This is absolutely awesome:

I should get a wiimote….

Tags: Gaming, Wii, Wiimote

Tal just triggered a burst of nostalgia when he posted a link to Day of the Tentacle’s, my all-time favorite game, intros.

If you haven’t played the game, or worse, don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, you’re missing out on the best games ever produced. You don’t this kind of quality anymore… sad…
I’ve already voiced my opinion about abandonwares before and getting back to that post, I really wonder how this game would look&feel on a new platform like the iPhone.
Any iPhone owner up for shooting a quick video? Yossi (could be a topic for your show ;)) ? Please…

Day of the Tentacle Intro - Part1:

Day of the Tentacle Intro - Part2:

Don’t these two videos just make you want to download ScummVM and play?

Tags: Adventure Games, Gaming, Humor

Mass Effect, a new RPG developed by BioWare and published by Microsoft Games , was released to store in the US today.

“Mass Effect” combines a deep story with intense, sci-fi tactical combat. Through high-definition graphics and an amazingly realistic and innovative conversation system that allows for lifelike interaction with the voices of scores of digital actors such as of Seth Green, Marina Sirtis and Lance Henriksen, “Mass Effect” provides an immersive gameplay experience never seen before in a video game.

I just came back from the Microsoft Store where I saw this game was selling like hot cookies. More than 3 shelves got cleared in less than 30 minutes…

If you want to know more check out the following links:

• You can read the full press release here.
• Wondering how good it is? it has currently received 4 perfect scores out of 17 reviews on Gamerankings.com and over half of the reviews are 95% or above.
• The game’s home at xbox.com: http://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/m/masseffect/

I can’t wait to get my own XBOX360 already…

Tags: BioWare, Gaming, Mass Effect, Microsoft Games, Xbox

Yesterday saw the release of the new MAME 0.120, the Multi-Arcade Machine Emulator. If you’re using Windows, you’ll find MAME32, the Windows port for MAME more to your liking (The following FAQ describes the difference)

When I noticed this new milestone, on top of the fact that the XBOX360 arcade at the Microsoft Visitors Center reminded me of how much I miss these oldies (especially Street Fighter II) I just had to get some games working on my laptop.

Quick steps for getting arcade games to run on your machine:

1. Download and extract MAME32
2. Get some games (ROMs)
   • I found what I was looking for at http://www.rom-world.com
   • The MAME FAQ specifies the following legal options:
     

     (1) Search for auctions (on eBay for example) of the actual arcade circuit boards, and buy a ROM reader device to copy the ROM chips’ contents into files.

     (2) Buy the HotRod Joystick control panel. It is bundled with a CD that includes MAME and a few 100% legal Capcom ROMs. Hanaho also sells the ArcadePC cabinet with a different selection of legal Capcom ROMs.

     (3) Buy legal Atari arcade game ROMs from StarROMs for prices varying between $2.00 and $6.00. You can even get one free game for signing up!

     (4) There are also three free ROM sets available right on the official MAME site, in the miscellaneous downloads page.

3. Start MAME32 and browse to the game you’ve downloaded. Check the directory name (on the Directory column) and copy the game to a sub-folder with that name under the roms folder.
4. Double-click to run the game…

Now how about taking you arcade experience to the next level?

After a short search on the net I found GameEx which is a graphical front-end for MAME (and a bunch of other emulators) that integrates with Windows Media Center allowing you to simply browse and launch your game your game directly from your Media Center interface.

And not to complete the experience arcade joysticks. A company called XGaming is selling a Two-Player Arcade Joystick for about 130$. There are also XBox 360 arcade joysticks available out there that can be used with a PC using a proper adapter.

So it turns out that I can upgrade my Home Theater PC to a full fledged arcade machine that would kick XBox360 Arcade’s ass in about 150$ (15$ for GameEx and ~130$ for joysticks)

Should be an interesting project to get this thing running once I get back to Israel…

Tags: Arcade, Gaming, MAME, Media Center