Apocalypse POW!

Triptych: Faux Games

2012-02-10T12:02:00.000-08:00

"8-Bit Ghostbusters" by Joel Winters

"Cloverfield Atari" by Sean Hartter

"PixelThing" by BazNet

Showcase: thUg-inc's Voxelism Series

2012-02-10T10:44:00.000-08:00

[thUg-inc's website (Bloody dOt)]

Real Things That You Can Totally Buy

2012-02-09T11:29:00.000-08:00

"Dragon Quest Liquid Metal Slime Mug" (¥1,500\$19.31 USD) available from the Square Enix Shop

"Shirtness" ($25.00 USD) Fangamer's Ness t-shirt

"Phoenix Wright (Heat White) and Miles Edgeworth (Genius Red) Wine" (¥4,725\$60.85) available from Animate Online Shop

I want all the things!

Games To Play Before You Die: #9 - Conquests of Camelot: The Search For The Grail

2012-02-08T12:59:00.000-08:00

Conquests of Camelot: The Search For The Grail (1989)
Publisher: Sierra On-Line
Designer: Christy Marx

("Religion is one of those things where - if you're specific about it - you're going to get yourself into a mountain of trouble. You have to be very, very careful.” - Peter Molyneux)

Videogames and religion have always been uneasy bedfellows. While there have been a few faith-specific games (most notably from Wisdom Tree, who produced such fare as Bible Adventures, Spiritual Warfare and Super 3D Noah’s Ark, all of which were thinly-veiled ports of other, more popular games, seemingly designed for God-fearin’ grandmothers to give their grandkids at Christmas as an alternative to all that sinful, pixelated blood-and-guts,) most publishers shy away from anything more than the most superficial reference to religion in their games. The reasons given for this are numerous, but they all boil down to one inarguable fact: the videogame industry is concerned with making the most revenue possible from their releases, and this necessitates reaching the widest audience available.

Conquests of Camelot: The Search For The Grail is not precisely a religious game - not in the same sense that Bible Adventures or Left Behind: Eternal Forces are religious - but there is far more of a religious component to it than most game publishers would be comfortable with in this day and age. More accurately, it’s a historical game, with a strong emphasis on melding medieval fact and Arthurian legend, and given the undeniable presence of Christianity in both everyday life in the middle ages and in the tales of King Arthur, it seems a given that the game would make direct reference to it. Excising such major themes in any work addressing this era in history, or these characters of lore, would be far more contentious.

The protagonist of Conquests of Camelot is none other than King Arthur himself, and as the title implies, he seeks the Holy Grail. Along the way, he offers up prayer not only to the Christian god but also to Mithras, the Persian diety worshipped by the Romans and absorbed by Christianity around the 5th century C.E. This sort of academic treatment of religious history crops up frequently throughout the game; during his time in Britain, Arthur comes across numerous references to pagan and druidic beliefs, and the majority of his adventure is spent in the Holy Land, covering Gaza, Palestine and Jerusalem. Joseph of Arimathea gets a name-check, as do Cernunnos and Aphrodite. Conquests of Camelot is a historical treatise on religion, disguised as an adventure game.

Of course, the traditional Arthurian figures all make an appearance as well: Lancelot, Guinevere, Merlin, the Black Knight, the Lady in the Lake. For many younger players, myself included, Conquests of Camelot was one of our first introductions to the stories surrounding Arthur, the Grail, and the Knights of the Round Table, and it did a more than adequate job conveying the myths and legends surrounding Camelot in an even-handed and engaging manner. This is not to give the impression that Conquests of Camelot was, by any stretch of the imagination, an “educational game” - and yet it was, without a doubt, highly educational.

Amongst its other achievements, Sierra On-Line was known for being a haven for designer-oriented projects. King’s Quest was Roberta Williams’ baby; The Two Guys From Andromeda, Mark Crowe and Scott Murphy, were responsible for Space Quest; Leisure Suit Larry emerged, polyester-swaddled, from the brain of Al Lowe. Conquests of Camelot, and its Robin Hood-themed sequel Conquests of the Longbow, were designed by Christy Marx and her husband Peter Ledger. This focus on designer rather than promoting a game as a product of an entire studio was as much an oddity in 1989 as it is today, but it somehow made the games that much more personal to play: they were like interactive novels with a verifiable author, rather than the output of a faceless studio simply intent on selling the most games.

Conquests of Camelot: The Search For The Grail was released for Amiga, Atari ST and DOS.

(Besides designing adventure games for Sierra On-Line, Christy Marx was also an accomplished television writer, including credits for Jem, G.I. Joe, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Captain Power.)

Showcase: PaperBeatsScissors' Videogame Weaponry

2012-02-08T11:51:00.000-08:00

Megaman's Blaster from "Mega Man", Twin Swords from "Tales of Symphonia", Dragon Hat from "Super Mario Land 3", Kuribo's Shoe from "Super Mario Bros. 3", Blaster from "Earthworm Jim".

Beam Katana from "No More Heroes", Vampire Killer from "Castlevania", Kali-Yuga from "Soul Calibur", RCP-90 from "Goldeneye 64", Little Mac's Glove from "Punch-Out!!!".

Keyblade from "Kingdom Hearts", Triple Red Shell from "Mario Kart", Arm Cannon from "Metroid", Star Rod from "Kirby's Adventure", Master Sword from "Legend of Zelda", Buster Sword from "Final Fantasy VII".

[PaperBeatsScissors' Tumblr]

Showcase: Ty Lettau's 8-Bit NES Cartridges

2012-02-08T11:29:00.000-08:00

"The Legend of Zelda"

"Metroid"

"Super Mario Bros."

Ty Lettau is currently one of my favourite pixel artists and these 8-bit NES cartridge designs are a big part of the reason why.

[Ty Lettau's Flickr Page]

Triptych: Jake's Hand Is A Shield. Your Argument Is Invalid

2012-02-08T11:09:00.000-08:00

"Adventure Time 8-Bit Tribute" by Mike Gaboury

"The Hero of Hyrooole" by Il Nedo

"Finnzetta" by Tobias Kwan

A shield! Jake is adaptable.

Triptych: Coast To Coast

2012-02-08T10:54:00.000-08:00

"Space Ghost" by Jayson Weidel

"Space Ghost" by Glen Brogan

"Space Ghost" by Matt Kaufenberg

Triptych: So Many Pilgrims

2012-02-08T10:49:00.000-08:00

"Scott Pilgrim vs. The World Minimalist Poster" by Martin Lucas

"Duke Pilgrim" (t-shirt) by Rippletron

"Unstuck In Time" (t-shirt) by Apalooza

That last one is pretty obscure, so I'll give you a hint: it starts with S and ends with -laughterhouse-Five.

Triptych: Cast A Long Shadow

2012-02-08T10:43:00.000-08:00

"Donkey Colossus" by DrawsGood

"Barba, The Goliath" by Sam Rennocks

"Shadow Of The Colossus" (t-shirt) by Erick Giron

Triptych: So Say We All

2012-02-06T13:39:00.000-08:00

"Galactica: The Last Of The Best" by Sublevel Studios

"So Say We Can Do It" (t-shirt) by Bregan1989

"Saultighnes" (t-shirt) by Tom Kurzanski

Avenger Time!

2012-02-06T13:21:00.000-08:00

The Avengers travel through a multitude of dimensions, courtesy the fine deranged folks at Mad. Hulk dash!

Games To Play Before You Die: #8 - Baseball Simulator 1.000

2012-02-01T12:12:00.000-08:00

Baseball Simulator 1.000 (1989)
Publisher: Culture Brain

Sports games have always been very serious business. Electronic Arts has built an empire (and filled countless discount pre-owned game store bins) on releasing annual NHL, NFL and FIFA titles, each more concerned with exacting versimilitude and a fixation on fantasy-league detail verging on obsessive than the last. Early entries like Activision Tennis (1981), Konami’s Track n’ Field (1983), and Nintendo’s Ice Hockey (1988) lacked personality and self-awareness, although they were undeniably well-designed. Not unlike the flight-sim genre, sports games are practically defined by their dearth of humor.

Considering its name, one might get the impression that Baseball Simulator 1.000 is the driest of the dry, a game that goes the extra mile to simulate the experience of playing a professional team sport on a home console. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Although there is a fair bit of simulation present, from filling out a team roster to playing through a season, Culture Brain takes so many liberties with the game they purport to be simulating that the end result comes across more like a supercharged satire of baseball than any kind of straightforward depiction. Achieving any kind of realism was not one of Culture Brain’s bullet points when designing Baseball Simulator 1.000.

On the surface, Baseball Simulator 1.000 is indistinguishable from the majority of baseball games available on the NES: the player selects his team, opts for a season or merely an exhibition game, and then plays through the innings, alternately pitching or batting and running. There are two standard divisions, the Atlantic League and the Northern League, each one comprised of six teams populated by players of varying stats, and a game played according to these guidelines is an entirely satisfactory experience.

