Man Invented Wii Remote Over 10 Years Ago

Jan. 16 7:27 PM by Lynxara

A lot of sources have incorrectly reported that Pat Goschy, who invented a controller remarkably like the Wii Remote while working for Midway, is either suing or planning to sue Nintendo for patent infringement. I can't blame them, isn't that what most people would do?

For various reasons, Goschy isn't going forward with a lawsuit, even though Nintendo's North American patent for the Wii Remote references his patents and he has prior art. For now, he only seems interested in telling his story to the world. Check out this Fox News Chicago (local news, not the 24 hour network) report that succinctly details what Mr. Goschy went through, and marvel at what dicks his bosses at Midway were.

Check below the cut to see the video that serves as Goschy's "prior art", showing his invention being used to play the Dreamcast title Ready to Rumble 2.

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Colors Gallery: Art Made in Homebrew DS Paint Program

Jan. 13 6:42 PM by Lynxara

sambrown36 by wesburt

sambrown36 by wesburt

Want to see some beautiful, 100% DS-generated artwork? Look no further than the Colors gallery, which showcases digital art created with the DS homebrew painting application of the same name. You need an R4 card to run it, but Colors is by itself completely worth the price of admission. The piece above is just one sample I found on the front page, but the gallery is absolutely loaded with more stuff.

Super Mario Doom: Mario Levels Re-Created in Doom Engine

Jan. 13 6:32 PM by Lynxara

Have you seen this Mario Doom thing that's floating around? You need to take a look at it if you haven't. It's an interesting collision between the needs of the traditional 8-bit platformer and the grandaddy of modern FPS gaming.

What's really interesting is that, unlike some other Mario-themed Doom mods, Mario Doom actually retains platforming elements and a definite sense of the level design that made the original Mario so distinct. The Mario Doom levels frequently aren't direct adaptations, but it's usually easy to tell how it's based on the original Super Mario Bros level.

For your viewing pleasure, vids made by the mod's creator are embedded behind the cut, showcasing the three mostly-complete levels. I tried to find DL info for the mod, but it doesn't seem to be complete or available for play yet. It's interesting to see how much more sophisticated the mod has become from the first level, which is fairly crude, to the third level, which is remarkably sophisticated. First person platforming shouldn't work, but this guy may be close to making it possible.

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Modder Transforms N64 into Portable

Jan. 8 6:49 PM by Lynxara

You have to love fan ingenuity. Although Techeblog doesn't name the modder behind this ingenious portable N64, their coverage of it is sweet. There's a full gallery of pics to check out at the link, and a video of the modded system running Super Smash Bros. Apparently the mod is literally nothing more than the internals of an n64 stuffed into the custom-made case with mounted LCD screen, although crafting it was probably much harder than it looks.

Fans Unofficially Porting StarCraft to Nintendo DS

Jan. 8 5:58 PM by Lynxara

Two French StarCraft fans (who are, wisely, staying mostly anonymous) have begun working on a Nintendo DS port of Blizzard's classic PC RTS title. They've gotten far enough in their work to have a rough but playable demo out, although you'll need something like an R4 SuperCard to play it.

This is, honestly, all we know about who's doing the port and why...

What do you get when you combine a big video game publisher not wanting to port over a game to other systems and a community containing homebrew developers? You get an unofficial port of that game.

Since no official plans were ever announced from Blizzard, two French homebrew developers have taken it upon themselves to create a port of the popular PC game, StarCraft, for the Nintendo DS, calling it StarLite. Because theyve only been working for three weeks, the game is a bit limiting right now and still needs a lot of work.

What's going to be really interesting is Blizzard's reaction to this.

Is Super Mario Galaxy Possible?

Jan. 8 5:40 PM by Lynxara

Video games are generally perceived as being fun. Science generally isn't, which means that everyone is wrong.

Science is fantastic. Video games are made of science! As if to prove this fundamental point, the mysterious writer who calls himself only as mcc at Mechanically Separated Meat sat down and did an entire post analyzing the physics at work in Super Mario Galaxy, and specifically, how possible the game's weird gravitational situations are. Here's a sample.

Meanwhile, Wikipedias formula for escape velocity for a planet ( sqrt( 2GM / r ) ) tells us that escape velocity from this planetoid will only be about:

sqrt((2 * G * (1.8043906 × (10^14) kilograms)) / (115 feet)) = 26.2110511 m / s

Which is about 60 MPH. So the cannon stars Mario uses in the video to move from planet to planet should work just fine. (Although platforms might not work so well, at least not tall ones; since the planetoid is so small, youd only have to get about 45 or 50 feet up off the ground before the amplitude of gravity is halved. ...)

Nintendy DIY: The Pokedrive

Jan. 6 12:44 PM by Lynxara

This may make the game collectors out there feel very squeamish, but hey, sometimes you've got to break open a cartridge to get something cool. From themadscientist101 comes this wonderful Flickr set depicting the transformation of a common Pokemon Red cart into a deviously cool-looking USB drive. The process seems fairly simple, and if you're not Pokemon fan, you could easily use the process to hack open any Game Boy or Game Boy Color cart you want.

How the Wii Balance Board Works

Jan. 4 2:24 PM by Lynxara

So this neat video has been floating around the 'net for a few days. It's an official Japanese video that explains, more or less, how the Wii Balance Board that comes packed-in with Nintendo's Wii Fit is able to translate your movements on the board into gameplay data.

I was curious about the obviously technical information the video is meant to reveal to the viewer and got our moonspeak expert KouAidou to whip up a summary of what the video is supposed to tell us. Check it out behind the cut if you're as curious as I was, and do bear in mind this isn't a proper direct translation-- just a breakdown of the interesting parts.

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How to Play the Wii in Your Car

Jan. 1 8:45 AM by Lynxara

Many vehicles these days have built-in entertainment systems to keep backseat passengers occupied. In theory, you can hook some gaming systems up to one. Kotaku's Brian Crecente tried it out and reported the results with the Wii.

Once the power was sorted out, getting the Wii plugged into the drop-down screen was a breeze. Right next to that rear seat power plug is a set of component plugs, so I plugged the console in and then threaded the cords to let me set the Wii up in between the driver and front passenger seats.

No problem, until I tried using the Sensor Bar.

Turns out that the drop down screen is just too close to the rear passenger seats to detect the remote, once you sit down and hold up your hand, the controller is just inches from the bar. After a little tinkering I discovered that the bar rests nicely between the arm rests of the front seat. To play you have to point about three feet below the television, but it works and you adjust surprisingly fast. I've got to say, it's pretty damn cool to play a new gaming system on the Interstate.

Morpheon Mods Creates Custom "Clerks" Wii for Kevin Smith

Dec. 29 12:49 PM by Lynxara

Morpheon Mods does some amazing work with casemods, and their latest project is pretty mind-blowing. This is an elaborate Clerks-themed custom Wii, intended for none other than Kevin Smith himself. By now he's probably gotten it open, so it's okay for us to look at the pictures and drool.
The Wii was painted using flat gray scale colors to match the black and white clerks characters. The stand features the main characters each back-lit with two "stage lights" that beam up to highlight the custom 3D Clerks logo. The opposite side has a specially back-lit logo of his production company. Finally, the controllers were painstakingly hand painted letter by letter to feature his name one controller and his most famous alter ego on the second. As a most respectful nod to his writing, the font was meant to look like one an old typewriter might use.
If you want more pics than you get from the Morpheon Mods slideshow, Gizmodo has a full gallery of pics up for your perusal.