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Play Your Video Games

By Jessica Roy 11/20/12 10:29am

Play Your Video Games

(Screencap: Dress Up Games)

Groundbreaking Educational Video Game Teaches Little Girls How to Be Upper East Side Socialites

It’s so hard to instill the right values in your children these days. If you don’t teach them to be power-hungry, wealth-obsessed superficials, who will? With that in mind, a new video game from IDEA Studios may be the perfect holiday gift for your little one. It’s called Upper East Side Makeover, and it will turn your 10-year-old daughter into a Gossip Girl yet.

Where other video games might teach your child basic math or hand-eye coordination, Upper East Side Makeover offers the chance for your child to learn the crucial skills of proper exfoliation, backstabbing and vicious social climbing. Read More

By Jessica Roy 12:57pm

Play Your Video Games

The finished product. (Photo: Imgur)

Redditor Builds a Portable Xbox 360, May Convince Xbox Players to Finally Leave the House

If your notion of a DIY project is “rosettes” crafted from duct tape, prepare to have your mind blown. A redditor with the username DBrizzle spent the last eight months hacking on a portable Xbox 360, and the results are rather magnificent.

DBrizzle took apart an old Xbox 360 slim and transformed it into a portable laptop-like device with a functioning Xbox 360. The device opens and closes like a laptop, and measures only a little over two inches when closed. The whole thing cost him about $520, which is about twice what an Xbox 360 currently costs. But getting to play the new Borderlands 2 somewhere other than a darkened room? Priceless. Read More

By Jessica Roy 8/03/12 1:27pm

Play Your Video Games

(Photo: Digital Spy)

Give His Regards to Broadway, But Andrew Lloyd Webber is Now Scoring Nintendo Games

If getting the shit scared out of you at a Broadway showing of Cats was a rite of passage for you, then you’ll be pleased to know that the man responsible for that feline phenomenon is putting his immeasurable talents to good use by penning music for Nintendo Wii games. Oh, how the mighty have fallen…into the arms of Dance Dance Revolution.

Andrew Lloyd Webber has signed on for a game cleverly called “Sing & Dance,” coming to a Nintendo Wii near you in mid-September. As one Observer arts reporter remarked, “This is like the equivalent of Orson Welles doing commercials in the ’80s.” Read More

By Jessica Roy 7/06/12 12:47pm

Play Your Video Games

(Photo: Meme Generator)

Mass Exodus of Nerds From Basements as Xbox Live Goes Down

Xbox Live is down. This is not a drill! We repeat: Xbox Live is down.

Gamers everywhere are chucking Xbox controllers at walls, begrudgingly rising from their butt-shaped couch holes and maybe even getting some sunlight for once because I mean would it really kill you, honey?

CNET has confirmed with Microsoft that “Xbox Live users are unable to access the online-gaming service.”

Microsoft’s Xbox Live status page states, “We are aware of the problem and are working to resolve the issue. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and thank you for your patience.”

It better be up by the time we get home from work, because it’s Friday and we have some robots to shoot.

By Jessica Roy 7/05/12 2:56pm

Play Your Video Games

(Photo: Topix)

A Fond Farewell to Chuck E. Cheese

In the heady year of 1977, from that slice of meteorological heaven called San Jose, Nolan Bushnell–the cofounder of Atari–had a charming idea. In a fit of inspiration, he decided to fuse two of the best things on earth and then also tack on one of the creepiest (but who are we to judge?): Pizza, arcade games and animatronic animals so scary they make children hide behind their parents’ legs.

He would build it, furnish it with a stinky ballpit, and they would come: it would be called Chuck E. Cheese’s Pizza Time Theatre. Read More

By Jessica Roy 6/28/12 12:53pm

Play Your Video Games

two-bits-logo-560x376

Hungry for Some Pac-Dots? A Retro Arcade is Opening on the Lower East Side

If you enjoy some pinball with your pints, you’ll be happy to hear that a new retro arcade–dubbed Two-Bits–will soon open at 153 Essex Street on the Lower East Side. Local blog Bowery Boogie spotted the signs announcing the new gaming spot a few days back. “Teaser signage, complete with punk-on-a-coin logo, arrived in the windows of 153 Essex late last week,” they wrote. “We’ve since noticed numerous pedestrians stopping themselves at the sight.”

Unfortunately, Two-Bit’s website is disappointingly sparse, offering only the signage in question and some unnecessary share buttons (one for MySpace, for example). In the meantime, maybe you can catch Tyler DeAngelo and his mobile Frogger game if you’re feeling especially nostalgic about ’80s arcade games.

By Jessica Roy 5/31/12 3:34pm

Play Your Video Games

Mr. Glassenberg (LinkedIn)

Meet the NYC Company Building Online Games for Some of Hollywood’s Biggest Franchises

If you’re a mega-fan of The Hunger Games or Mission Impossible, there’s a fair chance you’re also a a fan of Funtactix, a New York-headquartered gaming company that builds social games based on some of Hollywood’s biggest movie franchises. The company works directly with studios–and yes, Suzanne Collins–to develop graphics and gameplay techniques that allow it to stay as true to the films as possible.

Funtactix builds social games both within and without the Facebook environment, and according, to CEO Sam Glassenberg, it’s the only studio with a track record in the space. Read More

By Jessica Roy 4/20/12 1:17pm

Play Your Video Games

The modified Frogger game on 5th Ave. (irrelinvent.com/)

Reimagination of Classic Frogger Game Lets You Dodge NYC Traffic in Real Time

Here’s a project that neatly weds our collective video game nostalgia with modern technology: To celebrate the classic arcade game Frogger’s 30th birthday (and, let’s be real, in a not-so-subtle attempt to get his work into the Smithsonian), Tyler DeAngelo, a creative director at ad agency Devito/Verdi, redesigned the game based on real time traffic data. Read More