If everyone in the world simultaneously made a list of the top ten most likely places for the works of Vincent van Gogh to turn up, odds are no one’s list would have included Valve’s Counter-Strike, and we would have all been wrong.
In a surreal mashup of FPS action and dreamy art, this mod thrusts would-be terrorists or counter-terrorists into the twisted mind of Vincent Van Gogh. Examples of the artist’s work can be seen on the walls, and outside, the beauty of his famous Starry Night hangs heavy in the sky.
Click to View Embedded Video Clip
Counter-Strike players may want to download this one for themselves, but just watching the video (for hours and hours) may be enough to satisfy you. The visuals are addictive.
[Nipper Maps via Offworld]
Written by alisha k. on December 3rd, 2008 with comments disabled.
Read more articles on Technology and art and counter-strike and custom and fps and hacks-mods and map and post-impressionist and starry night and strange and wonderful and valve and video games and vincent van gogh.
Remember the old Sinclair ZX81 computer? You know, the tiny, little 8-bit machine with a huge following, and a horrible flat keyboard?
Thanks to miracle of modern miniaturization, you can now fit a fully-functional Windows or Linux PC inside of one of these. It’s pretty amazing when you think about it - as the ZX81 only measures in at about 6.6″ wide x 6.9″ deep x 1.6″ tall.
Modder Unravelled managed to cram the entire system - including a tiny hard drive - inside the diminutive ZX81 case by using a newfangled VIA EPIA Pico-ITX motherboard. (As small as the Pico-ITX is, I defy anyone to cram a complete system into the even smaller ZX Spectrum).
Pretty impressive, eh? Now all Unravelled needs to do is install a copy of EightyOne or XTender on there to play original ZX81 applications inside of a modern OS, and he’ll be all set.
Written by technabob on December 2nd, 2008 with comments disabled.
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The Italian police have recently recovered a gun disguised as an ugly, outdated, monochrome-screened phone. That’s right: monochrome. James Bond would rather have his testicles torn off, boiled and then fed to him than be caught using this ancient tech.
The phone was seized in a raid of the Naples-based mafia group Camorra. According to BBC, the ugly outdated monochromatic phone gun can shoot up to four .22-caliber bullets out of its antenna ”in quick succession”. Look at that abomination. In a world filled with iPhones and Blackberrys, how the hell is that a disguise? What’s next? Pager Grenades?
[via BBC]
Written by lambert v. on December 1st, 2008 with comments disabled.
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While you could fill your salad bowl with lettuce, tomatoes, bacon bits and honey dijon dressing, that would be pretty boring. Personally, I prefer my salads to be made from anodized aluminum, magnets, and wire. Yum.
UK modder HoopsOnToast was shopping at his local IKEA store when he realized the potential to make some nifty orb-shaped speakers by gluing together pairs of 8″ Blanda Matt solid birch hardwood bowls.
The speakers get their sweet sound from a pair of full range (100Hz - 20kHz) Bandor 50mm drivers, mounted into the sliced-off face of one of the bowls.
Word is that the cabinets sound simply brilliant, and they only took about 3 hours to put together. And since IKEA offers the bowls in multiple sizes, you could build a full surround sound system using these (front speakers in the 8″ bowls, surrounds in the 5″ bowls, and subwoofer in the 11″ bowls).
…croutons not included.
[HiFi WigWam via IKEA Hacker]
Written by technabob on November 28th, 2008 with comments disabled.
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Casemodders have implanted the brains of the Atari 2600 into all sorts of strange host bodies over the years, but this is the first time I’ve seen this particular permutation.
Modder Chris Koopa (with a name like that, I’m shocked he hasn’t done any Nintendo mods) melded the shell of old SEGA Game Gear portable with the guts of an Atari 2600 to create this Frankenstein’s Monster of a gaming system, dubbed the Atari Gear 2600. The handheld has a 2.5″ backlit LCD display, and can run for an impressive 7-8 hours on a set of AA batteries.
By using the lightweight innards of an Atari Flashback 2, Chris was able to cram in a system loaded with 40 built-in Atari 2600 games. And thanks to a clever 2600 cart slot mod, the system can play original cartridges from the 2600 too.
Pitfall portable, here I come!
[via Ben Heck Forums]
Written by technabob on November 26th, 2008 with comments disabled.
Read more articles on 8 bit and Atari 2600 and casemod and game gear and hacks-mods and handheld and portable and retro and sega and video games.
Want to build your own games, but don’t have the artistic talent to build complex game graphics? This new kit lets you create games using a simple LED dot-matrix display.
With a colorful 8×8 RGB LED display, the Meggy Jr RGB handheld platform gives you everything you need to create your own mini-games or pixel art displays.
Each colored dot actually contains three tiny LEDs, for a total of 192 uniquely addressable positions. The kit includes 6 clicky button switches, an audio transducer and additional LEDs for keeping track of things like your score or number of lives left in your custom games.
Meggy Jr even offers customizable handles so you can pimp out your handheld with your own design.
The Arduino-based Meggy Jr RGB kit comes with a pre-installed game called “Attack of the Cherry Tomatoes”, a little side-scrolling shooter, but the real fun comes from writing your own games. All you need is a USB-TTL cable, and the open-source Meggy Arduino developer library.
You can get your hands on Meggy Jr. over at Evil Mad Science with prices ranging from $65 to $95 USD.
[Meggy Jr. RGB Details]
Written by technabob on November 15th, 2008 with no comments.
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Call me a sucker for old school gaming, but the Super Nintendo (SNES) has always been one of my favorite consoles. This custom-built handheld brings back those classic gaming memories.
Perfect for the occasional on-the-road game of Super Mario World or Star Fox, this portable SNES was put together by retro modder Kotomi, who’s earlier work includes the great NES in a cartridge mod.
It’s a really clean build job, echoing the design of the original Super Nintendo console and gamepad, only with a nice big LCD screen smack dab in the middle. The cartridge slips nicely into the back of the portable, making it about the most streamlined SNES portable I’ve seen.
Click to View Embedded Video Clip
Great job, Kotomi!
Written by technabob on November 10th, 2008 with no comments.
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There are plenty of replacement cases out there for the Nintendo DS Lite, but this one has a nifty trick up its sleeve.
The new XCM Hyper Gear case for the DS Lite not only gives your handheld a new look, it turbocharges your games. See that little switch that says “N”, “1.4X” and “1.7X” in the bottom right corner? Just flip it, and your DS Lite will run at 140% or 170% of its normal speed. Presumably, it’s safe to overclock your DS Lite, but it’ll probably end up draining your battery like mad.
Now keep in mind that overclocking a handheld like the DS Lite actually speeds up your games, graphics and audio. To give you an idea of what that might look and sound like, check out this video of another speed-hacked DS Lite:
Click to View Embedded Video Clip
XCM expects to release the Hyper Gear case in the next few weeks, and you’ll be able to find it at online modding retailers including Extreme Mods and Total Console.
Written by technabob on November 5th, 2008 with no comments.
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