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The SWORD is a weapon-detecting smartphone case
No matter how stylishly makers dress them up, most smartphone cases are really about one thing: protecting screens from smashing. They're fragile cargo, we get it. Of course, some enterprising companies have taken things further, whipping up cases that transform into Android phones and selfie drones. Now Royal Holdings has jumped into the fray with SWORD, a five ounce phone case that works like a 3D-imaging scanner.
This 'Fallout 4' flaming sword can set the world on fire
It's Fallout 4 week. That means it's safe to say that when gamers aren't busy logging more than 4.5 million hours in Bethesda's latest instalment, they're probably watching all of the impressive game-related videos on YouTube. The team over at Linus Tech Tips has already managed to fit a high-end gaming PC inside a Mini Nuke, but what about building a real-life Fallout 4 weapon? If you've played Fallout 3 or made it far enough into the latest game (hint: it's located in the Saugus Ironworks), then you may have come across the Shishkebab: a flaming sword crafted from motorcycle parts and a katana. Make built one, and it's awesome.
Robot and samurai face off in an awesome sword duel
Used to be that if you wanted to become an Ieyasu master and swing a katana around with reckless abandon, you'd have to spend years training your mind, body and spirit in preparation as well as subscribe to a strict Bushido, or "warrior's code." These days, you really just need a Motoman-MH24 industrial robot and some basic programming chops. As part of its centennial anniversary, the robot's manufacturer, Yaskawa Electric Corporation, teamed up with modern day samurai Machii Isao to see whether man or machine could better wield a blade. Great, so now they can drive ATVs, climb stairs, dodge obstacles and even respond to emergencies. But will they ever truly know how to love? Oh wait, yup.
Play 'Zelda' IRL with this jug-busting, arrow-stopping shield
There are Hylian Shield replicas and then there are Hylian Shield Replicas. The one above fits into the latter and probably could've been used with a certain live-action Netflix series that sadly isn't happening. The team at Baltimore Knife and Sword makes all kinds of armaments for their YouTube series Man at Arms: Reforged, and their latest project is the perennial shield from Nintendo's Legend of Zelda series, along with what NeoGAF posits is a Link to the Past-styled Master Sword. The level of craftsmanship is what separates this gear from what you'd typically see cosplayers brandish at PAX; the Triforce is made of amber and the shield can even withstand a barrage of arrows.
Neal Stephenson's sword-fighting game Clang officially shelved
Historical sword-fighting game Clang has officially been axed, developer Subutai Corporation announced yesterday. The game earned $526,125 on Kickstarter in July 2012 and according to creator and sci-fi novelist Neal Stephenson, the developer did eventually deliver on a prototype of the game as promised. "The prototype was technically innovative, but it wasn't very fun to play," Stephenson wrote in an update on Clang's Kickstarter page, admitting he "probably focused too much on historical accuracy and not enough on making it sufficiently fun to attract additional investment." Development paused last year to attract additional investors, which Stephenson said was part of the initial plan for the game. While Clang was slated to be playable with a mouse and keyboard, the game was expected to support peripherals like Sixense's Razer Hydra motion controller and Kickstarter success STEM system.
Warlords of Draenor Alpha: Transmog changes
On live servers you can't transmog polearms over swords, axes or maces (and vice versa), but on the Alpha it's a totally different story, as you can see in the header image above. No idea if this is an intended change or not (I hope it is) but it's certainly a welcome one for those of us who happen to carry a Hellreaver in our bags.
