Price of this useful Wii accessory is at $19.99 and will be out around mid-June.

Image: Komodo
Via: Crunchgear

Post from: EveryJoe

3-in-1 Wii Retro Adapter, More Juice For VC

How did the current home-console controllers come to be? How have they evolved? You may have noticed some similarities between the current generation controllers, or between them and the previous generations of controllers. So, how do they all tie together?

Let’s try to find out. I’ve put together a chart, or controller family tree, that tries to connect all the current console controllers with their predecessors. Firstly, I don’t think anyone else has tried to do something similar on the Web, and secondly, none of the manufacturers actually come out and tell you who they’re borrowing ideas from. This means that a lot of the information presented here is my opinion. I try to keep things accurate, using facts I know, but also making some of my own conclusions where no hard evidence is available.

Suffice it to say that Sock Master has done a good job at assembling his little project, from the old school Atari 2600 joystick to the sensational Nintendo Wiimote.

Atari 2600 joystick: Grandpa Controller

Nintendo Wiimote: Junior

Here, take a gander at Sock Master’s work.

Post from: EveryJoe

The video game console controller ‘family tree’

Sigh. My collection isn’t complete anymore. My old Coleco Telstar Arcade is in shambles … the only intact things that came with the original package are the cartridges. Very solid, I must say. My Nintendo Family Computer, on the other hand, still works, but it makes my television go crazy whenever I plug it in. Ditto with my Super Nintendo Entertainment System.

Oh, well. I guess it’s time to purchase new (old) consoles. Here are the videos:

Post from: EveryJoe

Video game console collection on video

Well, here’s my list:

Pong, Space Invaders, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Pac-Man, Frogger, Donkey Kong, Super Mario Brothers, Leisure Suite Larry, Afterburner, Double Dragon, Prince of Persia, Tetris, Secret of Monkey Island, Sonic the Hedgehog, Castle Wolfenstein, Super Mario Kart, Street Fighter II, Mortal Kombat, Minesweeper, Myst, Rayman, Command & Conquer, Tekken, Tomb Raider, The Sims, Grand Theft Auto, and Total War.

Darn, I think I have to brush up on my video games history and literature again.

Post from: EveryJoe

The History of Video Games in two minutes

Go check it out and judge for yourself:

Kudos to Norman Caruso for the superb voiceover.

Post from: EveryJoe

The Gaming Historian: Now this is edutainment

If you’ve played Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, then playing Killer Instinct should be a breeze for you. In Killer Instinct, like other fighting games, the player controls a character with the goal of beating different opponents in a one-on-one match.

The game, however, has other features that differentiate it from other titles:

A double energy bar. Instead of having to beat an opponent in two rounds, each character has two bars of energy. If a player finishes his or her opponent’s first life bar, the fight stops and resumes, just like a transition between two rounds. The difference is, the winning character gets to keep whatever amount of energy he or she had upon beating the opponent. Nifty, eh?

Automatic combos. I think this feature has already been incorporated in today’s generation of fighting games. Back then, though, it was unique to Killer Instinct. Rather than pressing different buttons to deliver individual attacks that make up a combo, combos in Killer Instinct are automated by assigning a button to a special move.

Finishing moves. This feature is inspired by Mortal Kombat’s fatalities. Each character has at least two moves known as No Mercy, which finishes an opponent in a violent manner. One of these No Mercy moves can be activated at the end of a combo.

Sigh. I wish I played the game in the arcades. Too bad I was only able to beat the crap out of my cousins on the Super Nintendo System version of Killer Instinct.

Here’s a video of the intro of Killer Instinct’s arcade version:

Post from: EveryJoe

Killer Instinct: It’s all about combos, baby

The author of this mish-mash, however, missed the entire Apple line of personal computers. I owned an Apple IIc, so I know first-hand that a lot of video games can be played on the machine—that is, if any Apple computer is still intact to this day.

Post from: EveryJoe

Video game consoles, then and now

Great work… I might drag out the N64 later on, this videos made me really want to play it!

Via Infendo.

Post from: EveryJoe

Goldeneye – For reals yo!

Remember when Christmas felt like that? I’m having a hard time typing anything because I’m laughing too much, but I’m particularly keen on the slow motion playback. That kid eminates a sound similar to the collective braying of a million cadaverous automata.

Via Digg.

Post from: EveryJoe

Shut Up Now

The inimitably intrepid British Gaming Blog delivers the goods once again, with news that an emulation fan by the name of PSMonkey has successfully installed an N64 emulator on Sony’s handheld.

More and more consoles are getting emulated on the PSP, and it seems N64 is underway now. PSMonkey has got Mortal Kombat to work on his emulator, and will be releasing it soon…

How soon though? And how popular will this prove to be? At least PSP owners will finally have some decent games to play (Zing! I’m on fire!)!

Peep this here video:

On the YouTube page for this video there is plenty of information about the emulator itself, but what is interesting is this:

Just to let everyone know, PSMonkey is not the only one developing a N64 emulator. I have been working on my own N64 emulator for a couple of months now. My emulator is called Donkey64 and is in its beta stages right now. I am including a video of my emulator playing MarioKart64.

So it appears that the emulator in the video isn’t actually PSMonkey’s emulator, and in fact Donkey64 seems to be the first out of the gates with a preview. I wonder how PSMonkey got caught up in all this? Perhaps it’s a case of chinese whispers.

It doesn’t matter too much, just so long as a solid N64 emulator hits PSP screens then that’s all that matters. Although I did find this comment on the video funny:

The only way to make PSP good is to steal Nintendo copy righted games and put them on it? Funny. Buy a DS.

Too true brother, too true…

Via BGB (600 posts young) or read more about Donkey64 on YouTube.

Post from: EveryJoe

N64 on PSP?