Behold, the benefits of having someone on the inside. Michael Abbott is a theater professor at Wabash College in Indiana, but he’s also slightly Internet-famous for his game theory blog, The Brainy Gamer. So when the Wabash faculty was developing an all-college course entitled “Enduring Questions,” Abbott saw an opportunity. He convinced his fellow professors to make Portal part of the syllabus in a class that all students must take to graduate.

Continue Reading

Unlike the giant NES controller coffee table, the Playstation coffee table isn’t a working controller, but it gets high marks in my book for balancing a sheet of glass so elegantly on those dual analog sticks. This was apparently a school project for a guy in Australia. The left and right legs are made of MDF, and the curved controllers are 6mm bendy plywood. Veneer on veneer forms the two joysticks, and the whole thing is finished with polyeurethane full gloss, black and white.

Continue Reading

Folks who read the last pages of books first will be pleased to know that Halo: Reach’s ending is posted to YouTube in glorious high-definition. From the couple seconds I’ve watched, it looks legitimate, but to give you a last chance to avoid temptation, I’m not going to embed the video here. Just hit the link above or search for “Halo: Reach ending” on YouTube. I’m guessing Microsoft will try to take down these videos as fast as they’re going up, but we all know how genies and bottles work.

Continue Reading

Robbing a GameStop is no small crime in St. Tammany Parish, La., where 29-year-old Gregory Reaux was sentenced to 40 years in prison on three counts of armed robbery and one count of attempted armed robbery. Reaux was convicted last month of robbing four GameStop stores, using a boxcutter as a weapon and wearing a torn-off shirt sleeve as a mask. Police caught him, box cutter in hand, during a stakeout, based on a description given by GameStop clerks who were previously robbed. For each of the four counts, State Judge August J. “A.J.” Hand sentenced Reaux to 10 years, served consecutively.

Continue Reading

Formally known as “Duck Hunt Gun Soap,” this Nintendo Zapper is compatible with all kinds of dirt and grime, even though the thought of rubbing a gun all over yourself is kind of creepy. The Duck Hunt Gun Soap weighs 12 ounces and is, unfortunately, completely flat on one side. But it is loaded with coconut, palm and safflower oils, plus glycerin and a bunch of other materials I’d rather not get acquainted with on a name-basis. Digitalsoaps is selling this big bar of Zapper over at Etsy for $17, plus $8 shipping to the United States. [Etsy via Technabob]

People don’t listen when you tell them video games translate to real-world skills, but thankfully, University of Florida Ph.D candidate Nate Poling doesn’t care. He’s teaching “21st Century Skills in StarCraft”  at the school’s honors college. From the course description:

With society becoming increasingly technology-based and fast-paced, it is important for professionals to be highly proficient in skills such as critical thinking, problem solving, resource management, and adaptive decision making. These skills are fundamental in Starcraft and therefore make the game a highly effective environment for students to analyze and take action in complex situations.

Continue Reading

Halo’s alright, but Mass Effect is the real gem in Microsoft’s exclusive Xbox 360 lineup, at least until January 2011. Bioware announced that Mass Effect 2 will be released for Playstation 3 next year. According to PC World, the game will include “hours of bonus content,” but there aren’t any other details. A trailer at Bioware’s website simply says that “after 70+ perfect reviews, it’s finally coming to PS3″ and shows no particularly noteworthy footage.

Continue Reading

Time to brush up your crocheting skills, because reader Nikki has passed along a bunch of her tutorial videos for how to make video game dolls. “I love video games and was inspired to make my own dolls instead of buying them from stores,” she writes. “Some of the dolls have been inspired by anime, but most of them are from video games.”

Continue Reading

Super Smash Bros. looks like all fun and games from afar, but Robot Pencil envisions the game as a Fight Club of sorts, where all your favorite Nintendo characters go to feel more like real men (even Samus). The above image is the first in an upcoming series by DeviantArtist Robot Pencil, mashing up Smash Bros. with the grit of David Fincher’s frightening 1999 film.

Continue Reading