back seat gaming Podcast 001

backseatgaming episode001.mp3 – backseatgaming

In this first episode we struggle to get used to podcasting, discuss Mirror’s Edge and discuss a fan made Mirror’s Edge tribute you can watch below.

Papercraft and Video Games

Just wanted to update with something interesting that looks at another example of the inspiration video games bring to individual creativity. Over my time on the Internet I have seen a number of video game themed papercrafts featured on gaming sites and around the net. For example, Nintendo Papercraft is a site that catalogs papercrafts of Nintendo video game characters and objects found around the net that can be constructed by downloading, printing out and constructing the model. Below is an example of a finished model of Samus from Super Smash Bros Brawl found on Nintendo Papercraft in front of other papercraft models, including some from the series.

Who Will Be the King of Kong?

While I normally post stuff to watch on back seat gaming this will be one of the first documentaries that will be featured on the site.

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters is a documentary about a rivalry between Billy Mitchell, reigning champion of the Donkey Kong arcade cabinet as well as restaurant chain owner and newcomer Steve Wiebe, junior high school teacher.

The documentary essentially follows the lives of both contenders as Wiebe is shown as having moved from obsession to obsession until settling on Donkey Kong, where he becomes engrossed in mastering the game and hoping to eventually beat Billy’s high score. Billy is portrayed as a the cocky high score holder and seemingly antagonized in the film.

The film is an interesting look into one sub culture of competitive arcade cabinet video game playing, as it documents the politics of competitive video gaming, and how Steve Wiebe faces off against them. Click read the rest to see the trailer for the film.

Valentine’s Day for Gamers

Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day! Why not mix it up with gaming?

Blizzard created some wallpapers for the day based on the Zerg, Protoss, and Terran of StarCraft fame. You can get them at the wallpaper page of starcraft2.com. All three feature a witty line and symbolic construction related to the game. Check out the Terran one for example, which features what looks like a Terran construction in the shape of a heart and the line “Hell, it’s about Valentine”. Read the rest for more on Valentine’s Day and gaming.

The Death and Re-Birth of Video Games

Just a quick update this week with something hopefully interesting. Here is a quick example of how video games can live and die through the people who play them.

Here is an image acquired from Kotaku of many copies of the soon to be defunct, due to a low player population, MMORPG Tabula Rasa from NCsoft in the dumpster behind an EB Games in Canada. Read the rest to see how Tribes 2 is being brought back.