It isn’t until one gets into the Ultra League that Baseball Simulator 1.000 begins to show its true lunacy. Ultra League Teams have access to what amount to baseball superpowers, and making use of these powers transforms the game from a run-of-the-mill sports game into something utterly unexpected. These abilities fall into one of three categories: Ultra Pitches, Ultra Hits and Ultra Fielding. There are ten of the first two and five of the third: Ultra Pitches include Speeder Balls, which allow the player to control the speed of the pitched ball using the up and down arrows on the d-pad; Phantom Balls, which turn invisible as they go over the plate; and Fire Balls, which increase in speed until they burst into flame. Ultra Hits include Shadow Hit, which causes multiple ball shadows to confuse outfielders; Tremor Hit, which turns grounders into earthquakes; and Missile Hits, which catch any outfielders in its path and drives them into the stands. Ultra Fielding includes Rocket Jump, Super Slide and Hyper Throw, which all do exactly what their names suggest.

The end result is like playing softball with the X-Men. Batters hit homer after homer, causing bat fragments to fly around the field, knocking out anyone unlucky enough to get in the way. Balls zoom or inch their way across the plate, dance out of the way at the last second, or vanish without warning. Everyone else on the field is racing around at superhuman speed, leaping a dozen feet into the air, and catching impossible pop flies. It’s pure chaos, and it’s glorious. It’s how, by all rights, baseball should be.

Baseball Simulator 1.000 spawned a series of sequels for the Super Nintendo, including Super Baseball Simulator 1.000 and three Ultra Baseball Jitsumeiban (or Real Player Version) games. The latter three were only available in Japan, but other than the inclusion of recognisable players and upgraded graphics, there was little altered from the original. After all, why mess with a winning formula?

(Baseball Simulator 1.000 was voted “Sports Game Of The Year” by Electronic Gaminig Monthly in 1990. The year previous, another Culture Brain game, The Magic of Scheherezade, received EGM’s “Best Graphics Of The Year” award.)

Triptych: Giant Transforming Robotic Lifeforms

2012-02-01T11:58:00.000-08:00

"The Mech In Red" by NinjaInk

"Thomas The Assault Engine" (t-shirt) by MidgeRock

"Z.A.P. Wave" (t-shirt) by zomboy

Triptych: Land of Mushrooms

2012-02-01T11:52:00.000-08:00

"Breakfast Power" by Vince Bocognani

"Super Limbo Land" by iGreefing

(Click for full-size)
"Mario World" by Glen Brogan

Triptych: The Best Show I Have Seen In My Entire Life

2012-02-01T11:47:00.000-08:00

"Trust Us, Folks!" by Zerobriant

"Choose Your Doctor" (t-shirt) by Rippletron

"Inspector Spacetime" (t-shirt) by Spir and Seth C.O.

Triptych: Dances With Gunthers

2012-02-01T11:28:00.000-08:00

"The Adventure of Time" by Mike Nieuwstraten

"The Ice King and His Penguins" by Eminina

"He-Finn and Battle-Dog" by Anthony Petrie

Triptych: Fat, Old Mega Man

2012-02-01T11:10:00.000-08:00

"Haters Gonna Hate (Bad Box Art Mega Man Edition)" by Brother Brain

"I Heart Mega Man" by Ian Wilding

"The Mega Man Blues" by Grieg Rapson

Did you guys hear that Bad Box Art Mega Man is going to be a bonus character (along with Pac-Man piloting a gigantic wooden training dummy) in Street Fighter x Tekken? There's been a fair bit of controversy over this: the Mega Man included here is middle-aged and paunchy, and carries a hand-held blaster gun rather than the traditional arm cannon, so not exactly the tiny powerhouse we all fondly remember from our NES days.

Here's the thing, though - this is Bad Box Art Mega Man. Bad Box Art Mega Man is distinctly different from "classic" Mega Man, and until now existed purely as a poorly-rendered drawing on the original NES box cover. THIS version of Mega Man has a blue-and-yellow suit, a gun in his hand, and a paunch (not to mention a somewhat lopsided physiology). This Mega Man has long been a joke in the annals of Capcom's history, and Street Fighter x Tekken is his very first videogame appearance. In the video below, you can almost hear Bad Box Art Mega Man grinning and saying, "Finally, it's BAD BOX ART MEGA MAN'S time to shine! Look out, haters!"

And that's why I applaud Capcom for going the less obvious route here. Everyone loves the underdog in a fight; and man, you cannot get more underdog than Bad Box Art Mega Man.

The Breaking Bad RPG

2012-02-01T10:18:00.000-08:00

You guys should know how much I love Breaking Bad. Reimagined as a Super Nintendo-era RPG? SOLD.

Games To Play Before You Die: #7 - Monster Party

2012-01-27T12:15:00.000-08:00

Monster Party (1989)
Publisher: Bandai

(Bert: “Don’t worry! With your weapon you’ll be able to destroy them easily.”
Mark: “This isn’t a weapon, it’s a bat!”
Bert: “Bat! Batter! Anything is ok! Anyhow, let’s go!”)

Monster Party. What the hell, Nintendo?! WHAT THE HELL.

By 1989, the Nintendo Entertainment System was a household fixture. Every single kid had wanted a NES when they came out in 1985, and four years later almost all of those kids, by virtue of a thousand mowed lawns, a hundred thousand papers thrown haphazardly into yards, or two weeks of relentless whining to their parents, had acquired one. Nintendo was starting to clue into the fact that their core demographic, by a colossal margin, was eight- to twelve-year-olds, and that without necessarily intending to, they had become a Family-Friendly Company. Nintendo was, by 1989, a huge proponent of videogame censorship (see “Games To Play Before You Die #4: Maniac Mansion”) and had laid down strict precepts on what they would or would not allow to be associated with their brand, both internally and in games by third-party developers.

Which is what makes Monster Party such a bewildering creature. Make no mistake: Monster Party was censored - considerably - between Japanese prototype and U.S. final version. That it manages to be the most nightmarish and profoundly disturbing game for the NES even after it got past the censor’s iron gauntlet calls into question why it was released at all, even in neutered form.

Monster Party is a latter-day younger sibling of Castlevania, if Castlevania had been designed by Ub Iwerks while on a four-day hallucinogen bender. The game is pure 1980s punk rock (literally: one level boss is a giant legless punk rocker) and it is absolutely, unapologetically insane. Let’s look at the evidence:

Mark, the child hero of Monster Party, is kidnapped by a dragon from another dimension named Bert, with whom he proceeds to fuse. Mark doesn’t gain dragon-powers of any sort, but rather transforms for a while into Bert whenever he eats enough pills. The first set of monsters that confront Mark are as follows: a floppy-haired Japanese gangster ghost on fire, a human-faced dog creature, and what appear to be pairs of legs sticking out of the ground from the waist up. This is not counting Mark’s first boss battle, which occurs incongruously enough at the beginning of the first stage, against a giant man-eating pitcher plant. Roughly half-way through the first of eight stages, as he passes a cheerfully-grinning anthropomorphised tree, the screen flickers and Mark finds himself, Silent-Hill-style, in a Boschian hellish landscape, with bleeding skulls replacing happy-faced blocks and blood-vomiting severed heads appearing in the background. It’s so hellish, in fact, that Mark soon stumbles across a giant spider boss who apologises for being already dead, having been torn limb from limb by the denizens of this videogame gehenna.

Along the way, Mark encounters enemies straight out of a Hallowe’en fever dream: a pumpkin-headed mummy, a haunted well that throws plates, a giant demon cat, a cow man who attacks with smaller cows, a massive wooden robot, a samurai, a caterpillar named Rolls Royce, umpires, witches, masked elephants, sea serpents, and an enormous tempura shrimp, which transforms into an onion ring and finally into a shishkabob. Finally, after defeating the end boss, Mark is sent on his way by Bert with a gift, which turns out to be a beautiful princess, who abruptly transforms into a rotting revenant. Mark freaks out, jumps in the air, his skin melts off... And he wakes up in his bed, the entire adventure having been nothing more than a dream. Except that, as he opens the door to leave for school, he finds a very menacing Bert standing there, Mark’s bat in hand, to pressgang him into service again.

It’s hard to know where to start with Monster Party. The game itself suffers from a number of design flaws (it’s difficult to strike enemies while playing as Mark, as his baseball bat is only a few pixels in length, and a bug in the game’s seventh level causes the player to become stuck without any way of progressing if all three bosses are defeated rather than just the first two) and one wonders just how much QA testing the game underwent before it was unleashed on the world. Despite a few creative decisions as far as level design is concerned (level 7 scrolls upwards, level 8 starts on the far right and scrolls left, and of course there’s the demonic tonal shift in level 1 as described above), the actual gameplay is repetitive and not particularly challenging. More than anything, Monster Party plays and feels like the product of some stoned college student with an encyclopaediac knowledge of horror movies, cartoons and Japanese mythology throwing everything they think is kinda cool into a blender and setting the whole thing to puree. What it does not feel like, not even remotely, is a game released by a sane, sober videogame company who is eminently aware of their own reputation as an industry leader.

