This instantly makes Super Mario Bros. a heck of a lot harder, since you suddenly can’t see things that are above, below or behind you. Seriously, you bash a block with your head, and how would you even know that you got a mushroom?

The same guy behind this video also did a real-life Mario Kart, which is worth watching.

Sweet chart by DeviantART user Spongeboy1985, showcasing most of the swords from the entire Legend of Zelda series. There is also a very huge 7,500 x 5,000 pixel version.

I cannot quibble with his decision of eschew minor enemy swords like the Moblin spear.

(via Geekologie)

My retro heart beats faster at the look of these playing cards, um, decked out in graphics ripped straight from Atari classics like Breakout, Asteroids and Centipede.

And, they’re only $6.50 at NSCX. Which, I guess, is kind of pricey for a deck of cards. But what price nostalgia?

Sigh, just looking at that picture brings back a multitude of memories — I have spent a large number of hours — probably full weeks of my life — playing Mario Kart 64. I was always Wario (I’m a gunna win!).

So it great to take a few minutes and read through a list of the 11 most useful special items — the ones you get from the question-mark boxes.

I would always hate getting a crappy single banana, so I was glad to see they’ve been dropped from the list.

But the rest makes for nice, nostalgic reading. The only thing I disagree with is how highly the Ghost is placed. Nu-uh.

Man, now I desperately want a can of yellow spray paint and some stencils.

Later iterations of the game sometimes made it better, other times worse, but I kept playing. And every now and then, I enjoyed a quick round of the original.

I haven’t played it in a while.

But fair warning, Amy, when Civilization V comes out, you may have to find a few good books to read.

Kotaku has a hands-on review of a game they were allowed to play — nine hours, 400 turns — and I do believe I am drooling:

City-states are my favorite addition to the franchise, at least in my first nine hours.

If Civilization is the ultimate game of delegation, it is also one of the premiere games of storytelling. The tale of an empire’s rise from single settlement to global military dominance twists differently for each player. The chapters one tells are composed of paragraphs about betrayal and calamity, of research breakthroughs and, often war. The characters of these dramas have been the empires. But with city-states, our Civilization V tales now become more complex, so much more varied and interesting ….

Around turn 150 or so, possibly at the turn from BC to AD, I decided that my Arab empire, ticked off by the complaints of the Egyptians, who objected to my settlements near their borders, would instead expand west, setting sights on the city-state of Brazil. As I amassed my troops at Brazil’s eastern border, the Ottoman Empire suddenly streamed into Brazil from the west, locked themselves into a stalemate outside Rio de Janeiro’s walls and then, amazingly, signed a peace treaty while I waited to attack. When my Arabs then marched in I accidentally attacked the Ottomans and was facing a two-front war. I seized Rio and pushed the Ottomans back, used a great general to build a citadel as a buffer and then later ran through the Ottomans as well. I then turned around and steamrolled the Egyptians.

The game is out Sept. 21.

That’s what Eric Powerup did with Zelda — paperfied them:

There’s also a bit at the end about Metroid, but I like the Zelda ones better.

(From That Guy With The Glasses)

(Updated to reflect the fact that it’s a 16-bit, not 8-bit game being paperfied here. I’d turn in my geek card, but I obviously haven’t been paying my dues anyway. Thanks Dave!)

Of course, because I’m aging, many of the ones that I enjoyed most were, um, classics. Like these two:

Full list here.

Best. Walkthrough. Ever.

That was the trailer (of sorts) for a new Mortal Kombat movie, subtitled “Rebirth.” No one is really sure where it came from, but some blogs are reporting that it’s a test clip to get funding for the actual film.

It looks bloody, dark and disturbing, just like the video game, unlike the first movies, which were terrible. Well, maybe not terrible. How about cheesy and so very ’90s?

Except, I bet anything Grant will tell me they were awesome.

I used to love playing Mortal Kombat when I was younger. Not that I was ever very good at it, but it was pretty fun, and had an extra “cool” factor for being so violent and gory (I was young, okay?).

It’ll be interesting to see if we can forget the past and have a decent film version.

Of course, just like completists who play through video games trying to capture every single bonus Easter egg, someone’s got to try and maximize their Sim City.

How big can it get? How little crime? How little pollution? How much civic happiness?

Well, you may have your answers, in this seven-minute video that tracks multiple attempts to optimize a Sim City population until a “perfect” solution is found.

If you know your Sim City, it’s a pretty stunning achievement.

(via BB)

It’s actually a game mod, and you can read all about it at GameInformer. Go to that link if the video doesn’t work, too.

UPDATE: Okay, the video doesn’t embed very well. go to the link. It’s …. oddly nostalgic.

Basically my whole computing life has been tied up with the evolution of the Civilization series of games. Right from the first ever Civilization through CivII, Civ3 and Civ 4, I’ve played long into the night, shepherding my Zulus (I love being the Zulus — or the Russians, sometimes the French) through to world domination.

Usually, I go a military route, but sometimes I try the space race, other times I aim for a diplomatic victory. But I gotta say, even when I try to out-culture my opponents, I tend to get frustrated and end up switching to a military footing, churning out some heavy tank units, and demolishing my nearby opponents (until then, my allies and friends) before they know what’s hit them.

Damn — I wanna play some Civilization right now!

Well, luckily I don’t have long to wait before a new(!) version of Sid Meier’s classic comes out. There’s plans afoot for Civilization V — and both Gamespot and IGN have previews.

Some of the changes include hex tiles instead of squares, plus the addition of ranged units, and the new inability to “stack” units. I am finding myself strangely excited.

This is a clever idea, and would be loads of fun in the right decor — perhaps you could have a set of end tables with long tablecloths, in cyan, orange, red and pink which you could call Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde?

I wonder, though, if the effect would be lost if you actually filled the shelves up with books whose spines weren’t bright yellow?

At any rate, you can contact the designer at this website and order one. No price is given, but I’ll bet shipping is pricey. Unless it’s shipped flatpack Ikea-style.

Or unless you can somehow ship it off to the left, appearing simultaneously at the right.

(via)

In the classic game of Pong, you and an opponent (perhaps a computer) try to bat a ball back and forth until someone misses, and the ball slides past your paddle, scoring a point.

“Gnop” has reversed that.

In Gnop, which you can play here, it is you who is the ball. The computer controls the paddles. And it’s your job, while being batted back and forth, to avoid and get past the paddles.

It’s a fun twist on an old classic.

(via)