Canvascape: browser based FPS?

Canvascape - 3D walker is a nifty script cooked up using the "canvas" function supported by Firefox 1.5 (on windows) and Safari 1.3 (mac). It doesn't do much, just walk around a very basic maze and jump, but its a really fantastic proof of concept that could easily be turned into any number of homebrew game ideas. And since its done in browser with no additional software needed (not even flash!), it could easily catch on with even the most casual gamers. Good work Mr. Joffe. I'll be watching your career with great interest...

$5 game of the week?! MechAssault 2: Lone Wolf

Found a brand new copy of MechAssault 2 (the collectors edition!) last night in a target clearance rack. it was $20 marked down to $14. When I took it to the register, it rang up for $5. I don't give a crap if its not as good as the first one, any game that doesn't feature a disney channel celebrity that I can get for $5 is awesome.

Throwback Thursday: Chrono Trigger

Chrono Trigger is commonly referred to by those who have played it as "possibly the greatest game of all time" I've never been a big RPG gamer. Still not. But I read this game had 10+ endings. Most of the games I like barely had stories, let alone endings for them to pay off in! Add in time travel and I couldn't turn this down, I had to play it! Crono is a boy who sets out to the fair one day to meet his friend Lucca, who is going to be showing off a new invention: a teleporter. Along the way he makes a new friend named Marle, who's pendant makes that teleporter go haywire and they all end up about 400 years in the past. While there, they meet a outcast knight thats been turned into a frog, and save the royal family of the day. Thats more than enough story for a lot of games, but this is only the first couple hours of CT. The trio will see the distant future of their world after its been destroyed, travel to the age of dinosaurs, and learn the shocking secrets of the mystic wizard Magus and his connection the world's magic past and doomed future. This is the 16-bit masterwork that offered innovations over a lot of current RPGs by letting battles take place on the main screen and took out random battles. Graphics were colorful and some of the best available on the SNES, with character design by Dragonball creator Akira Toriyama. Music and sound were also just fantastic. Its one of the most popular game on Overclocked Remix. I also found an orchestral version of the main theme years ago you can download here. Even though its a pretty old game and not nearly as popular as Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest, Chrono Trigger retains a large fan following. One group even tried to remake the game. This ambitious 3D update was going to be released on the gamecube, xbox, and PC, until the Squaresoft legal team stepped in. Even though it'll never finish development, the site has amazing pictures and a trailer. Chrono Trigger did have a semi-sequel called Chrono Cross but it hardly does the original justice. Its a well received RPG in its own right, but Chrono Cross does parallel dimensions instead of time travel, and the links to the orginal game are ambiguous at best. Chrono Trigger was re-released on the PS1 in 2001, and that version is much easier to find than the SNES original cart and includes new anime cut scenes. The inspiration for this week's throwback comes from Blue Dragon a new game from Mistwalker on xbox 360. Blue Dragon will reteam the original CT team for the first time of creator Hironobu Sakahuchi, musician Nobuo Uematsu, and character designer Akira Toriyama.

Madden curse strikes again

Here on the eve of the 360 Launch, Madden CoverboyDonovan McNabb will be out for the rest of the year. This hasn't exactly been an easy year for the Eagles... More on the Madden Curse Thanks to Crazy for the link, and condolences to RJK for the Eagles.

知らゲー Soul Calibur 3 character creator gone mad!

I don't speak the language so I can't read anything on this page. But these are some very creative uses of the Soul Calibur 3 character creator, showing off just how customizable and robust the PS2 engine can be.

Throwback Thursday: X-Men games!

Alright, lets just pretend I posted this thursday like I wanted to instead of saturday morning. X-Men have had a pretty interesting past on both consoles and in arcades. Going back so far to the NES X-Men Game isn't such a good idea, and everyone knows about Legends, so I'll try to show off some of the good stuff in between. Arcade's Revenge was a somewhat terrible game from Acclaim (surprised?) released on the SNES, and mostly starred Spider-Man anyway. Mutant Apocalypse was released by Capcom and as you can probably guess, it was a LOT better. Capcom would go on to release some of the best known and loved X-Men titles, including the arcade game Children Of The Atom (pictured to the left). Sega wasn't out of the running on the X-Men fun. They developed 2 games exclusively for the Genesis. The first called simply X-Men I'm kinda low on info. I never played it, and the inter-net doesn't seem to have any good dedicated page about it. X-Men 2: Clone Wars was for whatever reason better remembered, and one I managed to rent once. Back then pretty much ALL video games were platform/action adventure games, and this was a pretty standard one. One game that seriously stands out above all of these was Konami's 6 Player X-Men Arcade Machine. This is to date probably the biggest game cabinet I've ever seen that didn't involve a light gun or steering wheel. Konami made some great 4 player brawlers with TMNT and The Simpsons, but they obviously knew they wanted to go better than before. 2 Monitors side by side gave many players widescreen gaming well ahead of Microsoft's HD Era, and players got to mash attack and mutant power buttons through a hundred billion zillion sentinels and gladly stuffed more quarters in when they lost their lives. As a lad, I attended Wizard World in Philadelphia one year and was treated to a free play machine at the marvel both where myself and a rotating cast of comic geeks pounded through the entire game. "Welcome To Die!"

