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Killzone 2 ads get the fanboy touch
The Photoshop gurus that roam NeoGAF are at it again, this time creating mock-up adverts for Killzone 2. Unlike the poorly worded (and fake) Super Bowl ad, these are advertisements we can get behind. Unsurprisingly, some choppers decided to voice their opinions on reactions to some recent Killzone 2 review coverage. According to these fans, the end message seems clear: Chill out, Killzone 2 is going to be rad.
Fan-made Street Fighter IV ads are too cool for magazines
Putting their artistic talents to use, NeoGAF members have been hard at work creating fan-made Street Fighter IV magazine-style ads. Y'know, just in case Prince Capcom decides to swing by the forums and sweep one off its digital feet and into the magazines. Most (if not all) of the ad mock-ups are professionally crafted, with our favorites coming from the "What Are You Fighting IV?" series. You can view all the ads, including the not-so-good attempts, over on the GAF forums.
Francis hates everything, except vests
Sure, it isn't as hilarious -- or nearly as creepy -- as Left 4 Bed, but this video packs one helluva beat. Compiled from audio ripped from our current zombie-fueled obsession, Francis Hates Left 4 Dead cycles through the many things that rub Francis the wrong way. Vans, small towns, boats ... everything in Left 4 Dead drives him mad! His only saving grace? Vests. Beautiful, beautiful vests.
Mash-up! 'Project Sonic' mixes Halo with the Hedgehog
You like Halo ... and at least have a mild interest in Sonic related items, do you not? Well, Hawty McBloggy has you covered with this video that mashes classic Sonic tunes with Halo 3. When the video began to make its way around the office, we all experienced the same things in the following order: 1) eye-roll at the idea of more Sonic; 2) mild interest due to Halo content; 3) half-smile when we heard the music; 4) embarrassment at how wrong our preconceptions were upon watching it all; 5) a strong desire to show it to everyone we knew. Welcome to the last step. Check it out after the jump. Tell your friends.[via Bungie]
Video: You've got your Rick Astley in my Gears
There's this little known internet meme the kids referred to as "Rickrolling." You may have heard of it in the past. All right, it's about as old as the internet is but that doesn't mean we can't have fun with it, right?! Well, the guys at Pixel Flix Studios have taken their love of Rick Astley and married it with their love of Gears of War 2 for a little mash-up they call "GearsRoll'd." Around the office we're calling it Gears of Roll'D. We don't want to ruin the surprise but all we can say is ... poor Baird and "it never ends."
Live fanmade concert celebrates Halo addiction
It wouldn't be a shock to hear that we love us some Halo 3 but our love (and/or obsession) doesn't come close to Bryan Simon. Known throughout the Halo community as the guy who sang himself into Recon armor, Bryan Simon is holding a special concert on December 11 where he will play through his entire catalog of Halo 3 related music. If you aren't familiar with Simon's work, think Flight of the Conchords if they were uncomfortably in love with Bungie.Luckily, a fan-swag giveaway isn't necessary for this concert because tickets are free ... well, that is to say the entire concert will be streamed online via UStream. We like to imagine the entire event is taking place at Carnegie Hall but knowing his addiction, Dustin probably kidnapped Bryan and is making him play the songs from his basement. Bryan, if you can read this: Blink once if you're okay, twice is you want us to send in the cavalry. Bryan Simon's Live Halo Love concert takes place online on December 11 at 7:00PM EST and you can also check out a rehearsal session tonight at 7:00PM EST at the same UStream link.
Video: Pulp Fortress 2
What still ain't no country we ever heard of, and we're still trying to find out if they speak English in What. The creative guys at Bonesaw Productions have taken Team Fortress 2 and mashed it up with the classic Tarantino flick, Pulp Fiction. The scene on display here, reenacted using Team Fortress 2 assets, stars the voice talent of Samuel L. Jackson and Frank Whaley, who was in pretty much every movie made in the early-to-mid '90s. Also, it's a little NSFW for excessive use of the word, "What." You know, among other words.
