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What a horrible summer not to be going to Comic-Con
NECA, the company responsible for the awesome Castlevania figure prototypes, has a new Simon Belmont figure on the way. It's a somewhat more faithful sculpture of Simon as he appeared in the first Castlevania on the NES. Unfortunately, only 1,000 units will be produced, and it will only be available at the San Diego Comic-Con.We totally want this, and we are all about pixel art, but we must say that this figure, with its rounded edges and inexact paint job, looks a little more like a cookie to us than an action figure. Which actually gives us an idea! [Via NeoGAF]
To build them out of Lego is my real test
... to avoid stepping on them is my cause I will travel across the landsearching far and wideFor a 1x2 blue pieceto finish Piplup's sideThis gallery of Lego Pokemon brings up two questions (for us, at least): first, why are Lego bricks so inherently awesome? And second, why is the Pokemon cartoon's theme song so inherently hilarious?We find the idea of building our own little Pokemon very appealing. Why go through the trouble of catching them in-game to make them fight, when you can build these guys and smash them against whatever you want? Who needs your rules, anyway?[Via GoNintendo]
Air Guitar Pro makes air guitar slightly less fake
If wildly gesticulating to your Pantera records didn't seem "realistic" enough, toymaker Takara Tomy should be able to help. Like the bastard child of Guitar Hero and those keychains you bought as a kid that make explosion noises, this handheld device works by allowing you to press chord buttons on its fretboard and then strum your fingers across IR sensors in the neck. If you're not sure of your soloing abilities, you can play along to preloaded tracks like Walk This Way or Smoke on the Water. Available on July 25th for around $27.[Thanks, Veronica B.]
A Tom Nook plush toy at a Tom Nook price
NCSX is selling more adorable Animal Crossing toys, including a lil' plush K.K. Slider and Blathers the owl-- you can pretend to be annoyed about how long it takes to get your dang fossils appraised! But the real star of this update is the freaking huge Tom Nook seen here, gettin' his Potion on. He comes in at 15.74 inches tall, with an 11-inch-wide head. That's big enough to intimidate us about our house payments!Unfortunately, to get an armful of Nook, you need an armful of cash-- $49, plus shipping. Better get started selling cherries you find on the ground!
More DC figures coming this February!
As if somehow sensing that there might be some meager amount of money in my pocket left over from the holidays, DC has released the proofs for the next series of World of Warcraft figures for us all to covet and add to our Wish Lists! Pictured from left to right are: Human Warrior - Archilon Shadowheart Night Elf Druid - Broll Bearmantle Troll Priest - Zabra Hexx Additionally, the site lists a Gnome Warrior named Sprocket Gyrospring as being part of this next set of figures. Sadly, I couldn't find an image of him out there as yet. I suppose he's either lost somewhere behind all that Druid gear, or the Troll made some Gnome stew. In any event, these fantastic new figures are set to go on sale on February 20th, 2008. Luckily, this gives me more than enough time to clear off some shelf room in my office for them -- and Illidan! [via Action-Figures]
Nintendo signs international merch deal
You know, for all of us who live outside the confines of Japan, real Nintendo merchandise is pretty scarce (or a horrible knock-off). All kinds of figurines, posters and the like are readily available in just about any shop in the country (we didn't check on the validity of such a claim, but leave us with our delusions). For us in the U.S. and other regions, we must either pay the hefty price of importing or live a bland, boring existence where we can only play Nintendo games and not live them in every aspect of our life. Oh, what a cruel world!That is no more, though, as we're happy to announce Nintendo has teamed up with Corgi International Limited to provide us with a "multi-category range of products" until 2010. The goodies we will be able to purchase are extended to "Action Figures, Playset Environments, FX Electronic Products, Iconic Game Replicas, Multi Sized Plush, and Vinyl Figures." Personally, we can't wait until they make a life-sized Link pillow that we can hold tight while we sleep.What? Don't act like you wouldn't!
