My Flipnote Studios Creations

This is definitely my best of the three I have made so far. I only uploaded this one to Flipnote Hatena (click for my profile) but I will make a few more or post my other ones later and update this post.

Boom Blox Braveheart

In honor of the new Boom Blox game coming out this week (Boom Blox Bash Party) I thought I would make one last creation to get myself excited for the game. You may remember another great Boom Blox piece of mine posted over at VGPC.com a few months ago making 8-Bit Games in Boom Blox. Well this one is recreating a movie instead.

Below you will see my recreation of the Battle of Stirling from the movie Braveheart.



I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed making it.

Club Nintendo DS Case Received

So I successfully managed to hit Platinum Status on my Club Nintendo account and decided to take advantage of the prize options. What did I go with as my choice? Well, see below.

Here is the DS Case in it's clear plastic protective cover.



This shows the neat little tag with the Club Nintendo logo. The back of the tag says, "Since 2003." Yeah, not in America.



This shows the DS with my DS sticking out the side.



This shows the inside. Perhaps the best part, it has a slot for you to carry two extra games in the pouch. So you aren't stuck with just the one in the system.



All around, considering this is really just a gift on Nintendo's part, I would have to say I am quite pleased. If you guys have yet to sign up for Club Nintendo I highly recommend you do. It has some neat perks.

Dirk Nowitzki Loves Games?

I didn't know Germans, sized triple XL, enjoyed playing Guitar Hero. Then again, who doesn't?

But when all things are considered, Dirk has some other reasons to like the world of video games too. Recently EA Sports used their most recent sports game, NBA Live '09, to simulate the entirety of this upcoming season. The results show the Dallas Mavericks, Dirk's team, coming in 3rd place in the West. And judging from past years, that's pretty good. The West tends to be a far more dominant force in the league. Aside from one or two good teams in the East it pretty much sucks.

Cause of Solid Snake's Increased Aging

I typically read a few different video game comics every week and I stumbled upon this one from 2P Start that had me in stitches. Check it out below and tell me that's not awesome.

Wedding Invitations

As you may or may not know by now, I am set to be married this August. I made it my responsibility to create the wedding invitations and pitch the idea to the loved one but I knew I had to make sure the initial mock was good enough or she may never go along with the idea. The idea was, of course, adding Mii characters to the invitations. Who doesn't love those cute little guys, gamer or not.

After many different alterations to the design itself, and a good chunk of time spent in Photoshop creating the character's outfits, below you will find the final piece.

We mailed them out a few days ago and so far we have had quite the wonderful response. Even grandparents and cousins who don't even know about the Wii thought they were cute. The key to using Miis on the invitations for us was that they still looked classy, hence the gown and tux.

So, what do you think?

Holiday Trip: Pack Light

Well I am leaving for a trip on Saturday for the rest of the week so I thought I will be leaving the GameGym unattended until early January. But I thought I need to give a little bit of VG Cats comic action on my way out. It's interesting how this comic actually played out quite true to life in my packing. The only difference is snow rather than rain.

Enjoy.....

Classic Turn-Based RPG Comic

I have been cruising around over at VG Cats Comics and I found a comic I find to be quite humorous. The concept of the game is based on a classic turn-based RPG. It's not a genre that I typically play but it's humorous if you have a decent idea of the genre. For those of you who typically read these comics as they are posted this may be old, so for those of you, I apologize. Be weary though if you find yourself browsing some other comics on the site because some of them have excessive language and exploding babies.

All Your Base Are Belong to Us

I'm not sure if any of you out there actually know the back story to the infamous "All your base are belong to us" saying so I thought I would give you a nice little "video" demonstrating its beauty. In the actual game itself there is also some sound that goes along with the cutscene but nothing that really takes away from the meat of the story. Basically what happened to this game, Zero Wing, was rather than paying some translators to translate the text, they simply used a translation device and used it word for word. So obviously there are some serious grammatical errros in this cutscene. Enjoy.

Zelda Cake Like None Other

Last week I touched on the multiplayer aspect of Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, but today is a whole different Zelda ballgame. You may have seen cakes created for weddings, birthdays, or any other occasion decorated with a videogame theme, but I bet you have never seen one like this. This has got to be the most incredibly detailed cake I have ever seen. This isn't the type of cake I would actually ever eat though, I would feel too bad for destroying something so brilliant.

If you can't tell by the close view, that is Link and Tetra from the Zelda games The Wind Waker (Gamecube) and The Phantom Hourglass (Nintendo DS). But the close up view on the top of the cake still just doesn't do this cake justice. No, no, no. Look below for even more beauty.

Minority Kart

For any of you out there that have seen Minority Report and have played any version of Mario Kart (I figure you have if you're on this site) then you may enjoy this little nugget. It seems to me that ol' Tom Cruise is having a little bit of trouble catching his friends.

And the cycle doesn't seem to stop either, those crazy characters just don't ever let up. In fact, it almost looks like the video just keeps repeating it goes on for so long. I've been watching for almost three hours now and Tom is still chasing Mario and Toad.

