Art & Design

Revised Okami Box Art: Suitable for Framing

In a strange example of “I can’t believe their graphic designers did this,” Okami for Wii shipped with an IGN watermark on the cover! If you squint, you can even see it on our post announcing the game’s imminent release. The IGN circle-dpad-planet logo is right by Ammy’s mouth. Whoever composited the cover art must have Googled “Okami artwork” and grabbed one of IGN’s art files. Rather than, you know, walking down the hall and asking Capcom’s artists for the original files. Weird.

But Capcom is not ignoring this teeny little embarrassment; they’re giving away free stuff!

Visit their Cover Artwork Redemption page and you can request a new printing of the box art. Capcom doesn’t say why they redesigned the cover, just that they did and would like to send it to you. Ahem.

And it gets better… you can alternately choose from two other pieces of art, both sized to fit a DVD case.
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The Ladies of Rainbow Six Vegas 2

Ubisoft’s Rainbow Six Vegas 2 allows players some nice playable character options. You can stick your own face in the game with an attached camera, or select and modify premade male and female characters. I decided to look for a sexy female squad leader, but when I browsed the ladies, I found them to be less than lovely. I’m not sure why Ubisoft chose to use bulldog-faced females in their game. It may be that it’s simply more believable to have a homely, beast-like woman in charge of an elite military team than say a Lara Croft type. It’s just a good thing your lady wears a helmet over her elongated mug during the actual game.

At the risk of ending this fan’s world… it’s a Metroid II remake!

Regardless of how you feel about them (well, us), fans of Nintendo games are a breed apart. Many won’t let the obvious legal danger of playing around with Nintendo’s IPs deter them from making their own versions of Nintendo’s classic games. Case in point is this surprising remake of the 1992 Game Boy game, Metroid II: Return of Samus, which I reviewed for Aeropause. Go ahead and read that one, I’m proud of it. I’ll wait.

So what this loyal fan, going by the name DoctorM64, has done is ripped the assets out of Metroid Fusion (hey, you can read a review for that, too) and used them as a starting point to rebuild the ol’ monochrome beep-fest in much the same way Nintendo did for the original Metroid with Zero Mission (hey, what do you know…).

It’s Windows-only unfortunately, but judging by the video at the source, it’s some impressive work that clearly took a really long time to do. Let’s keep in mind that the better this man does, the more likely he is to be shut down with a firmly-worded cease and desist letter. He even points out that he’s aware of that on his blog. Brilliant job though, this guy should be cooperating for a Cave Story sequel instead of getting himself in trouble like this.

Source: Fan remake of Metroid II is not only awesome, but also playable at DSFanboy.

Cuddle up with Katamari.

Crafters are the best. They manage to whip up the cutest things with just a little bit of yarn, a crochet hook and some patience. Oh, and in this case - a love for a little game known as Katamari Damacy. Ann Fox, a textile artist, whipped up this Katamari Prince of All Cosmos blanket out of good ol’ acrylic yarn (the kind you can find at any craft store) in a pattern she made with Adobe Illustrator and OmniGraffle, a diagramming program for MacOS X. Check out Ann’s other work at her site: Ann Fox Art

This isn’t the first Katamari craft Aeropause has seen, mind you. Check out these other beauties:

Etsy Katamari Mashup Toy
Cool Katamari Shoes
Crocheted Katamari Doll

Do not feed the metroids.

While researching ideas for my next tattoo, I ran into this cool shirt featuring an icon-style metroid on Threadless. Corruption players might recognize the symbol as being very similar to the one used to represent the “creatures” category of scannables in that game, though this image has been around for a little while and might actually predate Prime 3.

Ultimately, I chose to go with a morph ball tattoo, but this is still a neat shirt. Not sure why it was made to look like an element from the periodic table, but there it is.

Noteworthy is the recommendation however… I agree that feeding metroids is a bad idea. Unless you’ve overrun by X, or if you have the opportunity to feed it a Space Pirate. At which point I encourage the feeding, particularly if you have something cold to use against it once it’s eaten.