Insert Coin: Clang, a motion-controlled swordfighting game by no less than Neal Stephenson (video)
In Insert Coin, we look at an exciting new tech project that requires funding before it can hit production. If you'd like to pitch a project, please send us a tip with "Insert Coin" as the subject line. We won't lie: this might be the ultimate Insert Coin. It's not often that you get the author of Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon asking for Kickstarter funding, after all. Neal Stephenson and Subutai Corporation are tired of swordfighting in video games being reduced to abstract button presses, and they want to produce both a video game and a control system that will replicate what it's really like to fight steel-to-steel, complete with pommel hits, blocks and distinct techniques. The initial game, Clang, will focus on two-handed longsword dueling with an "off-the-shelf" controller to get out the door quickly. In the long run, however, the plan is to work on custom controllers, and the project will involve an open framework known as MASE (Martial Arts System Embodiments) that will let anyone build their own fighting game. You could create a realistic Wushu simulator... or an extremely detailed Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles beat-em-up. Any pledge will help the cause, but if you'd like a credit in the game or an actual copy, you'll want to spend a respective $10 or $25. The rewards escalate quickly after that: $50 and $75 pledges first give downloadable concept art and later a digital fighting manual, while $100, $150 and $250 donations will add a very real t-shirt, a hard copy of the manual, a signed poster with a patch and eventually a signed poster. Are you a high roller? Spending $500 or $1,000 adds a signed manual as well as either the first book or whole collection of the related The Mongoliad trilogy, plus (at the higher tier) invitations to Subutai parties in Seattle. Pledges at $5,000 will supply the actual concept art; at the peak $10,000, you'll get a real longsword, lunch with Subutai and a tour of the offices. If you're game in the literal sense of the word, you'll have until mid-day on July 9th to help Neal reach the lofty $500,000 funding target.
Brand swings on to Xbox Live Indie Games
Brand caught our eye all the way back in August of last year, and we've just gotten word that the game is available now on Xbox Live Indie Games, yours for the low price of just 240 Microsoft points ($3). You can see a release trailer above, and all of those swords you see in there are custom-made, because the game allows you to create your own.We're also told that you can play as your own Xbox Live avatar, and that there's about five hours of nonlinear exploration gameplay across three big areas. Looks good -- if you give it a download, let us know what you think.
Encrypted Text: Tools of the rogue's trade
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. Email Chase if you have any questions or want to submit a great screenshot. If you've been plugged into the rogue community for any length of time, you're familiar with some of the common thoughts that we share as a class. We're all very thankful that Cloak of Shadows is now a 100% immunity to spells, that aggressive min-maxing is part of our culture, and I think I speak for everyone when I say that our most pressing concern is getting Swirly Ball back. I would mention our years of torment waiting for a functional Vanish, but it's working now, and I don't want to jinx it. We don't always see eye to eye on every detail, though. While I imagine the rogue as a brutal killer, some prefer to think of our class as a group of honorable assassins. One of the most common ideas that I've seen but not understood is the obsession with daggers. I've heard the old standby of "a rogue not wielding a dagger isn't a rogue" a million times, but I just don't get it. Maybe it's combat talking. I even lobbied at BlizzCon for the devs to implement quick off-hand axes and swords, but the request fell on deaf ears. Like it or not, rogue weaponry has evolved.
Encrypted Text: BlizzCon news for patient rogues
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. This week, I'll be sharing my report from BlizzCon 2010 for rogues. As a member of our shadowy brotherhood, my duty to investigate and report on the rogue class is never over. Even though I was enjoying the festivities at BlizzCon 2010 and testing out the new demon hunter class in Diablo 3, I still made time to take care of business. The class Q&A panel is one of the best places to communicate directly with the WoW development team, and so I staked my place in line before the prior panel had even ended. When my turn finally came, I had to first pay my respects to the developers. I had asked them at the prior year's BlizzCon if we would ever see a Vanish fix implemented, and Ghostcrawler avoided promising anything. Fast-forward a year and we finally have a Vanish that I'm proud to call my own. I opened my time by giving them their much-deserved thanks. I then took the opportunity to ask about something near and dear to my heart: off-hand weapon speeds. Axes and daggers were simply never meant to be used at the same time. Their art styles don't even match!
The Red Steel 2 director's field guide to Wii Remote swingers
If there's one thing Ubisoft Creative Director Jason VanderBerge learned in playtesting Red Steel 2, it's that different people respond to the simple direction "swing the Wii Remote like a sword" in very different ways. At his talk at GDC Europe today, VanderBerge showed off just how different those swings can be, using a cane to demonstrate the movements of the seven major types of Wii Remote swingers he's identified. Besides being highly entertaining, the demonstration showed just how hard it is to train motion control players to perform even simple actions the way a developer expects. We weren't quick enough to get a video of the hilarious, high-energy performance, but we did manage to snap some pictures that show off the intensity of VanderBerge's flailing. Hit the break and see how many of these specimens you've encountered in the wild.