Monster Party would never make it to market today, but 22 years ago it somehow slipped through the cracks and found its way into the basements and living rooms of countless prepubescent boys. Are we richer for it? Has it had a lasting cultural impact? Was it a great, or even a good, game? The answer to all three of those questions is: probably not, but Monster Party was a thing that happened and there’s no going back now.

(In the original Japanese Monster Party prototype, the pitcher-plant boss more closely resembled Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors, and was flanked by a gigantic microphone and speaker, alluding to the film’s musical numbers.)

Triptych: Chun-Li and Blanka

2012-01-27T11:09:00.000-08:00

"Flash Kick" by Anthony Wu

"Blaunkius" by Duzty

"Chun Li and Blanka" by Bobby Chiu

Triptych: I Watch Way Too Much TV, You Guys

2012-01-27T10:57:00.000-08:00

(Click for full-size)
"Parks and Recreation" by Bill Mudron

"The Mighty Boosh" by James Gilleard

"The A-Team" by Dr. Faustus AU

Triptych: a PhD in Mycology

2012-01-27T10:50:00.000-08:00

"The Hardest Part" by Zac Gorman

"Mario M.D." (t-shirt) by Faniseto

"Dr. Mario ID Badge" by Mark Welser

Games To Play Before You Die: #6 - Phantasy Star

2012-01-26T14:32:00.000-08:00

Phantasy Star (1988)
Publisher: Sega
Designer: Rieko Kodama

(“Some cats, if they eat a certain type of nut, they become huge and
can fly. It’s really very wierd (sic).” -- NPC in the town of Abion)

Between 1986 and 1988, a trio of flagship titles for what would become three of the most beloved Japanese RPG franchises were released: Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy and Phantasy Star. While Final Fantasy landed on North American shores in 1988 and Dragon Quest (retitled Dragon Warrior for the English-speaking market) followed suit in 1989, Phantasy Star beat them both to the punch by nearly a year, effectively earning itself a reputation as the first JRPG to cross the Pacific.

Although it bears many of the hallmarks of classic JRPGs - random battles, overworld maps, HP and MP, character levelling, and increasing item strength and magic potency - Phantasy Star innovated on a number of fronts. To begin with, dungeons were presented in an unique first-person perspective; since the Master System was not powerful enough for true first-person 3D, the game’s designers presented a smoothly animated pseudo-3D effect, giving the impression of 360-degree motion. Monster sprites and combat attacks were animated, which was largely unprecedented at the time.

Perhaps the aspect of Phantasy Star with the most enduring impact, however, was the shift in tone from a medieval, Dungeons & Dragons-inspired environment to one with heavy sci-fi overtones. Later Final Fantasy games would mine this anime-esque juxtaposition of fantasy and science fiction to the extent that it would become one of the series’ defining qualities, but while the Light Warriors were toying around with the notion of airships and floating castles, Alis Landale and her crew were flitting from planet to planet, warding off robot-cops with small arms.

The game’s protagonist Alis was female, and female protagonists in video games were few and far between in 1988 (even Samus Aran had to trick players into presuming, at best, androgyny until the very end). In a field which was, and continues to be, predominantly male-oriented, lead designer Rieko Kodama joins a short list of female game designers from the era, which includes such luminaries as Sierra co-founder Roberta Williams and Wizardry designer Brenda Braithwaite. Commenting on the role of women in her games, Kodama stated in an interview that “one thing I always have in mind is that I don’t want to include any elements that would treat women unfairly in my game. It’s not that I create games with a message of discrimination against women or wanting to eliminate gender-role, but I’m careful not to treat them unfairly.”* Alis was neither scantily-clad nor a sex symbol; rather, she was a strong and determined heroine with a mission, caught up in a drama compelling enough to draw in players regardless of gender.

Phantasy Star has spawned more than fifteen sequels, spin-offs, and remakes, most recently with 2011’s Phantasy Star Portable 2: Infinity for the PSP, but it’s important to convey just how critical the first entry in the series was when it first came out. For many non-Japanese gamers in 1988, Phantasy Star was their first encounter with a console roleplaying game, and it made a spectacular impression. It set the stage for Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, and is perhaps lesser known than those two games today simply because the Master System didn’t enjoy the same popularity, historically, that the NES did. That it managed to spark a legitimate franchise is all the more impressive considering the fact that the games were often relegated to Sega’s latter-day consoles: the Game Gear, Sega Saturn, and Dreamcast were all recipients of exclusive Phantasy Star games, and it wasn’t until remakes and collections of earlier games started to make their way over to the GameCube and PlayStation 2 that the majority of RPG fans discovered Phantasy Star’s vast, undiscovered world.

(Upon release, Phantasy Star retailed for $69.99, with some outlets selling the game for as much as $80. By comparison, the typical Sega Master System game sold for $29.99, and the system itself retailed at $99.99, making Phantasy Star one of the most expensive games ever sold.)

Showcase: Michael Jackson Cereals by Michael De Pippo

2012-01-26T13:20:00.000-08:00

"Beat Bits"

"Frosted Mini Thrills"

"King of Pops"

"Smooth Crimino's"

I'm in a Michael Jackson mood today. Also a breakfast cereal mood.

[MJ's Cereals by
Michael De Pippo]

Triptych: Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

2012-01-26T13:16:00.000-08:00

"Paku Paku's" (t-shirt, no longer available) by Faniseto

"Tix Are For Ticks" (t-shirt) by Stuart Down

"1.21 Jigga Wheats" (t-shirt) by Brave Anderson

Triptych: Mad Man With A Big Blue Box

2012-01-26T10:53:00.000-08:00

"Nouveau TARDIS" (t-shirt) by Stephanie Irigoyen

"Time Lord and Proud" (t-shirt) by Jerry Nowlin

"The Legend of the Doctor" (t-shirt) by Rippletron

Triptych: Those Cursed Turtles!

2012-01-26T10:44:00.000-08:00

"Heroes In A Half-Shell" by Dan Hipp

"What Donatello Thinks" by Derek Toye

"Minimalist Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" by Lafratta Creative

Games To Play Before You Die: #5 - NetHack

2012-01-24T14:57:00.000-08:00

NetHack (1987)
The NetHack DevTeam

(The original NetHack)

(“In short, NetHack 3.1.3 is the most elaborate role-playing environment you are ever likely to explore.
This is a place to return again and again, each time for a different experience. You're really going to
have to play it for a year or two and see for yourself.” -- David Gerrold, author)

(“You fall into a pit! How pitiful. Isn't that the pits? You land on a set of sharp iron spikes!
The spikes were poisoned! The poison was deadly...
Do you want your possessions identified?" -- Yet Another Stupid Death)

Even if you’re an avid player of roleplaying games, you may not be immediately familiar with the roguelike subset of the genre. Roguelikes possess a number of defining features, including randomly generated maps, permadeath, turn-based combat, and items with hidden attributes. They are traditionally single-player and almost always involve straight-up, hack-and-slash dungeon crawls with the goal of levelling up, acquiring items, and killing monsters, foregoing any of that pesky “plot” business which only serves, in the end, to distract a player from their hacking and slashing.

As roguelike RPGs go, NetHack is pretty much the definitive item. While it wasn’t the first (that honour goes to 1980’s Rogue, of which NetHack is a descendant, although roguelike elements started appearing as early as 1975 in the likes of Adventure and Dungeon,) NetHack is the one with the most longevity, the one that gained the most dedicated following, and the only one still in active, open-source development to this day, making it the oldest game to continue to receive updates and bugfixes. As it is continually supported, NetHack has evolved, although the core gameplay, mechanics and atmosphere of the game remain; one fascinating aspect of the game is that these layers may be peeled back or completely stripped away and the remainder can still be considered, in a functional sense, wholly NetHack.

(NetHack For Windows)

For a game that has earned itself such an enduring legacy, the earliest versions of NetHack were not exactly visually impressive: they offered simple, black-and-white ASCII graphics, with the @ sign representing the player and various other characters making up the dungeon features, monsters, items, treasure chests and so forth. It could not be strictly dubbed a text adventure, but it was about as close as one could get and still feature a GUI. This ASCII version is still available and preferred by many NetHack fanatics, but over time the NetHack community began to release clients of the game with updated graphics, beginning by merely adding colour and extended ASCII characters before moving on to a top-down tiles mode for windows-based operating systems. More recently, NetHack has transitioned from the top-down view to an isometric view (as seen in the Falcon’s Eye and Vulture’s Eye ports), a semi-3D view by way of Neognud’s interface, and even, in NetHack3D, a first-person view. It is important to note that these various ports and interfaces are all assembled around the basic NetHack source code and the game is played exactly the same, no matter which interface is used.

