If you're new here and you like what you see, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed, and browse around for more fun stuff. Thanks for visiting!

I kid you not dear reader, Christie’s auctioned an authentic glass D20 used by the Romans as a gaming die. This dodecahedron (twenty-sided) dice was acquired in Egypt during the 1920’s. Now this is where it gets interesting, scholars have yet to find out what the hell did the romans play with these things.

So an artifact used by modern geek gaming is found to have been used in ancient times, its found in Egypt and we have no idea what exactly it was for. Ladies and gentlemen, I think we are living in a bad Yu-Gi-Oh sequel. Not that there’s a good sequel anyway.

That’s it, if some white-haired rich guy bought this and starts some sort of global Dungeons and Dragons tournament I’m quitting this life while I’m ahead. I wouldn’t want to be here when it hits a second season.

[Christie's]

Earlier today Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons and father of RPGs died of heart failure, he is survived by many sons, grandsons and legions of adoring fans, he was 69.

Today the world lost a great man, he was responsible for the birth of RPGs, from DnD to the latest Final Fantasy or Tales game. MMORPGs would not be if it were not for the boundless imagination of Gary Gygax. He was a kind man who loved games and loved what people made of games and even more, what games made of people.

“It really meant a lot to him to hear from people from over the years about how he helped them become a doctor, a lawyer, a policeman, what he gave them,” His wife, Gail Gygax said. “He really enjoyed that.”

It would be an understatement to say that he has been an influence in our lives, this man is an cultural icon who’s touched millions of lives. His passion for games is something that now more than ever should inspire us to pursue our own passions. On the subject of death he once said:

“I would like the world to remember me as the guy who really enjoyed playing games and sharing his knowledge and his fun pastimes with everybody else.”

And that we will good sir, and that we will. I will be playing some RPGs this following days in his honor. Let us celebrate the fruits of his passion, this true god of gaming shows us that even deities sometimes fail a saving roll. Rest in peace Gary, we geeks of the world salute you!

[Star Tribune]

Students of Denmark’s IT University of Copenhagen recently threw a Mario-themed night at Scrollbar, their local bar. Many of them being Video Game majors they went as far as to create 10 drinks based off the Mario universe. Some of them cocktails, others shots but all of them look pretty cool, like the Bowser cocktail pictured above of which they say:

Bowser

Fiery red-yellow gradient drink… with some bite!
2 cl Tequila
1 cl Coin-treau
5 cl Orange juice
1 cl Grenadine

Directions:
Stir first three ingredients, then drop in Grenadine for the gradient effect. Serve with ice in tall glass.

Garnish:
Blood orange wedge

Notes:
Modified ‘Tequila Sunrise’ - the Cointreau adds a nice twist.

Do geeks know how to party or what? Check out the link of their whole menu, see more pictures of the event and even download some stencils to make your own Mario decorations.

[Scrollbar]

Despite there having been Wii modchips for quite a while it by no means unlocked the full potential of the Wii but a couple of days ago at the 24th Chaos Communication Congress, a delightful meeting of hackers and other hardcore tinkerers, Michael Steil and Felix Domke demonstrated the work they had been doing with the Wii as you can see in the video above.

Beyond the technical mumbo-jumbo they were able to extract the security keys for running code on the Wii and therefore enabled the user to run homebrew software on the console. Although at the most basic level of development right now this means that free Wii homebrew is now a reality and might render better fruits before Nintendo’s WiiWare does. As of now the most popular console on the market is wide open and now anything is possible.

• Did you want to use a hard drive through your USB port? Now its possible.
• Did you want to turn your Wii into a media center? Now its possible.
• Geek enough to want Linux on your Wii? Now its possible.
• Wanted to play old GCN games with your wiimote? Now its possible.
• Wanted to synch your Wii to your PC? Now its possible.
• Dreamed of some hot Wii on DS action? Now its possible.

