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When I first saw this tiny arcade back in September, it was love at first byte. And now that there's an instructional video, I can build one of my very own. It looks so easy in fast forward!
2K Marin's Jordan Thomas has said that the console wars are "silly".
"There's a cognitive effect known as confirmation bias which leads people to latch onto conclusions that support their preferences and ignore data which doesn't," Thomas told Destructoid (thanks VG247).
"This leads to wild, unreasoning loyalty to a chosen platform, sports team, or brand of soda." There's only one Dirk Kuyt.
"From a development perspective, the console wars are a bit silly. Our target is consistency, and it's always kind of sad to see people throwing their energy into platform partisanship, because it seems to flood the critical channels and drown out other creative discourse."
Now that Sega has finally announced the real Sonic the Hedgehog 4, I thought it would be nice to talk about the fake one that has been floating around for over a decade now.
As you can see in the photo to the right, Sonic the Hedgehog 4 was made for the Super Nintendo. Blasphemous, I know! As you might imagine, this was in no way an official product, and was sold mostly in black markets and in regions where piracy wasn't really an issue.
The game itself is a rather extensive hack of Sunsoft's Speedy Gonzales: Los Gatos Bandidos, a game that already shares more than a passing resemblance to Sonic (as any Speedy Gonzales game should, really). The hack was done in 1996 by a Peruvian outfit calling themselves Twin Eagle Group, which did quite a few similar hacks for the system. Its softography shows, among others, Flubber, Street Fighter 2 Vs. X-Men, Men in Black and The Man in the Iron Mask.
The hack is ultimately kind of sloppy, with quite a few weird mistakes and a strange soundtrack, but it's passable for what it is. I've certainly seen worse. Gameplay is below, do try and enjoy. Note that Sonic is rescuing little Marios stuck in cages, I always liked that touch.
Lucasarts has just announced Lego Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Full release follows...
LONDON, UK - 8th February, 2010 - LucasArts and TT Games today announced the development of LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars. The next chapter in the award-winning LEGO Star Wars videogame franchise, LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars will combine the best elements of all previous LEGO games while adding brand new gameplay to make it the most action-packed LEGO videogame to date. Developed by the same team at Traveller's Tales that created the critically acclaimed LEGO Star Wars and LEGO Indiana Jones series, the game will ship on the Wii, Nintendo DS, PLAYSTATION3 computer entertainment system, PSP (PlayStationPortable) system, and Xbox 360 videogame and entertainment system from Microsoft and Windows in the Autumn of 2010.
"LucasArts continues to set the bar for next-generation family entertainment," said Darrell Rodriguez, president of LucasArts. "The LEGO Star Wars franchise is a massive hit with fans, bringing in sales of over 20 million units worldwide. We're thrilled to extend this experience to LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars, delivering the humour and fun players expect from this award winning franchise."
"LucasArts is an amazing partner, and working with them on the next iteration of the LEGO Star Wars series continues to be a great experience," said Tom Stone, director at TT Games. "The team at TT is working hard at making this simply the best LEGO game ever with all new gameplay and features never before seen in a LEGO game."
LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars will include all the characters from both seasons of the hugely popular animated television series, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, as well as some fan-favourite characters from the beloved theatrical Star Wars Saga. The game will feature brand new battle modes, giving players unique, head-to-head combat and an upgraded level builder, allowing the creation of customized bases and in-game battlefields. Play either as a Jedi or Separatist with all-new character abilities, such as Squad command, Lightsaber slicing, Lightsaber jumps, long distance Jedi attacks and Grapple Tie-Ups, all within a new, easy-to-navigate hub.
Mass Effect 2 has remained at number one in the UK all-format chart this week despite stiff competition from former chart-topper Just Dance.
With sales dropping 64 per cent on last week, the game was just 850 copies ahead of Ubisoft's casual title.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 sales were down 12 per cent, but were just enough to beat EA's Dante's Inferno, which entered the chart at four.
FIFA 10 climbed two places with a sales increase of 26 per cent to five, and Wii Sports Resort sales dropped 18 per cent to move the game from fifth to sixth position.
Atari/Namco Bandai just failed to make the top ten with new entry Star Trek Online, which reached number 11. Other new releases were THQ's MX Vs ATV Reflex at number 18, and The Sims 3: Design & High-Tech Suff at number 20.
The full top 20 for the the week ending February 6 is as follows:
01 Mass Effect 2
02 Just Dance
03 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
04 Dante's Inferno
05 FIFA 10
06 Wii Sports Resort
07 MAG
08 New Super Mario Bros Wii
09 Wii Fit Plus
10 James Cameron's Avatar: The Game
11 Star Trek Online
12 Assassin's Creed II
13 Mario Kart Wii
14 Army of Two: The 40th Day
15 LEGO Batman: The Videogame
16 Forza Motorsport 3
17 Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games
18 MX Vs ATV Reflex
19 Football Manager 2010
20 The Sims: Design & High-Tech Stuff
It is for Intel based Macs.. no PPC support, sorry. Also, I have myself used SnowLeopard (OSX 10.6.2) as a development environment and have not tested this in anything earlier than that. Support for TG-16 should also be in place.. obviously I have not managed to test it. There is no support for save ram as I don't own adequate hardware.