(Noegnud)

NetHack may not be the most user-friendly of games, but it has an addictive quality borne of its immense depth and substance which more than makes up for it. As with the typical RPG, players begin by selecting their race, role and alignment. They are then assigned a deity to which they are beholden and are tasked with recovering the Amulet of Yendor from the lowest reaches of the dungeon. Along the way, they will encounter monsters, side quests, shops and loot; gain experience and level up both their characters and their pets; and, if they are lucky, recover the Amulet and ‘ascend’ after sacrificing it on their deity’s altar. The replayability factor is high, since, as mentioned above, each level of the dungeon is randomly generated, character death is permanent, and games are unsaveable. And the game makes you work to uncover its secrets: with no rulebook and ‘spoilers’ of the game considered anathema to the serious player, aficionados of NetHack can spend years attempting to unlock all that it has to offer and still find themselves surprised by something.

(Falcon's Eye)

NetHack started as a Unix binary and has always had a following of primarily Unix and Linux environment users. It has made the transition to other platforms over the years, and the current version is available to download for Windows, Mac, DOS, Windows CE, OS/2, Atari, and Amiga. An official port called iNetHack has been released for iOS devices, and unofficial versions are available for the PSP and Nintendo DS. You can also play a Java-based version of NetHack, entitled NetHax, in-browser.

(Although Diablo - a bona fide roguelike which owes a considerable debt to NetHack - has earned a name for itself in North America, the genre itself is generally underrated. In Japan, however, the popularity of roguelike RPGs has skyrocketed, thanks in large part to spin-offs from the Pokemon (Pokémon Mystery Dungeon), Final Fantasy (Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon) and Dragon Quest (Dragon Quest: Shōnen Yangus to Fushigi no Dungeon) franchises.)

Showcase: Harry Potter Beers by Anita Brown

2012-01-24T12:29:00.000-08:00

"Sorceror's Stout"

"Amber of Secrets"

"Pilsner of Azkaban"

"Goblet of Lager"

"Porter of the Phoenix"

"Hefe-Blonde Prince"

"Deathly Hops"

I would drink these! Especially the Goblet of Lager. Lagers should always be drunk from goblets.

[Anita Brown on Behance]

Triptych: Sonic BOOM!

2012-01-24T12:04:00.000-08:00

"Arguile" by 5eth

"Lightning Kick" by Luke Chueh

"Static Hollow" by Martin Hsu

Triptych: Zombies Ate My Neighbors!

2012-01-24T11:34:00.000-08:00

"Zombies Ate My Neighbors" by beyx

"Zombies Ate My Neighbors" by Drew Falchetta

"Zombies Ate My Neighbors Minimalist Poster" by Chris M. Miller

Games To Play Before You Die: #4 - Maniac Mansion

2012-01-23T11:10:00.000-08:00

Maniac Mansion (1987)
Publisher: LucasFilm Games
Designer: Ron Gilbert & Gary Winnick

(“Hey, did anybody see that movie on television last night? These four kids
went into this strange house and... uh, never mind.” -- Michael F. Stoppe)

Interactive fiction has a long and, if you’ll pardon the pun, storied history. Generally acknowledged to be the first text adventure, ADVENT (also called Adventure and Colossal Cave) laid the groundwork for the genre in 1975, followed by Infocom’s legendary Zork (A.K.A. Dungeon) in 1980. Graphic adventure games were the next natural stage in the evolution of interactive fiction and were pioneered by On-Line Systems with Mystery House and Wizard and the Princess, both in 1980. The company rechristened itself as Sierra On-Line with the release of its first Adventure Game Interpreter engine-based game, King’s Quest: Quest For The Crown, in 1984, kick-starting a decade of such popularity that adventure games quickly became the default genre for the PC.

Enter LucasArts, who in 1987 was going by the name LucasFilm Games. At that time, Sierra and most other producers of adventure games relied on a text parser that referred to a set of specific verbs and nouns (and, very occasionally, adjectives). LucasFilm Games took the adventure game model established by Sierra and upped the ante by introducing, in the form of Maniac Mansion, the world’s first ‘point-and-click’ adventure game: verbs were listed at the bottom of the screen, and a cursor would allow the player to select an object, non-player character, or aspect of the scenery to manipulate.

Maniac Mansion broke new ground stylistically as well. It was highly referential, a kind of bastard offspring of Little Shop of Horrors, Reanimator, Scooby Doo, The Rocky Horror Picture Show and 1980s punk rock; it involved a family of mad scientists, sentient tentacles from outer space, and a handful of distinctly-archetypal teenagers to select from, each one bringing their own abilities to the various puzzles and interactions present in the house of Edison. It was gleefully anarchic, tongue-in-cheek, pointlessly violent and filled with easter eggs and one-off gags. And the whole thing was based on a new interpreter, programmed from the ground up by Gilbert and fellow LucasFilm employee Chip Morningstar, which they called SCUMM - Script Creation Utility For Maniac Mansion - which would later become the cornerstone for all of LucasArts’ graphic adventure games.

Originally released for the Commodore 64, Maniac Mansion was ported to the Amiga, Atari ST, Macintosh and IBM PC... And ultimately, to the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1990. While the NES port was serviceable (and added a few new features, such as individual soundtracks on Discmen for each playable character) it is significant largely because of the amount of pre-Entertainment Software Ratings Board censorship imposed by Nintendo on the conversion project manager, Douglas Crockford, and his team. In a classic tale of missing the forest for the trees, Crockford relates how family-friendly Nintendo demanded the removal or alteration of dozens of objectionable elements, including the words “sucked out” and “kill”, a poster of a sexy mummy, and most of Nurse Edna’s suggestive dialogue, and even took umbrage at the listing of the “NES SCUMM system” in the game’s credits, but completely overlooked the ability for characters to microwave a hamster to death.

The cult of Maniac Mansion has grown steadily since the game was first released. An uncensored Famicom port with redesigned sprites (and, sadly, no translation) was released in 1988. A sequel, Day of the Tentacle, hit shelves in 1993, focusing on Bernard Bernoulli - the nerdy teenager from Maniac Mansion - and his misadventures through time (given the original’s tiny file size, one easter egg present in Day of the Tentacle allows you to access and play through the entirity of Maniac Mansion on an in-game computer). Maniac Mansion Deluxe, a free-to-download remake with updated graphics and audio, was released by LucasFan Games in 2004. German indie developer Vampyre Games is producing a long-in-gestation 3D remake entitled Meteor Mess 3D, while fellow Deutschlanders Edison Interactive are in the process of remaking Maniac Mansion under the name Night of the Meteor, with the goal of adapting the game to a graphical style similar to Day of the Tentacle.

Finally, though it may be daming a classic game with faint praise, Maniac Mansion was one of the first videogames to receive a live-action television adaptation. Lucasfilm and The Family Channel collaborated on the Canadian production, which debuted in 1990 and starred Joe Flaherty, Deborah Theaker, Kathleen Robertson and a disappointingly small number (read: zero) of green or purple tentacles. The show, virtually a spin-off of SCTV with guest spots from Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas, Martin Short and David Cronenberg (!!!), shared almost no similarities with the game other than the name of Flaherty’s protagonist character Dr. Fred Edison and the fact that there was a meteor in the household basement.

(Maniac Mansion was the first game to include cutscenes. The term ‘cutscene’ was coined by Rob Gilbert to describe the interjected timer-based (rather than behaviour-based) cutaway scenes to non-player characters in the house which propelled the game’s narrative.)

Triptych: Games of Ice and Fire

2012-01-20T15:02:00.000-08:00

"Game of Thrones" (t-shirt) by Drew Wise

"Super Frodo Bros." (t-shirt) by Pauline Acalin

"At The Mountains of Madness" (iPhone case) by Josh Legendre

Triptych: Priori Incantatem!

2012-01-20T11:15:00.000-08:00

"Harry Potter Travel Poster #1" by Caroline Hadilaksono

"Horcrux Collector's Club" (t-shirt) by Matt Dearden

"HP" by Matt Marblo

Triptych: Minimalist Pixar Posters

2012-01-20T11:00:00.000-08:00

"Wall-E" by Lópezgrafico

"Monsters Inc." by Justin Van Genderen

"The Incredibles" by Pandreaa

Games To Play Before You Die: #3 - Marble Madness

2012-01-19T16:05:00.000-08:00

Marble Madness (1986)
Publisher: Atari Games
Designer: Mark Cerny

(“I designed a game I’d want to play so you’d want to play it.” -- Mark Cerny)

When Marble Madness was released for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1986, a generation of 10-year-olds learned exactly what happens to a game controller when thrown against the wall in a fit of rage.

