I cant believe no one had done this before, if you had asked me I’d sworn I’d seen this some years ago. A group of researchers from Colorado University took a group of Roombas, those cheap, charming and delightfully exploitable vacuuming robots, and turned them into a gigantic Pac-Man game, complete with user controlled Pac-Man, Furtive ghosts and many, many dots.

Now how about someone sets one of these lose in the highway for a quick game of Roomba Frogger?

[Gizmodo]

We’ve seen lots of people do their own renditions of Videogame themes but it’s much more rare to see someone do a remarkable anime music performance. Much more remarkable is it when it’s a whole marching band performing an anime theme!

Such is the case with Towson University’s TIGER Marching Band and their rendition of Cowboy Bebop’s Tank! a couple of weeks ago. You can almost imagine the geek fervor it must have taken to get the whole band to go along with it. It’s an arrangement for marching band so there are subtle differences with the original theme but this is something we definitely want to see more of!

You know, some people complain about the tackiness of some of the tombstones in cemeteries, others seem to pretty much compete to have their loved ones’ tombs with the biggest, most obnoxious tombstone they can buy. I think this here is the only way to piss off everyone, lover or hater, from beyond the grave: a 10 ton stone Gundam.

Made out of stone by a stone sculptor in Japan’s Shiga Prefecture, this 4 meter stone Gundam statue is sure to piss off the haters as it will probably be the tackiest thing a cemetery would see. It would also piss off those who love them since there’s way they’ll be able to top this. Nothing short of a mausoleum that looks like the Space Battleship Yamato could trump it. Needless to say, this is yet another mecha replica that does not move.

[Japan Probe]

8-Bit Trip is a music stop-motion video of all the glory of the 8-bit era made almost completely out of Lego sculptures. It’s mind-bending in its animation, tremendously witty in its detail and just plain lovely. The work of only 3 people and 1500 hours of labor. Fifteen-hundred hours is way too much time even by geek standards. File this under ‘beyond the call of geek duty’. Simply awesome.

The Mushroom Kingdom has been an analogy for many things, the process of maturity, the hero’s journey and even a communist allegory. What with Mario being a plumber, a member of the proletariat, overthrowing the evil regime and all. But Nazi Germany is one of those to which its rarely compared. The folks at Gamervision took it upon themselves to fix that by making this spoof trailer of Inglorious Basterds based on the Mushroom Kingdom.

Inglorious Plummers turns out masterfully done and Toadsworth’s performance leaves me wanting more every time. This could have very well been the intro to Super Mario Bros. 2, it certainly would have added a lot of depth to the game.

Above, the smelting of Sonic’s rings, part of a collection for France’s Amusement Magazine shot by Marc Da Cunha Lopes. It takes the concept of Videogames Industry a bit too literally. The 5 piece gallery shows the makings of such things as Arkanoid’s blocks, Mario’s mushrooms and coin boxes and the Tetris blocks. If anything this goes to show how amazingly unrealistic these games were, you know, in case looking at a plumber shoot fire from his hands didn’t tip you off in the first place.

[Amusement / Via Offworld]

While an actual Mario mushroom can make you go crazy and jump down buildings, there’s still hope for your dreams of eating the iconic fungus. Ana The Red, an american bento expert, teaches us how to make this awesome mushroom replica out of a radish and some seaweed. If you want to make a 1-UP mushroom and wait until the radish turns green before cutting it… you might end up subtracting a life rather than adding one after you eat it.

[Ana The Red / Via Offworld]

One man’s garbage is another man’s… scenery. Some Russian Fallout fans have taken advantage of what they had and turned the post-communism into post-apocalyptic. Using the ruins and debris of decades past these fans went all out for a Fallout 3 photo-shoot complete with some… equally resourceful costumes.

Never mind that the Brotherhood of Steel looks a bit under the weather or that the Scribes look dorkier than they are, some of these photos are absolutely stunning. Goes to show how much the surroundings affect a good cosplay project. On some of those shots you could just see a super mutant coming out behind a corner. I’m a bit let down though, no Vault jumpsuits?

[English Russia]

Ever wanted to know why Samus is named like that? Turns out its a celtic form of James. Chrono Trigger’s Ayla? Most likely a reference to a 1980’s novel called Clan of the Cave Bear. These and many other secret stories and theories behind the names of game characters are dissected by word geek Drew Mackie in his blog. Drew dives into the sea of odd japanese translations and obscure etymology plaguing the names of your favorite characters… and also a bunch of auxiliary characters you never paid much attention to.

His article, which spans nearly 40 different game franchises, is filled with references and citations that add more back-story to these characters than you ever wanted. It’s a fantastic read, specially for oldschool gaming veterans.

[Back Of The Cereal Box /  Via Offworld]

The Sims 3 came out and so its time to share my latest obsession, Alice and Kev. For the past 5 days I’ve been religiously following the adventures of these two homeless Sims under the mercy of Robin Burkinshaw, a game design student. The game’s character traits and interaction coupled with Robin’s storytelling are addictive, compelling and even inspiring at some point.

I definitely recommend you check it out, and if you are a recovering Maxis-slave this is like the perfect nicotine patch. It certainly has prevented me from installing The Sims 3 and wasting 16 continuous hours on it setting up a ridiculous experiment in playing god only to lose interest two weeks later. Which is what I always do whenever a significant upgrade to The Sims comes around. All things considered I think I come out winning!

Oh who am I kidding I’ll end up playing with the virtual dollhouse in the end anyway.

[Alice and Kev]