Artist Lenny Correa sends in his latest project, the Whitebox Pixel Gallery, “a special-purpose computer built to preserve and expose the history of console video game design… [and] aims to facilitate a dialogue between the understudied history of the medium.”
Correa explains of the game selection in his first curated Whitebox exhibition at a NASA (Newark Artists Space Association) Space Camp event, which included cheesecake porn NES games like Hot Slots and Honey Peach, Wisdom Tree’s unlicensed Christian output like Bible Adventures and King of Kings and “pro-war” titles like Operation Secret Storm and Contra:
this catalog is limited to the Nintendo Entertainment System and is based on the themes of war, sex and god. the examples included clearly illustrate the infancy of the medium while still allowing their cultural relevance to be felt…
in general, most of these games are really bad for you.
Several months back you may have spotted, as I did, designer Craig ‘Superbrothers‘ Adams’ excellent pixel-art computer history video ‘Dot Matrix Revolution.’
Adams and I made some silent but knowing pact to become PlayStation Friends at its debut, but until this morning I was unaware he’d made a bold and beautiful move into the games sphere with The 1 Console.
What’s that? Adams explains:
THE 1 CONSOLE is an epic barebones blog-type thing on the topic of videogames.
THE 1 CONSOLE is a fevered dream-vision for simple minded utopists.
THE 1 CONSOLE is a public mental health issue.
THE 1 CONSOLE is constantly seeking worthwhile experiences.
THE 1 CONSOLE is designed for play with SUPERBROTHERS.
Currently up for your dense and info-rich perusal, Superbrothers’ breakdown of thatgamecompany’s new fl0wer, gorgeous 1console crew portraits with top games of this and last century, and a write-up on Adams’ recent Toronto games shindig.
The shindig brought together local indie names like N+ creators Mare Sheppard and Raigan Burns for “some friendly chatter… [and] access to a series of carefully selected platform videogames on a variety of consoles and displays,” and, should it continue, will be the second strongest reason for me to visit the city soon, just below stalking Edgar Wright and co. as they continue filming the new Scott Pilgrim film.
As mentioned by the Mother Boing last week, Julien’s Auctions is selling off 2,000 of Michael Jackson’s curiosities in April, including, of course, a wide variety of arcade games and amusements. Julien’s has the full lineup of cabinets cataloged, including vintage miscellany like Dig Dug, console demo-stations from the 3DO to the Nintendo 64, Dance Dance Revolution (obviously), and even a life-sized statue of Tomb Raider‘s Lara Croft.
But curiously, and has probably been pointed out a million times before, not a single cab of Jackson’s ownarcade debut Moonwalker (at least, not for sale).
Oh! This could be quite good: Austin studio Blazing Lizard have sent word that they’re moving into the iPhone space with CrossFyre, a game they say crosses both straight up shooting and tower defense-type strategy.
CrossFyre‘s hook, as you can make out from the screenshot, is that you control both the ‘ANGL’ ships at the left and right edge of the screen to destroy the alien armada in the middle, constantly mindful that you avoid your own, erm, crossfire from the opposite ship.
Most recently known for their Xbox Live Arcade downloadable Pirates Vs. Ninja Dodgeball (which is coming soon to the Wii), the Blazing Lizard team formed in late 2007 after leaving their former posts as design and art heads on Saints Row and Red Faction at developer Volition.
Explains TIGSource member mcc of his inventively everything-old-is-new-again PC/Mac platformer Jumpman, which is already garnering lots of “!”s from around the indie gaming niche:
The thought was to kind of take all the things that have become possible in games in the last 29 years– physics, 45 degree angles, a z axis– and bring the new technology into an early-80s-style platformer while at the same time changing the platformer’s basic nature as little as possible. The hope is to try to make you believe that every 2600-era platformer would have looked like this if only you’d pulled the camera back about 4 feet.
You might not ‘get’ it right away, but — as you literally peel back its layers and dive further into its puzzling core — you’ll know when you do.
Already topping the list of BAFTA and Game Developers Choice Award nominations, the organizers of this year’s Interactive Achievement Awards have sent word that Media Molecule’s LittleBigPlanet pulled a major coup and swept last night’s ceremony at the ongoing DICE Summit.
LittleBigPlanet was recognized for Overall Game of the Year, Console Game of the Year, Outstanding Achievement in Game Direction, Family Game of the Year, Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction, Outstanding Achievement in Visual Engineering, and Outstanding Character Performance for its customizable player-puppeteered Sackboy star.
The game beat out a number of similarly high profile competitors including Fallout 3, which won RPG of the year and outstanding original story, Mirror’s Edge, which took home best adventure, and Left 4 Dead, which took home best computer game and best multiplayer online game.
Also happily recognized: 2D Boy’s World of Goo, which took home Outstanding Achievement in Game Design.
Hit the jump for the full rundown of winners. (more…)
Collin Cunningham over at Make Magazine has put together Dot, a simple dodge-em-up game which looks about twenty times sexier than it would on any other platform if only for the way those LED pixels shimmer, and take a long look at the behind-the-hardware Arduino coding process.
Cunningham also points to this Google Code repository of other games currently packaged with the Meggy Jr’s SDK, which has emboldened that much more my resolve to get one of the units in my hot little hands as soon as I can.
First announced just over a year ago, developer Id and ad-partner IGA have officially opened the beta for their free-to-play web version of Id’s standard-setting multiplayer arena shooter, Quake Live.
I would love to tell you how it plays and how its ad-based business plan has been integrated, but there are currently 35,000 more people in front of me also wanting to do the same thing.
Instead, then, let this be a post to say: better to get in line now than to hear about it later.