Marble Madness was devilishly difficult to play. In the arcade, the machines came equipped with trackballs, which allowed you 360-degree control over the titular marble, but the NES had no such peripheral and the d-pad made for a singularly poor substitute. Despite the game’s control-scheme concession of offering a choice between 90-degree or 45-degree directionals, the combination of the d-pad’s limitations and some ahead-of-their-time physics resulted in the sensation of trying to steer a fighter jet with a handlebar. Oh, and don’t get me started on that damn Black Marble. That guy was a straight-up bastard.

The fact that it was so hard is precisely the reason why it’s remembered so fondly today. We spent hours - HOURS - trying to maneuvre our marble around obstacles, past Black Marble, down pipes and along ledges, sometimes gaining little more than a few inches at a time between spawns. Marble Madness was not designed to be played with an NES controller, but we still attempted to master it.

Of course, it didn’t hurt that Marble Madness featured a catchy and memorable soundtrack ranking amongst the best of the 8-bit era, gorgeous isometric level design, and a truly novel gameplay concept. Besides increasing in difficulty, each level possessed distinct qualities: the Practice stage was shorter and contained fewer enemies, pitfalls and ledges; the Silly stage reversed the established direction of courses to that point and forced the player to roll uphill; the Ariel stage contained ramps, catapults and funnels, ensuring that the titular marble spent much of its time aloft. And though the list of hostile entities was short, they were memorable: tube worms which leapt on and devoured you, sentient puddles of acid which reduced you to molten glass, and the aforementioned Black Marble, who seemed to exist for no other reason but to cause you immeasurable grief.

Marble Madness came about as a direct result of the North American videogame crash of 1983. The causes of and factors related to this industry-wide implosion are too numerous and complex to get into here, but suffice it to say that Atari was one of the hardest-hit companies by the disaster (owing in part to their extemely poor Atari 2600 port of Pac-Man on 1981, and similarly poorly-designed E.T.: The Extraterrestial, released the following year) and consequently set about rethinking videogames from the ground up. Designers were pressed into adopting two specific goals in their games: providing a distinctive experience through the use of a unique control system, and offering a simultaneous two-player mode.

Taking these missives to heart, Mark Cerny conceived of a game with trackball controls, a multiplayer race mode and unique isometric graphics, and spent 10 months developing Marble Madness with lead programmer Bob Flanagan. Since Atari was in difficult financial straits owing to the market collapse, Cerny and Flanagan were placed under strict deadline and hardware restrictions. Released on time and on budget, the resulting game was, at only six levels, relatively short; for six weeks after release, it became the highest-earning arcade game, but by the seventh week, it dropped off the charts due to its short play-through time.

Despite respectable earnings, Marble Madness couldn’t rescue Atari from the mire they had gotten bogged down in, but it remains one of the last great games from the golden age of arcades and managed to make a respectable transition to the home console market. It was ported to a wide range of consoles and home computers, including the Commodore 64, Amiga, Game Boy, Sega Mega Drive and of course, the Nintendo Entertainment System. A mobile phone version of Marble Madness was announced by Electronic Arts in 2010.

(Mark Cerny, who has executive produced or contributed to dozens of games, including Crash Bandicoot, Ratchet & Clank, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune and Resistance: Fall of Man, designed Marble Madness when he was only 18 years old.)

Showcase: NinjaInk's Spiderman\Calvin & Hobbes Mashups

2012-01-19T15:38:00.000-08:00

There's tons of great little details in these: the Pumpkin Bomb lamp, the Spidey face logo rug, both toy and life-sized Spider Cars... Kudos to NinjaInk for doing a great job with these.

[NinjaInk's DeviantArt]

Triptych: Sidekicks and Power-Ups

2012-01-19T15:32:00.000-08:00

"Power Up For A Bit" by Josh Mirman

"Yoshi's Quality Fruit" by MistyNoelle

"Akira Bros." (t-shirt) by BazNet

Triptych: Damn Fine Coffee!

2012-01-19T15:18:00.000-08:00

"Black Lodge" by Ashley Anderson

"Black Lodge Coffee Co." (t-shirt) by Mephias

"Black Lodge 2600" (download the full game here!) by Jak Locke

Games To Play Before You Die: #2 - TradeWars 2002

2012-01-18T13:18:00.000-08:00

TradeWars 2002 (1984)
Publisher: EIS
Designers: Gary Martin & John Pritchett

(“This has to be the single, largest man-made object you’ve ever seen. It continues
on for miles and contains the factories for all of the major brands of Space-going craft.
Since the material wars of 1998 on Earth, all ship builders relocated here.”)

They don’t get much credit these days, but for about two decades before the rise of the Internet, dial-up bulletin board systems, or BBSes, offered the only means to getting online. The conceit that one might connect to, and communicate with, other people via their computers was heady fare in 1984 - the stuff of “Neuromancer” and “Terminator" rather than the cultural zeitgeist that we take for granted today.

Inevitably, new kinds of shared social spaces lead to new kinds of play, and by the mid-’80s BBSes began to implement door games into their interfaces, allowing users to load external, multiplayer game modules. These door games, or doors, were typically text-based with ANSI or ASCII graphics thrown in for flavour, and while they did not offer simultaneous multiplayer, they are notable for the fact that they were our first taste of interactive online gaming.

Nowhere was this more engaging than in TradeWars 2002. It was far from intuitive and had a steep learning curve, compounded by the fact that, like most doors of the time, a set number of daily turns were distributed to each player in order to discourage them from staying connected to the BBS and tying up the incoming phone line for other users. Planets, ships, starports and corporations were all defined by so many stats, rankings and variables that the casual or new player might find themselves intimidated right off the bat. And yet, once you got the hang of it, TradeWars 2002 was a genuinely addictive game.

Nominally a trading sim, TradeWars 2002 possesses so many traditional and open-world roleplaying game elements that it may be considered a proto-MMORPG. There are no missions, no narrative and no canonical characters... Just a vast, open galaxy of sectors to explore, planets to mine, colonies to establish, and space pirates to fight. Interestingly, it was also one of the first games to include morality alignment, with benefits from and detriments to being either good or evil, and guilds, here called corporations, within which players may trade or share resources, ships and colonies.

TradeWars 2002 boasts a faithful collective of fans to this day, and Telnet-based tournaments are still held. In 2007, EIS in partnership with Sylien Games announced that they were remaking the game under the title TradeWars Rising, updating the graphical user interface and introducing true massively multiplayer elements but retaining the essential mechanics of gameplay. As of this writing, TradeWars Rising is in Beta and is free to play at http://www.tradewarsrising.com/.

(Supported systems: DOS and Windows-based systems, required dial-up connectivity.)

Triptych: King Of The Cosmos Am Disappoint

2012-01-18T11:54:00.000-08:00

"The Little Prince" by Fort Awesome Studios

"We Love Katamari" by PronouncedYou

"Katamari Damacy Jelly Beans", Artist Unknown (possibly official game art?)

Triptych: The Four Elements

2012-01-18T11:29:00.000-08:00

"Fantastic 4dpi" (t-shirt) by We Love Fine

"FF" by Fonografiks

"New York: 4 Freedoms Plaza" by Justin Van Genderen

Triptych: Time For Another Adventure!

2012-01-18T10:57:00.000-08:00

"Ooosian Dolls" by John Tibbott

"Adventure Time" by Drew Falchetta

(Click for full-size)
"Dude, We're Totally Dying!" by Matthew Woodson

Games To Play Before You Die: #1 - M.U.L.E.

2012-01-17T15:14:00.000-08:00

(About a year ago I started writing a book called '100 Games To Play Before You Die'. Nothing ever came of the project even though I got about halfway through my list of entries. In lieu of attempting to complete the project in its originally-envisioned format, I've decided to instead start posting the original entries here, with the intention of eventually working my way through the rest of the list. So without further ado, I give you the first entry of 'Games To Play Before You Die'.)

M.U.L.E. (1983)
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Designer: Dan Bunten

(“M.U.L.E.: A game in which four players attempt to settle a distant planet
with the so-called help of a mule-like machine they all learn to hate.”)

At a time when Donkey Kong was king, Mario and Luigi were identical twins with differently-hued facial hair, and videogames were still considered something you had to leave your house and spend a quarter to play, M.U.L.E. broke new ground in just about every regard and, in doing so, singlehandedly invented the strategic simulation genre.

One of the first truly multiplayer games, M.U.L.E. was, at heart, a digital board game. Four players compete for economic control of the planet Irata, taking turns buying plots of real estate, harvesting various materials with the use of the game’s eponymous M.ultiple U.se L.abor E.lements, and then auctioning off their stockpiles to the highest bidder. There was minimal armed conflict in the game; competitition was based around resource accrual in a closed supply-and-demand economy.

