Wonderland

chrismukkah presents

This year I'm buying everything on Etsy. Handmade and one-off is the way to go!

This Super Mario Skull teeshirt is pretty unique (I think):

Also comes in a print, at a bargain $10.

Mirror's Edge in 2D

Ben sent this in, and I am incredibly shit at it. I can't even get past the first jump.

Still, it looks like fun, and I oddly enjoyed attempting the first jump 35 times. Reminded me somewhat of Frak!.

(Thanks Ben!)

Damnit

Meeting him once for 3s doesn't count does it?

Facebook, you sodding tease.

Haunted Mansion Counter-Strike map

This is just jaw-droppingly brilliant, and something I've wanted to get done for ages, but finding UK-based mappers is super hard. Any UK mappers out there??

Haunted Mansion done as a Counter-Strike map. Completely incredible.

By Nipper.

(Via Kotaku, and thanks to Justin!)

VICE magazine and Little Big Planet = LittleBigVice

I picked up this weird-cute little copy of VICE magazine as overtaken by LittleBigPlanet in my local coffee shop today.

 

There're Sackboy fashion shoots...

... fake Sackboy ads for perfume and clothing... and all sorts of other LBP-related stuff. Sackboy wearing American Apparel knickers!

It's actually pretty sweet, but wow it seems Sony are betting the entire farm on this game, eh?

I'll get the PS3-LBP bundle in the new year, I suspect. Most expensive game purchase ever ;-)

Etsy is BURSTING with gamey goodies

Why, it must be the run-up to the Holiday season! Let's go!
I really like this extremely home-made looking invader badge, it's got real charm.

Cute Zelda fairy bottle necklace. Quite decorer this. I'm waiting for the day when being dressed head-to-toe in game-related gear is the new Harajuku fashion craze.

Normally I don't so much like pink + videogames, but this pink Pong linocut made me smile as you can't get much less cute than Pong. Especially if played on a Binatone (o yes).

A Sackboy hat!

Really special felted Piranha Plant ornaments (and a Yoshi ornament, just in time for geek tree season).

... and finally this hand-painted chunky Pac-Man bracelet.

I wonder what that comic book is. It looks good.

PlayStation credit card

At first I thought this was a scam because the graphic design is pretty cheap and nasty, but it looks legit from sonyrewards.com: the PlayStation credit card.

It claims you can get $150 off an 80GB PlayStation 3 with one of these, but I wouldn't recommend you get one because that's only $5 less (once you factor in their "shipping and handling charges") than what Amazon is already selling the exact same machine at, AND the APR is a whopping 30%.

Unpleasant.

Tabula Rasa to close already

Ouch. Tabula Rasa cost over $100 million to develop, and - according to Sir Bruce - has about 70,000 subscribers. That's a cost-per-user of $1429.

Ouch. Not unsurprisingly, three days ago they announced that it's a goner.

Richard Garriott, meanwhile, has left the company AND flogged all his shares in NCSoft, making himself another small fortune.

Garriott unloaded all of his remaining 390,000 plus shares in NCsoft between February and August this year, earning him more than 17.8 billion won.

Don't spend it all in space, Richard, you nut-nut.

UPDATE: While we're on that chart, it's not looking good for either Vanguard: Saga of Heroes (oh god that name!) at 40,000 subs or Dungeons and Dragons Online at 45,000. Oof. Dofus and Eve are doing just fine, in contrast.

This Gaming Life

While I was on holiday, I got to read Jim Rossignol's This Gaming Life , and I really enjoyed it. It's a personal hike through PC gaming and game journalism land, and even if you're a gameblog-reading obsessive (what, us?) and recognise a lot of the stories in there, it's nevertheless an often gently-wry, information-rich read. Plus I got to read it in a hammock.

There's a solid amount of story in there too on Eve Online, a game I've never played, and a game I never realised was quite so fascinating-sounding. I don't suppose I'll ever get to play it - Licky King is out, and my stack of unplayed 360 games is teetering around 9 high - but boy did I want to on putting the book down.

Good work, Mr R! Worth pointing out too that this is a really beautiful artifact of a book, in terms of the book build quality. Tactile. Quite rare these days, that.

YAGTP (Yet Another Gamer Tee Post)

I like this one a lot.

.. and this too is a bit of a classic. That's one way for the universe to end...

This one's a groaner:

Ba boom.

Imagine: Dream Weddings

Spotted this in Borders at the weekend en route to the new Bond movie (omg that MI6 database UI. What were they thinking).

They even give you a free MAGIC TUBE to vomit into when you've shelled out your thirty pounds for it!

It's amusing googling for Imagine Dream Weddings Review. Gamespot and Eurogamer - while listed as search results - haven't bothered uploading any data on the title (hardly their userbase, is it). Four reviews on Amazon.com, which can be summed up as, "wow, it's rubbish!". Ho hum.

Still, a magic tube. I've always wanted one of those. I think.

Obama as Okami

Elsa sent this in: a celebration of Obama in the style of Okami. And is that a Captain America shield on his back?? Oh that's so good.

Thanks Elsa!

While we're on Obama, we nabbed this little beauty in Houston on Hallowe'en:

The artist is Grayson Coffee.

LHC Scientist cosplay

Oh this is genius - way back when they were about to switch on the LHC (I attended an End Of The World breakfast with pals over the road at Silicon Roundabout), the Reddit wags sent The Scientists at the LHC a care package: a crowbar, a headcrab, a Half Life backstory and a note saying, get this to Gordon, he'll know what to do.

Additionally, we found a physicist there who understood the magnitude of this project -- she's also responsible for the Large Hadron Rap, a subversive way for young people to learn about particle physics without knowing it.

So the physicist lady went and dressed up her LHC minions, and took photos:

COULD THIS GET ANY BETTER.
Scientists are the coolest.

Also, wtf is that primo copper submersible in the background? Are they off to Rapture?

(via Kotaku)

Why did Google pull Lively after only 6 months?

Google's canned Lively already - and it seems like only yesterday they announced its launch. What a strange thing to do!

"I think there’s going to be a lot of speculation that ‘If Google couldn’t do it, it’s not a valid space.’ I kind of think that’s bunk," commented Reuben Steiger, CEO, Millions of Us, who had worked with Lively prior to its launch. 

"While we invested time and effort and energy into supporting it and making it successful, the takeaway is that building a consumer world and making it a success is harder than it looks.  My guess is that with a longer runway that could have been a success."

Indeed - half a year, and with the competition out there, isn't nearly long enough to know either way whether a project is a success or not. So why did they kill it so early on? They're not telling Virtual Worlds News - who have pinged them on it - so it's over to speculation only at this stage.

I'm guessing it's because VWs or 3D playspaces are not a core way to earn advertising bux yet (and maybe for a while), and unlike startups - who could some day hope to sell to Google or Disney or someone else enormous - Google can't really position it as something to flog off in a few years to someone bigger. There isn't anyone bigger.

UPDATE: Yep - the blog says, Google's core business of search, ads and apps doesn't (somehow) stretch to virtual world apps. Guess it just wasn't going to make money fast enough.

R2D2 loo roll cover

Okay, I thought his humiliation was complete with the laundry basket, but no. Here's the artoo toilet roll cover.

Either you cry ... or you just buy it.