ACME’S MUSHROOM KINGDOM NOVELTY TOYS, RD. 2: MORE PAPERCRAFT MARIO AUTOMATA
From frequent papercraft creator ddi7i4d, whose creations continue to grow increasingly complex: a second, Goomba-whomping Paper Mario automata, which NintendoPapercraft boldly claim can be completed in just half an hour. [via TinyCartridge]
Previously:
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TWEET (#2696313561)
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TWEET (#2696110446)
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GOING HOME: KATAMARI DAMACY, PIXELJUNK GETTING SONY HOME ADD-ONS
Though It might not quite be the overhaul that would make Sony’s PlayStation 3 virtual world Home an inescapable daily-getaway, the service is nicking away at my resolve by soon offering — with the help of Namco — a new set of Katamari Damacy outfits, each complete with their very own companion Prince, as seen via andriasang.
And, as the company continues to gear up its fourth entry in the series, PixelJunk creators Q-games have just released screenshots of their own planned Home stage, with specific areas dedicated to each game in the set, as seen with the Racers and Monsters preview above.
The studio is also planning its own line of in-game fashion goods, as above, with a Monsters mask, and an in-game version of the real-world limited line of King of Games T-shirts featured here last month. [via PlayStation LifeStyle]
Previously:
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I’M WITH THE BAND: HARMONIX OPENS ROCK BAND TRACK CREATION, SALES TO XBOX 360 HOME USERS [UPDATED]
Minorly earth-shattering music/game news this morning from the Rock Band camp as they officially unveil The Rock Band Network, a new program for any musician or band to create their own Rock Band tracks and sell them through the game’s online store a new Rock Band Network store.
The Network will work alongside the Xbox 360’s XNA Creators Club, and will let home-users output MIDI song information to accompany their master mix with plugins created especially for digital workstation Reaper, package them together as a Rock Band-compatible track with Harmonix’s own Magma tool, and preview your track in-game with a new ‘Audition mode’ being added in an upcoming patch.
From there you can publish your song to the Creators site (essentially, to the Creators Club community), where it will be peer-reviewed — as XNA games themselves are before they’re released to the Xbox 360’s Community Games section. If the track is approved, it will appear in the Rock Band store at a price point selected by you (between 50 cents to $3), with a 30/70% revenue split (at a to-be-determined percentage) between you and Harmonix/MTV.
For now, the initiative remains exclusive to the Xbox 360, though a caveat says “select songs” may appear on PS3 — presumably, those popular enough with the community to get an officially-pushed release from Harmonix.
See Harmonix’s newly opened site for more information, and to sign up for the early closed-beta trial, which is expected to launch by the end of the month, with an open beta “after August”, and an official launch by the end of the year.
[UPDATE: More information is available in this Billboard writeup, which adds a number of interesting details (corrected above), including the ability for “developers to customize the avatars, camera angles and lighting for the background video rather than using the automatically generated default setting” in Reaper, and HMX training sessions to certify track-makers, which will be officially listed for interested artists and labels.]
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THE CURIOUS CASE OF THE BAPE X POKEMON T-SHIRTS
News sprang up this morning that seemed custom-created for Offworld: a collaboration between Japanese hipster fashion legend Tomoaki “Nigo” Nagao’s A Bathing Ape label and The Pokemon Company for a line of Bape x Pokemon T-shirts (found via Pink Tentacle via Gus).
The images originate from a blog called World Famous Design Junkies, posted by a guy called Chris Burns, who said news of the project was sent to him via a blog called A Tiny City Printing Press, whose sole author seems to be, uh, a guy called Chris Burns.
Even more strangely: Burns says the images are “© 2009 A Tiny City Printing Press”, which is a bit odd, when you’d imagine they’d be © Bape or Nintendo, surely. So, without further clarification, I wouldn’t get your hopes up on spotting these in your local boutique any time soon, which honestly is no great loss when the designs don’t have anything on Polygraph’s previously / covered official own. Maybe I’m just fantastically under-informed.
Previously:
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ONE MORE GO: FINAL FANTASY XII, WASTING YOUR TIME THE SCIENTIFIC WAY
I resent having to write this column. I resent being on a train on the way a conference that I also resent. I resent the pretty song that’s playing on my phone. I resent the way the sun is breaking through the clouds. I resent the nice second breakfast I’ll be enjoying in an hour, I resent all the nice people I’m about to meet and all the interesting conversations I’m about to have. Sod the lot of you. I could be at home playing Final Fantasy XII.
Again.