One of M.U.L.E.’s greatest strengths, and the reason why it continues to hold up well to this day, is the underlying scheming component to the game: players were never allowed to forget the fact that they were in direct opposition to one another. While they were allowed to collude by way of private transactions, much of the fun to be had in the game is during its auction and selling phases, in which each player is given the ability to drive prices up simply for the sake of screwing over their friends. On top of this, M.U.L.E. gleefully throws random events at players after each full turn: whoever is leading the pack may find themselves raided by space pirates or struck by a meteor, while the trailing players might suddenly receive an unexpected windfall. Compare this, if you will, to the two-player archetype of videogame competition available at the time in which players attempt to beat a level in turn and victory is determined by a final point score. Until M.U.L.E., games did not allow you to sabotage your fellow players. And if they had, it probably wouldn’t have been with the same sense of schadenfreude.

Finally, M.U.L.E. earns itself a place in the annals of videogame history because it was, in some sense, the first game to require a home gaming console or personal computer to play properly. The idea of running through a 20- to 30-minute four-player session of M.U.L.E. in an arcade was, in 1983, inconceivable; arcades were for button-mashing and reflexive joystick twitching, and M.U.L.E. - not unlike the plethora of real-time strategy and city simulation games to follow in its wake - requires forethought, planning, and tactics designed to minimize personal damage and maximize personal gain at the expense of your competitors.

(Despite the M.U.L.E.’s obvious homage to Star Wars’ AT-ATs, the true conceptual progenitors of the game were Robert A. Heinlein’s novels “Time Enough For Love” and “The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress”, the former providing the notion of Wild-West-style planetary colonization, the latter the idea for genetically-modified beasts of burden.)

M.U.L.E. was originally released on the Atari 800, and later ported to the Commodore 64, the NES, and the DOS-based IBM PC Jr. Like many other highly-influential first-generation videogames, it lives on to this day in clone format: notable versions include Boeder Software’s SubTrade: Return To Irata (1993), Shrapnel Games’ Space HoRSE (2004), and Blue Systems’ free online multiplayer Planet M.U.L.E. (2009).

(Supported systems: IBM PC Jr. (DOS), C64, Atari 400/800, NES)

Triptych: What The Frakkin' Frak

2012-01-17T12:03:00.000-08:00

"Cylons" (t-shirt) by T-Shirt Laundry

"Caprica City Toasters" (t-shirt) by Mephias

"You Sunk My Battlestar" (t-shirt) by Caddywhompus

Double Triptych: Laser Death Ray Bargain Bin

2012-01-17T11:53:00.000-08:00

(Click for full-size)
"The Venture Bros. And Friends" by Joey Spiotto

"Venture Bros." by Glen Brogan

"Return To Spider-Skull Island" by Sean K. Dove

"Go Team Venture!" by Dave Perillo

"Swedish Murder Machine" by Ryan Brinkerhoff

"We are Shallow Gravy!" by Kevin Tong

Pixellated Album Covers by CodyWalton, Imploding and TheDorkReport

2012-01-16T15:39:00.000-08:00

You know what I love? Album art. In this day and age of non-physical media, it seems like album covers are becoming less and less critical - most people will download an album without ever looking at the album's cover, much less purchase that album based on its visual presentation. Having said that, a good album is often defined by its cover, and while music should always speak for itself, album art can complement and amplify a record's themes and motifs.

Cody Walton, Imploding and The Dork Report are a trio of artists who have taken it upon themselves to demake classic album covers by presenting 16x16 versions of them. For the most part, these album covers are so iconic that even within the confines of just 256 pixels, the original is pretty readily recognisable.

Mouse-over the images if there are any you aren't immediately familiar with, or you just want to compare the 16x16 version to the original. (Note that this is a pretty image-heavy post, so wait for the page to load fully for the mouse-over to work.)

Beastie Boys, "License To Ill" (by Cody Walton)

The Velvet Underground, "Peel Slowly And See" (by Cody Walton)

Soundgarden, "Louder Than Love" (by Cody Walton)

Bjork, "Homogenic" (by The Dork Report)

Nine Inch Nails, "The Downward Spiral" (by Cody Walton)

Nine Inch Nails, "The Fragile" (by Cody Walton)

The White Stripes, "White Blood Cells" (by Imploding)

The National, "The National" (by Cody Walton)

The Hold Steady, "Stay Positive" (by Cody Walton)

Massive Attack, "Blue Lines" (by Imploding)

Guns 'n Roses, "Use Your Illusion I" (by Cody Walton)

Green Day, "American Idiot" (by Cody Walton)

Gorillaz, "Gorillaz" (by Imploding)

The Clash, "London Calling" (by Cody Walton)

Triptych: Dormanted, Deleted, Inoperative, Excised, Completed

2012-01-13T15:45:00.000-08:00

"M. ~~Buttle~~ Tuttle" by Grégoire Guillemin

"Tuttle Heating Services" (t-shirt) by Stephen Sanderson

"Harry Tuttle: Heating Engineer" (t-shirt) by Dan Wolfe

This triptych will probably make very little sense to you if you haven't seen Terry Gilliam's Brazil. If so, go and watch it right now and then come back and everything will fall into place, as if by magic.

Triptych: For Science, You Monster

2012-01-13T15:32:00.000-08:00

"Thinking With Portals" (t-shirt) by Bryan M

"GlaDOS" (t-shirt) by GamerPrint

"Portal Minimalist Print" by Allie Osterloh

Triptych: The Last Free Man

2012-01-13T15:23:00.000-08:00

(Click for full-size)
"City17 Wallpaper" by Nicklas Nyberg

"Half-Life 2 Retro Box Art" by Babet Halberstadt

"Gordon's Crab Shack" (t-shirt) by Megan Lara

Triptych: That Space Is Dead

2012-01-13T14:42:00.000-08:00

"Dead Space" by Hector Mansilla

"Dead Space (Retro Atari Box Art)" by Steven Phillips

"Dead Space Minimal Poster" by Frank Russo

Triptych: It's Friday the 13th! Welcome To HELL

2012-01-13T14:19:00.000-08:00

"The Silent Butcher" by Hillary White

Box Cover Art for Silent Hill II demake "Soundless Mountain II" (download here!)

"Silent Hill Minimalist Poster" by Jesse Lively

Triptych: Jake The Dog and Finn The Human

2012-01-12T11:37:00.000-08:00

"Minimalist Adventure Time Poster" by Jeremy Wojchihosky

"Post-It Adventure Time" by Alex Quintero

"Katamari Time" by Adam Bayley

Triptych: The Day of the Tentacle

2012-01-11T15:23:00.000-08:00

"Behold The Purple Tentacle!" by Marscapone

"Maniac Mansion Cocktail Party" by Anthony Massingham

"Evolution of Tentacle" (t-shirt) by Scott Weston

Triptych: Tell Me What You See

2012-01-11T15:14:00.000-08:00

"Adventures of Vault Boy and Rex" (t-shirt) by Lucas Jackson

"The House Always Wins" by ScumPudding

"Two Bears High-Fiving" by Fluffy Pancakes

If two bears high-fiving doesn't make any sense to you, then you probably haven't played Fallout: New Vegas.

Triptych: Insert Coin To Continue

2012-01-11T15:08:00.000-08:00

"Pac-Man Ghostbuster" by Danvinci

"Man At Work" by Norman Duenas

"It's Simple" by Kenan Yildirim

Triptych: Yatta! (Street Fighter Edition)

2012-01-11T15:01:00.000-08:00

"Street Fighter Pixels" by Christina Connelly

"Pixel Fighter 2" (t-shirt) by Adam Sullivan

"Street Fighter II Art Deco" by Kari Fry

Triptych: Time Lord Approved

2012-01-11T11:35:00.000-08:00

"The Sonic Mark VI" (t-shirt) by Steve Thomas

"The Daleksons" (t-shirt) by John Sumrow

"Inspector Spacetime" by Sam Spratt

Triptych: The Peanut Gallery

2012-01-11T11:25:00.000-08:00

"Batmaaaaaaaaaaaaaan" by Matt Marblo

"Batman" (poster) by Josip Kelava

"Arkham Psychiatric" (t-shirt) by BazNet

Triptych: The Happiest Boss Fight On Earth

2012-01-11T11:18:00.000-08:00

"Metroid Disney" by Drew Wise ¹

"Donald Duck Hunt" (t-shirt) by PapaPrime ²

"Disney Steampunk: Pinocchio" by Mecanique Fairy ³

¹ Walt Disney's frozen head would make a great final boss.
² Part of Threadless' Donald Duck T-Shirt Design Challenge. So, not technically a t-shirt yet, but one can always hope.
³ I have very mixed feelings on the whole steampunk thing, and I'm not sure this really qualifies as 'steampunk' anyway, despite the artist's best intentions. Rather, with the mechanical body parts and the hologram of Jiminy Cricket, I'd be inclined to label this as transhumanist - Or at least, I would, if Pinocchio was made out of flesh and blood rather than wood. Either way, steampunk leanings aside, I think Mecanique Fairy's Steampunk Disney series is quite well done.

Triptych: Allons-y!

