moratorium on fast-food outlets

I have no idea how I stumbled across this, but it's freaking amazing. I can't stop watching it. Just goes to show you all the street cred Kirby's built up since his old school game boy days.

Two interesting games I stumbled upon during a recent trip to Gameworks in Long Beach. 2Spicy, a new Sega arcade shooter that is really trying to get the player into the sense that they are really in a 3D space, and Let's Go Jungle, a 2 player shooter with a quirky social twist.

The first one, 2Spicy is a standard shooter with the inclusion of multiple storylines and challenges based on the character you choose. Each character also has their own weapons and playstyle. The neat thing here is the ability to not just duck behind static objects during the on-rails gameplay, but the ability to move and evade to get a better shooting vantage point or to just get the hell away from your opponent.

2Spicy Cabinet

2Spicy is also primarily intended as a single player game, but there is also a versus mode where players can outmaneuver and outshoot each other. I haven't tried that yet, but it looks a lot like the single player, which is mostly one on one gun battles. Other neat features include the ability to obliterate objects players are hiding behind to encourage a fast and furious atmosphere and the ability to zoom in and take headshots if the player keeps their aim on their opponent for long enough.

The foot controls for 2Spicy

The other game, Let's Go Jungle, is a pretty standard sit down shooter ala Jurassic Park. The one quirky thing I saw in this game was that the computer would tabulate a "Compatibility" score between the two players depending on a few choice situations that included:

Players shooting at the same target.
Player protecting each other.
Timing and cooperation during action scenes.

Let's Go Jungle Cabinet

Maxy Geiger linked this to me a while back and I am still totally enthralled. Random trivia of the day, did you know that Balrog was originally called M.Bison in Japan because he was supposed to be Mike Tyson? Yeah, that didn't go over so well here. Oh Evander Holyfield, I bet that was an earful for you.

Nextfest was a pretty interesting time, especially being able to finally see Kick-Ass Kung Fu in person and in action. However, this little tech demo creeped the hell out of me.

What we're seeing is basically using sound patterns to detect aggression and the possibility of harm being caused in the near future and then we send out Tom Cruise to bust them. Scary.

Link to full sized image of the poster

I spotted this little banner game while surfing today. While we're all pretty much aware of America's Army as a recruiting tool, I hadn't seen the flipside of this before. In this flash game, you use your mouse to align your plane to drop supplies to needy refugees. Looks like there's a bit of compassionate conservatism going on here.

Unfortunately, the site that was linked through the game wouldn't let me play it again, and it was nowhere to be found anywhere on the airforce and dosomethingamazing websites.

So apparently, test prep giant Kaplan has launched a Manga (Japanese style comic book), dubbed Psy-Comm, that is supposed to be both fun and teach readers important words that may be used for the SAT/ACT. How this works is that there are little bubbles that pop up and explain specific words that the characters in the story use and the context in which they are used, kind of like pop-up video, except you learn something useful. Although that could be debatable, for instance, did you know that M.C. Hammer's real name is Stanley Kirk Burrell? Well, now you do.

Full Size Images of Cover/Back/Misc Pages Linked below:
Cover
Back
Random Page A
Random Page B

Random Otaku challenges a pro bboy in Akihabara. He even breaks out moves from Haruhi. He may not have the power moves, but he has way better setups. I bet that other guy was soooooo surprised, like "zomg wtf" surprised. Yeah. The word "Served" comes to mind.

Part 2

Thanks to Rossmassler for tipping me off on this, an absolutely insane mod for GTA San Andreas. A few changes include the main character being changed to the two girls from Lucky Star (You control one and the other follows), Pikachu (Pikachii?) packing heat, and Doraemon on the metal gear from MGS4. Time to go buy GTA:SA for the pc.

The original Japanese website, ニコニコ動画 (Nico Nico Douga)