While this is old news for other consoles the Wii enjoys massive user base and its hardware is cheap making hackers and would-be coders more likely to work on projects. Remember when the iPod was finally cracked? Well this is pretty much that all over again. Just give it some months folks, things are about to get fun.

Panasonic recently released a promo for GLOBALRANGE, their new line of IP phones, produced by Gonzo (Hellsing, Gankutsuou, Trinity Blood). You can watch it in english on Panasonic’s GLOBALRANGE website. Its filled with so much feel good that you will either be crying or laughing at the cliches. Im serious, it contains a baby having his first steps, a father-son bonding moment, grandparents hearing their grandchild for the first time, and even a man oogling babes in Brazil. Its like  GLOBALRANGE fixes all of your life’s problems! Very subtle, Gonzo, very subtle. From vampires and gothic neo-victorian kickass stories to selling phones to good ol’ mom and pop.

Go watch it now, if you dont suddenly get an epiphany about IP phones, then at least you are guaranteed a good laugh.

[Panasonic GLOBALRANGE / Via ANN]

Oh Japan, when will you accept you are but a pawn of the Sanrio corporation? This is the latest in the neverending list of Hello Kitty products, a Nec LaVie Laptop sporting The Mouthless One covered by really expensive Swarovski crystals. This little baby will set you back ¥199,500, or roughly $1600 USD, perfect for that geek girl in your life, you know, the kind that stays up until 3 a.m. coding or searching for that one rare doujinshi. Which that girl in the picture seems to do, she could use some sleep.

[Engadget]

The good folks over at overtime comedy have made a list of The 5 Most Infamous Video Game Doctors Ever, where, you guessed right, list some of the baddest doctors in the industry. This includes of course my personal favorite, Dr. Wily at #2. What can you say about a Doctor that not only managed to create a bunch of badass robots over the years, but also give the kickass stage music that became part of the legacy of classic game music! Go check out the rest of the list before someone calls malpractice.

P.S.: Tuesday-tans takes a second week off as we are preparing to release awesome into the tubes, check back soon.

[Overtime Comedy]

The gaming industry is an amazing one, it gets away with things that wouldn’t fly on any other industry, the kind of stuff that gave the dot com industry a bad rep. Like this fantastic Nautilus-inspired Steampunk office space that Three Rings Designs, maker of online games including one with Steampunk cowboys, commissioned.

Its pretty badass, it even has a plush attacking octopus couch and a secret lair. If you are going to work making fantasy worlds, might as well be working in one!

[Wired]

Oh it seems the old soviet motherland wasnt all about communist glory and shunning everything the western devils did. Oh no, they were living the life, they even had arcades! As this Wired article points out, soviet video games were developed by the military for “entertainment and active leisure, as well as the development of visual-estimation abilities.” So, yeah, in the end even the arcades were a means turn their youth into super soviet soldiers (which is probably the name of one of the arcades!)

And while some were original models most of them were reversed engineered from the very first Japanese models. One difference with their western coutnerparts, though, was that highscores were non-existant. Why? Well as Alexander Stakhanov, one of the founders of the first Museum of Soviet Arcade Machines, said “That kind of competition wasn’t encouraged,if you got enough points you won a free game, but there was no ‘high score’ culture as in the West.”

And that, kids, is why they lost the cold war.

P.S. Sorry for the very very lame joke on the title.

[Wired]

Patrick Macias, our favorite Otaku conossieur, has been posting some really kickass old school console ads on his blog An Eternal Thought in the Mind of Godzilla, most of these are consoles you most likely dont even know existed! Its a great way to look back into our roots and see how much we’ve changed and yet how much has stayed the same.

I still wear my supper puffy blue sweater when I play a baseball videogame, why its the core of the genre!

[Patrick Macias]

This week’s Tuesday-tans features the much beloved otaku mascot of the Firefox browser, Firefox-tan (or Firefox-ko as she’s also known). Firefox-tan is as close to official as you can get, she’s known by a big part of the firefox community worldwide and she played a big part on Mozilla’s  strategy in Japan.