2012-01-06T13:53:00.000-08:00

"Time Lord Magazine" (t-shirt) by Tom Trager

"The Doctor vs. The Universe" (t-shirt) by bogswollop

"Rule No. 1: The Doctor Lies" by The Bear Jedi

Triptych: In The Year 3000...

2012-01-06T13:08:00.000-08:00

"Futurama Pixel Art", official promotional art by Matt Groening

"The Call of Zoidthulhu" (t-shirt) by Harry Gordon

"Mom's Friendly Robot Company" (t-shirt) by BustedTees

Showcase: Jérémy Huet's Retrogaming Isometrics

2012-01-06T13:02:00.000-08:00

(Click for full-size)
"Retrogaming 1"

(Click for full-size)
"Retrogaming 2"

(Click for full-size)
"Retrogaming 3"

[Jérémy Huet's
Flickr Stream]

Triptych: Coats O' Arms

2012-01-02T12:27:00.000-08:00

"Code of Arms" (t-shirt) by Ian Leino (Code Monkeys)

"It's All In The Game" (t-shirt) by Megan Lara (The Wire)

"The Code of Harry" by Elias El Daoud (Dexter)

Triptych: Bustin' Makes Me Feel Good

2012-01-02T12:09:00.000-08:00

"Ghost" by Chris Thornley

"Spectral Smashers" (t-shirt) by Jerry Bennett

"Mood Slime" (t-shirt) by upsidedownowl

Triptych: When The Evil Shredder Attacks...

2012-01-02T11:44:00.000-08:00

"TMNT vs. The Shredder" (t-shirt) by T-Shirt Laundry

"El Rocksteady vs. Senor Bebop" by beyx

"Pizza or Death" (t-shirt) by Andy Hunt

Showcase: Anthony Pipitone's House\Band Logo Mashups

2012-01-02T11:30:00.000-08:00

"Griffindor\Green Day"

"Slytherin\Slayer"

"Ravenclaw\Ramones"

"Hufflepuff\Led Zeppelin"

[Anthony Pipitone's
T-Shirts at Redbubble]

Wizard Wishes You A Merry Christmas!

2011-12-23T11:47:00.000-08:00

"Happy Holidays" by Ken Wong

"Winter Is Coming" (t-shirt) by BustedTees

"Wizard Needs Eggnog Badly" by KC Green (Gun Show)

This will probably be my last update before Christmas, so Happy Holidays and see y'all in 2012.

Triptych: 1-Up = Zombie

2011-12-23T11:40:00.000-08:00

"1-Up", artist unknown

"Heaven To Hell" by pokedstudio

"Zombie Gameboy" by Kody Koala

Triptych: Less Fun In Real Life

2011-12-23T11:21:00.000-08:00

"Night of the Living 8-Bit" (t-shirt) by Raz

"Schrödinger's Cat vs. Pavlov's Dog" (t-shirt) by ThinkGeek

"Real Life" (t-shirt) by Neil Gregory

Triptych: No One Man Should Have All That Power

2011-12-23T11:01:00.000-08:00

"Red Potion" (t-shirt) by Stephen Dye

"Courage, Wisdom, Power" by Carlos Lerma

"Inventory" (t-shirt) by spacesick

Triptych: Ghosts, Xenomorphs and Time Travellers

2011-12-23T10:50:00.000-08:00

"Alien vs. Oswald" (t-shirt) by Bleee

"Afterlife All-Stars: The Saturn Sandworms" (t-shirt) by Andy Hunt

"Hero of Time" (t-shirt) by Ken Oliver

Triptych: TV Party Tonight!

2011-12-22T11:16:00.000-08:00

"Boardwalk Monopoly" (t-shirt) by CoD Designs

"Supernatural Bros." (t-shirt) by Lee Byway

"Breakin' Bad" (t-shirt) by Brinkerhoff

Showcase: 3D Retro Videogame Posters by Vasgrav

2011-12-22T11:10:00.000-08:00

(Click for full-size)
"3D Space Invaders"

(Click for full-size)
"3D Pacman"

(Click for full-size)
"3D Tetris"

[Vasgrav's 3D Retro
Videogame Posters]

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Teams Are Cool

2011-12-20T13:41:00.000-08:00

"Teams Are Cool" by Dean Trippe

A NEW LEAGUE FOR A NEW ERA

A Copper on the Edge,
the Boy Who Lived,
a Misfit from the Future,
a Madman with a Box,
the Consulting Detective,
and a Ghost Roommate.

If you're familiar with Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, you'll appreciate Dean Trippe's contemporary fan-art update. From what I can tell, the team consists of Harry Potter, The 11th Doctor, the modern-day Sherlock Holmes from Steven Moffat's BBC One series Sherlock, Annie the ghost from Being Human, Simon from Misfits series 2 forward, and... Luther? That's my best guess for the 'copper on the edge', anyway.

Here's the full-sized poster version of the piece.

Triptych: All Those Relative Dimensions!

2011-12-20T13:31:00.000-08:00

"Whovian Institute" (t-shirt) by Winter Artwork

"T.A.R.D.I.S. Prime" by Jason Casteel

"Inspector Spacetime" by Rob Acosta

Triptych: Rusty Venture, Boy Adventurer!

2011-12-13T12:32:00.000-08:00

"Venture Speedsuits" (t-shirt) by Brinkerhoff

"Magic Murder Man" (t-shirt) by DevilChimp

"KILL" (t-shirt) by theSTRAY

Triptych: Screw Attack!

2011-12-13T12:01:00.000-08:00

"Hunter's Crest" by Spitfire Illustrations

"Space Jump" (t-shirt) by Jon Kay

"Mona Aran" by Gene Kelly

Triptych: Quadrilateral!

2011-12-13T11:38:00.000-08:00

"Future Finn at Otakon 2011" (A.K.A. the greatest cosplay in the world)

"Adventure Time!" by The Eagle Grip Technique

"Fantasy Time" by Adam Bayley

Triptych: Big Blue Box

2011-12-13T11:26:00.000-08:00

"Police Box Storage Company" (t-shirt) by Steven Thibaudeau

"Keith Who?" (t-shirt) by beware1984

"Tennant's Timepiece Repair" by Randy Smith

John Dies At The End

2011-12-13T10:22:00.000-08:00

Somewhat unrelated to the usual fare here at Apocalypse POW!, but I recently read Jason Pargin (A.K.A. David Wong)'s novel "John Dies At The End", and it was phenomenal. Sort of a cross between Lovecraft and Hunter S. Thompson with a dollop of Bret Easton Ellis thrown in for good measure, it's violent and trippy and altogether hilarious, and I can't recommend it enough.

Well, it turns out that it's being adapted into a film by Don Coscarelli, the man behind Bubba Ho-Tep and the Phantasm series, featuring Paul Giamatti as skeptical reporter Arnie Blondestone and Clancy Brown as (an apparently very badass) Dr. Marconi. There's no release date lined up just yet, but I can assure you that I'm pretty excited for it. Based on the trailer, it looks like it will hew pretty close to the source material, and while it has a kind of B-Horror movie vibe to it, that's sort of Coscarelli's wheelhouse and I expect he'll manage to do great things with it.

Anyway, just wanted to share that. Back to our regular programming.

More Like Apocalypse LAME! Amirite?

2011-12-12T10:20:00.000-08:00

Yeah, so, you may have noticed that I've exceeded the bandwidth limit on my free Photobucket image hosting account, resulting in literally every single image on this site being suddenly unavailable. I'm a little annoyed, because I was not actually aware that I had a 10-gigabyte-per-month limit, but also kind of impressed, because I've hit the ceiling on my 10gb-a-month limit. So, um, thanks? Anyway, the monthly counter resets on the 21st, but hopefully I'll have a solution to this problem in place before then, so just hang in there.

UPDATE #1: So I've done a little bit of research and discovered the cause of the traffic max-out: some clueless idiot of a blogger linked directly to one of my images, which caused such an insane spike in traffic that it killed the remainder of my monthly bandwidth. Seriously... just look at this spike. I went from a couple hundred daily views of various images to 12,682 views of a single image (the Tintin in R'lyeh one, if you're curious) in the span of about two days.

Not to go off on a rant or anything here, but the first rule of not being a total jag on the internet is that you don't directly link to other people's images. I have always gone out of my way to host images myself, specifically because I didn't want to put someone else in the position that I now find myself in. The fact that this has never happened before is a pretty clear indication that the vast majority of people out there understand the basics of internet etiquette, but it only takes one inconsiderate person to wreck things for everyone else. With a blog like Apocalypse POW!, which showcases the work of other artists and creators that I think deserve more attention and applause, I don't have any rights to these images themselves, but I definitely think I have certain rights as far as the hosting of those images are concerned. So if you like something that you see here and you want to reblog it, upload it to your own host and link to that.

