Filed under: Arcade

Though it's not quite Broadway, the below reenactment of the NES and arcade classic, Punch Out, is pretty darn good. The music is especially catchy, and the moves are disturbingly accurate. You know you're a gamer when all of this makes sense. A very funny and entertaining way to see just what an impact video games has had on our culture.

Right click the "Read" link or image to save.

[Thanks, InfectedZero]

Larry Hryb (aka Major Nelson) of Microsoft did some digging and determined that our report of Hexic haxxoring was only partially correct. While it's true that the game has been extracted from kiosk disks used for European Xbox 360 kiosks, and while it's true that the game has been modified, and while it's even true that tinkerers have been able to make it appear as if they're winning achievements, the fact of the matter is that none of this has any effect on the Xbox Live leaderboards.

An email from the Xbox Live Arcade team to the good Major stated: "While Hackers can play the game and trigger the achievement awarded animation as if is still there but they don’t actually earn anything since they can’t connect to Xbox Live."

There you have it! Back to collecting black pearls the old fashioned way.

 

We pressed Microsoft for more Xbox Live Arcade details following the announcement that Street Fighter II Hyper Fighting, Marble Blast Ultra, and a River Belle sponsored Texas Hold 'Em game would be released this year. One Xbox Marketing representative did confirm that all three titles will be available by the end of February, while Chris Early, Studio Manager for MS Casual Games, would only assure us that they will be released by the end of March along with five other unannounced titles--one of which is likely Crystal Quest.

One interesting detail is that the Texas Hold 'Em title will be sponsored by the online casino, River Belle, for a limited time. While the sponsorship is in affect, users will be able to download the game for free--and it will stay free once the sponsorship expires. Early commented that this sponsorship deal was a rare opportunity, and admitted that 360 owners should not expect this to be commonplace during the release of future titles.

Thanks to a few choice words delivered from Peter Moore at CES the other day, we all know that Street Fighter II’ Hyper Fighting will be making its way to the Xbox 360's Live Arcade "in early 2006." What we didn't know was the extent to which the coin-op classic would be emulating its arcade roots in the process.

The "Quarter Match" system will follow up on the Live-lobby efforts of original-Xbox title Dead or Alive Ultimate, staging a spectator mode where interested parties can "use a 'virtual quarter' to 'buy into' heated two player matches," and to check out potential friends and rivals alike. What really has SF aficionados stoked, however, is the free "feature-limited" demo planned for download on Live, which will allow players to try out "two playable characters for one match" -- just the thing to lure 6-button fighting fans back into the fold. (Ken or Ryu vs. Chun-Li, anyone?)

In a minor note, during the CES keynote last night, Microsoft revealed that Capcom's classic coin-op arcade title, Street Fighter II, will make an appearance as an Xbox Live Arcade game later this year. In addition, a Texas Hold 'Em title will also be released onto the popular service. Peter Moore proclaimed that Xbox 360 owners have accounted for more than four million downloads from the Xbox Live Marketplace since the console's launch. Hadoken!

Most case mods are giant, fire-breathing speed monsters, built to be impressive, majestic even. Full of equal parts epoxy, plexiglass windows, and blue LEDs, they make LAN party-going geeks drool with jealousy. That's the part where Martin Smith's beautiful Donkey Kong case mod might not fit in.

A 0.5056 scale replica of the original cabinet, complete with fully functioning controls, coin door, and 10" screen, the Lilliputian case mod is perhaps a better fit for a one-of-a-kind emulation station; however, with an Athlon XP-M 2500 and an ATI Radeon 9800 PRO 256MB under the hood, it's hardly a slowpoke. Keep your eyes peeled at Quakecon '06.

[Thanks, Bloo]

Since we were not initially allowed to blog a review of Grandma's Boy when we watched it last month, and since the film's not gonna be shown to critics (generally a sure sign that it's crap), we will attempt now to write about what we do remember from our preview nearly a month ago.

By way of introduction, a precept. When a joke is told, timing is important. The comedian must allow for a few beats of silence before proceeding with the dialog, or laughter will cause people to miss what follows next. Good movies time their comedy well, being careful to leave enough space after a big joke for the punch line to air out. Bad movies don't do this well. At several points early on in Grandma's Boy, a "joke" is told and the obligatory pause follows, except that nobody in the theater was laughing. Instead: crickets, pin drops, and a few uncomfortable coughs as people glanced at their watches.

Ironically, it's these early moments in which a joke bombs horribly that save the film from complete failure. Because these bombs happen near the beginning, the moviegoer's expectations are set to rock bottom pretty darned quickly. Once you're at bottom, ain't no place to go but up, setting the stage for some surprise attacks of humor that appear out of place, they're so good. There are some fantastic, tears-from-your-eyes moments, the best of which involves an illustration of onanism so extreme that the Roman Catholic church must surely object.

Cory Doctorow at BoingBoing always has the goods on gaming inspired crafts. This week he put up links to a Super Mario Bros. 3 scarf by one Ms. Helen Li featuring the cast of characters on one side and their "smushed/dead" counterparts on the other. Brilliant! Also for your enjoyment is a Space Invaders tote bag knitted by Brenda. The formula of adding nostalgic videogame icons to your crafts project works every time. Words can't describe how badly I want this stuff!