Player-created hairstyles look pretty snazzy
The Blizzard-created hairstyles revealed from a while back didn't really impress too much -- while almost everyone will certainly be trying the barbershop in the expansion, no one I know is running there just to put a certain haircut on. But Kxara has set out with some texture design and a model maker to change all that -- she's come up with some of her own hairstyles, and they look really great.Some of them are just jokes from real-life hairstyles (the Duke is really funny, and I like the dastardly Blood Elf mustache, too), but some of them really pull off the characters in a way we haven't seen before. There no afro, unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), and Kxara says that's because of the low polygon count on the characters -- either they'd have to go with high polygons and wreck low-end machines, or go low polygons, and it would look bad for everyone.With barbershops in the game, Blizzard's starting haircuts are probably not the last we'll see (and maybe someday we'll even have faction or question haircuts), but these specs put together by Kxara are a good place to start if they decide to add more.[via Resto4Life]
Real-life Scarlet Crusade t-shirt
Reader Richie has done something genius -- he is a big fan of the Scarlet Crusade, having collected all of their armor and their tabard ingame. And when one of his guildies hit a birthday, he decided to take the design from the tabard, and put it on a T-shirt. You can see how well it turned out above, and there are pictures of the box (probably my favorite part of the whole thing -- he actually printed the "tooltip" for the t-shirt on the front, in the official WoW font, called Friz Quadrata) over on his site. The whole thing looks terrific.More pics of the shirt, including the front of the box and a pic of the shirt in action, in the gallery below (hopefully we won't murder Richie's site, though it was loading slowly when I first pulled it up). This is a brilliant idea -- what other Tabards should be t-shirts? Forget Figureprints, Blizzard should let you print your own guild's tabard out as a T-shirt for sale on their site.%Gallery-26473%
Fans bring Halo to RPG realm with browser-based Halo Crusades
If for some strange reason, Halo 3 isn't filling the dark void in your heart left open by Master Chief and his merry band of brothers--a fan made browser RPG could seal the deal. That is if a simple text-based RPG is what you think the franchise was missing. Halo Crusades is a fan made role-playing title that allows gamers to create and train a character and live out their life as either a Spartan or Elite. Based on simple browser titles, meaning entirely menu based, the game won't appeal to everyone but shows some great future potential. Currently hundreds of members are signed on and regularly train and do battle with their browser-based Halo avatar. Bored at work? Give it a look.
Reimagine Metroid in 2D
Behold Metroid: SR388.We always have mixed feelings about sharing fanmade renditions of Nintendo IPs with readers. On the one hand, it would be a shame if things this awesome were kept hush hush, but on the other hand, should the buzz get too loud we know Nintendo won't hesitate to squash the project. In any case, since SR388's creator Von Richter is promoting the digg link, we're going to absolve ourselves from such moral dilemmas and spread the love.The trailer makes this game look like a 2D Metroid reimagining rather than a remake based on any particular title, although some sprites (like Samus's) were clearly ripped. Between the music, original enemies, and intriguing new weapons and abilities, this fanmake has us licking our lips in anticipation. Hopefully we'll get to try it out before Nintendo comes knocking with a cease and desist, should that happen.Fortunately, progress on the game seems to be going quickly. According to Von Richter himself, this trailer (which was released at the end of April) is already out of date.[Via NeoGAF]
WoW theme for Blackberry
Not to be outdone by the WoW iPhone theme, Xtina over on WoW LJ took it upon herself to use those WoW icons to create a theme for the Blackberry. This one's even a little more in-depth -- she even skinned the calling screen (which is actually easy enough to do on the iPhone as well, but we just hadn't seen it before). Plus, the best part is that this one is completely legit -- you just download the file from Xtina's page there, and you can install it using Desktop Manager.Of course, we haven't actually heard from Blizzard about any of this stuff yet -- odds are that as great as their icons are, they're not real thrilled with seeing them used in other places (a friend of mine who just recently saw me playing World of Warcraft shouted out in surprise, "Hey! Those are the icons from that game on Facebook!" I didn't bother telling her about the real DotA or Warcraft III). Then again, both of these are completely fanmade and free to download -- surely themes like this, that let Blizzard fans show off their loyalties, can be let through the loopholes.
