Now you can own the World’s Largest Lite-Brite.

Just stumbled across this while digging around on ebay:

World’s Largest Lite-Brite -DaVinci’s “The Last Supper”

The pegged image itself measures approximately 4′9″ tall by 9′9″ wide and is comprised of exactly 124,418 brand new, original Lite-Brite pegs. After running out of clear/white pegs from my initial bulk peg order from Hasbro, I had to buy out the entire Lite-Brite stock of every Toys-R-Us, Wal*Mart, and Target in a 15 mile radius several times over just to replenish the shortage of pegs in that color.

An actual Lite-Brite toy has a black background which utilizes blank spaces as “black”, but does not have actual black pegs. For artistic and Guinness certification purposes, I was unable to leave blank spaces. What to do? Unused pegs were painted black with several layers of a special glossy paint made specifically for plastics. The result is a strong-bonded paint that doesn’t chip or flake in the slightest.

The pegs are fixed to the “canvas” with 8 layers of glue. Not just any glue, but non-fogging cyano-acrylate (the most expensive and hard-to-find of the super glues). This non-fogging glue was chosen for its unequaled bonding strength and the fact that it wouldn’t discolor the pegs, inhibiting light transmission.

Buy it now for $5000.

link love 10-16-08

Two link loves in a row without a content post? Oh hell! To top it off, I forgot that today was recycling day, and the bins are full! Oh hell!

schild’s interview with Raph Koster is up, covering subscriptions, Metaplace, and fun. I still have problems reading the word ‘metaplace’ correctly.

Start to Finish: Publishing a Commercial iPhone Game.

IndieGames insightfully reviews 2D Boy’s World of Goo. I think I’m gonna get the Wii version.

Lux Touch is a free Risk-like game for the iPhone. Fun to play, definitely worth downloading, but not much in the way of options (that’s all coming in the later pay version). For me, Risk and Apple have always gone together; we played the hell out of Risk Deluxe on the SE back in school.

link love 10-08-08

A Wii Ware Cave Story makes me very happy, because a) it’s a wonderful game, and b) I’ll have a reason to turn on the Wii again. More details here.

Danc’s Rules of Productivity. Good stuff as usual from Lost Garden.

Here’s a tiny pinch of TR2N info from AICN. You know those Star Wars geeks that lined up for Phantom Menace like two weeks before the movie started? Yeah, I’d be that guy with this one, if it weren’t for the whole job thing.

Guinsoo, the creator of DotA-Allstars, is entering the commercial game arena with League of Legends. This is gonna be huge.

S&D’s Ultimate Arcade

Update 11-11-08: Well hell, looks like this place is already closed, everything but the pins and air hockey tables was cleared out, without any sort of notice on the door. Anyone have the scoop?

Here are some shots of S&D’s Ultimate Arcade, the first independent arcade to open locally in years, and the first 24 hour arcade since Mary K’s back in the day. The arcade is at 5597 S Rainbow, near Russell Rd, and shares a strip mall with the Moto Cafe and Living Dead Tattoo.

Update 11-11-08: Well hell, looks like this place is already closed, everything but the pins and air hockey tables was cleared out, without any sort of notice on the door. Anyone have the scoop?

The game selection is somewhat limited (they just opened Oct 1st), but Dov, who runs the arcade with his wife Sabine, is working with local operators to fill the place up. As it stands, the highlight is currently the selection of new Stern pins, including Spiderman, Indiana Jones, and The Dark Knight.

While I’m still rooting for someone to open a barcade-like establishment here in town, it’s nice to see businesses like this cropping up.

Finished: Beyond Good and Evil

“The war has arrived at the gates of Hillys!”

Prior to finally completing it last month, I’d attempted and then abandoned Beyond Good & Evil at least three or four times.

While the game is a bit slow to start (after the spectacular introductory sequence), the lack of a full playthrough was simply the result of my falling prey to a constant barrage of newer and shinier things. I’m not particularly known for my discipline.

But this time, this time, bolstered by both age and a sense of duty, I finally beat the damn thing.

Visually, Beyond Good and Evil holds up very well, particularly when played in progressive mode on a PS2 or PS3, and Christophe Heral’s score (he’ll be returning for the upcoming sequel) is considered to be among the best of the previous generation.

The game plays a bit like a stealth Zelda, with a hub-like overworld and a smattering of dungeon crawls, physical puzzles, and platforming segments. The photography and reporting aspects were my favorite part of the game, and I hope they lean heavily on those elements for the sequel.

Things seemed to wrap up a bit too quickly at the end, but I did enjoy the story, and found myself genuinely caring for the primary characters and their crusade.

With the second installment on its way, pick up and play BG&E if you haven’t. It’s available on Windows and all three of the last gen platforms, and can easily be had for less than ten bucks.

Plus/Minus:
+ Game starts off with a bang, throwing me immediately into a boss fight.
+ The button displays in the top left corner show relevant commands and are shaped and positioned like the buttons on the controller (varying per system). Yeah, everyone is into minimal UI these days, but this was really helpful.
+ The circular repeat-scrolling number/letter entry system is great! Much better than an onscreen keypad when using an analog device. I’m so stealing this.
+ After dying, the game sends you immediately back into play at the last (invisible) checkpoint. No loading saves, etc.
+ In-game hints from supporting characters were a nice touch. I rarely felt directionless or unable to progress.

- Being forced to select the language every single time I booted the game.
- The camera! The camera in interior spaces! Argh don’t do that!

