Congrats to our Pals at Riot Games!

Congrats to our buddies at Riot Games who recently won GameTrailers.com's Best Strategy Game of E3 Award for their debut title, "League of Legends"! Always cool to see our friends and fellow alumni kicking ass and taking names! My favorite things about the game is it's unique character and level art - checkout the awesome concept art from its development...

Video Games | Best of E3 2009 Awards | Best Strategy Game

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Video Games are getting way too crazy... Modern Warfare 2 Trailer

This Sunday during a wild memorial day weekend, Nasty Nass, Cheyne and Daniel hosted a fun BBQ at their new Animal House and it was filled with all sorts of excellent company and interesting riff raff. FoundTrack friend and NBA genius Nate Jones was in attendance live blogging the eastern conference finals when this craziness came on during the commercials. Video games are getting way too nuts, I feel disconnected from the youth! Check out the badass trailer to Modern Warfare 2:

Punch-out! Art by artist Jeff Mcmillan @ Gallery 1988

A few days ago we found out Nintendo is producing a remake of "Punch-out!" for the Wii. Today I stumbled upon this amazing tribute to said retro game franchise by painter Jeff McMillan, entitled "Punchouts." Behold the glory of this work which is available as a print at Gallery 1988:

(click to enlarge)

And here's a little something from the "About Us" section of Gallery 1988. I fully endorse and support their "glorious year of 1988" inspired brand identity- make sure to click the following to enlarge and enjoy:

Nintendo Punch-Out! is back !

One of the most glorious pieces of retro 80s video game history is back! At a press conference this morning, Nintendo announced a new version of the boxing classic "Punch-Out!" for the Wii. I'm usually weary of remakes, but this one looks like it's kept the best of the original, including main character "Little Mac" and villains including King Hippo. Along with Street Fighter IV, the next few months look like a rad time for some vintage gaming nostalgia. Checkout this teaser trailer... the best part is they stuck with the oh so classic music theme:

Gratuitous Nintendo Power Glove Video from "The Wizard"

Any of you kids that grew up in the 80s will totally remember the "Power Glove," a Nintendo controller that promised to be the pinnacle of video game technology, but ended up being a retro fashion treasure. Said fashion piece was first revealed in the 80s video game movie, "The Wizard" starring Wonder Years child star Fred Savage, AND Rilo Kiley's Jenny Lewis- a film that must have been financed by Nintendo's marketing budget, as it also revealed Super Mario Brothers 3 to the public:

Marchelle Madness from Bedtime for Toys (recently featured on TMZ.com) sent us this amazing Power Glove focused clip from the movie and it inspired this entire post. I totally want this little pimp's top secret briefcase!:



Checkout more 80s retro revival Power Glove action at the 1:13 mark of Hyper Crush's music video to "The Arcade" (produced by FoundTrack Friends Emile and Jamie of Six29 Entertainment):

Retro Atari Stylin'- N.E.R.D.'s "Everyone Nose Remix" Music Video

Here's the remix video to N.E.R.D.'s "Everyone Nose." This mix features verses by Lupe Fiasco, Kanye West and Pusha T (from the Clipse). I'm usually not the biggest fan of director Hype Williams, but this video is pretty fresh and I'm a sucker for the retro Atari Galaga look it's got going on. Keep an eye out for these future couture Martin Margiela sunglasses that we featured a few weeks ago-

And here, we, go:

Trailer to Metal Gear Solid 4 - The first real reason to buy a Playstation 3

Metal Gear Solid 4 is one of the most highly anticipated video game releases of 2008. The game is the 4th in the highly cinematic series of tactical espionage games that follow the exploits of lead character "Solid Snake" (based off of Snake Plissken from Escape from NY). The game is directed by acclaimed Japanese director Hideo Kojima and is expected to increase sales of the Playstation 3 video game console. Here now is the trailer for your viewing pleasure... even if you're not into video games, give it a shot if you're into film:

USC Interactive Media Thesis Exhibition "Press Start"

FoundTrack Friend Paul Bellezza (famed LA Taco Truck blogger, and member of Team Riot Games) invited us to USC's Interactive Media Thesis Exhibition, "Press Start." More info on the show is below, but basically it's a showcase of the graduate projects of this masters program. Should be an awesome showcase for anyone that's into design, interactive media, video games, motion graphics or art in general.

To kill time until the opening reception this Saturday, checkout the trailer to the independently produced video game "The Misadventures of P.B. WinterBottom" that Paul and company have been working on. I won't pretend to be an expert on the technical side of this stuff, but I can say that from a visual standpoint the game looks awesome- it's highly stylized and is inspired by silent black and white films of Hollywood's early era:




EXHIBITION INFO:

"Press Start"
MFA Thesis Exhibition
May 10-15, 2008 | 12-8 PM

The USC School of Cinematic Arts Interactive Media Division proudly presents PRESS START, an exhibition of graduate thesis projects from our three-year MFA program. These eleven unique projects are an eclectic mix of new explorations in interactive media featuring a very wide range of play scenarios and themes. These projects promise to move you, entertain you and make you think.

Opening Reception
Saturday, May 10, 2008 | 5-9 PM

LOCATION
555 W 23rd Street
Los Angeles, CA 90007
(Texere Plaza, 23rd/Figueroa St.)
Google Map

free & metered street parking available

Even more info and exhibitor Bios at USC's official site

Turn your Gameboy into a Keyboard - Korg DS-10 Analog Synthesizer

Hey Kids, next time your parents tell you that nothing productive can come out of playing your Nintendo, show em this. Famed synth maker Korg is set to release a $50 package that turns your Gameboy DS into a fully functional keyboard / synthesizer / sequencer called the "DS-10". For a closer look, checkout this video of the little wonder in action. Who knows- maybe you can become the next DJ Shadow or Dr. Dre of the playground?...

Korg's official site for the DS-10

Source - Retro Thing

Ninja Gaiden 2 - Another Retro Title gets a Rad Sequel

First we find out that Street Fighter II is getting an updated sequel. Now this:

Ninja. F'ing. Gaiden, people! If you never played Street Fighter or Ninja Gaiden as a child, I feel really bad for you. In fact, you're probably a communist or something. How they took the above, and turned it into this amazing madness, I'll never know:



Source: GameTrailers.com

Street Fighter IV ?! (Was there even a part III ?!)

Looks like all of us kids of the 80s/90s have another thing to look forward to- a new Street Fighter game is coming out! Most of us had epic battles with Street Fighter II and I think we've all caught ourselves yelling out crazy stuff like "HADOKEN" and "SONIC BOOM" while playing. For the sake of this piece, I'm going to assume there never was a Street Fighter III- I mean if it DOES actually exist, it had to have sucked so badly that I never heard about it...

Checkout these amazing graphics from the new Street Fighter IV. Looks like Capcom (the game studio) got smart and stuck with all the classic characters. As long as the game is as fast paced and responsive as the originals, it could potentially be a big one:

If you're into crazy eastern cultures like our buddy Dhalsim above, you'll probably dig our September '07 MixTape, which featured a little eastern themed mini-mega-mix at the beginning. Dhalsim looks like he totally could have one-upped Little Superstar to have been our coverboy for the issue:

Wonder what happened to all the characters in the last 10 years between the games? Checkout this series of web videos for all the answers- "Street Fighter: The Later Years"

** UPDATE ** Checkout the trailer:



Source: Kotaku