Another month, another NYC Pulsewave showcase (Saturday, June 27th, click here for details), another brilliant No Carrier NES rom flyer, this time gone all Star Soldier.

ONE SHOT: MARIO AND LUIGI, INTO INFINITY

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6.25.2009

Brandon Boyer

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Illustrator Jude Buffum (who you remember for his 8-bit Keyboard Cat) has many more politically powerful illustrations (see: Dick Cheney’s Punch-Out, and War Machine), but the zen-like recursive beauty of his ‘Playered‘ struck me more than the rest. [via Kimiaki Yaegashi’s always wonderful OFP]

ONE SHOT: LOST: THE NES GAME

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6.25.2009

Brandon Boyer

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I’ve played this Lost: The Game, and even this Lost: The Game, but the whole time, I would have much rather been playing that Lost: The Game. [Adam Campbell, via Tiff]

This is about as brilliant as it comes: AQI producer and longtime Namco composer Nobuyoshi Sano appears before a virtual audience in pitch-perfect Jobs style (though the camera never shifts down to let us see whether he’s opted for the New Balance or Nikes) to announce Korg DS-10 Plus, a new version of their portable synthesizer.

The Plus version will come ~$10 cheaper, and — as summarized by Palm Sounds — will double the number of analog synths from two to four, will include eight drum synths, a total of 12 tracks, and will offer real-time editing when used with DSi.

AQI plan to release the new version on September 17th, with no word yet on a stateside release, though it’s always been one of the most eminently importable DS releases.

Korg DS-10 Plus [AQI, Xseed’s U.S. DS-10 home, via True Chip Till Death]

LITTLEBIGWATCH: DRUID BEATS RASPUTIN, TIM SCHAFER IN BEARD-LENGTH ARENA

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6.25.2009

Brandon Boyer

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For what should have been one of LittleBigPlanet‘s less notable costume releases (in comparison, at least, to the Metal Gear, Ico/Shadow of the Colossus and 2000AD crossovers), Media Molecule are getting tens of comedic miles out of their just-released beardy Druid addition.

Above, the precise length of that self-same beard, which extends far beyond Molecule co-founder and creative director Mark Healey’s own, and even past Double Fine’s Tim Schafer, for what must surely be the longest beard ever.

CROTEAM, FORMER GAMECOCK CREW BRINGING SERIOUS SAM TO XBOX LIVE ARCADE

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6.25.2009

Brandon Boyer

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A bunch of names I wasn’t quite expecting to come up against today: casual powerhouse Majesco has sent word that Serious Sam — the cult classic tongue-in-cheek PC shooter from Croatia’s Croteam — is currently being remade and will be re-released for Xbox Live Arcade (and, later, PC) this summer as Serious Sam: The First Encounter HD.

Development duty on the game is being done by Austin upstart Devolver Digital, which, it turns out, is the latest venture from former Gamecock heads Mike Wilson and Harry Miller.

If Serious Sam passed you by on its original 2001 release, chances are you also weren’t a reader of Old Man Murray, the long-favorite PC games blog run by Chet Faliszek (who you’ll be hearing more from on Offworld soon) and Erik Wolpaw — two names that should now be familiar to Valve fans as the reason Left 4 Dead and Portal are so well written and designed.

The site tirelessly championed the game on its original release, and made the rest of us aware that for as much as Sam was an uncomplicated, straightforward shooter, it was fantastically so, and featured what remains one of my favorite cheat modes in gaming history: the hippie mode that replaced blood splatter with a floral bouquet, and meaty gibs with hamburgers and fruit (above).

Majesco says the “run and gun, twitch FPS” will offer “BIG guns, TONS of enemies, 4-Player Online Co-Op and stunningly superfluous HD graphics” later this summer.

So, if you’ve been wondering why all the internet emergency lights were flashing this morning to notify you that EA and DICE’s free-to-play, microtransaction supported debut Battlefield Heroes had stealthily just gone live, and yet you still couldn’t find anything but a broken beta sign-up page, it’s because the battlefield-heroes.com and battlefieldheroes.com are apparently entirely disconnected.

So, yes, BattlefieldHeroesMinusTheDash is actually live, though not even the game’s twitter feed seems to be aware of it, and there is probably no better way you could spend the rest of your day than exploring its light-hearted (as above), entirely accessible brand of arcade shooting, as we finally return to the fields and see how it’s shaped up since early beta days.

Battlefield Heroes [EA/DICE]

ONE SHOT: THE GROANING, ACHING SLUMP OF AN OVERBURDENED BIG DADDY

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6.25.2009

Brandon Boyer

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More concept art retrospectives from BioShock 2 devs 2K, looking at the development of the sequel’s original Big Daddy — the model that all future Daddy’s (ie. the ones you fought in the first game) would be based on.

While I appreciate the less-monstrous utilitarian simplicity of the near-final version at bottom (doubly fitting since you yourself will be playing as this Daddy), I can’t get over that wicked titular aching slump of the first version at top left.