Fan remake of Metroid II is not only awesome, but also playable
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/Fan_remake_of_Metroid_II_is_not_only_awesome_but_playable'; We love fans. Not only because we are fans and we're completely narcissistic, but because they always come up with some of the coolest things.Take, for example, this remake of Metroid II: Return of Samus for the original Game Boy. It may be nothing new for a fan to recreate an oldschool game, but this is one of the best we've seen. DoctorM64 not only did a great job with the sprites, but also tweaked the level design a bit so that the game flows more smoothly.If you want to try this remake for yourself, it's only a click away. Keeping in mind that this is only a tech demo and not the completed version, we're sure that you'll be even more impressed. Also, you can check out DoctorM64's blog to get a feel for the creation process.[Via Destructoid]
World of Warcrafting shows off some... interesting crafts
We love covering cool fanmade crafts here on WoW Insider, but now there's a blog that covers the dark side of "Warcrafts." World of Warcrafting is a new blog that... well, at first, I thought it was a joke, but now I can't tell. Something like this Green Dragon looks like a pretty good attempt at crafting (an attempt, anyway), but the stapleserpent seems just too funny to be real.If it is a joke, whoever's behind it isn't showing their hand at all -- the about and submission pages talk pretty seriously about their conviction for crafting. Although they don't win any points from me for saying "Dungeons and Dragons is kinda played and we don't condone or support dorkyness in hi-school." The tone is almost too perfect to be real, though, and it seems like commenters are in on the joke.If it is a JeffK-like parody, it is brilliant. And even if not, it'll definitely be a site to watch -- there are some hilarious submissions on the site already.
Promotional Consideration: Nintendo DS Air
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/nintendo/Nintendo_DS_Air'; Promotional Consideration is a weekly feature about the Nintendo DS advertisements you usually flip past, change the channel on, or just tune out.You don't have to try too hard to find similarities between the Nintendo DS Lite and Apple's Macbook Air -- they're both sleek, attractive devices, curves at every corner. Also, both of their designs place a heavy emphasis on their portability. And, most importantly, they both fit in an envelope!
Petopia releases a 2008 calendar
Speaking of great WoW-related gifts for the holidays, Petopia's creator has broken out a Cafepress site, complete with official Petopia goods for the Hunter on your gift list. There are the standard items-- t-shirts, cups, and a Mazzaranche tote bag.But the kicker is this: a 2008 Petopia wall calendar. Featuring fun screenshots (and even some original art) of the best and most favorite pets in the game. I love it. Echeyakee, Humar, Takk the Leaper-- all the greats are here to count down 2008 with you. At $25 it's a little pricey, but on the other hand, any Hunter would love to have that as a gift this holiday season. Very cool idea to put that together, and totally fun to see your favorite virtual pets show up in a setting like that.
Contra movie coming to alternate-universe theaters in 1988
If you haven't clicked the Play button on the video yet, go ahead and take care of that -- whatever we've written underneath the embedded movie cannot even begin to match its excellence. Team Awesome, the same group that put together the fictitious Punch-Out!! trailer for Nintendo's Short Cuts Showcase contest, created this ultra-macho masterpiece as an homage to Contra. The production parodies not only the original NES game, but 80s action films like Predator, Aliens, Rambo: First Blood, and other indisputable classics. Pretty much, if it was rad and from the 80s, then it's somewhere in this trailer.
Zelda Week: The art of Jainai Jeffries
So long as we're spending a whole week assailing you with links about Link, we thought we'd share with you one of the best fan-made art pieces we've seen for the green-capped adventurer. Jainai Jeffries created this amazing realistic envisioning of Link last year, posing him on a tree porcupined with red-fletched arrows. Past the post break, you can check out an uncolored version of the above image and several other video game reinterpretations Jainai has illustrated.
Tiny little papercraft iPhone
DS Fanboy's Alisha Karabinus sent us this one, and I have to agree with her. While I'm not normally a man to call things cute (except in that derogatory sense: "Oh, you only beat Halo 2 on Normal difficulty? That's cute."), this papercraft iPhone is so tiny that it is, in point of fact, "cute."I'm not sure why Junyang chose to make it so small (other than the obvious fact that smaller things are cute), but it's pretty impressive that he got a papercraft item that size to look so much like an iPhone. He even made a scale charger and cradle for it, and the box it came in. He even replicated the instruction manual for it! He's a madman!But it does look cool. If a more to-size iPhone is your pleasure, there are a few different print-and-cut models floating around. And I'm pretty sure you're just one Photoshop scale away from shrinking it down to a size like this. Of course, in just a few years, they'll be this size anyway ("the iPhone Pico"), but until then we've got papercrafters to show us the cuteness.
Friday Video: Curiouser and curiouser
Selecting a video for this week's spotlight was somewhat difficult ... because we managed to stumble across some of the weirdest videos we've seen in a while. Take a moment to think about the magnitude of that statement. Around here, we spend all day immersed in the fruits of Miyamoto's brain (and other Nintendo goodness), and yet these videos were extra weird.Hit the jump for the full array. And yes, we know there are even weirder videos out there. Please don't supply links; we're not sure our bruised brains could take it just now!