Make a 3D Dot Game Heroes hero and win the coolest foam sword of all time
We work in a profession which has us coming into contact with an inexplicably large number of fake armaments, so we feel like we can speak with some authority when we say that the foam sword seen above is the coolest foam sword ever. How can you go about acquiring one of these ultra-rare, pixelated beauties? All you have to do is make something using this simplified, online version of 3D Dot Game Heroes' character creation engine, and you could win the non-lethal blade and a copy of the game. You have until May 11 to whip up a blocky hero and submit a picture of it to SouthPeak (the European publisher of the title) for consideration. Sadly, the contest is only open to our European allies, though the character creator is available to everyone. We demand equality on both sides of the Atlantic! Everyone should have a stab at winning these squishy sabers!
SolidAlliance's Crazy Earphones v2: because ear fungus sells
Japan's SolidAlliance earned a warm place in our collective nerd bosom long ago for the sheer lunacy of the products it creates. Today it's offering round two of its Crazy Earphone collection that includes some kind of mushroom (that is a mushroom, right?), the ol' Katana blade or arrow through the head trick, and a parasitical, conjoined ear if you want everyone to think you've been subjected to a tragic cloning experiment. Spec-wise your ¥2,000 (about $22) will take home a pair of in-ear buds with 20 ~ 20,000Hz frequency range assisted by a 10-mm driver. Not that it matters: there's no chance in hell that you're buying these for performance reasons.%Gallery-86590%
The ups and downs of the Battered Hilt
Yesterday, Bornakk said clearly that the Battered Hilt drop that starts the Quel'delar questline was dropping at the right rate, which is much less than when the patch first hit. And then of course, in last night's fixes, they went ahead and increased the drop rate anyway. He also claimed there were no plans to make it BoP, but who knows what'll happen in the future? For now, however, you can still buy and sell the quest item for quite a bit of gold. We'll have to see where the price eventually ends up -- on the staff here, we've seen anything from 8,000g to over 23,000g, and Twitter tells us that people are paying an average of around 12k or so, going up to as high as 30k (or even shady real money offers in online classified ads). Our own Matt Low has actually seen the drop three different times, and lost every roll. It drops off of any of the mobs in the Heroic versions of the Frozen Halls 5-mans, and as Bornakk says, any class can use it to come up with a pretty solid weapon, so the competition will probably keep the price high, depending on where the drop rate ends up. The silver lining, if you really want one, have terrible luck, and don't ever expect to have all that money, is that the price will probably go down eventually. Bornakk says that as people move up into Icecrown and start picking up weapons that are even better than the sister blade, demand is likely to drop off a bit. But he also says that Blizzard does want this to be a special and relatively rare item, so you'll still have to probably either be lucky or ready to grind it out. Good luck -- I'm out there searching for one with you.
Phat Loot Phriday: Edge of Agony
I finally got my Green Proto-drake today, so I was tempted to do that, but instead today we'll go with the old PLP standby of big scary swords. Alliance, before you go running after this one, make sure to see the note below.Name: Edge of Agony (Wowhead, Thottbot, MMO Champion)Type: Epic Two-Hand SwordDamage/Speed: 651 - 977 / 3.50 (232.6 DPS)Attributes: +112 Agility, +92 Stamina Improves haste by 62, attack power by 183, and armor penetration by 86. Note that these are the stats for the 10-man normal item (Trial of the Crusader drops are pretty confusing actually). The 10-man Heroic version has a better version of this, but with the same name and graphic. %Gallery-33600%
Square Enix hits Final Fantasy replica dealers for $600,000 in damage
A fistful of Final Fantasy counterfeiters recently found their hit points squelched by a summon of the judicial kind. Square Enix announced that it reached a settlement in its federal lawsuit against "at least" four online retailers of unlicensed Final Fantasy knock-offs, primarily sword replicas, netting the role-playing giant a hefty 600,000 gil dollar judgment. Traffickers, which included Edgework Imports, Top Swords, Wholesale Gallery and Pacific Solutions Marketing, are barred from dealing in Final Fantasy fakery, either through their own stores or other online sites such as eBay or Amazon. Obviously shaken, the defendants issued a joint statement that they "regret" selling copies to customers, and "would not have begun importing and selling these swords if we knew that Square Enix would respond so aggressively to stop us. We will never make this mistake again." Translation: We knew what we were doing was wrong, we just didn't, you know, think Square Enix would do anything about it.