UPDATE #2: I've now upgraded to a Pro account on Photobucket, which is something I probably should have done a while ago, and images are back now. In the long run it'll probably be for the best, but I can't deny that I kind of resent having my hand forced like this. I've always resolutely resisted placing ads and such on my blog, partly because I'm not doing this for money and it seems a bit crass and mercenary to try and target my visitors like that, but also because I think they're just plain ugly - they break up the aesthetic of an otherwise consistent website. Having said that, as of today Apocalypse POW! is now running at a deficit, and it's all thanks to one unthinking jerk.

Showcase: Stalk-Chan's Mega Man Robotmasters

2011-12-08T14:39:00.001-08:00

(Click for full-size)

Not unlike Dueling Analogs' Rejected Mega Man Villains series of strips, stalk-chan has come up with a bunch of robotic bad guys that make just as much sense as Sheep Man, Clown Man, or Magic Man. Yes, Mega Man fought a robot whose theme was clowns. That's a real thing that happened.

[stalk-chan's
Mega Man Gallery]

Triptych: Of Rocks and Men

2011-12-08T14:21:00.001-08:00

(Click for full-size)
"Mega Man" by Scott Bel Castro

"The Real 'Rock' Man" by jmatchead

"Mega Man: The Server Is Down" by Mike Henry

Triptych: I Wish These Were Real Games

2011-12-08T12:21:00.001-08:00

(Click for full-size)
"Game Design" by Andre Asai

"Fishing Ogre" by Army of Trolls

"Playing God" (t-shirt) by Aaron Hogg

Triptych: Indie Groove

2011-12-08T11:53:00.001-08:00

"Bit.Trip" by Cory Godbey

"Peacock Rocks!" by RioRock¹

"Amnesia: The Dark Descent" (poster) by SClarke²

¹ Peacock is one of the characters from the upcoming indie fighting game SkullGirls, slated for an early 2012 release on PSN and Xbox Live Arcade. It looks, in a word, incredible.

² Probably the scariest game of all time.

Triptych: Classic Gamer

2011-12-08T11:30:00.001-08:00

"Classic Gamer" by Josh Mirman

"Game Over" by Luke Taylor

"Bitboy" (t-shirt) by Jon Kay

Cthulhu Cthursday: It's The Great Cthulhu, Charles Dexter!

2011-12-08T10:51:00.001-08:00

"Elvis vs. Cthulhu" by Sean Hartter

"McCthulhu's" (t-shirt) by Baznet

"Kewthulhu" by Wytrab8

"The Great Pumpkin" by M.S. Corley

"8-Bit Cthulhu" (t-shirt) by T-Shirt Laundry

"Peanuts Meets Lovecraft" (more strips) by Baznet

Triptych: Demazing!

2011-12-07T15:16:00.001-08:00

"Bioshock (NES)" by BadassBill

"Warcraft (CGA)" by João Victor G. Costa

"Metal Gear Solid 4 Demake" by kYn

Showcase: Brian Miggels' Atari Modern Classics

2011-12-07T14:59:00.000-08:00

"Portal"

"No More Heroes"

"God Of War 3"

"Super Smash Bros. Brawl"

The theme of the day, if you haven't guessed, is demakes. I was really pleased to stumble across Brian Miggels' website, because although I've posted his art here before after it was featured on the defunct Minus-World website, I never actually knew the source.

[Brian Miggels' Atari
Modern Classics]

Gameboy Demakes, Pt. II

2011-12-07T14:37:00.001-08:00

"Shadow of the Colossus" by Maxwell Jensen

"Final Fantasy VII" by Shade E

"The Curse of Monkey Island" by Ervo

"Cave Story" by kYn

"The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker" by Hydrargirium

"Kingdom Hearts (Halloweentown)" by Tio

Gameboy Demakes, Pt. I

2011-12-07T14:01:00.001-08:00

"Shadow of the Colossus" by Testament

"Ico" by ProGM

"Ōkami" by Dragon7

"Resident Evil 5" by Casull

"Left 4 Dead" by Bogard

"Silent Hill 2" by Yarooze

Triptych: Windguardium Leafiosa!

2011-12-06T14:38:00.001-08:00

"Super Hario Potter" by Juxtapop

"Horcruxes" (t-shirt) by T-Shirt Laundry

"Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone" (poster) by Barrett Biggers

Triptych: Welcome To The Technodrome

2011-12-06T12:44:00.003-08:00

"Villains In A Half-Shell" by Jeremy Bingham

"Turtle Drome" by Ian Herring

"Turtle Bros." (t-shirt) by BazNet

Triptych: Fall-Out Boy (Internet Meme Edition)

2011-12-06T12:10:00.001-08:00

"Cool Story Pipboy" by Buzatron

"Ninjas Can't Catch You If You're Using VATS" by BeardSummoner

"The Mojave" by Christian St. James

Triptych: The Best Of The Best

2011-12-05T14:02:00.001-08:00

"Boardwalk Tin Man" (t-shirt) by Jeffro Kilpatrick¹

"Walker Bait³" (t-shirt) by cubik²

"Beaker Bunsen" (t-shirt) by Dann Matthews³

¹ Richard Harrow is easily the best character on Boardwalk Empire. You can have your Chalky Whites and your Nelson Van Aldens: I'd watch an entire series of Richard Harrow rasping his sad thoughts and shooting mofos with his trained-marksman's badassitude.

² This is for my dad, who I discovered was watching The Walking Dead after he posted "Walker Bail LOL" as his Facebook status. It's a shame we have to wait until February for more TWD after that insane mid-series finale.

³ Hey, know what I saw on Friday? The Muppets. Damn, that was a great movie.

Double Triptych: It's Mostly Clogged Drains and Leaky Toilets

2011-12-02T12:01:00.001-08:00

"8-Bit Nightmare" by Crystal Fontan

"Videogames Lied To Me..." (t-shirt) by Evan Ferstenfeld

"Classico!" (t-shirt) by Rocco Dean

"Propagande Mario" by Negroud

"Luigi's Mansion 2" by Dirk Erik Schulz

"8-Bit Deco Print" by Bubblegun

Triptych: Bustin' Makes Me Feel Good

2011-12-02T11:52:00.001-08:00

"There Goes A Gozerian, Ghostbuster" by DrFaustusAU

"Busters Advantage" (t-shirt) by Glen Brogan

"Busted" (t-shirt) by Glen Brogan

Triptych: Holy Haberdashery, Batman!

2011-12-02T10:55:00.001-08:00

"Pixel Bat Family" by Ganando Enemigos

"Code Red At The Asylum" (t-shirt) by Glen Brogan

"Mr. Bat and Friends" by Seven Hundred

So I started playing Batman: Arkham City yesterday and good god, is it amazing. Arkham Asylum was easily my favourite game of 2009, and Arkham City is a return to form in every conceivable way - the introductory sequence, playing as an incarcerated, shackled Bruce Wayne fighting against The Penguin's goons, is such a clever way of opening a Batman game, and so well done, I'm actually tempted to go back and play through it again, just for the hell of it.

A lot of the time, when I start a game, I find that it takes a while for me to get into it. This was the case with Dead Rising, Left 4 Dead, Mass Effect 2... But not so with Arkham City, which fills me with that sense of anticipation that I used to get as a kid when I got a cool new Nintendo game and couldn't wait to get home from school to play more of it. Arkham City, like Arkham Asylum before it, is just so well-designed, I can't wait to sink my teeth into it and start tracking down Riddler's puzzles and unlocking extras and exploring the city. I was so convinced that Arkham City would be my new favourite game that I went out and bought a new wireless gamepad for my PC, something I've been meaning to get around to doing for ages. You know the whole "Skyrim Widow" phenomenon? My girlfriend is going to end up being an Arkham City Widow. Which has a much cooler ring to it, in my opinion, though she remains unconvinced.

Anyway. I think the enduring popularity of Batman has a lot to do with both his Rogues Gallery and the extended Bat-Family. While I'm a pretty dedicated comic book fan, my tastes tend to run more towards independent, non-superhero books most of the time. Batman is just about the only mainstream superhero comic I read with any regularity. Grant Morrison's recent run on "Batman & Robin" - in which former Robin Dick Grayson steps up as Batman, and Bruce Wayne's son Damien takes over as Robin - is one of the most amazing things done with Batman in recent years, not only because it's genuinely psychedelic, manic and bizarre, but because of how it treats both Batman's allies and his foes. Professor Pyg and his Circus of the Strange take the demented psychopathy of the Joker and Mad Hatter and crank it up to a truly disturbing notch, while left-for-dead former Robin Jason Todd makes an appearance as gun-toting vigilante Red Hood. I don't anticipate either of these villains popping up in Arkham City, since they're kind of more Dick-Grayson Batman villains than Bruce-Wayne Batman ones, but they definitely stand their own against the current crop (and are definitely more effective bad guys than, say, Maxie Zeus or Calendar Man).

So in honour of all this - both starting to play Arkham City, and my ongoing obsession with Batman in general - I give you a Batman-themed triptych.