Category: Video Games
365 Adventures in 2011: Day 52 – 1,000th happy haunt
Tonight Clyde became the 1,000th happy haunt to take up residence at The Haunted Mansion.
No sign of Pac-Man.
Tweet365 Adventures in 2011: Day 51 – Retro gaming
After finishing reorganizing/redecorating our bonus room, I realized that while there is plenty to look at in there, the only two things to do in there were building LEGOs and playing board games. Both of those are fun, but the room needed a little more fun added. So I moved an original XBox that was sitting relatively unused in the home theater, hooked it up to the old tube TV in the bonus room, and can now enjoy plenty of retro gaming – but not of XBox games. If I’m going to go retro, I’m going to go way back to the best games.
With XBMC running on the system, I have also installed emulators for Nintendo, Genesis, Super Nintendo, and arcade machines. That means I can now head up to the bonus room and slip away into the 80s, playing Contra, Super Mario Brothers, Sonic the Hedgehog, and even the amazing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade game, which is pictured below.
Since I also have the XBox hooked up to a wireless network adapter and a pair of speakers with subwoofer (both were also lying around the house), I can enjoy videos and music off of my network-attached storage. And now the bonus room is more than just a fun place to look at stuff… it’s a fun place to look at stuff while playing video games, listening to music, and watching old cartoons!
TweetHighlights and photos from Toy Fair 2011 – The Walking Dead, Terminator, Duke Nukem, Pirates LEGOs, BioShock, Ghostbusters, and more
I visited Toy Fair 2011 today in New York from the comfort of my office in Florida by way of coverage of the annual event from Collider.com and ActionFigs.com.
I wish I had been there in person, but since I wasn’t, sifting through photo galleries was the next best thing. And I pulled out pictures of the toys, action figures, and other fun things that I’ll most likely be buying when they hit the market soon.
So here’s my vicarious photo report from Toy Fair 2011 of what I’m most looking forward to…
Terminator
I have quite the collection of Terminator 2 figures already, so I’m quite happy to see NECA coming out with a couple of Arnold from the original Terminator as well. Plus more fun sculpts of the T-1000 are always fun too:
Gene Splicing at Home – Bioshock EVE Hypo Syringe Prop Replica
Ever been to Rapture? Want to become a splicer? Here’s your chance.
Straight out of the hit video game Bioshock comes a new prop replica of the EVE hypodermic syringes/needles that give your character a much-needed boost.
Definitely not one for the kids. Note that it’s never referred to as a “toy” anywhere. But it’s still pretty darn cool.
From bigbadtoystore.com:
As seen in the hit video game and its highly anticipated forthcoming sequel, this has LED lights and is over 8″ tall. Features all the detail and weathering just like you see in Rapture. This replica is cast in clear plastic and lights up when you press the button on top of the syringe.
It’s available for pre-order here and here.
TweetX-Wing and TIE Fighter game remakes may be coming soon
I recently wrote a series of posts about the glorious return of the point-and-click adventure genre of games, which has historically been dominated by LucasArts. Now, it appears that LucasArts may have something equally as exciting in store for us…
From g4tv.com:
LucasArts’ two-pronged attempt to revitalize their classics with The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition and Tales of Monkey Island appears to be a success. As part of a follow-up interview with LucasArts president Darrell Rodriguez about plans for the months ahead, I asked Rodriguez for thoughts on a return of the company’s lauded X-Wing and Tie Fighter flight sim series.
His answer?
“We don’t have any announcements now, but stay tuned,” said Rodriguez. “We will soon…..”
By the way, that’s his number of dots, not mine. We conducted the interview over e-mail. Five dots is far more mysterious than three dots, so I’m willing to bet I’m onto something here.
Whether it’s a full-on remake ala The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition or an addition to the company’s growing Steam lineup…well, who cares? Either one would be the first acknowledgement of a major part of LucasArts’ legacy in a long, long time.
The last major release in the series was X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter X-Wing Alliance. I missed that one.
X-Wing and TIE Fighter were two of the greatest Star Wars games ever to be released. They were fantastic flight simulators (well, space flight at least) that allowed Star Wars fans to embrace their dreams of piloting iconic spacecraft from the films. And they were fun too.
These games are begging to be remade for the XBox 360 in HD with surround sound. Plus, I already own a flight stick for the 360, which I hope the remakes would support. But I’m clearly getting ahead of the news. It is likely that LucasArts is simply re-releasing these games on Steam, as they recently did with many of their other classic games. But I hope it’s much more than that.
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