la-li-lu-le-lo : metal gear reference in online spam quiz?

Posted on April 17th, 2008 by Matthew C. | Permalink | No Comments »

So, I’m browsing the internet one lonely Friday morning and as I’m leaving a page I’m bombarded with a pop-up (I’m at work and using IE, lovely) asking me to take a ARE YOU DUMB quiz.  I’ve seen tons of these lately, so I didn’t really pay attention to it at all, but a certain vowel sequence caught my eye. 

As anyone who’s played Metal Gear Solid 2 will remember, The Patriots were also known as the La Li Lu Le Lo.  The origin of the name apparently has something to do with a Japanese urban legend about a lost set of vowels that the government suppressed for some reason or another.  I wish I could verify that, because I know I’ve heard it somewhere, but I can’t seem to find shit online about it now. Oh well.  Just thought this was sort of weird, and if the object of the pop-up was to get my attention, it certainly worked!

 CONSPIRACY.

Noitu Love 2 demo

Posted on March 28th, 2008 by Ilium Willis | Permalink | No Comments »

Joakim Sandberg just released a demo of what, along with the recent Kings of Power 4 Billion %, is beginning to convince me that the current generation of independent western developers; the kinds of people that grew up on a steady diet of Japanese 2d action sporting colorful pixel art, tight gameplay and epic boss battles; hold more appreciation (and possibly understanding) of the genre than their moe-obsessed eastern counterparts.

Noitu Love 2 both looks and plays like some sort of melee centric dashfest by Treasure that never saw release. WayFoward (whom Sandberg has previous experience with) would be wise to ask about doing a WiiWare port. This is kind of thing digital distribution was made for.

rockabillies and metalheads destroying scene kids in mexico

Posted on March 28th, 2008 by Matthew C. | Permalink | No Comments »

Apparently, pompadour-styling greasers and flowing mane metalheads are beating the shit out of emo kids in Mexico. There’s several theories as to why: One of them has to do with it being a sort of anti-homosexual movement, since the emo movement has been seen as homosexual in nature by the Mexican people, the other - a theory put forth by La Jornada - is that it’s due to social tensions caused by the 2006 electoral crisis.  Strange, I know.

image via La Jornada

http://blog.wired.com/underwire/2008/03/anti-emo-riots.html

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So, a Manifesto

Posted on March 27th, 2008 by James E. | Permalink | No Comments »

If you’re turning up and looking at this ugly, half-finished Death Star II of a site right now, 27/03/2008, you may be getting the wrong impression - that this is a blog, the same as half a dozen utterly forgettable sites on the net. Certainly, that’s the feedback I’ve been getting.

So, just to clarify, this isn’t a blog. What you’re seeing now - a gutted wordpress template, innocent of art or .gifs or links or much at all - is just the site’s spine, a thing to hold it together and let you know when we update, as well a neat little way to deal with smaller bits and pieces of information. Super-Combo is going to be an article-orientated site about the love we have for games, and the joy of discovery. Sometimes it might be about comics, or films, or music.

This is not a blog. It just set up house in the burned-down guts of one.

ROM CHECK FAIL: holy fuck

Posted on March 26th, 2008 by Matthew C. | Permalink | 1 Comment »

If you’ve ever wondered what it would look like if you dropped an atom bomb into an arcade in 1987, wonder no longer.  ROM CHECK FAIL is an amazing mash-up of classic arcade games that you need to be playing.  Seems to play a bit like a malevolent Wario Ware on hallucinogens.

 http://www.farbs.org/games.html

Kings of Power 4 Billion %

Posted on March 25th, 2008 by Matthew C. | Permalink | 1 Comment »

I got a link to this from my friend and comrade Wervyn, who told me that it “reminded him of my brain”. After watching this, I’m inclined to agree. It’s eleven minutes of pure pixelated joy and madness, mainly by Paul Robertson of Pirate Baby’s Cabana Battle Street Fight 2006 fame, with little segments by Jonathan Kim (The Machinegun Opera and The Happiest Monster) and Mariel Cartwright.

http://probertson.livejournal.com/23973.html

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New Release for Megazeux: Eternal Eclipse Taoyarin

Posted on March 24th, 2008 by Matthew C. | Permalink | 4 Comments »

MegaZeux. Beloved text-mode game creation system to some, terrible secret of their hidden past (hello Chris Kohler) to others. If you’ve ever played Tim Sweeney’s ZZT (basically the spiritual father of Unreal Engine and some would say a ripoff of Kingdom of Kroz), then MegaZeux would look familiar to you at first glance. Think ZZT, but with an editable IBM character set, music, a palette you could play around with, and a much more powerful scripting system. The amount of MegaZeux games that get released these days pales in comparison to the golden age of the late 1990’s, but some quality games still get released here and there. Eternal Eclipse Taoyarin is one of those games.

http://asceai.net/taoyarin/

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noiz2sa ported for idiots with iphones

Posted on March 24th, 2008 by Matthew C. | Permalink | No Comments »

Of course, that includes me. If you’ve got an iPhone and enjoy ’shumps (pronounced in various ways - shmoops, schmucks, and shootmangames being some of my favorites) and enjoy Kenta Cho’s abstract but watertight wankery, then you really have no excuse not to get this, and quick. You’ll need a hacked iPhone, obviously. I can’t imagine why your iPhone wouldn’t be hacked. Get on that, kid. Make sure you’ve got your community sources updated, and check under the Games section in Installer.

http://www.appleiphoneschool.com/2008/03/09/noiz2sa-v10/

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Super Xevious: You could breakdance to this shit in hell

Posted on March 24th, 2008 by James E. | Permalink | No Comments »

Here’s a great little curiosity: back in the 1980s, Namco’s classic vertical shooter Xevious was a huge hit with the Japanese public, including electronic music pioneers like Yellow Magic Orchestra. A number of arrangements and singles were released, including this: Super Xevious, a great little track that’s remindful of YMO and Art of Noize. Indeed, mysterious composer “Hochono” is probably YMO’s Haruomi Hosono - there’s just no real information on the English language internet to confirm or refute that hunch. Anyway, enjoy!

Junko Ozawa & Hochono - Super Xevious (from Super Xevious 12″ single)

Garou: Mark Of The Plagarist

Posted on March 19th, 2008 by James E. | Permalink | 3 Comments »

Here’s a funny thing: I was dicking around with MAME, and I noticed probably one of the most blatant song swipes I’ve ever heard in SNK’s Garou: Mark Of The Wolves.Youtube comparison and MP3 behind the jump!

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