? The final boss. I’m undecided, was it genius or really annoying? I was frustrated until I realized that holding the controller backwards was the secret, and then I felt brilliant for figuring it out. Still, how many players will just quit during the feeling frustrated part?

Final grade: A-

link love 09-28-08

This one is everywhere, but just in case: inside a North Korean arcade. For a bit of contrast, see inside a South Korean arcade.

FEIST, a Mac OS X platformer by Florian Faller and Adrian Stutz. More (including beta download info) at IndieGames.

Parallel Kingdom is probably the one upcoming title I’m most looking forward to on the iPhone. touchArcade has a brief overview.

Michael Moore’s new film, Slacker Uprising, has been released as a free download.

Arcade Trailer Raid, Day 2.

It begins.

Here’s where the bulk of the games were located. The facility is one of those places on the edge of town where they rent out shipping containers and trailers; the containers were stacked everywhere, with trailers lined up behind them. Looked like a level out of Rainbow Six or something. Every now and then, F-15s and F-16s from Nellis would scream right over us, close enough to read the numbers.

I wasn’t forward-thinking enough to bring sunscreen, but thankfully the worst of the summer heat had already passed; the temperature was a comparably balmy mid-90 degrees or so.

Okay, pictures!

Thank God for the forklift.

Ray takes a ride while the seller drives. Loose gravel added excitement to the day, as every now and then the forklift would spin out or get stuck, scaring the hell out of whoever was stabilizing the load.

There was a nice selection of laser disc games, all in decent shape. M.A.C.H. 3, an upright and cockpit Interstellar Laser Fantasy, and an Astron Belt cockpit. Additionally, we pulled out an upright and cockpit Firefox, both of which the seller unfortunately kept.

Two Star Trek cockpits. One went to Pete, one back home with Ray. Behind em to the left is the Firefox cockpit.

Here’s the upright Interstellar, and the only cabinet I personally claimed from the day.

Mappys! Adam Isgreen is now the proud owner of the one on the right.

Two Turket Shoots. What a strange collection of games in this trailer.

Ray poses with the loot.

And finally…

That’s not a farmer’s tan, that’s dirt.

Okay you can stop checking out my feet now. Here’s the final tally:

Games I’m keeping
I, Robot (Choplifter converted)
Interstellar Laser Fantasy
Xevious
Neo Geo MVS-2-13 cabaret & a 6slot mobo

Games I’m cleaning up to sell
Zombie Raid
Paperboy
Super Monaco GP
Nintendo VS Dualsystem upright (Super Mario & Dr. Mario)

Arcade Trailer Raid, Day 1.

This year I decided to focus most of my game-playing time on classics, great games of previous generations that for one reason or another I’d missed.

Last weekend I took that to its extreme.

There are two things every arcade game nerd should do: attend an auction, and participate in a warehouse raid, the finding of an old stash of arcade cabinets, usually belonging to a former operator, and the retrieval adventure that follows. Visiting an auction is something one can plan, but warehouse raids requires luck, timing, and persistence. Fortunately, I stumbled across someone who had all three, and I got to ride along.

It begins.

The cabinets were split up between two places, which made for a bit of a logistics puzzle. The smaller lot was a group of about a 10-15 cabinets in storage units, so we took care of those during the evening and night of the first day.

Out of this group, Ray (the one who got this whole thing rolling) took home a Star Wars cockpit, Q-bert, Ms Pac-Man, Mappy, Track n Field cocktail, Make Trax, the Pole Position cockpit, and a handful of others. There was also a Road Riot 2-player cockpit that a former coworker came by to pick up the next day.

I took home a Xevious, the Neo MVS-2-13, and a Choplifter-in-an-I, Robot (missing the hall effect stick and boards, unfortunately). A Zombie Raid, Paperboy, Nintendo VS (Super Mario and Dr Mario), and Super Monaco GP are also in my garage waiting to be cleaned up and sold.

After a bit of cleaning and rebuilding the guns, this Zombie Raid turned out to be in beautiful shape. A few cosmetic blemishes, but the guns work great and the monitor is bright and clear:

I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned it, but I am a very tall person.

Day two tomorrow.

Liberty Belle in Las Vegas

The Liberty Belle B-17 bomber is at the North Las Vegas Airport this weekend:

There’s no need for a time machine this weekend - just make your way to the North Las Vegas Airport and you’ll set yourself back about 60 years.

The B-17 Bomber, named “Liberty Bell,” is visiting Las Vegas for the weekend and giving valley residents a unique opportunity to physically touch and see an airplane once used for combat during World War II.

There were originally 12,000 of these airplanes, but now only 14 remain.

Tour flights will be held this weekend - however, they will cost you $438 for a 30-minute flight.

The flights are pricey, so the crew does allow spectators to walk inside the grounded airplane before the first and after the last flight of the day for free of charge.

Saw her sitting on the runway this morning as we drove out towards Nellis to load up the arcade cabinets. Beautiful airplane, hopefully I’ll have time to go by before they fly out.

link love 09-17-08

This is from last month, but just in case you missed it like I did (hey, I’ve got a lot of feeds to keep up with), RPS put up a three part interview with Ragnar Tørnquist, mostly covering storytelling.

THE XBOX 360 “LIFESTYLE” EXPOSED

NFGcontrols, a new site about video game controllers.

Dubai retailers have unearthed 100 factory-sealed Virtual Boys. Poor souls.