So, give it a try. I am not interested in hints to improve the functionality or GUI layout. However, I am very interested in TG-16 testers and experiences on OSX 10.5 or earlier. If you push the cancel button during the flash writing, it takes a while before process actually stops. It is supposed to do so...
Keep in mind that this is just the first public beta, which happens to work for me pretty well. When you report bugs etc anomalies remember to state your Mac type, OSX version, R0mz you were flashing, current setting in the GUI, flash cart size/type, and PC-Engine flavor.
Any TG-16 users there? I would really need some testers.. Also, currently there is no any rom detection logic. Would one be needed? At the moment the stuff is crafted to work from PCE point of view, which might be confusing some times...
Kung Hei Fat Choi! It's Lunar New Year again! Some of you may be wondering what this Lunar or Chinese New Year is about: The Traditional Chinese Calendar is based on Moon cycles and starts a few weeks after the western New Year. This festival is the most important, and joyoys time in Chinese societies. People buy new clothes, sweep their house and children get red pockets.
Every lunar year is represented by an animal. Last year, it was the ox that represents hard work, and this year is the year of the tiger, promising adventures and dynamic. These big cats are natural leaders, we certainly hope that they'll lead everybody to a happy and prosperous year.
To welcome the Tiger, Play-Asia.com will start into the New year with the Roaring Lucky Lunar New Year Sale, with thousands of brilliant bargains and a chance to win awesome prizes.
Look for the goodies left on your Christmas wish list, there's a good chance that they're now available at a lower price. We have carefully reviewed our inventory and the result is a total of around 5,000 in-stock items, we have around 2000 games, 200 console accessories, 400 toys, 200 books, 800 music CDs and around 1000 movies.
We just added, and restocked more bargained items, some of them are real hot actioners such as Left 4 Dead 2, Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway and Turning Point: Fall of Liberty. The greatest thing about these products is that they are Asian versions, they are not only cheaper and are region free. We know that some countries censor and cut games and we know that real gamers don't want to settle on a copy with reduced content.
Other goodies, such as Tekken 6 [Collector's Edition] gets another price cut, it falls from US$ 129.00 to $99.00. A real good deal, you get both the official fighting stick and the game in one beautiful package. Another Collector's Edition worth taking a look at is the Batman Arkham Asylum which comes with bonus DVDs and the batarang, the price just fell from US$ 99.00 to US$ 69.00.
For more details on the bargain items, please take a look at our bargains section!
But this is not all! Like we've done with our sales in the past, you will again have the chance to win fantastic prizes such as consoles, games and store credits. So what are you waiting for?
And this is how it works:
Now Tiger will guide you to where the Sales and the Lucky Draw are. The cheerful big cat will stop by the bargained products between February 2nd and February 11th, snap up the goodies and there you go, entered into the Lucky Draw. The more you buy, the more you save and the higher your chances of winning our prizes.
The winners of the 30 main prizes will be announced in this news post during the last week of February 2010 and will also be notified by e-mail.
Yet, be aware. Some products are restocked regularly, so the tiger comes back time and time again, yet for limited versions, such as toys and music, once the tiger leaves (out of stock) he never returns. Set your priorities and plan your shopping strategies.
Prizes:
1st Prize: A: PlayStation3 Slim- Final Fantasy XIII Lightning Bundle (250GB Model Asia version)
2nd Prize: Nintendo Wii™ Console [Black or White] (Japanese Version) + 2 Wii™ Games of your choice*
3rd Prize: A: Nintendo DSi™ LL Console + 2 NDS™ Games of your choice*
OR
B: Sony PSP™ Slim & Lite Console + 2 PSP™ Games of your choice*
4th Prize: GP2X Wiz Game System + Leather Case
5-10th Prize: A store credit voucher worth US$ 50 each, redeemable for any purchase at Play-Asia.com
11-30th Prize: A store credit voucher worth US$ 20 each, redeemable for any purchase at Play-Asia.com
BioShock 2! BioShock 2! On Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, that's what I'll be playing this weekend, drilling my way toward the end of the game and hopefully unlocking a World's Greatest Big Daddy coffee mug reward for my Avatar.
Oh, they don't actually have such a thing (as far as I know) in BioShock 2, but that would be a fine unlockable, something that would quickly replace the Left 4 Dead 2 medpack that my Xbox Live Avatar is currently sporting. If I get a free moment, meaning if I beat BioShock 2 and get in enough multiplayer time, I'll either continue my new game+ run of Demon's Souls or crack open that copy of Mass Effect 2 that arrived earlier this week.
What about you? What new, old or recently released games will you be playing this weekend?