McFarlane working on Halo 3 action figures
According to a press release issued today, McFarlane Toys will be producing a line of Halo 3 action figures and vehicles, as part of a licensing agreement with Microsoft. The line is due in Spring 2008. Included in the lineup will be Cortana, Grunts, the Brute Chieftain and, of course, Master Chief, standing proud at five inches tall. Announced vehicles include the Warthog, Ghost, and the new Brute Chopper. No Mongoose yet, but here's hoping everyone's favorite ATV will eventually make it on the list. McFarlane Toys is known for creating high-quality figures from a number of movies, television shows, and comics. Todd McFarlane, CEO of McFarlane Toys and the dude behind Spawn, is also designing special edition Halo Xbox 360 controllers and a headset, as reported earlier. McFarlane also produced a series of figures for Soul Calibur II, and designed the character Necrid for inclusion in the game. Let's just hope that Master Chief is the only big green guy around this time. Details of the figures and vehicles from the press release, and a nice shot of the prototype MC figure after the jump.[Via Xbox 360 Fanboy]
Mario vs. Palkia in the arena of your imagination
NCSX never fails to encourage us to clutter our rooms and empty our wallets in the name of video game fandom. Today, they started taking preorders for some new Mario and Pokemon toys that we wouldn't mind having on our desks! So we can show them to people, obviously.First are the above Dialga and Palkia soft vinyl figures, which allow you to reenact the boxarts of Pokemon Diamond and Pearl. In fact, if you buy these, you can't help but reenact them, because the boxes just feature these characters standing alone. Also available for preorder are two Mario toy lines: a vinyl figure of Mario in either his normal outfit or his Fire Mario finery, and a set of plush toys that make some kind of jingling sound. All of these cost between $20 and $25 and will ship toward the end of the year.
Transformers figure turns 'Game Boy' into 'Game Bot'
Hasbro has unveiled a series of "Real Gear Robots" as a tie-in to the Transformers universe. What caught our eye particularly is the POWER UP VT6 who, when not moonlighting as a Decepticon, spends its days as the hybrid of a Sega Game Gear and the bottom half of a Nintendo DS.At $6.99, we're pretty sure it's neither a functioning handheld game system nor a functioning micro killing machine. Drat.(Rest assured, our headline writer has been sacked. Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked, have also been sacked.)[Via Engadget]
Hasbro unveils Real Gear Transformers based on real life gadgets
Those of you not able to bust out your cardboard box Optimus Prime costume and make a scene at your local theaters next month when the new Transformers movie hits can at least comfort yourselves with the most amazing onslaught of merchandise tie-ins and cross-promotions we've yet seen out of Hollywood -- Hasbro's Real Gear line of bots are an Engadget editor's geeky wet dream mashup of gadgets and Transformers. See: Speed Dial 800 (pictured), which seems to have copped his look from a Star Trek, or Power Up VT6, which from what we can tell is the unholy marriage of Sega Game Gear and first-gen Game Boy Advance. Pics of all the new Real Gear Transformers (with our guesses as to which devices they likeliest correspond to) in the gallery.[Via Crave]%Gallery-3591%
Thank you Mario! But our postage is in another country!
The Japanese Postal Service released a set of Mario stamps last year in a nice collectible binder. Somehow, NCSX has gotten a small shipment of these stamps, which carry a postage value of 80 yen ($0.66) each. The markup for this set ($105) is pretty severe, but if you are a desperate Mario collector, this is one of the coolest things you could have. They have fewer than 50, and of course we just publicized the item, so go go go buy buy buy.We want the US Postal Service to get in on the act. We're afraid that there's a short moment before opening mail from us that someone might not be able to determine that we're huge nerds.
A hollow Chocobo head for your beverages
If you're planning to drink some of Suntory's execrable Final Fantasy Potion, you may as well do it in style, by pouring it into an adorable Chocobo-head mug. Or you could skip the Potion and fill the mug with something that you may actually enjoy. It really depends on what's more important to you: flavor or Square Enix product synergy.Now when you sit down on your Chocobo cushion to play some Chocobo Tales, you can have up to 15 ounces of, uh ... if not Potion, how about "choco-late" milk? It's less thematically appropriate, but it's phonetically appropriate, and has the added benefit of being delicious.NCSX is taking preorders for this $18 mug, to ship in July. While you're shopping, check out the other Square Enix preorder of the day: cool Dragon Quest Monsters toys.
Jack Thompson goes after Wendy's
The ever-antagonistic Jack Thompson is up to his usual business of publicly decrying anything remotely connected to video games. It doesn't get much more remote than Wendy's. According to GamePolitics, Jack sent an angry email to the CEO of the company about their association with the Wii.As we know, Manhunt 2 will be released on the Wii. And as we also know, Wendy's has begun giving away promotional Wii-themed toys. It might be kind of hard to tell from the picture, but look closely and you'll see that the toys have nothing to do with Manhunt 2.We may only be amateur logicians, but in addition to the inaccurate claim that the promotion of the Wii is an indirect endorsement of Manhunt 2, we think we see a hasty generalization here: one violent game doesn't mean that the entire set of Wii games (which contains the games promoted here) is violent, or that the Wii is a violent platform. Feel free to correct our analysis in the comments. We could always use more logic in our discussions of Mr. Thompson.
