4/30/2009 - Miniatur Wunderland

I never understood the appeal of model railroads, but then again, I grew up in the age of video games. Nonetheless, I can appreciate what was accomplished here. The amount of work that was required to build this model railroad must have been massive. My favorite touch: a miniature crime scene with a dead body.

4/28/2009 - Super Mario Bros. 1 Drag & Drop

I will say this for the Wii: some of the titles have been pretty innovative in their approach to using limited technology and a unique control scheme. I mentioned Super Paper Mario last time for its 2.5-D gameplay. Super Mario Galaxy has a rather unique 2-player mode, or I should say 1.5-player mode since the 2nd player doesn't control a character like Mario or even Luigi. Instead, he or she uses the Wiimote to collect and use star bits to help out the first player. It's not exactly hardcore competitive or even cooperative gameplay, but it is an accessible feature that can be fun for non-gamers or newbie gamers.

This next mod may have taken some inspiration from that feature in Super Mario Galaxy. It's actually a pretty cool concept that surprisingly hasn't made it into an actual game. Imagine being able to have a second player have the ability to manipulate live gameplay by having an all-powerful drag-and-drop cursor. I guess it's similar to the Little Big Planet level designer, but I predict that it will make it into some game as part of its main gameplay.

4/25/2009 - Mega Man 2.5D

One of the neatest concept games for the Wii was Super Paper Mario. Even though Super Mario 64 and Mario Galaxy perfected 3-D platforming, Mario's roots were in 2-D sidescrolling. It would be hard to come out with a game these days that was strictly 2-D sidescrolling and have it not be considered outdated or merely a nostalgia game. For example, Mega Man 9 was a wildly successful game, but it was geared almost exclusively to nostalgic gamers. Super Paper Mario, on the other hand, added the third dimension to it's 2-D gameplay in a very clever way. It merely allowed you to switch your perspective to the back of Mario so that you could see what was previously behind or in front of him as now being to the left and right of him. It's hard to describe with words, but if you watch any gameplay video of it, you'd understand.

While not all classic 2-D sidescrollers could benefit from such an enhancement, I think the makeover would be ideal for the Mega Man franchise. As shown by Mega Man 9, the Blue Bomber belongs in the 8-bit world. But for future installments, I would hope that Capcom could think a little out of the box and adapt some of the Super Paper Mario innovations. A game modder has done just that with a Mega Man 2 stage and it looks absolutely terrific:

4/23/2009 - THE LEGEND of Hamster on a piano and pop corn

So let's get this straight... if you can videotape a hamster being extremely lazy, you can get over 5 million views on YouTube. I'm sure that if I was to videotape myself being that lazy, I'd be lucky to get 100 views. It's just not fair:

4/18/2009 - Mr. T on the Flavorwave Oven Infomercial

You know me to be an infomercial junkie, and I've probably seen them all. I don't know how this one escaped me. I've seen some infomercials of the Flavorwave Oven before, including it's competition, the Nu-Wave oven. This one is new to me though. It has the special privilege of including none other than Mr. T himself. Now, you might think that it would be an unbeatable combination. After all, George Foreman touted his Foreman Grill and made it into an overnight success. Mr. T was also known to be a (fictional) bruiser in the 80's, and he's much more flamboyant than George Foreman ever was. For some reason, however, it just doesn't work:



Maybe it's just me, but I just can't see Mr. T dressed in khaki's.

4/15/2009 - Man Survives After Getting Hit by Truck & Train

Being a geek, my first thought after watching this video was how Mr. Glass engineered this accident:



Yes, that was an "Unbreakable" reference.

4/13/2009 - R2D2 in Episode 1

I'm sure there are those out there who have watched the Star Wars movies so many times that they could swear they know what R2D2 is saying. They might think they know, and they might even have some confirmation from George Lucas himself. But I'd like to think that this series of videos has the true subtitled translation of R2D2. Caution... vulgarities lie ahead:

4/11/2009 - Mugen - The Super Mario Bros. vs. RonaldMcDonald

Because of Super Smash Bros., it's not unusual anymore to see Mario and Luigi in a fighting game. But Ronald McDonald? Yeah, that's pretty strange:



Boy, these MUGEN programmers can be really strange. I mean, I don't know where anybody would even get the idea to put Ronald in a fighting, much less giving him a Japanese voice... at least I think it's Japanese. And you have to love Grimace and the Hamburglar surrounding Ronald's fallen body when he's defeated. Sometimes I think the MUGEN people put the strangest characters they can just to make a YouTube video out of it and get more viewers. And you know what? It works.

4/7/2009 - Wii Breakfast

I'm not sure it's fair to say that the Nintendo has become the laughingstock of the hardcore gaming community, but since the release of Wii Music, it's hard to find any first-party properties Nintendo is rolling out specifically geared to the hardcore gamers. Punch Out is probably the only game I'd look forward to, but I'm a retro gamer. Sega's Mad World looks to be a decent effort, but such games on the Wii are few and far between. Go to any Gamestop and just look at the Wii section of games. I guarantee you'll find a dozen titles that will make you go "What the f---?" With such a sad state of gaming on the Wii, it makes videos like this seem plausible:

4/5/2009 - MacHeist 3

With only two days left for this offer, I wanted to get the news out about MacHeist 3, the software bundle that aggregates hundreds of dollars worth of Macintosh applications for only $39. Too good to be true? Fear not, because this is actually an opportunity for software vendors to get their brand noticed in the Mac community, and it's a donation of sorts since 25% of the sales go to charity! That's right, get a bunch of quality apps for a rock-bottom price and donate to charity... how can you lose? Here was the unveiling of MacHeist 3 a couple of weeks ago:



Would you ever see this kind of promotion for Windows software? I don't think so.

4/2/2009 - Terminator 2 3D

There are two episodes of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles left this season, and if rumors are true, it may be the last we see of the series. It would be sad to see another great science fiction series fall prey to low ratings. I knew the show could never reach the level in terms of special effects and action that the movies did, but it certainly had great drama and it really paid great homage to the movies. Even for someone like me who watched Terminator 2 seven times in the theater, the show had to remind me how Sarah got the scar on her shoulder.

Anyway, even if the show does get canceled, that does not mean the end of the Terminator. Terminator: Salvation hits the theaters in May and it's looking awesome, especially with the casting of Christian (Batman) Bale in the lead role of John Connor. If it somehow becomes one of the summer's blockbuster hits, I would dare say that it might give the Fox or Warner execs second thoughts about the TV series. At the very least, the sequel will be greenlit without hesitation.

It's ironic to me how Terminator "purists" will say that the Terminator storyline should have ended with Terminator 2 since that was the last feature film to be directed by creator James Cameron and that it the ending seemed made it look like it was the end of Skynet. What they forget is that the storyline did continue in the Terminator 2 3D experience for the Universal Studios theme park, and that it was indeed directed by James Cameron. It had a lot of the great elements of Terminator 2, but toned down to PG audiences and enhanced with 3D effects. The experience can't be adequately shown on YouTube, but here's the feature footage minus the 3D: