A fast update with the more or less kind of cringe-worthy antics of puppet monkey and puppet rooster, as Namco intros the fact that their PS3 Katamari Damacy collection — Katamari Tribute — will be playable at the upcoming ComicCon, via the PlayStation.Blog. Try to just focus on the background music.

Just revealed by Sega (without much further exposition): the first look at the Wii Fit Balance Board-enabled version of Super Monkey Ball, Step & Roll, due for an “early 2010” release.

ONE SHOT: COMMANDER VIDEO’S GLITCH RITUAL

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7.21.2009

Brandon Boyer

1 Reply

Ty ‘Glitch Ritual‘ Dunitz takes Bit.Trip series mascot Commander Video in just about the un-8-bittiest direction imaginable.

Harmonix updates with the latest look at the songs and symbolic eras coming to Beatles: Rock Band, and sends on the latest names and locations of newly unveiled featured tracks:

Twist And Shout / Cavern Club
Do You Want To Know A Secret / Cavern Club
Can’t Buy Me Love / Ed Sullivan Theater
I Wanna Be Your Man / Ed Sullivan Theater
Eight Days A Week / Shea Stadium
Paperback Writer / Budokan
And Your Bird Can Sing / Budokan
Yellow Submarine / Abbey Road Dreamscape
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band* / Abbey Road Dreamscape
With a Little Help from My Friends* / Abbey Road Dreamscape
Within You Without You / Tomorrow Never Knows / Abbey Road Dreamscape
Revolution / Abbey Road Dreamscape
Birthday / Abbey Road Dreamscape
Dig A Pony / Rooftop Concert
I’ve Got A Feeling / Rooftop Concert

The only problem: my chest is getting even tighter with nervous anticipation as the release date approaches and She Said She Said still hasn’t reared its sad/dead-knowing head, and I’ve already got that tremendously jarring opening riff’s fret-button-pattern memorized in my head, and if I don’t get the chance to act it out for points I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself.

Joe ‘Cymon‘ Larson wants you to know his original ASCIIpOrtal video wasn’t all smoke and inter-spatial/dimensional mirrors, and so has just released this latest look at the progress he’s made since — including new filters for the portal views, which should clarify, a bit, what you’re looking at, and nine more minutes of dizzying text-mode puzzle solving.

T-SHIRT: JUNIOR MASSIVE’S NOT-NECESSARILY-THE-TETRIS

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7.20.2009

Brandon Boyer

7 Replies

Possibly the most legitimately fashion-conscious T-shirts (as opposed to, you know, like, the usual nerd shirts) featured here since Imperial Junkies’ back in January, Australia’s upstart Junior Massive label offers this Tetris tee for both men and women.

You can tell it’s more about The Look than The Game, because of all the infuriating one/two/three/five block shapes, which I’m sure has more than a few of you squirming in your seats. [via Cool Hunting, via Gus]

UNI-COOL: ON BRIAN ALFRED AND NAMCO/UNIQLO’S PAC-MAN T-SHIRT LINEUP

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7.20.2009

Brandon Boyer

2 Replies

Apparently in the rush to cover Uniqlo’s larger games T-shirt initiative, I completely neglected to mention one subset of their crossover wares: a line of Pac-Man shirts released in partnership with Namco to promote the game’s 30th anniversary.

Normally I might not go back in time to retroactively cover something that’ll be harder to track down now than it would have been then, though I’m going to go ahead and use it as a good excuse to focus on the design at top left: the cityscape shirt created by Offworld favorite studio artist Brian ‘Paintchanger‘ Alfred.

It was actually via Alfred that I re-discovered the line-up, who posted that the shirt was not only still available at Uniqlo’s SoHo store, but is also currently importable (and affordable) from Malaysia, here.

Alfred’s design is right in-line with the signature style that’s brought him acclaim for the past several years: mural sized ‘photo-real’ landscapes reduced to superflat vectors, as seen in the video above.

As also seen in the video above — which features an E*vax, Lullatone, Jon Sheffield, and I am Robot and Proud score — he’s traditionally partnered with a number of fantastic music names for accompanying (and now exceedingly rare) compilation/gallery catalog CDs, including the above, alongside Pulseprogramming, Loscil, and Nobukazu Takemura (who you might know from his wicked/epic/utterly unrecognizable Yo La Tengo remix).

You can see all of the participating artists in the Pac-Man line up (including Kentaro Kobuke and Carlos ‘Dzine‘ Rolon’s designs, pictured at top) via Uniqlo, see larger shots of all the shirts at the company’s store, and see more examples of Brian Alfred’s work via his Paintchanger site and this bonus YouTube preview.

Sony’s continued initiative to grab some of the best the Indie Games Fest has to offer continues with the fresh announcement that Retro/Grade — the 2009 Audio award winner and design-nominated game in reverse — will be coming to the PlayStation 3 as a PSN downloadable.

The secret beneath the previously covered game is, as was said at the time, that it’s actually “not a shooter, but a rhythm game in deep disguise, rewinding through an unplayed battle and syncing shots and dodges so as not to damage the space-time continuum.”

The biggest surprise for the PSN version is, as developer 24 Caret revealed on the PlayStation Blog, support for a Rock Band/Guitar Hero guitar, taking that rhythm basis even further: using the controller will let you change lanes as above via the fret buttons and fire with the strum button.

You can still try a demo of the game on your PC via Steam here, or by downloading the game via 24 Caret’s official site, while you wait for more unannounced features the studio promises soon.

ONE SHOT: DOTTER DOTTER DOES MORE MARIO

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7.20.2009

Brandon Boyer

1 Reply

Frequently featured 3D pixelcrafter Tibori Design brings more soft-shaded perspective to 2D Mario.