Source: Threadless

See also:

Poor Sonic
Mario shirt on Threadless
E For All loves Threadless
This Is Not A Pipe
Threadless Watch
Gaming Threadless tee
Original Gamester T-shirt
Bioshock Loves Threadless
LocoRoco loves Threadless
Poor dog, nice shirt

Whew! These people need to advertise here! Actually, no they don’t, do they.

Vinyl wallets on Etsy offer gamers a design of their own in the 8-bit style.

Easily the most unique gift I received this year was a clear vinyl wallet that my wife bought on Etsy. Under their shop called tinymeat, Mikey and Mona sell these wallets in a number of different designs, and this one is the 8 Bit Wallet in black. It features an outline image of an Atari 2600 joystick. Also offered are checkbook covers and passport folios.

Mine has already grabbed a lot of attention, usually when I’m paying for things. I like that the inside is clear, because showing ID is very easy. The construction is very solid, but I wish mine had more pockets in it for all the crap I lug around in my wallet. It’s been an incentive for me to travel light, but I wonder when the first time I will realize I don’t have something I need will be.

You can also check out their own shop on their website, avoiding Etsy completely if you like. There is mention on their Etsy shop of an upcoming Nintendo DS case line, so we’ll need to keep an eye out for that.

Source: tinymeat on Etsy.

Hey, it’s a wall of DS icons. Now that’s dedication.

The latest Nintendo Power tells a tale of a NeoGAF member named Stumpokapow who’s been collecting the 32-pixel icons each Nintendo DS game uses in the system’s startup menu. It’s quite a collection already, and it’s a fun little time waster if you’ve got the platform and have played a number of its great games.

Source: Stumpnet via Nintendo Power.

Airbender? Pizza Cutter. Here’s what to do with those bad games.

Now that some well-meaning fool has bought you a game that is rather more of turd sandwich than a giant douche, you’re no doubt wondering what to do with those games. Perhaps it wasn’t shrink-wrapped or your sincere, “Oh, I already have this game…. do you have the receipt?” only got a blank stare. Before you rush off to the trash can with your gift, GameDaily has some suggestions (actually published earlier this month) for what you can do with those unwanted titles. My favorite may be the pictured pizza cutter. Of course it won’t do a good job cutting the pizza. But honestly, is Avatar, The Last Airbender: The Burning Earth going to do any better as a piece of electronic entertainment? I think not.

Seriously, though. Keep the game intact, and sell it online. Just make sure you really don’t want it.

Source: GameDaily.

See also:

Seller’s remorse: a kick in the teeth.

The great Virtual Console trade-in.

And now, a list of ways developers conceal load times.

Who doesn’t love a list? They’re a good way to group a bunch of examples of something. Or a bunch of… well, anything, because really that’s all a list is.

Load screens are something everyone should be familiar with at this point. While the best games often will at least try to conceal load times behind something else, whether it’s a minigame or even an amusing animation of some sort, this list puts forward eight examples of what the author considers ineffective methods at concealing load times.

Notable in the list for me was Metroid Prime 3’s lagging doors. When Retro Studios’ design team has a large area to load, it’ll put a small but twisting corridor before it with minor foes that slow you down a lot. While you’re fighting through that nuisance, the engine caches the next section. Unfortunately, skilled players can breeze through these loading rooms, and when they get to the other end and hit the door with a beam to make it open, it doesn’t. The room’s still loading. The list says this is a problem when you’re taking shots to the back at that moment, but I don’t recall that ever happening. Who leaves survivors behind to shoot at you in Metroid Prime 3?

Source: OMGLists.

LED Pac-Man Christmas tree baffles, munches on Madrid.

I spent a certain amount of time setting up my artificial tree this year, and every second of it was completely wasted, it seems. I didn’t even know you could get a tree like this. The tree is fully animated, and made entirely of LEDs. An amazing homage, in the least. Anyone else impressed? Check out the links for some video of this thing in action. Then tear down all your ornaments, we’ve been shamed.

Source: ClipSet via Technabob.