She comes in many shapes and sizes, from the cute chibi character to the loli and even to more mature and uh… furry versions. Firefox-tan doesnt have a standard outfit so you can see here in way too many presentations, also she has no apearance features that reflect the features of the browser. Although if you ask me I’d tell you she’s probably futanari and even a tentacle monster, you know, with so many extentions and whatnot. Enjoy the gallery and I’ll see you next week for a very, very special edition of Tuesday-tans!

General geek holiday update. Today,as you have surely heard everywhere else, is Star Wars 30th anniversary, so you will see storm troopers and wookies everywhere all day long. However, you should also be on the lookout for fellow froods who know where their towels are; for today is Towel Day! A holiday to celebrate Douglas Adams and well, simply practice carrying your towel everywhere for good measure. Consider yourselves noticed.

Dark Diamond reader SechoDB, sick of having to play Street Fighter II on his Xbox 360 controller and allegedly inspired by this post, set out to create his very own arcade stick setup. While this concept is nothing new his final product looks much better than the rest, plus it has glowing LEDs, ’nuff said.

SechoDB’s Xbox 360 was having red ring of death episodes so in the time it took to make its trip to and from Microsoft he worked on this project. A whole 8 days of hard work and electronic voodoo the thing was done, complete with a Street Fighter decal and the Gears of War logo on the back, just in time for his 360 to arrive at his door. You can read about the entire process in his blog and here’s a video of the stick in all its glory.

SechoDB, we salute you! Sitting on your ass all day bitching about a shortcoming is below you and you proved it. You took action and made things better. For that your Street Fighter 360 arcade stick earns the DDN Seal of Approval, which means and does nothing but you made me feel like creating something and a crappy seal is as far as I’ll go. Now for the rest of us its back to sitting on our asses and complaining, again.

Two anime industry software developers in Japan have teamed up to create a new voice synthesis software that can realistically create character dialogue. Namely Animo and Celsys (the guys behind the trippy patterns used in Gankutsuou), just announced this venture which will very likely become the apple of discord in the industry.

On one side it can reduce one of the greatest expenses in anime creation, no not the underpaid artists drawing without sleep to meet deadlines, but the voice acting. It could effectively open up the industry for the hundreds of independent creative groups in Japan. It could also become a great tool for video games such as interactive novels (of which Hentai games are a usually a branch of) and other dialogue-heave genres.

On the other hand its not likely that, however successful this software will be, it will never manage to capture the small nuances and inflections of an actual voice actor. Personally? I’m all for it! This is a critical advancement specially in the gaming field and we’ve got to start somewhere. So long as it sounds more realistic than my answering machine I’m sold.

[ANN]

www.GameCareerGuide.com, the new site that was launched to help and direct many of the individuals who want to get into the meat of the gaming industry, including college ideas, and a forum with peer support and a community that can help each other get farther into their careers. If you are contemplating getting into game making as your main choice for higher education, this will probably be your holy grail.

The creator of the site, Marc Mencher of GameRecruiter.com, has an extensive history, including working with 3DO, and Microprose, (two very excellent gaming companies, that made great games, Heroes of Might and Magic, and Transport Tycoon come to mind.) and has even written a book entitled “Get In the Game!” Along with being the curriculum guide to many gaming universities, this man is probably going to be your best friend for years to come.

[GameSetWatch]

You like anime, video games, Japan, music and whatnot; you also have a good amount of time you're not wasting, here at Dark Diamond we've got you covered! Everything for the Gamer and the Otaku, welcome Home.

Got tips? Want to get in touch with us? Email us at tips@darkdiamond.net

Subscribe to our RSS Feed!

Or get Dark Diamond directly in your email!

• Video-Games
• Japan
• Nintendo
• otaku
• Anime
• geek
• Wii
• video
• WTF
• Videogames
• Music
• Retro
• PS3
• humor
• Gaming-Industry
• Manga
• PC
• DS
• Xbox-360
• Cosplay