Toribash.

Funny how I take most of my game kicks on independant games lately...
Cursor 10, Grid, Audiosurf... (which is not to say that I don't loooooove my Wii anymore...)

But there are a lot of people that are now (again should I say...) able to develop their ideas on their own and that's where you get the most creative concepts, instead of the millionth first person shooter that just looks a bit better than the last one.

Anyway, this one is a biggie: http://www.toribash.com/

This is (and I mean it) the fighting game I have been waiting for all my gaming life. And I'm a fighting game geek.
A turn based fight where you actually control each part of your fighter's body to make him move. So to punch, you will flex the elbow, contract & extend the relevant pecs, rotate the torso, etc...
That and the fact that you can see your opponent doing the same thing so you have to adapt your move to his! All this 10 frames at a time!
This is the biggest geekgasm I had in a while...

The learning curve is quite huge, but just seeing what's possible when you know what you're doing is motivating enough.
And it's just too funny to see the replay of you're fighter just landing like a turd when you didn't control your move... (^_^)

They're developping it for the WiiWare... I can't wait!!!

Songsmith.

Songsmith is a Microsoft tool that generates music over a voice track.
People obviously thought about putting proper singing on it and it gives...

...this:



This is f#cking hilarious.

Wazza 8 years later...

I know it's a bit late for this (I was busy finishing Grid), but still it's good fun...

Wassup 2008
by 60Frames

2008 Cinema round up...

Well what a year...

I went to watch just under 20 movies, but no less than 5 totally blew me away... And 6 other nearly did!

So in a way this year's top 10 comes naturally...
Here it is:
1) WALL·E
2) The Dark Knight
3) No Country for Old Men
4) Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
5) Wanted
6) Speed Racer
7) Hellboy II: The Golden Army
8) Iron Man
9) Burn After Reading
10) Zack and Miri Make a Porno

As usual the order is actually quite arbitrary and could change if I was in a different frame of mind...
Right now, Wall-E has to come 1st. Such an accessible, cute, poetic & scary as hell dystopia vision is just unbelievable.
Then comes the Dark Knight, with its epic construction and deconstruction of a myth.
To see No Country For Old Men been knocked like that to 3rd place is a shame. It's true that in terms of scope one could find much in common with the Dark Knight, although it's theme is violence... Yet as of now that's how it feels it should fit.
Sweeney Todd then, with an incredible return from Tim Burton in the darkest places...
In 5 I still stand by the sheer awesomeness of Wanted I can't wait to see it again.
I also stand by Speed Racer, glorious movie under LSD, just forget the monkey, or the monologues (they're far shorter than in Matrix anyway), it's just too cool not to enjoy!
In 7 & 8 come the "other" superheroes, both at an end of their spectrum: Hellboy in the gothic imagery of Del Toro & Ironman as the blueprint for a perfect Marvel adaptation.
In last positions come the "funny ones". I know I'm caught at the trap of letting the funny movies behind the "serious ones"... I think it's more that this year the serious movies are just too good.
Anyway eventhough Burn After Reading kind of follows a "Coen recipe", it's still a damn good film that shouldn't stay in the shadow of the darker No Country...
Last but not least Kevin Smith having people make a porno is just a must see... :)

So there you go. I wish I could have squeezed Pineapple Express in there, but this is a top 10, you have to make sacrifices.

So 2009 has a lot to do to match 2008, we'll see how it goes but with movies like Watchmen or Benjamin Button coming up, I'm quite confdent I'll still have my fix anyway...

METAL!

F*CK YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Grid.

Happy new year everyone!!

Let's celebrate this with a flash game!!!
(^_^;

Don't worry, I have also noticed I'm posting pretty much only about those recently, but I've got a good source and there's nothing wrong with a bit of fun, even more so when it's free! ;)

So today it's Grid. I've seen the concept before in an old arcade game whose name I can't remember (it was plumbing related). This is going to bug me.
Anyway. You have to connect every pipe bit to the energy source.
Easy? Not quite.

Great fun!

GRID

(Originally from here.

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.

Rose & Camelia.