[Via BoingBoing 1,2]

The hacking community has been very busy this weekend. Accomplishments include:

1. Successfully ripping Hexic off of a kiosk disc and executing it in a PC browser (it runs very slowly)
2. Successfully modifying Hexic and running it on an Xbox 360 connected to Xbox Live
3. Hacking Hexic to earn several of the achievements without doing any of the work
4. Successfully running simple Flash applications that were never on the Xbox 360 (such as a clock application)
5. Modifying certain aspects of the King Kong kiosk demo to create the simple program pictured here

Speculation:

• Could this third item be behind the reset of the Xbox Live leaderboards? We hear people were earning some sick scores in Hexic before the reset (according to a blog post by Xbox Live's Larry Hyrb, the reset is a technical glitch having nothing to do with security issues.)
• These findings might make it possible to run a flash-based browser, flash-based media players, or even other flash games not available on Xbox Live Arcade
• There are many avenues of research that the hacking community is exploring. Given the history of past efforts by Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft to prevent modification (all to no avail), it seems inevitable that one or more of these seeds of opportunity will yield fruit
• How far away are we from a gamer points reset, given that some gamers have been able to cheat to obtain them?
• Will it become possible to cheat at other games? That's the surest way to sap the enjoyment from any game, as Halo players on Xbox Live who have been the victims of cheaters can attest.

[Update1: linked to statement from Microsoft's Larry Hyrb regarding the leaderboard reset.]

Geometry Wars is still one of our favorite Xbox 360 games. For good reason, too - the game is highly addictive, old-school fun. xTHeDoGgx has just posted his video for the number 2 worldwide score of 4.191 million. The 20-minute video, a gigantic 167 MB avi file, is impressive to watch (even if it does get a bit tedious after awhile) and certainly can help those looking to improve their game.

Also, be sure to check out the BizarreOnline.net forums, where xTHeDoGgx, under the name Domali, and former world champ Striker (whose video we posted earlier this month) discuss their various strategies (especially on the use of gravity wells).

[Thanks, elliothtz and Hushed Casket]

As a lepidopterist is to butterflies, crates & barrels is to the familiar detritus that populates our alternate worlds. Who can forget the freight containers in Metal Gear Solid, the exploding barrels in Doom, or the crates in Half-Life 2 you're confronted with immediately. Valve's Gabe Newell said this was "the Old Man Murray equivalent of throwing yourself to the mercy of the court"?

Indeed, these mainstays have been with us from the very beginning. What does Donkey Kong throw at our old buddy Jumpman? That's right... barrels. We all have fond memories of hiding behind bulletproof, wooden crates or shooting radioactive, explosive barrels in the middle of a city. If you don't mind getting all weepy-eyed seeing your old buddies, head over and see what they've been up to. If you have any favorites, add them to the collection.

[Thanks, Wonderflex]

Pac-Man strikes again! Have you always wanted your Pac-Man cocktail table to be a little more... practical? Been meaning to get a new dinner table? By replacing the standard glass top with "a custom-shaped, 1/2" thick, polished edge table top glass" Grand Idea Studios have created a domestic geek's dream table. They even had the foresight to include Clay Cowgill's MultiPac kit for 24 different variations of pellet-gobbling goodness. Unfortunately, this particular table is not for sale but should be easy enough to emulate (pun intended). Throw in a Pac-Man rug and you have yourself a pretty hapnin' bachelor pad.

[Thanks, Jill; Via Inhabit]

Capcom's announced that its game library has begun to be offered on G-Cluster, the Japanese PC game-on-demand service online.

Resident Evil 3, Mega Man X5, Chaos Legion, and Dino Crisis have already been released in the first batch of games made available. Further installments in the Resident Evil and Onimusha series of games, as well as other classic Capcom coin-op titles, will be making their way online "in the near future" as well for individual purchase and through a 100-hour “Capcom Satisfaction Pack” to try all the titles offered via a monthly fee.

While we love the old-school collections Capcom's been putting out recently, we would love it even more if the company brought its "World Famous Library" to Western shores via some sweet (legal) emulation. It wouldn't be too much work to get the proper localization work done if the games are already playing on PCs in Japan, so we hope it's only a matter of time until we see more Capcom classics on PC, the 360, and the Nintendo Revolution.

It feels like just the other day we could get excited over something as trifling as a Mario Kart themed remote control car. How we can laugh at it all now! We've grown a lot in the past three days, and our new maturity brings with it some degree of sophistication. We want need a whole set of Mario Kart Arcade GP cabinets for Christmas this year! Five of them oughta cover the entire crew, and at $17,495 each that makes it, uh… times 5… carry the 2… a whole lot of money. Let's put it this way: we don't care how you do it Nintendo. Just make it happen!

I'd like to see Reggie kick some ass on one of these things; you'd actually see his face when he did it! Anytime Reggie… anytime.

[Via Eurogamer]

If you had your heart set on getting that special someone an arcade cabinet for Christmas this year, the news this morning probably crushed you, but don't despair holiday shopper! Using this (questionably) simple technique you'll be able to build your very own MAME emulation cabinet, sure to be the hit of the whole neighborhood, in just 24 hours. The entire project cost £630.79, which works out to be $1117.52, not too bad considering what you're getting.

[Via Gaming Steve]