Gameboy Advance SP B-Day Cake

Ok, I must have one of the coolest bosses around town. His youngest son, age 4 now, is a big Gameboy gamer. His birthday was coming up and my boss was getting him a Nintendo DS as an upgrade to his Gameboy Advance SP. My bosses wife started to notice a Nintendo theme happening so she thought she would make a Gameboy SP cake. Below, you will see the cake in all its glory.

Awesome Tetris Shirt

After reading this blog post I was perusing around some various t-shirt retailers for some neat or funny [game related?] shirts and I came across this one at BustedTees.com. I would love to get this for myself but it has a curse word on the front and I am sort of against plastering profanities anywhere on my body. The concept of the shirt on the other hand is simply brilliant, or at least I enjoyed it.

I know for a fact this is the type of shirt that many people, even the so-called casual gamer, will understand and enjoy for two major reasons. The first reason, it uses a common statement that many people are familiar with. I mean, come on, it was in Forrest Gump for goodness sake. The second reason is the fact that Tetris sold about 40 million copies not including all the generic rip-offs on cell phones these days. So there is definitely a familiarity for most people. It just works on so many levels. What do you guys think of the shirt?

Wii Modification Ideas 2

Ok, this whole modification thing was just too much fun I had to do some more. Below you will see, in addition to the other blog entry on the same topic, another modification idea of mine for the Wii. Be sure and tell me what you think. Or even better, make some of your own. I will most likely post a few more of these before too long so be sure and make them quick before your idea is stolen by someone else. And feel free to make some PS3 and Xbox 360 modifications too.

This new modification for the day is actually something that you can have on your system by way of a third-party accessory but I thought it would be neat to have one built right in. Basically, it's a television screen right there on the side of the system. Now I know a corner of the screen is cut off by the Wii stand but you get the idea. You may also notice two little red lights above the TV screen. Those lights represent the built-in sensor bar. Obviously they wouldn't really be lit up, since they are IR, but I had to show where they would be somehow.

Wii Modification Ideas

I saw an image of a Nintendo Wii the other day and a crazy little idea hit me. What if Nintendo released a Wii that was black and had red colored lights instead of blue. And hey, while we're at it, why not make some other changes. Let me know what you think of these system modifications.

This bad boy would be the exact same system as the Wii is currently (don't mind the black color) but it would be about 70% the size of the current one. Yeah I know, the Wii is already ridiculously small but this way you could literally fit the thing anywhere. Rather than being about the size of three DVD cases together, this thing would be about the size of three CD cases together. Only issue, it would require the smaller Gamecube sized discs, but I'm sure by now they can fit more memory on those little suckers.

Now here's the crème de la crème. You know how super sweet the DS is because the thing has two screens? Well imagine how cool the Wii would be with two slots. You could use one to listen to CDs while you played a game. You could use the second slot for mass storage onto DVDs. Or you could use the PIP (picture in picture) on your TV to play two games at once. Or even better, sick of playing games out of the left slot? Then use the right slot next time. The possibilities are endless.

Do any of you have any sweet Wii modification ideas or other uses for mine? Let me know.

Super Mario Piano Style

If you like the original Super Mario Bros and enjoy the sound of piano music this is your thing. Click here to check it out.

Wiimote Mod... Sort Of

Now this isn't exactly a Wimote Mod in the typical fashion but it's still really cool nonetheless. Basically this guy took one of the Wendy's Wii toys (they should still have them in stock) and he made a Wiimote USB thumb drive. You can check out the Flickr slideshow that demonstrates how to make one yourself right here or you can just marvel at it's uniqueness. One of the reasons I think this is so cool is because I actually went to Wendy's two weeks ago and got three of the five toys. So if I were so inclined I could totally make one of these, and in fact, I very well may. I just hope the USB thumb drive I have at home is the right size.

What a Gamer: Ninja Gaiden Edition

Not only is this guy simply incredible at Ninja Gaiden but I believe he holds the record for the quickest time beating the game. There are parts when he's running through the level at the same speed as a bullet that someone shot at him. Rather than slicing his sword while he is running, which costs you about a split-second, he jumps to slice enemies. And those boss battles, what's the point really. As discussed in a blog a week or so ago this game allows the enemies to attack in random ways rather than keeping the same pattern. But since this guy kills the enemies before they even appear on-screen, he kinda over looks that. So if you have 13:49 to spend, I highly recommend watching this and admiring the skill.

If the video doesn't come up, just click on the blog title up above.

Twilight Princess Wii Speed Run

Welp, it's happened. Someone (Daniel Hart) has successfully completed the first official speed run of Twilight Princess for the Wii. I haven't seen the entire thing yet, seeing as how it's just over 5 hours, but the few snippets I have seen are quite impressive. This is just the sort of thing that will humble you as a gamer, this guy is good. The total play time is 5 hours and 39 minutes from start to finish which would be a decent amount of time to watch the entire thing in one sitting, but for a game that took me into the 32 hours zone to complete really is saying something.

So if you are interested, or just want some helpfult tips on how to beat a certain section of the game, check out the video for yourself at Speed Demo Archive.