Simple concepts are often the best. Take 2 women. Make them slap each other.
Who needs more? :D

http://nigoro.jp/game/rosecamellia/rosecamellia.php

There's even a sequel!
http://jp.shockwave.com/games/arcade/actiongame/baratotsubaki/play.html

Found these thanks to Kotaku here and here.

Flash game.

10 cursors.
Each with a limited life span.
I don't know how many floors.
Over and over again.
Cooperate with yourself.
Genius!

http://www.nekogames.jp/mt/2008/01/cursor10.html

Indestructo Tank.

A silly flash game where you bounce a tank off helicopters...
I love it!

http://www.kongregate.com/games/ArmorGames/indestructotank-ae

Zack & Miri make a porno.

OK, it's already too late on a sunday night, there's school tomorrow, I should really be thinking about getting to bed, but I just saw the finest comedy of the year, I need to write about it now, otherwise I'll let it slip again and it'll get ridiculous. Like those words about I am Legend I read in january that I never finished. Or Bookhunter, a great comics I got at the Angouleme festival, also in January. Anyway.

To make a porno. Well I started with the end really. The finest comedy I'll see this year for me. No more no less. And not only because I don't plan to see any other... ;)

I'm not a major in Kevin Smith's movies, but I at least thoroughly enjoyed everything I saw from him. Clerks is of course cult, but there's always a sort of sweetness that's hard to shake from his movies, making them memorable, eventhough they might feel... I don't know, simple maybe? Not in a bad way though. Only, it's never going to be oscar material. But who cares? Fact is: I remember Mallrats better than possibly any oscarised movie I saw (actually maybe not because there are very good movies that get Oscars, but you got the idea). And I saw it only once.
It's got good (highly quotable) dialogs and likeable characters, what else would you need?

So Zack & Miri is more of the same, in a sense. It's somehow strange to say that this movie is all about swetness. Because at the same time it's pretty fucking rowdy, if you'll excuse my French. But at the heart, it is a sweet love story. And if that's fairly unoriginal, well it makes it up on the amateur porno side...
I posted about PG Porn some time ago. Well there's a bit of this, only it's not really PG here (you actually see boobies). There is some pitch-perfect "porn" acting, which I believe requires skill.
Think the scene in Clerks when Randall orders the videos? There's a bit of that as well. Taken to the feature level. So it's quite filthy. But the sweetness of it all takes it all over! (^_^)

I don't think there's anyone who can film some loveable characters like Smith can do. Everyone in this makes you wish you knew them. They're such a cool gang. I'd just want to go wherever they are and hang out with them. That's one thing that's a bit depressing: I'll never really get to know them. But man, they're so cool!

The cast is excellent, from the main characters (Helen Banks is sooo sweet and don't call Seth Rogen a loser...) to the slightest cameo (but how did Justin Long get such a low voice???). They carry the dialogs to perfection and they MAKE that movie.

Oh and the soundtrack is great also. Always nice to hear the Pixies.

So I had a good right laugh (I needed one), I went "aaaw!" and "eeew!" and I had a hell of a good time.
Thanks Kevin & your mates!

PS: Make sure you sit through the whole credits...

Quantum of Solace.

Casino Royale was a departure from the previous James Bond films. The later Brosnans, while I enjoyed the actor were getting quite ridiculous. So they got the charcater a more hard boiled, Jason Bourne-style. With success.

With this one, it gets a bit of the old Bond formula back, while keeping the edgy side of Casino Royale. And it adds up to a pretty good Bond.
So Bond gets a bit more like the one you remember from before. He travels all around the world, seduces women, kills baddies. In Casino Royale, he didn't really get his man, which was slightly frustrating, but was bold. Here he does get the villain, so it's back on track.

But the action keeps the raw brutality that sets these new films apart from the previous installments. It does remind of Bourne, but it still manages to be Bond.
And it's good!

So best Bond ever?
Well no, I still keep Sean Connery as my favorite Bond incarnation. But Craig is a good close second and this installment is a very good one.

C'est bientot Noel!

Donc un peu de pub pour une action sympatique, agreable et qui mange pas de pain...

http://www.monbeausapin.org/