Phat Loot Phriday: Avool's Sword of Jin
That doesn't look like a sword. It just looks like a terrifying swath of death! We love it.Name: Avool's Sword of Jin (Wowhead, Thottbot, WoW-Arsenal)Type: Epic One-hand SwordDamage/Speed: 150-280 / 1.50 (143.3 DPS)Abilities: +38 Agility, +36 Stamina Improves hit rating by 31 and attack power by 62 Great sword for Rogues or Hunters, though the method of obtaining it (see below) probably outweighs the actual stats of it, unless you really, really want one. The hit is great, the fact that it can be dual wielded is nice, and the attack power is just icing on the cake. Plus, just look at it. If someone is running at you and holding that thing, it's pretty clear they don't want to give you a hug and take you out to dinner. It reminds me of the Kill-O-Zap guns from the Hitchhiker's Guide: "the designers of which decided to make it totally clear that it had a right end, and a wrong end, and if that meant sticking blacked and evil-looking devices and prongs all over the wrong end, so be it." %Gallery-33600%
Working at Blizzard: Sunshine, rainbows, claymores, backrubs
I know what you're thinking! "If anyone could write up a scandalous exposé of what working at Blizzard is really like, it'd be our old pal Mike. I bet he's got the inside scoop of what goes on at Big Blue behind closed doors. I paid for the whole seat but I'll only need the edge."Yeah, well. I'm going to disappoint you here and instead link you to an article from the OC Register, longtime reporter of all news Blizzard given the company's stature in the SoCal business world. They interviewed Blizzard COO Paul Sams about the studio's recent award of "One of the best places to work in Orange County" and why that award was deserved.
Adventure released for the iPhone
Part of me just wants to post this screenshot, link this app, and say "go get it," but I have a feeling that my blogging overlords here would think I was just being lazy -- they might not understand that this is a screenshot from Adventure, which is available for free on the iPhone. Anyone who ever played an Atari 2600 and owns an iPhone won't need any more explanation than that to install this.But I don't want to be seen as lazy (any more than I already am), and so I'll also say that Adventure basically pioneered the action-adventure genre of games, and that though its art is spare and its noises are little more than bleeps and bloops, both are classic and coated with pure nostalgia. While Adventure is currently controlled on the iPhone with tilt controls, its designer will add touch controls as well in the future.Other than that: go get it. It's free.
Top 5: Activities that Need Waggle
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/nintendo/Top_5_Activities_that_Need_Waggle'; Hardcore gamers sure do hate tacked-on waggle. Indeed, no one likes to flail their arms around like they're trying to signal aircraft when a simple button press will do. And the guys on the other sides seem to be under the impression that the Wii is nothing but a PS2 that replaces thumb pressing with wrist flicking. So when a new title or an iteration of an existing franchise gets announced for the Wii, the non-believers tend to thumb their snooty noses and prattle amongst themselves with ingenious statements like "Dead Rising on the Wii? More like Waggle Rising. YEAH! HIGH FIVE, BRAH!" All right, maybe they're not quite as neanderthalic, but the sentiment remains: the use of waggle is often met with skepticism from the core. To ignore the importance of waggle would be to forget what makes the Wii so awesome. Sure, some games have no real need for motion-based controls, but let us not forget the joy and immersion experienced by the non-gamer who first picked up a Wiimote and found themselves instantly engaged in a lively tennis match. To downplay motion controls would be to forget what made the Wii so successful in the first place. Without it, the Wii would be just a beefed-up GameCube. (THERE, I said it!) Just for a moment, let us forget about why Super Mario RPG has yet to be released on the North American Virtual Console and go back to the flood of imagination we felt when the Wiimote was first unveiled. Here are the activities we wish were made into games on the Wii. NEXT >> #ninbutton { border-style: solid; border-color: #000; border-width: 2px; background-color: #BBB; color: #000; text-decoration: none; width: 100px; text-align: center; padding: 2px 2px 2px 2px; margin: 2px 2px 2px 2px; } .buttontext { color: #000; text-decoration: none; font: bold 14pt Helvetica; } #ninbutton:hover { text-decoration: none; color: #BBB; background-color: #000; } The Top 5 is a weekly feature that provides us with a forum to share our opinions on various aspects of the video game culture, and provides you with a forum to tell us how wrong we are. To further voice your opinions, submit a vote in the Wii Fanboy Poll, and take part in the daily discussions of Wii Warm Up.
