Push Button B

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via technabob.com

I don’t know why i never thought to do this at any of the LAN parties I was at in my youth, it would have been a great idea.  Since this video was posted in 2006 I may be a little late to the ball, but its new to me, so enjoy it for my sake.

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via fckyeanintendo

I usually shy away from talking about works based on the original Super Mario Bros. game. Mostly because so many people put out such a volume of remixed songs, fanart, and just stuff, that I’ve all but become numb to the stuff.

But eventually something comes along that grabs my attention, like Super Mario Bros. Crossover

It’s a reimagining, of sorts, of the original Super Mario Bros. game, with the exception that instead of the titular Bros., you have your choice of several characters from the NES’s 8-bit heyday, each with signature moves and attacks. It’s kind of like Super Smash Bros… except without the fighting game parts.

Each of the characters controls more or less like they did in their respective games, though some concessions have been taken. Simon Belmont gets a double-jump, for example, to make up for his comparatively pitiful jumping ability.

Pretty much, the game is laid out as you’d expect. All the hidden powerups and warp zones are there. You can even play as the Original Mario if you want (but you’ve been there, done that, I’d imagine).

There are two things to keep in mind here:

1. If you play this game, you’re going to definitely want to use a gamepad and a copy of your favorite joystick-to-keyboard mapping program to make the game reasonably easy to control and
2. Ryu Hyabusa from Ninja Gaiden has been added as a playable character

You can play Super Mario Bros. Crossover here

Another quick iThing update: Pets Live is the closest game I’ve found to Pokemon on the App Store to date. You pick a starter pet (each with a different elemental specialty: earth, air, water, fire), from there you get to spend mana to quest or energy to battle other pet trainers. You start with 100/100 health, 100/100 mana, and 4/4 energy. Both battling other trainers and questing nets you experience points – get enough of those to level up and you can allocate some bonus stat points into more health, more mana, more energy, etc.

Unlike Pokemon, there is no real graphic interface or walking around in the tall grass. Pets Live is all menu based: push “do it” to start/finish a quest for x amount of mana, push “battle” to fight another trainer. Your health, mana, and energy levels are all self-replenishing, on different timers. Every ten minutes, you regain 10 health; five minutes regenerates 10 mana; three minutes for one energy. So depending on how you want to play Pets Live, you can really build the game to suit your needs. I prefer to avoid battling and simply quest to upgrade my pets’ abilities and find new pets to train, so I sunk most of my ability points into mana which lets me do more questing. This lets me check in on the game every few hours to spend my regenerated mana pool and see if anything new has shown up. On the other hand, my wife chose to spend her points into energy, letting her actively battle in order to upgrade her roster. This versatility has made Pets Live a pretty successful app, and at the low, low price of free, there are plenty of people in the Pets community to play with.

More inspired art from the land of Pacman

Be sure to click on the pics to visit the creators of these pieces!

I started my Master’s this summer and it is keeping me busier than I’d like, so there’s my excuse for not posting last Tuesday. My wife and I got the new iPhone 4 and have been playing a lot of games for it lately. Instead of a review, I have an assignment for you: Go find someone with an iThing (pod, pad, phone, etc.) and if they don’t already have Angry Birds installed on it, I want you to give them $3.00 and tell them that you NEED to play it. Angry Birds has been #1 on the Most Popular, Top Grossing, and Favorite Game list on the iTunes App Store for around a month now, with good reason.

Go. Do it. Now.