Highlights from the kids involved:

“Yeah, you don’t know cuz you’re a grown up… You hardly do this… You have work to do!”

and the kid describing Mario:

“It’s weird.”

I would’ve been about the same age as these kids back then. The only game console we ever had in that era was the Sega Master System, with games like Operation Wolf (light-gun!!) and Alex Kidd in Miracle World. We also had a PC, so I tended to play that more often (games like Lemmings, Commander Keen and the original platform Duke Nukem). I missed out on the golden age of Nintendo, aside from playing a Super Nintendo at a friend’s house.

Sad.

This video still makes me nostalgic as hell.

I meant to post this a while back. Minecraft is a great little game that’s been something of a phenomenon within the past year, with over one and a half million copies sold. The way I always describe Minecraft is your own virtual world to craft, much like playing with Lego. Oh, plus monsters. Anyway, 2 Player Productions have been in the process of making a full-length documentary about the man (and the team) behind Minecraft. In the mean time, this 20 minute video was released in an attempt to drum up enough funds to film a full-length feature, which the team have now done. It’s really interesting, and gives a good insight into how the game and the team came about.

Because of the sandbox nature of Minecraft, it has a ton of potential uses. One such potential use is using the game to teach – read about how one teacher in New York City implemented the game into his computer class at his Minecraft Teacher Blog.

It’s amazing when you actually get some free time – you make a list in your head of all the things you want to get done, subsequently occupy all free time trying to get all these things done, and inevitably don’t have enough time to get all those things done. I guess the important thing is I’m putting my free time to good use, even if I don’t get to do everything I intend to, right?  Anyway, blogging just happens to be one of those things, and today I made a start on that, and man did I forgot how long it can takes sometimes. I spent most of today writing a blog on my top 10 favourite albums of last year – not exactly timely, but music sharing and discovery need never be untimely! You can check out this post over on my Alpha Waves music blog: My top 10 albums of 2010.

In other news, I saw this trailer last night and thought it was fantastic. It merely intrigues me about the game – it doesn’t suggest the game will be good, since it doesn’t show gameplay – but damn it if it isn’t one of the best trailers I’ve seen in a long time. This was all over Twitter last night, so I’m guessing it’s provoked a high level of hype, and so whoever put the trailer together has definitely done their job well. Check it out, here’s the trailer for the upcoming game Dead Island (warning: contains simulated gore):

Normal blogging service will resume shortly. Since I submitted my thesis I’ve taken ill (I guess better now than while I was working towards a deadline).  Anyway, saw this yesterday and connected with it way too much. I am too damn excited for the new Elder Scrolls game, Skyrim. Although, maybe not this excited*:

* Debatable.

The 7th Guest holds a great deal of nostalgic value for me. I was playing it on PC CD-ROM when I was a mere 10 years old, well below the required 15 age rating. Thanks Dad. Check out the intro sequence below.

The game sees you enter the mansion of Henry Stauf, a crazed toy maker who enjoys to see you suffer through the agony of his twisted, complex puzzles. Being so young, I found the puzzles very challenging and I’m not sure I completed many past the first handful of puzzles. I did, however, use the “ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX” cheat in the menu to go and check out every room of the house and the scenarios therein (hey, I was young, cheating wasn’t a big deal!). The game featured a ton of awesomely awful acting and story twists, including a fair share of creepy horror moments, this one being my particular favourite that always freaked me out as a kid (the clip seems laughable now, but I still hate clowns):

The 7th Guest is due to be re-released on the iOS platforms of iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch this Christmas, and I’m really looking forward to it. Maybe this time I’ll be able to legitimately get through the game’s puzzles.

Damn this looks hot. The first game was fantastic. The second game, whilst it hit a bit of a lull in the middle, was still pretty awesome thanks to the last few chapters. The other good news is that Ken Levine is back on board for this one. Can’t wait to check this out.

If you haven’t seen this before – man, you’re missing out!  This is Big Rigs: Over The Road Racing, and features the following ground-breaking features:

• There is no collision detection with anything other than the ground. Bridges are simply a mirage. You can also drive off the end of the map. Physics? Pah, take that Newton!
• The box and gameplay description of the game advertise that the player must escape from the police. Lucky for you, there are actually no police in the game. The law is a lie. In fact, there is pretty much zero plot to the game whatsoever.
• In the originally released version, enemy trucks had no AI and, as such, never left the starting position. Praise be that a patch was eventually released which gave life to these lumbering beasts. The patch also gave the great privilege of adding sound effects to the game.
• Text on the player’s HUD doesn’t fit properly.
• The game fails to distinguish between the player starting or finishing when crossing the line, so you may receive a “YOU’RE WINNER” message within a second of starting the game. Rewarding feedback leads to high levels of player engagement, right?

Despite all this, the game still sold 20,000 copies. In fairness, from watching the video, it looks pretty damn entertaining.

I was first introduced to Carcassonne thanks to it being given away free of charge for a limited time on Xbox 360 to celebrate the 5th anniversary of Xbox Live. After a few plays and having grown accustomed to the rules (well, most of them) the game really began to grow on me, and I’ve since played the original board game. Within the last few days an iPhone version of the game has been released… and its pretty damn good!

Read my full impressions of the iPhone version…

Engadget have posted a video from a Microsoft event in Tel Aviv yesterday which showcased some of the technology which will be present in the upcoming Project Natal. The video below shows how Natal recognises full body movement, of not just one but two people in real-time.  This definitely has potential for some cool competitive and co-op mini-games, for example a Wild West dual or some beach volleyball (off the top of my head). As well as that, Natal uses face recognition to determine the gender of the player and represents them with a male or female avatar accordingly. Pretty cool right?

But what of butch ladies and girly gentlemen? I can see some offended players in the future. In relation to that, I found some of the comments on the Engadget post hilarious, notably “How’s Lady Gaga supposed to get her game on?” to which someone replied “Natal obviously can’t see her Poker Face silly”.  Genius.

Hit the jump for the video.

Read rest of story…

We went to see Alice in Wonderland (in 3D) at the cinema last night. Although not an amazing film by any means, it was still thoroughly enjoyable (as with most, if not all, of Tim Burton’s films). Wonderland looks rather nice in 3D, though nothing compared to the world of Pandora (Avatar). As with Avatar and other 3D cinema I’ve experienced (e.g. old 3D Imax shows), watching the film just excited the hell out of me for when I can play games in 3D. In particular, I can’t wait to play a 3D Elder Scrolls game. I just keep imagining that moment when you walk out of the sewers in Oblivion (The Elder Scrolls IV) and the glory of seeing Cyrodiil and The Imperial City in the distance in 3D.

Bring it on! Eurogamer recently published this interesting feature on the current state of 3D TV’s and 3D games.