Murder sim to Wendy's with Jack Thompson
Previously, we showed off Wendy's new Wii-based toys, part of their kid's meal and, as GamePolitics shows us, this is the last thing we would have seen coming. Turns out Jack Thompson doesn't like Wendy's working with Nintendo because Manhunt 2 will be distributed on the Wii console. Thompson says, "A dear friend of mine worked for Wendy's and with Dave Thomas closely for years. From that I know that Dave Thomas never would have tolerated the use of Wendy's good name to promote Nintendo's Wii, not with this game available on the Wii platform."Here's your six-degrees of murder simulation: Manhunt 2 is what Thompson calls a "murder simulator" Manhunt 2 will appear on the Wii (among other systems) Wendy's is promoting the Wii, therefore; Wendy's is promoting Manhunt 2, which promotes murder, and; Bacon is in the Wendy's burger Bacon is last name of actor Kevin Bacon (oops, forgot what we were doing here) Thompson is not suing Wendy's, nor Nintendo -- he's merely making it known that Kevin Bacon is connected to a "murder simulator." What won't he think up next?
DS Daily: Toys and tie-ins
Yesterday, we showed you some bounty from NCSX: fun little doodads, "lifestyle items," apparel, furnishings, and such with video game connections. We already know you guys are fans of video games (or Nintendogs), so we know you're the target audience for this kind of stuff. We also know that you've got the drive to collect burned into you from a decade of catching 'em all and a few years under Nook's totalitarian regime.But we also know that games are really expensive, and sometimes if you don't have a job (or, in some cases, even if you have two jobs) you can barely afford to buy games, you just have to let the Um Jammer Lammy alarm clocks go unpurchased. Is your desk decorated with game-related toys? Do you have the Famicom-shaped version of everything you can have a Famicom-shaped version of? Or do you prefer to save your game money for games?
Haberdashery for your couch
What is your poor couch to do when it wants to look jaunty for a night on the town? Nothing. That's why your couch doesn't go out. It's ashamed.If you care about your couch at all, you'll buy one of these Mario or Luigi hat cushions from NCSX. It's the least you can do, considering what you do to it all day. You know, the sitting.Alternately, you could buy one of these plush toys for decoration. That would be pretty weird, though, right? Also in today's NCSX update: awesome Bomberman t-shirts and cell phone straps, Chocobo cushions, and even more Animal Crossing toys.
Preorder the Halo 3 Master Chief Kubrick figures
MediaCom's highly collectible Kubrick figures are getting a Halo 3 upgrade. These 2-1/2" tall Spartans, imported from Japan, come in blue, red, green (Master Chief's favorite color), and Active Camo flavors. The four pack will set you back $18 and is scheduled to be available November 2007. If you've already preordered the Legendary edition, what's another $18, right? [Via Bungie.net]
Mystery Wii toys coming to Wendy's kids meals
Man, we can't wait for ... whatever the hell these Wendy's Wii toys are. Seriously, we have no idea what these toys are supposed to be or do, except for the limited information what we can glean from the picture over at the Wendy's Kids meal site. That one on the bottom left looks kind of like a puzzle, and the one on the bottom right is obviously an Excite Truck, but we have no idea what the other things are supposed to do. Is that Wii remote at the top supposed to be a disc shooter? A laser pointer? A pog case? We just don't know.Until that "Coming Soon!" becomes an "available now" we're opening up the floor to theories. How in the world do these Wendy's toys work? The five best commenter responses based on humor, cleverness, relevance, plausibility and use of massive damage jokes will win ... the hearty respect of the Joystiq staff. Hey, it's harder to get than you might think.[Via Wii Fanboy]
Wii toys served hot off the grill
Fast food chain Wendy's plans to pack its Kids' Meals with Wii-related toys soon. The new knickknacks don't look like they're anything to fawn over, but that miniaturized and muddied Excite Truck might make a nice addition to your collection of Micro Machines and Hot Wheels racers. Truthfully, we've never been partial to the restaurant's square-shaped burger patties or its bland french fries. Wendy's chicken nuggets, however, are like the real-world equivalent to Narnia's turkish delight. Families have been betrayed and wars have been set into motion over these bits of meat. The fact that we can get a pocket-sized Wii remote with these nuggets pretty much settles our schedule for where we're eating lunch at when this promotion goes into effect.[Via Infendo]
Castlevania action figures belong in this world
It was not by our hands that these action figures were given "flesh." They were brought here by NECA, who wished to pay Castlevania tribute. Simon Belmont, hero of Castlevanias I, II, and (Super) IV, and Alucard, of III, Symphony of the Night, and (spoiler alert, sort of!) Aria and Dawn of Sorrow, are shown here in unpainted, prototype glory. The link below has more views of Simon, but all we have of Alucard is this one shot-- for which we had to put our biohazard suits on and go into Myspace.They resemble the beefy character art of the first NES game more than Ayami Kojima's work, and Simon's stomach isn't something that should be looked at directly, but these are still awesome. We've been looking for some new decorative items, and these will do nicely. Our desks are as empty as our souls. Blogger-kind totally needs action figures such as these.
