Gadzooked!

Came across this today:

Rocker/ Case Modder Kneivel put together this ingenious home arcade cabinet by taking a stack of Marshall amp cases and transforming them into a Guitar Hero themed gaming system.

The system is made from 3 individual cabinets which can be disassembled in case he wants to taking the show on tour. Gaming is powered by a PlayStation 2, preloaded with all of the Guitar Hero games on the hard drive.

The top cabinet has the left and right speakers as well as a cool backlit GH marquee, while the middle tier houses a heavyweight 27-inch Toshiba CRT.

The bottom cabinet contains a Logitech Z2300 subwoofer for some serious low-end, as well as the PS2 system that powers the whole rig. Rock on with your bad self!
[ArcadeControls via SlashGear via Digg]
amplifier, case mod, guitar, guitar hero, instrument, marshall, music, playstation, ps2, sony
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Christine sent us a link to this:

 
Looks like a group of geeks have figured out how to use brain-computer interface technology (BCI) to  play the game Second Life. Apparently you put this contraption on your head and all you have to do is think about walking, turning, etc. and it will do as you wish.
I’m not sure if I’d be excited about this new wave of technology that allows us to play Second Life, using our brains.
The whole purpose of playing video games was to get away from actually thinking. I mean, what if there is a glitch and you “think” that you want to turn right, but it goes left? You can’t throw the controller, what do you do next?
Beat your head against the wall?
This just sounds too dangerous for me.
Source: Kotaku via  Computer Interface
Second Life

Read the rest of this great post here.

Mary wrote to us about:

New Zealand digital artist Julian Oliver is working on a cool game that blends the electronic universe with the real world. His work-in-progress game called levelHead uses a series of cubes placed on a table top. Digital cameras and custom software sense the movements of the cubes and superimpose digital images of a tiny little 3-dimensional gameplay universe.

click to view this video clip

As you tilt each cube, the player climbs through the environment, moving in concert with the angles of the physical cube. The objective of the game is to move the cubes to help guide the digital player to the exit of each cube’s virtual environment. Some of the doorways lead to another cube, while other are dead ends that make you start all over. The whole interaction looks like a Michel Gondry video to me.
Oliver developed the game to run under Debian or Ubuntu Linux, and plans on […]

You can see the rest here.

Ian wrote to us about:

A perfect bathroom accessory to complement to those Mario Brothers air fresheners, this tissue box cover looks just like the original Japanese Nintendo Famicom console.

The box slips over the top of a standard box of tissues, and dispenses them from the cartridge slot.
Amazingly, these are official Nintendo-licensed accessories. They originally sold for about $30 each, but you can now find them for just $9.99 each from MugenToys.
[photo via Flickr]
banpresto, bath, box, famicom, funny, kleenex, nintendo, paper, tissue
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Kevin wrote to us about:

The word of the week around here seems to be “pimp.” First, we had the new TokyoFlash Pimp watches, then we had the Atari 2600 pimped -out Buick. Now we have this NES console which was apparently seen backstage after a Sneaker Pimps’ concert.

Apparently, there’s a complete Nintendo Entertainment System stuffed inside of this Nike tennis shoe. Not since Maxwell Smart’s shoe phone has there been such a great combination of footwear and technology.
[Flickr via Digg via CrunchGear]
1980s, classic, nes, nike, nintendo, shoe, sneaker
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Found this post:

Who needs an LCD headrest screen and an Xbox 360 for each passenger in their car anyway? Here’s the proper way to outfit your ride with gaming tech.

This 1979 Buick Riviera has all the style and class you’d expect from a pimped out vehicle. But the real icing on the cake is the embedded Atari 2600. The car’s owner, Kevin, even went so far as to cram a 13-inch woodgrain television under the dashboard, which perfectly compliments the late 70s motif. (If you look carefully - there’s another nice retro touch - an 8-track player behind the steering wheel.)
Now you can play classics like Tooth Protectors and Kool-Aid Man at the same time as crashing into the car in front of you. The bonus: no pesky air bags! Sweet!
[CarDomainBlog via Engadget]
1970s, 2600, 8 track, atari, buick, car, mod, tv, wood
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Found this post:

I was wandering the cereal aisle in my local grocery store looking for my morning sugar fix, when I stumbled this Xbox-themed promotion in boxes of cereal.

Six Xbox-branded mini-games are available in specially-marked boxes of Kellogg’s cereal (I always wanted to say that), including Apple Jacks, Cocoa Krispies, Corn Pops, Froot Loops, Honey Smacks and Frosted Flakes.

The 6 mini-games are described as follows:

Reactor - “Your mission: fight through defending alien ships and destroy the enemy power source! 4 levels of extra-terrestrial difficulty!”
Mutants - “Civilization is depending on you! Blast continuously evolving mutant enemies to survive six levels of ever-increasing peril!”
Football - “You’re the QB driving your team to the end zone! You control the receiver too as the defense gets tougher each quarter!”
Car Racing - “Accelerate! Brake! Steer! Zoom through heavy traffic as you race through 4 levels of heart pounding excitement!”
Earn Your Stripes Snowboarding - “Shred right and left […]

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This is interesting:

We talked about Rob Fulop during our celebration of Atari Week.  Imagine my surprise when I got an email from Rob letting us know that he is about to release the last game he created for the Atari 2600: Actionauts.  The game will be available on a genuine cartridge in a limited run of 250.  It’s an unusual game, especially considering the cramped confines of programming on the Atari. 
The action happens on two screens.  You alternate between the display of a maze that you guide your virtual "robot" through, and the screen where you enter the sequence your robot will follow.  Your reward for all this work?  Your robot gobbles down some tasty cheese (possibly a chunk of Robo-Roquefort or Mechanical Monster Meunster) at the end of his pre-programmed path.
On his blog, Fulop says the game was inspired by the cycle of debugging software, running it to find more […]

Read the full post here.

Earl sent us a link to this:

With Halloween just days away, it’s only appropriate that we share in the holiday festivities. So without further adieu, I present the Mario Jack-O-Lantern.

The cool thing about this pumpkin is that you can grab the pattern from Seed of the Zombie Pumpkins! to make your very own plumber-inspired Halloween decoration.
In addition to Mario, Zombie Pumpkins! has designs for Wario, Bowser, and characters from a couple of other video games too. The site charges $2 to download up to two of the intricate patterns, or you can pay as little as $5 (or whatever you think it’s worth) and get access to the full library of patterns, which includes over 140 cool, unique designs in a variety of genres.
Mmmm… Now I want me some pumpkin pie.
[Miniature Brainwave via Neatorama]
craft, decoration, food, fun, halloween, holiday, mario, nintendo, pumpkin
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Just came across this:

Yes, I just wasted 25 minutes of my life surfing xkcd in search of a good retro comic. You should try it, too.

The entire post can be seen here.