Link: LightBox

A youth wasted on video games unexpectedly paid off for me in an assignment to profile the old dogs behind the newest gaming company: Innovative Leisure

Record dramatic images of war, save them in-game, then edit the results into a compelling frontline TV news story. Beam the results to global audiences on the web. No two WARCO stories will ever be alike. It’s an edge-of-seat gaming experience – and a powerful entry-level training tool for future combat reporters. WARCO is perfectly timed to take advantage of the convergence of games and movies, journalism and online communities, in a world undergoing massive social, geo-political and technological change.

The Evolution of Video Game Controllers by Pop Chart Lab, featuring “119 species and 11 genera over seven decades of gaming”.

Katie Graham and Andrew Matthews raised over $15k in preproduction costs on Indiegogo for their movie about Dungeons and Dragon players, called Zero Charisma.

Link: Trailer for Zero Charisma – a movie about D&D players – Boing Boing

In June 2009, Zynga came out with the app that would make it a household name among social-network users. While the company had already enjoyed some success with its earlier offerings, FarmVille was a blockbuster hit. But for those with eyes to see, it bore remarkable similarities to a precursor.

That precursor, Farm Town, was developed by a little-known Florida company called Slashkey. It featured a number of clever gameplay mechanics, chief among them real-time crop growth that requires players to regularly return to the game to tend their farms. Zynga’s version, launched months after Slashkey’s, would likely be indistinguishable to most players.

Link: FarmVillains – SF Weekly

CLICK NOTE: Lost track of who first posted this. Thanks to the source, whomever you were.

Start as a columnist for a local newspaper and end up as an international reporter, heading your own TV show
Get your own press pass
Have fun with the full range of journalists’ accessories: notepad, handheld recorder, mic, camera
Catch your first scoops by bike and end up travelling in style by helicopter!

Link: Play.com (UK) : Imagine: Journalist (DS/DSi) : Nintendo DS – Free Delivery

Flidby, Hench77, Ratbanjos, RYCART1, S3R4F1N0W1C2 and triggerhappydom play a secret level designed by Stephen Spielberg and Tom Hanks…

Link: Call of Duty: Secret Spielberg Level Unlocked from FoD Team UK – Video

Link: Cyberball Robot Player’s Union Says Lockout Likely In 2073 Season – America’s Favorite News Source:

“I am unable to detect any gratitude from owners of magnesium wide receivers and titanium running backs who continually execute, on command, motion-based operations with a 350-pound explosive ball. I honestly cannot believe my proximity sensors.”

Link: Touch me I’m slick: Daniel Johnston rolls toward Laurie in Hi How Are You | Offworld:

if you don’t need that introduction1, then you probably will have by now had the same reaction I had several months back when I heard whisperings that Peter ‘Dr. Fun Fun’ Franco and Steve ‘Smashing Studios’ Broumley — former art and technical director, respectively, at the now-defunct Austin branch of Midway — were working on a game featuring Daniel Johnston’s art and music: I’ve more or less been waiting for this day since the early 90s.

Link: Angry dad, the game: Taito’s arcade table-flipper Cho Chabudai Gaeshi | Offworld

How to get your D3X to play space invaders: | duckrabbit – we produce beautifully crafted multimedia:

It’s quite ridiculous really, but hidden away deep in the bowels of the Nikon firmware is none other than a version of the arcade classic Space Invaders

15 Kopeks Amazing: a virtual look inside Moscow’s Soviet Arcade Games Museum | Offworld:

This started to make the rounds a few weeks back, but hasn’t gathered nearly as much attention as it should, for as outstandingly wicked as it is: you may have originally heard of Moscow State Technical University ‘Soviet Arcade Games Museum’ from an April 2009 Edge article that told the story quite well, but was accompanied by painfully tiny images.
But now, of all people, Art Lebedev’s design studio — the same creators as the OLED-driven Optimus Maximus keyboard [the same as was featured on, of all things, a 2007 cover of Edge] — has given the museum a full website makeover, complete with a growing collection of its games recreated and playable online.

Touch Arcade:

The full list of features are as follows:

Full speed, Commodore 64 emulator
SID sound emulation
Auto-save, to continue exactly where you left off
Realistic joystick and beautifully crafted C64 keyboard
Portrait and Landscape play
Vertical and Fullscreen gaming (auto rotate for iPod users)
Did I mention it was legally licensed?

Topless Robot says:

A lot of early Dungeons & Dragons module-plots were more about scavenging then conquering.  It wasn’t about beating one central bad guy, but getting in, scoring some loot, and escaping with your lives to brag about it back at the tavern.  So many of the classic modules — The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, The Ghost Tower of Inverness, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks — have a wealth of minor bad-guys to wade through, but not one central villainous focus. On the other hand…some modules did.  And when they did, it got nasty.  Here are a host of the best bad guys of the original D&D modules–the ones who every party wanted a shot at.

Via plus1mag

From Josh Spear, Trendspotting:

Do you find that tune from Tetris twisting and turning in your brain all day? Does the music of Metroid make you want to move your feet? Sure you’re probably a video game addict, but there’s nothing wrong with getting those sweet sounds of Super Street Fighter stuck in your head. The only issue you face is trying to find a place that will let you relive the soundtrack of your gaming life. Luckily, there’s now 8bitFM, an internet radio station dedicated to devotees of Double Dragon ditties and Super Mario melodies.

Check it out here.

From COMRADE Magazine:

I had always wanted to be an illustrator until the day my idol, Joe Sorren, was a guest speaker in my illustration class. He stuck around for our class critiques and when he got to my painting, he said, I shit you not this is exactly what he said: “I’m personally offended to have to talk about this piece, it’s THAT BAD.” I went home practically in tears, didn’t leave my room for a week, and almost dropped out of school. But I realized at that point I was a better designer than illustrator, so I stuck with graphic design.

Check it out here.

From giantbomb.com:

Can you put 25th Anniversary artwork on your game’s title screen if it’s 26 years old? This is the bold statement that Lode Runner on Xbox Live Arcade asks us to consider. This classic franchise that got its start in 1983 on machines like the Apple II and Atari 400/800 doesn’t really get as much respect as it probably deserves.

Check it out here.

From STALIN VS. MARTIANS:

The game is more or less plot-driven, so we’re working on a script wild enough to fit into our concept. In short, the outline looks like this:

Year 1942. Summer. The martians suddenly land somewhere in Siberia and attack the glorious people of Holy Mother Russia. It is a hard time for USSR as you might know from the history books if you ever attended school. The situation is really f*d up, so comrade Stalin takes the anti-ET military operation under his personal control. The operation is a top secret and virtually nobody knows about the fact of extraterrestial intervention.

Check it out here.

via BoingBoing’s Offworld.