Jet packs, for reasons of physics and safety, have never really been for this world, despite some heroic efforts by engineers and enthusiasts across the years. Instead, they have found their finest application in the virtual thrills and fancies of videogames.
Having been beguiled by the chrome-washed battle-future of Section 8 this weekend – the game is chock-full of jet-jumping combatants – I turned my easily-distracted mind to contemplating the gaming legacy of the jet pack. I wondered where history’s finest jet packs had flown, and where the most personal of flying machines might go next. So onwards, and to a brief history of the gamer’s “rocket-belt”. (Not exhaustive, obviously, but let’s see if we can hit some of the high notes…)
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For the person that finds ErrorWear’s Pac-Man killscreen shirt just a bit too, like, obvious: LowRez is offering a series of shirts featuring the glitch-out bootup screens of various arcade games, named only by their year of release.
Above: Booting1982a, Booting1982b, and Booting1980. Tons more pixel, vector, and retro designs are also available at their web shop. [Well spotted as usual, GSW]
The indie-in-joke of the week: Minotaur China Shop creators Flashbang serve Braid studio Number None with this newly launched site for their previously covered chrono-warping game Time Donkey that begins with the hauntingly familiar quote above.
Where have we seen that? Ah, right: the Tao Te Ching snippet that leads you into the site for Number None’s just announced new game The Witness.
If you’ve been following the progress of Samorost creator Jakub ‘Amanita‘ Dvorsky’s Flash adventure Machinarium, the first 40 seconds of this latest teaser trailer will look fairly familiar. Stick with it long enough, though, and he’ll prove to you that everything you’ve seen so far is just the tip of the iceberg, wonders-wise: the sad tale of the drumless drummer just about broke my heart.
Machinarium is due for release on October, and, as mentioned, pre-ordering now nets you a downloadable EP of the game’s soundtrack.
I guess the lesson here is create a banner campaign so artfully played that people will run it for free: PopCap sends over another selection of its Evony parodying ads, the one above so perfectly pitched at the most egregious of the originals, and the game itself already so firmly cemented in Offworld’s collective mind that I’m tempted to say they truly transcend their purpose. Below: another pair. Of ads.
The ads at their original resolution, as requested, are below the fold.
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Just officially dumped (and replacing an early unfinished demo ROM) by Sega fanatics at SegaSaturno and released for public enjoyment: Virtua Hamster, a Genesis 32X S.T.U.N. Runner-esque maze/race game that was in still in development at Sega of America when the company decided to discontinue the hardware add-on.
The footage above is apparently not representative of the speed and graphics of the game running on actual hardware, but presumably the community’s already beavering away at emulator compatibility. Check this site for more of the game’s troubled history. [via Lost Levels]
What’s the adage, something about not wearing your Katamari hat after Labor Day? Something. For the rest of the year, then: crocheter Ginrei‘s Mega Man cap, also available in Bass and Protoman flavors.
