Left Turn at Albuquerque

Apparently Mario & Luigi AKA the Mario brothers are done saving the princess and have decided to open up competing take-out joints in Manchester, United Kingdom. On top of the names, the colors of the stores are also the same of the Nintendo characters. Mario typically wears red and Luigi wears green while stomping on Koopa Troopas. Almost too many similarities for this to be a coincidence. Coming soon: Toad’s Tavern.

More @ Google Maps.

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It’s been 10 years since the PlayStation 2 first came out in Japan. It is the best-selling console of all time, having reached over 140 million units sold as of September 30, 2009. New games are still being released on the system later in 2010. Kotaku made a nice little timeline of the PS2 history.

More @ Kotaku.

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Although the release date is still unknown, Tecmo is soon to be coming out with a remake of Tecmo Bowl available for download on PSN and XBOX Live. Hopefully the gameplay will be as addictive as it was for the NES and SNES versions of the games released years ago.

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Back in late 1987 Bandai released Stadium Events, a game part of the Family Fun Fitness series. Early the next year Nintendo bought the right to the series and re-released it as the the Power Pad. The two Family Fun Fitness-branded games that had already been released, as well as Bandai’s version of the running pad accessory, were pulled from shelves and destroyed due to Nintendo’s new Power Pad brand. In that time period there are believed to have been only 2000 copies of Stadium Events created and out of those only 200 sold to the public. Stadium Events is possibly the rarest game for the system that turned around the home console video game industry in the late 80’s which has been booming ever since.

Recently an Ebay auction popped up featuring a serious video game collectors dream, a sealed copy of Stadium Events. A copy of the game with the box included can go for over $10,000 but a factory sealed copy which was thought to not exist just sold for $41,300 in an Ebay auction.

Here are the words of the seller:

This was bought over 20 years ago so my memories are fuzzy (we have over 175 games – which, btw will be going up for auction in the coming months - all with boxes! – some unopened).  What I remember is that we bought it thinking that we could play it by itself and then realized that we needed the pad (?).  Somewhere in there it was recalled so the pads weren’t available when we went to purchase it.  We never got around to returning the game…lucky us!

More @ ebay & Wikipedia.

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To celebrate Missile Command’s 30th anniversary, Atari has released a remixed version of the game for the web. The website says it best: Chock full of power ups, tricky enemies and intense boss battles, Missile Command by OMGPOP has the makings of a modern classic. This game actually has some amazing control with your mouse or laptop trackpad. You can play the OMGPOP updated version of the game or the original Missile Command.

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Send the hit game Peggle Nights to a friend or relative — absolutely free! All you need to do is sign up for the PopCap Passport, your first-class ticket to fun! You will also receive exclusive offers, game previews, contests and more! Peggle Nights is a very fun, addicting game that usually costs $20. Not sure how long this offer is good for so you may want to act now.

More @ PopCap Games.

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Across the country stores are misrepresenting our favorite video game characters by using them as part of their marketing.

The Pawn Shop (ft. Mario) in Maryland:

The Fox Pizza (ft. MGS) in Liverpool:

Pallmall Smokeshop (ft. Sonic) in Russia:

More @ Kotaku.

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Capcom has announced that Street Fighter IV is headed to the iPhone later this year in March. The above picture is how many fans hope it would look on the iPhone but the truth is that the iPhone can’t pull off what the latest generation consoles can do. Another serious question gamers may have is how on earth can anyone pull off Street Fighter combo moves without a D-pad or buttons? With a virtual pad and buttons of course.

I think that instead of this virtual pad nonsense Capcom could have come up with a more creative solution. Look at what Konami did with metal Gear Solid Touch and what Sega did with Super Monkey Ball. It’s definitely possibly to create some unique controls on the iPhone without these silly virtual pads. With the iPhones built in motion sensor and multi-touch capabilities there are endless possibilities of how to pull of a great game.

More @ IGN.

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Glyde is a new, easier way to sell video games, cds, books and DVDs. Instead of using your own keywords while searching for media like on ebay, as you search with Glyde you will see a window below the search bar with all the things you can possibly be looking for. Instead of starting your bidding at a certain amount when selling your media, Glyde automatically lists how much it will cost buyers based on the curent demand for the media which is based on things like days since release, rarity and popularity.

Shipping the media with Glyde is easy. Glyde will send you a pre-paid envelope for you to put your game in and ship to the seller. When the transaction is complete Glyde will take 10% of the final value of the game. Using Glyde could save you a lot of money in the long run vs going to trade-in stores like Gamestop.

More @ Glyde.