Midway Arcade machine arrives at Target

While not officially scheduled for release until November 15, the Midway Home Use Arcade Machine arrived at my local Target tonight and I took some pictures. This is a demo unit that was set up in the electronic department. I apologize if these are kinda blurry, but the camera phone is the only way to go if I'm sneaking around taking pictures of stuff I'm not supposed to. Full Unit Demo sticker In Box 6 Button controls! None of these games use 6 Buttons so hopefully you will be able to hook up game consoles into the arcade controls instead of just the monitor as I've seen previously reported. Also I should note this unit is in fact very small. Its definitely too small for an adult my size to play comfortably unless I get a stool to sit down or put the cabinet on a riser. It wasn't long after it was set up that I spotted a young girl playing, and it became fairly obvious to me that this box is for kids. Even though the price tag ($499!) is high, its a treat for children of well-to-do parents. Overall I like what I see, and even more I like the concept and possibilities. 3 Years ago Activision released their first "TV Games" collection of 2600 titles and the tech has become so popular theres are dozens of old games in controllers and even new games (with Batman, Star Wars, Sponge Bob, etc). If this Midway cabinet takes off, I can easily see a similar Namco or Capcom box hitting the market in a couple years. digg

Microsoft Releases 360 Backward Compatibility List

213 xbox games are listed as being supported at launch, but looking at the list its kind of amazing how many terrible games are on the list. I'm guessing these must've been easy to port over because I can't think of a reason Doom, Farcry, SW Battlefront, and PGR 2 are not supported, but Barbie Horse Adventure is.

Throwback Thursday: Metroid II

In a series as loved and revered as Metroid, its weird that this game gets so little love. Metroid II: Return Of Samus was released on the orignal Game Boy in 1992. While it was obviously shackled by the smaller screen limited to 4 colors, this sequel was better than the original Metroid in every single way I can think of. It offered a much larger map, many new weapons, more abilities, and a save feature to replace the old password system. Controls follow the same pattern metroid did on the NES. A jumps, B fires a weapon, and select toggles between missles and beam. Tap down once and Samus will crouch, tap a second time and she'll roll into a ball. The space jump appears for the first time here, allowing Samus to jump infinitely. You'll also find the spiderball upgrade, which will let samus roll along any wall or ceiling in the game. While its time consuming, I used those 2 abilities to search every single room for upgrades many many times. Bombs return for morphball mode, as does the screw attack. In addition to the Ice beam and Wave beam so popular in the original metroid, you'll find the Spazer Laser (which fires 3 beams at once for a wide shot) and the Plasma beam, which is the strongest shot in the game. Due to the introduction of Metroid Prime into the mythos, it can get kinda fuzzy when this takes place. Safe to say its before Super Metroid. Samus Aran lands on the Metroid homeworld of SR388 on a mission to exterminate them once and for all, and she gets more than she bargained for. The metroids mutate and evolve far past what she saw on Zebes, and a series of earthquakes in the game constantly open up new areas to seek them out. Metroid encounters are frequent, and while you'll fight some of the same mutations several times, it can still be pretty tough. With the lovingly remade Metroid:Zero Mission on GBA last year, I can only hope that Metroid II finds its way to a wider audience in some form. The Revolution download service will hopefully offer it. If you're a recent metroid fan, and didn't play this one back in the day, its a great game. Well worth the time looking in game boy bargain bins.

360s at Target... with a contest?

Here are a couple pictures I snapped on my camera phone of the Xbox 360 demo unit as it arrived packaged at a Target yesterday. Its due to be set up by November 13. You can see the Samsung flatpanel TV and a giant box of display and P.O.P. stuff, but in the second picture you'll note that one of the boxes has a pink sticker that says "Contest Prizes" You can be sure I'll find out what the contest is and what the prizes are as soon as possible. More Information on Target Xbox 360 Kiosks

New NES knock-off is crap

In a somewhat unsurprising review, Vintage Computing and Gaming has declared: "The Generation NEX Sucks" and revealed that the system is incompatible with many games acts worse than a buggy emulator on others. I was looking forward to seeing products like this make the market, but if this is going to be the quality then we're all better off getting our revolution and downloading NES games. Or just getting an old system off ebay...