This is not rational. For once, I’ve already played FFXII. Twice, in fact – once in Japanese and once in American. Pretty much the same stuff happened each time. And while it’s always a pretty place to be, the way I’m playing it now – running it through a PS3 so I can be wireless – means that it’s letterboxed and smeared across a fraction of my telly’s unco-operative screen. There are dozens of newer games I could – should – be playing instead.
And more than rational, it’s downright dangerous. I love FFXII with a fierceness which would daunt a nursing lioness, but the more time I spend with it, the more opportunities there are to notice its few shortcomings.
The puzzles really are dreadful, it will surprise no-one to hear. The story occasionally fractures under the strain of obeying simple logic, let alone credible character arcs. The more you ogle the cut-scenes, the more you are infected with creeping dread that Balthier might actually be wearing slingbacks. It gets harder and harder to ignore the oddly saurian ridges that fan out along Vaan’s spine.
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SPACE INVADERS INFINITY GENE GETS FIRST VIDEO, ITUNES STAGES
Just uploaded by Taito: the first video of their recently announced Space Invaders Infinity Gene running on the iPhone.
As expected, shows off the directly touch-controlled, the new a-typically breakneck pace, and a new mode which lets you use your iTunes library as the backdrop for special original stages, though there’s no word yet whether these are dynamically generated or just made available specifically for your music.
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ONE SHOT: FIRST MILLION SKETCHES FALLS IN LOVE WITH THE MAJESTY OF COLORS
If you’ve played Gregory Weir’s Gimme Indie Game-featured I Fell In Love With The Majesty Of Colors, you should understand exactly what you’re looking at.
If you haven’t played I Fell In Love With The Majesty Of Colors, you need to go do that now. [via goodgameget]
Previously:
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MY FIRST DAY AT THE WII SPORTS RESORT: A CAUTIONARY TALE IN SIX PHOTOS
This morning I find myself nicely surprised by my local friendly FedEx deliverer, who drops off a package containing one (1) blue flower lei, one (1) Wii AIRLINES ticket from “my living room” to “Wii Sports Resort, Wuhu Island”, and one (1) copy of the game and new Wii MotionPlus accessory.
Amanda Visell’s Salaryphant and Tado’s Ye Olde English Traveler seem a bit nervous about the impending flight, but they’re always fretting about something: what could possibly go wrong?
First thing’s first: throw caution to the wind and extract the MotionPlus from those damned rubber jackets Nintendo continue to insist we use. You think I honestly don’t have the motor skills to keep a controller in my hand without flinging it haphazardly through a window? I’m a grown man.
The first thing you see on booting Wii Sports Resort for the first time: an appropriately in-flight-esque three minute video instructing you on how to connect and disconnect your MotionPlus accessory, all making proper use of and interweaving your wrist-strap through the rubber jacket, of course. At this point, I’m starting to feel slightly chided for having tossed my jacket aside.
But then, ha, ha, no mind! It’s me, it’s my Mii, all kitted out in high-altitude skydiving gear, doing my final harness checks. I remember this from the E3 conference!
And so, in due course, I make my initial dive toward the ‘Wuhu’ Isles, linking and unlinking hands with a few of James Kochalka’s Monster Miis as we plummet in unison and graceful formation.
And as we land, all seems well. I ace my first sword fight like a pro, and the puppy that’s taunted me so many times before on Wii Fit jogs shows similar confident panache and fantastic skill at fetching my clumsily tossed frisbees.
That’s when I remember the game Nintendo also demonstrated at their conference: the three-point line basketball toss. Let’s give that a whirl, I think — and so I bring the WiiMote down to retrieve a ball, and swing upward rapidly as instruc–
This is when several things happen all at once. In retrospect, I believe the sequence of events goes: my WiiMote — given just that extra inch of MotionPlus length it never had before, and me having not fully taken into consideration just how tall I actually am — comes into contact with a fan blade on my ceiling fixture, in turn knocking the controller and my hand into one of the lightbulb encasings, which shatters with a wicked crack, and proceeds to shower me with broken glass.
It is at this point that I begin to bleed, one might not say profusely, but with intent and purpose, a full-on steady trickle if certainly not a gush, and my mind flashes that how on earth did I, and, oh my god, I have, I’ve just become one of those people — those people that have accidents with their Wiis and blog photos of the ‘mote-butt-end emerging from their TV tubes, the living baby-blue silhouette of that now ubiquitous warning message showing people flailing into nearby end-table lamps.
And so, day one of my Wii Sports Resort visit sees me unceremoniously carried limp and dazed from its courts, now forever slightly gun-shy about losing myself so completely to its instinctively direct-mapped movements, in lieu of remaining hyper-aware of my immediate surroundings: a victim to and of the virtual.
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