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SCEA’s John Koller has revealed that after multiple 3D firmware updates this summer, PS3 will be able to play 3D games and movies.

3D is a major part of our initiatives in 2010 and we’re currently developing 3D stereoscopic games to come in conjunction with the launch of Sony’s 3D compatible BRAVIA LCD TV in summer 2010. The amazing thing about the PS3’s technology is that all PS3 units that exist in homes and markets will be able to play 3D stereoscopic games as well as 3D BD movies through separate firmware upgrades – something that other platforms are unable to do. We’ll be announcing actual game titles separately later, but we think that 3D stereoscopic gaming has a ton of potential, particularly in placing consumers within the actual experience.

More @ Pocket-lint.

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Back in 1988, Sunsoft came out with a game called Blaster Master for the NES that had some of the best music and graphics in a game for a home game console at the time. The game was controlled in two modes of gameplay, a basic 2-D display was used when the player controlled the car and a top-down perspective display was used at times when the player controlled the main character, Jason. The control was very solid. Over the years there were a few sequels that came out and Sunsoft just announced another one available for download on WiiWare. Although I have never played this game, I can tell from the video below that it very much resembles the original, complete with similar, amazing music.

More @ Sunsoft.

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Sonic The Hedgehog 3 came out over 15 years ago. There have been many additional Sonic games after Sonic 3 but none have been classified as a true sequel until now. Sonic 4 Episode 1 is due to come out this summer. By Episode 1 I take it Sega will be releasing multiple episodes of Sonic 4 to follow this. Although it’s not confirmed by Sega, the game may also be hitting the iPhone in addition to PSN, XBOX Live and WiiWare. The official website has hints all over it that there is an unannounced platform that the game will be released on. And with iPhone games selling so well lately, Sega would be crazy to pass up that market.

More @ sonicthehedgehog4.com.

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If you have some disposable income coming in and enjoy playing PS3 games you may want to check out the God of War III Ultimate Edition coming out in mid-March. The Ultimate Edition includes the following:

• High-End Sculpted Replica of Pandora’s Box
• Limited-Edition God of War Art Book featuring exclusive art, content and interviews
• God of War Combat Arena containing an exclusive environment and seven challenges
• Premium Kratos Skin – Dominus
• God of War: Unearthing the Legend Franchise Documentary – a full-length movie documentary depicting the history of the God of War franchise
• God of War Trilogy Soundtrack – God of War, II, and III scores from the game (mp3 digital download).
• God of War: Blood and Metal EP – a heavy metal homage featuring original music inspired by God of War (mp3 digital download).

More @ PlayStation Blog.

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To celebrate the PlayStation’s 15th anniversary, Sony designed a cool Flash site with a timeline of the PlayStation products over the past 15 years. The site can be navigated  by either the graphics on the top or the history timeline along the bottom of the site. Once you click on a particular console or portable device, information detailing that machine will pop up along with pictures and ads from when that console was on the market.

The site can be found here.

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There have been some pretty cool NES mods over the past few years but this one is one of the better ones I’ve seen. Here’s what the creator has to say about it:

“My nesP is basically a noname china brand portable media player, with the advantage of being able to play nes roms, and a nes controller hacked to the controls. First off the buttons on the original media player just sucked, they were so small and tight that my fingers could not easily push them. So I got the idea of modding a nes controller to it, that’s when I remembered about the above mentioned mod, and thought maybe I can cram this inside of a cartridge case with the controller. Well it worked perfect, it was like it was made to fit, I didn’t use any hot glue or anything other than some double sided tape to hold the battery in place. It’s a really tight fit though. It’s got 4gb built in memory, with a sd card slot in the inside so you could expand the memory if needed, and not only does it play nes games, but it also plays gameboy and gameboy color roms as well. 2.8” TFT LCD, built-in rechargeable lithium battery, Video player, MP3 player, FM radio, Picture viewer, Audio recorder, it’s got a camera and video camera (but I disabled them to fit in the case), built in speaker, and the best part… TV-OUT !!! so you can play on the big screen! The unit has 2 additional buttons on the front, ones power, and the other is used to navigate the main menu, basically it’s a ‘back’ button. And there is a small hole drilled in the back with a reset button behind it. The unit has 3 plug ins on the right side, AC power (to charge the battery) Mini USB (to put files on the thing) and the TV-OUT plug. I also spent some time and redid the images used for the main menu and the game selection screen.

Now last thing, this unit cost me a lot to finish, due to going through 3 game cases, 2 controllers, and 2 of the media player systems I used, so to recoup my loses, this thing is for sale. So if you’re interested drop me a PM. Thanks for looking.”

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