At SXSW, a pretty ingenious “indie-film” take on the ‘Mario Bros.’ premiered as a film bumper at the festival. Directed by Joe Nicolosi, “Mario” follows our favorite plumber who is struggling to get a grip on the fact that his love, Peach is in the arms of a Goomba. Mario (played by Clay Crenshaw) attempts to win her back leads to him alienating his family (especially Luigi), ditching work, and getting addicted to “mushrooms”. Fortunately, there is nothing more stronger than family as Luigi (played by Jason Newman) comes to Mario’s rescue as Mario is found stoned off his fucking mind in a sewer. The bros. prevails as they stomp on some bastard Goombas. I don’t know why, but I was really drawn to this teaser considering it was only for “fun”. It is hard to hate Mario even though his eyes are blood shot to the color of his shirt. All I can say it Joe Nicolosi really did an amazing job on this short.
I love custom toys. Donald “KodyKoala” Kennedy created this pretty cool custom figure of a Yoshi mecha. Piloting the sucked is a miniature Yoshi as well! From the looks of it, Kennedy used two different scale Yoshi vinyl figures from Branpresto. Pretty awesome in my opinion. The best feature has to be the weathered tarnish paint job. Mario better watch how he rides Yoshi cause his mecha will stop his ass. I wonder if the fists shoot out like Mazinger. You can check out more pix at KodyKoala’s Flickr page.
I take great pride in featuring really cool geek edibles. iGT has already featured geek inspired cookies, cupcakes, and cakes. Now we get the chance to feature geek bon-bons. If you don’t know what a bon-bon is, bon-bons are chocolate and truffle confections. Sweets artisan, Ana Fuji of Campinas, Brazil is well known in the flickr community of creating some deliciously geeky chocolates. Ana has the ability to mold fondant into cute miniatures of characters from Super Mario Bros., Poke’mon, and Alice in Wonderland. Best yet, all these creations are edible. I wonder if I ate the fire flower power up truffle, I would get to shoot balls of fire. Hit the jump to see Ana’s wonder creations.
Lawn ornaments are a rarity these days. I can honestly say that I have never seen a plastic flamingo or a garden gnome displayed on someone’s yard before. I don’t think I would have ever thought of putting one on display myself, until today. DeviantArt-ist Jaime Margary (AKA Kalapusa) created a bitchin’ lawn ornament of Super Mario Bros. baddie, Pirahna Pete out of modeling clay. This is definitely not the 8-bit rendition of the chomper as Pirahna Pete features some hideously wicked fangs and sickly textured skin. On top of that, Jaime also created a “baby” version of Pirahna Pete which he will be auctioning off on eBay. Hit the jump to see more images plus a info on how to make your own!
Ever wonder where video games are made? Apparently, they are made in factories. In the latest issue of Amusement (a French magazine that covers games and fashion), photographer/artist, Marc Da Cunha Lopes AKA “aisakie” shows us a glimpse in the factories that produces iconic games such as Tetris, Sonic the Hedgehog, Mario Bros., Arkanoid, and Pong.
The photos feature the fabrication of signature items from these games such as the smelting of the Sonic’s rings, the cutting of the Tetris blocks, the sculpting of the 1-Up mushroom from Mario Bros.
Of course, this is all the work of fantasy by aisakie. but wouldn’t it be brilliant if you can make a in-game item? I wonder if I can make the “speader gun” from Contra out of paper mache. I would use that sucker to chase the neighborhood cats. heheheheh
If you are like me, you don’t have the patience to finish video games. The constant deaths and failures make it very hard to actually invest time and effort to see a game through to the very end. I might have couple dozen games from various consoles at home and I MAY have finished only a hand full of them. If you suffer from the same problems as me, do not worry!
At a recent “Mario A.I. Competition”, artificial intelligence programmer, Robin Baumgarten has designed a computer script that can direct Mario through some of the most hazardous levels of ‘Super Mario World’. Of course, it isn’t 100% completed yet, but you can see some of the potential that the program has to offer. Maybe in a few years, with the advancement of technology, this A.I. gamer can be offered for the casual lazy gamer that just can’t get the job done.
However, isn’t this how it always starts? Sentinels, MCP, Skynet, HAL, etc? It is possible that human enslavement by machine all started with a computer program to play freaking Mario Bros.
