Mario is 25 – 25 of the Best of YouTube
*EDIT: Yes it’s February 2011 and yes Mario was 25 back in 2010. This article was written and shelved to coincide with the Wii release of Mario All Stars but I guess it got neglected and lost in the rabble (kind of like the release of Mario All Stars). Besides, you can be never too late to watch 25 YouTube clips in a row!*
Throughout the year, Nintendo has been celebrating a whopping 25 years of everyone’s favourite tubby Italian plumber, capping off the celebrations with a Wii release of Super Mario All Stars: 25th Anniversary Edition. And what better way for us to celebrate Mario than to cast an eye on the YouTubes and take a look at how he has influenced us so over the years. In compiling this list of some of my favourite clips, I stuck to a strict rule of having only user-generated content (ie. only stuff that fans have created, not Nintendo themselves). To my dismay, this meant not being able to include any of Captain Lou Albano’s schtick from The Super Mario Bros. Super Show T_T
Continue →Happy Valentines from Aperture Science
The good folk at Valve remind us of the upcoming release of Portal 2 (like we needed reminding!) with this wee Valentines Day themed animation. It’s cute an’ all but please Valve, stop torturing us and release the thing soon.
Portal 2 hits Steam and stores on April 22nd 2011. Maybe.
Continue →Could this be the new Mortal Kombat movie?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_MqZn7E-mk
UPDATE: This IS the new Mortal Combat Movie, chud.com have this to say:
Cat’sout of the bag. This is for the movie, and it comes from the mind of genius fight choreographer Larnell Stovall. He’s the guy who did the fights for the excellent Undisputed 3: Redemption, on DVD and Blu-Ray right now. I hope that this movie gets made with Larnell plotting the punches, because this guy isn’t just a geek like us, he’s also got an incredible skill and ambition to create the next generation of fight choreography.
‘Gritty Reboot’ is a term thrown around Hollywood all too often these days. Heck, it worked for Batman – so surely this approach is the key to reviving all ailing franchises? Perhaps. But perhaps it might just be the key to that elusive, truly great video game live action adaptation we so desperately, yet futilely wait for?
Recently we saw a masterful and technically impressive, ‘real-world’ Street Fighter from Joey Ansah and Owen Trevor (highly recommend, you can see it in full here). And although the short itself caused a momentary furore of fanboy exhalations across the net, I personally felt that it was all too frustrating a glimpse of what might not ever come to complete fruition. Might we ever get that feature length video game adaptation that truly kicks ass?
And then this video appeared online yesterday…
It seems noone is exactly sure what it’s origins are: Is this another fan-made short like Street Fighter: Legacy? Is it perhaps a teaser for the forthcoming, back-to-its-bloody-basics MK game? Or is it maybe, JUST maybe a peek at a video game movie that might actually be worth our time? See for yourself… Taking an approach of creating a Mortal Kombat movie that visually and tonally resembles the work of David Fincher (definitely paying homage to Seven) is something that instantly intrigues me. I for one, would be very interested to see how this would all play out in full.
Continue →Dublin – A city of Warlocks and Mages
All too often, players of MMORPGs can be unfairly categorised as social outcasts or rabidly obsessive. But folks, they’re regular, everyday, run-of-the-mill people like you or I! Gavin Kelly‘s wonderful short film Avatar Days takes the simple idea of transporting characters from World of Warcraft into the real world, as we gain a glimpse into 4 such individuals lives. It’s quiet a joy to see dreary, dull, dismal Dublin as beautifully captured as this, as the WOW avatars seamlessly shop for groceries, potter about an office floor or even wait for a LUAS. What’s even more impressive is that this short was shot and completed within 4 days!
AVATAR DAYS
Credits:
Directed by Gavin Kelly
Produced by David Burke
Production manager Marc Long
Director Of Photography Fergal O’ Hanlon
Editors Paul Giles, Damien O’ Connell
3D Animation Lead John O’ Connell
3D Animation Will Sharkey, Cormac Kelly
RED Camera Kindly Supplied by “The Production Depot”
Music by Steve Lynch at StellarSound
Digital Transfer Technial Assistant Cathal McHugh
Compositing Arron Ingles, Declan MacErlane
Street Fighter 2 Musical Remix
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FW98gr6UtU
HAH! HAH! HAH! Oooh, Oii, FIRE!
A brilliantly insane musical rendition created entirely through the sound effects library of Street Fighter 2. There are no words that can fully describe it’s sheer WTF factor. Also… Goddamn do I still love the noise of Ken and Ryu’s Hard Kick! DDDDdddiiiisssshhhh.
Continue →Every Video Game Reference from Scott Pilgrim
It should come as no surprise that we here at Chronic Reload are big, big fans of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s 6-part comic series Scott Pilgrim. After all, it is positively RIDDLED with video game references from the obscure to the down-right obvious. The good folks at UGO have created an exhaustive catalogue of EVERY video game reference throughout the first five volumes of the series. It’s well worth a read if you’re a fan of the comic. And if you’re not already aware of Scott Pilgrim and its brilliance, perhaps the sheer wealth of gaming nuggets hidden in these panels will perk your interest.
The full list of FIFTY-THREE (good lord!) references can be found here. Consider a guide of this magnitude to be spoiler-laden. You have been warned!
Scott Pilgrim: Volume 6 hits comic store shelves on July 20th. The Edgar Wright directed, Michael Cera starring movie adaptation, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, hits the cinema screens on August 6th. And more relative to this here website, Ubisoft’s Scott Pilgrim: The Video Game (featuring beautiful pixel art by Paul Robertson and music by 8 bit tunes by Anamanaguchi) should hit consoles soon.
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