Audiosurf.

I checked out Wired's top 5 PC Games in 2008 and 1 title caught my attention: Audiosurf.

A game that promises to build a WipeOut-esque game out of any musical track you throw at it.

I remember a game I had on the Playstation called Vib Ribbon that had a similar concept: it created an obstacle course for a sort of rabbit that you had to guide through button combinations. And you could feed it any musical track you wanted. So you had an infinite possibility of levels. The graphics were all wireframe so it had a very strong character. It was great although the gameplay was very simple. But the point was more to keep your eyes & fingers busy while you were listening to music. It made you rediscover your CDs as it made you want to try some obscure stuff.

So the same kind of thing but with racing? I had to try...

And the actual game is much better than "just" a racing game...
It's actually a sort of combination of racing and Tetris. With a feel of Guitar Hero thrown in...
The racing track has several lanes and you get colored blocks on it. You have to collect those blocks to score points, but you hav to collect them by colors and cluster them at least 3 by 3s. Both colors and the speed of your vehicles are determines by the track. So you have to follow the rythm of the song to collect the blocks efficiently...

It's incredibly entertaining and it gets you to listen to your music as well...
Just brilliant!

8-Bit Jesus

A mad man remade some classic Christmas songs using the style of some famous NES game musics...
It's all 8-bits and it's totally brilliant!!!!

It's here: http://www.doctoroctoroc.com/video-game-inspired-music/8-bit-jesus-new-christmas-chip-tune-album/

I found it at Kotaku (as usual I could say...)

!!UPDATE!!
The full album has been released!
It rocks!!!

Here: http://www.doctoroctoroc.com/video-games/8-bit-jesus-full-album-release/

Un genie!!!

Dans le flux des blagues habituelles qui circulent par email, on a recu ceci: http://www.akinator.com/

Une espece de jeu ou un genie de la lampe devine un personnage auquel on pense.
Essayez avant de lire la suite, ca pourrait gacher... ;)

C'est marrant, j'aborde ce genre de trucs toujours avec une pointe de scepticisme, sachant que de toutes facons y a un truc derriere et avec cette espece de pseudo fierte que le personnage que je vais trouver de derriere les fagots plantera le machin.
Donc je l'ai teste en pensant a Tom Morello, guitariste de Rage Against The Machine et mon idole guitare-heroique. Connu mais pas forcement tant que ca.

Apres quelques questions bateau (homme americain musicien), le genie s'est mis a me demander s'il avait le crane rase (bah oui), s'il portait une casquette (bah oui c'est meme son signe distinctif!). La j'ai eu un "c'est pas vrai qu'il va trouver!". Le genie, sachant ensuite qu'il faisait partie d'un quatuor, a facilement reussi a lire dans mes pensees, pour meme me sortir une photo.
Wow!

J'ai reussi a le coller au 2e coup, avec Manji, samurai du manga L'Habitant De l'Infini. Mais apparemment pas de beaucoup car il le connaissait deja et en en refaisant un coup il l'a trouve...

Le comment se rationnalise biensur facilement et l'interet meurt vraiment apres le 1er coup, mais pour rien qu'avoir ce sentiment de surprise genre "il m'a eu!", ca vaut le coup!

Je crois que j'ai entendu dire un jour par Derren Brown (excellent "magicien" anglais specialise dans la suggestion) que ce qui comptait dans la "magie" c'etait l'aventure ("journey" en VO), le fait de faire douter les gens.
Le tour peut etre tout simple, ce qui compte c'est de surprendre.

En voila un parfait exemple!

Monkey: Journey to the West.

I was having trouble imagining what what kind of work could be spawned from the collaboration between Damon Albarn, Jamie Hewlett (who both previously collaborated on Gorillaz) and the Beijing opera...
I guess my main "worry" was that it would be too much "occidentalised". How could pop-style music fit with 1 of the oldest Chinese legends?
It wassn't really a worry as I can't call myself a purist or anything. I have enjoyed enough versions of The Journey To The West that might not have been entirely accurate... Hell even Dragon Ball is (at first at least) a spin off this legend!

Anyway the answer came with the 1st seconds of the show: the use of traditionnal instruments place the musical style as traditionnal Chinese music, with a hint of more modern and Occidental touches. But just so much to spice it up that's all.
As a whole, it's still pretty much a Chinese opera (or more the idea I have of one, as I haven't seen a real one so far...), deeply rooted in buddhism (as is the original story). And it was fully in mandarin (subtitled or more sidetitled) as well!

I feel it's very unusual to see such an uncompromised view as something that could be seen as another West-end musical. It only makes the whole experience more rewarding.

I feel to call this piece "awe inspiring" would even be an understatement.
The power of the story itself, seeing the monkey king punished by Buddha for seeking immortality and forced to team up with a priest and ua bunch of cast-outs to redeem himself, could already make anything look good.
But combined as it is with such designs, costumes, sets, singers/actors/acrobats it just reaches other levels. The Nirvana?

It's fun yet profound, action packed & contemplative at the same time.
The pictures shown, when all actors take a pause and stop for a moment, were beautiful.

The direction manages a few very clever tricks, using animations as transitions berween scenes and mixing it with the actual actors & sets. A times, characters also duplicate to carry a sense of agitation, etc.
Acting was impressive, along with the physical, gravity defying acrobatics. It was my 1st time seeing "live kung fu" and I had more than my money's worth. That sense of perfect control was also carried through to more quiet moments, especially with "flying" characters, moving gracefully through the stage.

The singing was also incredible. Again, very unsual compared to western opera standards. But incredibly impressive. Those guys (and girls) reach notes I didn't think I could hear!

I could go on & on & on about this, using superlatives... I'll stop here.
In case you didn't get the idea, it was an amazing (almost unbelievable) experience.

Auditorium

Guide a flux of particles through boxes that play a music track... And listen to the result!
A beautiful puzzle game!

http://www.playauditorium.com/

Le jeu chiant du prof Kawashikek!

Kek est vraiment tres fort...

J'ai tenu 11 niveaux...

http://blog.zanorg.com/index.php?perm=367

NES quotes.

As I was reading through Kotaku, I found this.

http://sydlexia.com/nesquotes1.htm

The 50 best quotes out of NES games. Being a SEGA boy in my early gaming days (I was the proud owner of an SMS), I haven't actually played any of these games.
Still it sends me back to those gaming days, as SMS & NES had similar games after all...

And also the comments are hilarious.
Check it out.

Ping Nunchuk Pong!

And who else than Bruce Lee to do such a thing?
It's obviously fake, but it's pretty damn cool!



I got that from Ain't it cool.