Travis4

Joined 01/23/2012

Web developer and all-around geek.
https://travisnewman.me

547 Posts

If you haven't heard of Twitch Plays Pokémon, here's a brief synopsis: The people behind the channel set up a bot that would pass commands entered in the chat window to an emulator running the original Pokémon.

Of course, with anything like this, trolls were rampant. But the Borg collective of Twitch users playing the game managed to get through all the trolls throwing them off ledges and worked together to beat the game. It took about 16.5 days but they did it.

A message on the stream says that a new adventure will be starting in 19 hours as of this post, so we haven't seen the last of them. I wonder how far they'll take it? I'd love to see it keep going through all the games that can be emulated.

Something that has occurred to me though-- Nintendo is usually a stickler about their property being used publicly like this. I'm surprised they haven't stepped in to try to close it down. I'm glad they haven't, though. Maybe they realize this is excellent publicity for them. And it really is, it's making me want to pull out the DS.


NASA got Ellen McLain to voice a supercomputer in this educational video. It does a fantastic job of explaining just what these concepts mean, while also staying true to character.

I mean it's corny, yeah, but it's fun.


http://cdn4.steampowered.com/v/gfx/apps/620/ss_f3f6787d74739d3b2ec8a484b5c994b3d31ef325.1920x1080.jpg?t=1382638717
One of the last Valve games waiting to get the Linux treatment is now in beta. You can opt-in to it to play it now!

Very few games from Valve's library are left now. It may only be CS:GO? Not sure. But it's good to see another high-quality game join the Linux circle, even if it was one that was obviously coming.


Wolfenstein: The New Order dropped a new trailer today. It is coming out May 20, which is great news and I'm sure I'll enjoy it thoroughly.

More importantly, though, IT COMES WITH ACCESS TO A DOOM BETA.

It is never referred to as DOOM 4, so it's possible this is a reboot, at least in name, in the same way the previous Wolfenstein was.

Guys and gals, I am stoked. Doom is one of my favorite franchises, and the fact that they're close enough to be talking about betas is exciting news on its own-- the fact that we can get our hands on it soon is icing on the cake.

Read more about the pre-order, the beta, and more here: http://www.wolfenstein.com/en-us/doom


Please make sure your speakers aren't turned way up when you watch the embedded video.

I was recently reminded of the legendary Laddergoat video and have been going through youtube trying to find more hilarious videos I might have missed.

Many hilarious videos come out of streaming and Lets Plays. Sometimes intentional, sometimes a bug or an unexpected event will bring the hilarity.

For those who haven't seen it, this video is a recorded stream of one of the guys at Dopelives playing Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood. He sees a goat, and the goat does something unexpected. It's funny, but the streamer's reaction is the best part. Such an infectious laugh.

Dopelives have done some other hilarious videos, usually the ones with the same guy streaming. This one of Surgeon Simulator 2013 is pretty nifty as well. If you've played the game, you know how hilariously chaotic it can be. It's like QWOP in 3D. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoytOOlTvIc

My second place goes to "I Broke Star Trek." A couple of friends record themselves playing the recent Star Trek game and some of the bugs are spectacular. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZ2X8PHAI6Y

So what's your top pick?

EDIT: If you don't have a video, tell us a story about something hilarious that's happened to you. As CapnCurry demonstrated below, they can be just as funny.


http://i.imgur.com/YYIuHt5.jpg
The Source 2 engine looks to be coming along nicely. This image looks like a legitimate leak, and it is beautiful.

User "crazy buttocks on a train," who is known for the quality of his information leaks, has posted a screenshot of an internal powerpoint presentation containing screenshots of an updated version of the Plantation level. The image embedded above is a comparison, with the new hotness on the top, and the Left 4 Dead 2 we know and love on the bottom.

Thread here: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=758999

More info: http://www.valvetime.net/threads/source-2-left-4-dead-2-prototype-screenshots-leaked.244266/


Another wonder from Awesome Games Done Quick-- using a modified controller cable, these guys are able to rewrite Super Mario World as it's running, inserting new minigames like Pong and Snake.

Essentially two pins that normally go unused allow you to transfer data to the game. I'll let you get the full explanation from the video, because I'm sure I'd get something wrong if I tried to summarize further.


For Awesome Games Done Quick, Sinisterwon and Zallard1 did blindfolded speedruns of Mike Tyson's Punch-Out and Super Punch-Out, respectively.

Sinisterwon broke his record from last year, where he was eliminated after the second Piston Honda fight. I'll let you watch the rest to see how far he gets.

After that, Zallard1 takes on Super Punch-Out. You can tell he's been practicing-- he pretty accurately guesses the times at the end of a few of the matches.

With games like this that are pattern-based, it's certainly feasible, but this is just impressive.


Pillow Castle Games, a student team from Carnegie Mellon, has developed a tech demo for a puzzle game that can't come out soon enough.

The basics are pretty straight-forward. Forced perspective mechanics allow you to resize objects in a very intriguing way. But it gets far more complex when portals are introduced. The portals are also resizable and let you essentially grow or shrink the entire world.

This 8 minute video makes me want more. I wouldn't be surprised if an established company tried to hire the members of Pillow Castle in the same way Valve hired the Narbacular Drop team to make Portal. Wherever they end up, I can't wait to play the finished product.


The new Humble Indie Bundle is out. This one includes To the Moon, Joe Danger 2, Papo y Yo, Bit Trip Runner 2, and if you beat the average, Reus and Surgeon Simulator 2013. If you got there early, you could also snag Starbound if you paid $10 or more, but those are long gone. There were 1000 of them and they were gone in a minute or so. I've been wanting to check out Reus and Papo y Yo for a while now, so I'm glad to jump on board.