Gamertell

The Educational Games Research Blog recently took the time to compile a list of the ten most influential educational games of the 80’s,a wonderful list that honors a slew of games that many gamers likely grew up playing. I know for a fact that I’ve played and enjoyed at least half of the games on the list.

The list contains both popular and forgotten favorites. Some of the most notable of the ten cited are The Oregon Trail, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, SimCity...

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There is nothing better than sharing (aka showing off) our gaming experiences with the world. Sites like YouTube and PoeTV can be very cluttered and, when you’re searching for a video on how to proceed in a level, you end up with dozens of videos of some guys cockatiel who whistles the entire theme song to Mario Bros. Pwn or Die is a website dedicated to just gaming and gaming videos. Not so much birds…

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The field of video game journalism places writers in opinionated positions. They write the same types of stories as newspaper journalists - news, features, opinions and reviews - but also must entertain their audience.

In addition, the news stories are often regurgitated press releases. Take a six or seven paragraph press release and condense it down to three or four. This gives writers a bit of freedom as to how to handle their articles.

Especially if said video game journalists are working at a blog, much like this one. They are often called upon to be witty, to provide information and entertainment that 20 or 30 other sites aren’t to get more web traffic.

However, some blog writers are willing to go too far by isolating and insulting a portion of their audience in order to appeal to the largest - males age 13-27 - demographic…

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The DS homebrew Twitter application has just received an update. DSTwitter v1.1 allows users without a cell phone or computer nearby to keep up with what their Twitter friends are up to and keep their Twitter friends appraised of their actions.

DSTwitter seems fairly easy to use. Of course you need a Twitter account to use it. Once you’ve made one, you’ll need to make sure your DS’s Wi-Fi is set up. (This means getting out one of your Wi-Fi games like Animal Crossing.) Once that’s done, you create a DSTwitter configuration file that has your account information and the DSTwitter program onto your flashcard. That’s it! Now you should be able to Twitter away on your DS.

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I remember working with perler beads as a child. Nothing elaborate - just flat designs from kits that my mom would later iron to make permanent. Never did I even imagine that works of video game art, like the ones by Doctor Octoroc were even possible. Just look at the Gamecube (pictured above) that he created!

Doctor Octoroc creates perler and hama bead sprite creations in his spare time. Incredibly elaborate creations. He not only creates large bead sprites or scenes from games, but also creates 3D replicas of consoles and custom sprite creations. (I didn’t even know they had that many different bead colors!)

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Since Nintendo has been lax in providing a portable version of its legendary fighting game Smash Brothers, fans are taking the matter in their own hands. A German man known as Fuzzy is working on Super Smash Bros Rumble. The first demo of the game was released July 1, 2008 and is 873kb.

The YouTube video of Super Smash Bros Rumble gameplay gives an idea of how the demo of the game works. A user boots up the game, chooses the single player Solo mode and then begins fighting as Mario against another Mario. Everything looks very polished and the characters look good so far. The menu screen also shows a Wi-Fi button, indicating that future updates of the game may include either local Wi-Fi or maybe even Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection support.

Click through to watch the YouTube video of the demo…

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The team behind the R4 slot one flashcarts think piracy is wrong. Well, at least when it effects them. They’ve had enough with knock-off R4 flashcarts, and have decided that, after September 15, 2008, they will change the programing in the R4 kernels so they will only work on official R4 carts.

Let’s say you already own a fake R4 cartridge. Well, you better not update the firmware for it after September 15. The new update will not only not work with the fake card, it will also turn your DS into a very expensive brick. R4’s development team has issued a firm statement that owners of the fake carts who ignore their warnings and render their DS units useless will have to complain to the shop they purchased the fake cart from.

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Fans of shooting games and DS homebrew should start rejoicing right around now. They should probably start thanking Asbjørn Djupdal, Morten Hartmann and Kyrre Glette as well, since efforts from the three created Retrorocket. Djupdal and Hartmann were inspired by Thrust (Atari 2600) and TurboRaketti II (Amiga), and decided that those games belonged on the DS, so they set to work on a pretty homebrew application.

Retrorocket offers more than some commercial games. All of the Thrust levels and TurboRaketti II maps are available for play. Plus there is a RTS strategy mode where you can enhance your shop by collecting items and multiplayer collection games. Multiplayer games can even carried out over local WiFi as well. Also Glette assisted the duo by programming in map autogeneration.

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Remember the Klobb? You know, the crappiest, least accurate gun in GoldenEye 007? Well, it’s coming back in Too Human. According to a post at GameLife, the Klobb will be one of the hundreds of weapons and items in the game.

The original GoldenEye gun was named after Nintendo’s Ken Lobb, who’s now Creative Director of Microsoft Game Studios (and working alongside developer Silicone Knights on the current title), so it looks as if the dubious honor has carried over. Let’s hope that they beef up the Klobb’s stats for the new game - remember how hilariously awful it was on the N64? I have so many fond memories of Klobb-infested multiplayer matches from back in the day.

Read [GameLife]

• Summer 2008 PC and console videogame preview
• Dyack: Too Human demo coming. Eventually.
• Dyack defends Too Human despite poor reviews

Portal fans may remember that GLaDOS dictated directions to the player at all times. GLaDOS was, of course, evil and misleading, but the haunting voice was somewhat mesmerizing. You can now have GLaDOS order you around in your daily life as well, thanks to the GLaGPS created by Ryan VanMiddlesworth.  Where GLaDOS stands for Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System, GLaGPS stands for Genetic Lifeform and Global Positioning System.

GLaGPS is a fan project, and not endorsed by Valve, the makers of Portal, but I’m sure they’d find it pretty darn cool. The voice pack only works with the Garmin Nuvi GPS so far, though VanMiddlesworth is also working on a TomTom version.

Click through to watch GLaGPS in action…

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