Hasta La Gadget!

Sure it’s just sliding sticks and bouncing balls, but anyone who grew up playing Atari can tell you that Pong rules. Unfortunately, its earliest incarnation only supported enough 2D fun for two, which is why our eyes just about popped out of our heads when we saw this. The folks over at Instructables are showing off another awesome retro gaming project that makes everyone’s favorite game a party pleaser — it’s also a pretty good fix for an old coffee table. The Super Pong Table allows for up to four players and fives balls per game, and enlists 900 LEDs and four Atari paddle controllers to make the thing work. Each player controls his or her own stick and gains or loses a point depending on whether they hit or miss a ball — the first player to reach 20 points gets their very own “YOU WIN” light up display. Looks like we just found something to do with our weekend. You can check out a video of the table in action after the break or follow the source link for instructions on making your own.

Continue reading Super Pong Table serves up four-way retro play, whole lot of awesome (video)

Super Pong Table serves up four-way retro play, whole lot of awesome (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 29 Mar 2011 20:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It has begun. The Xperia Play, a device that promises to take mobile gaming to its next level of awesomeness, just scooped itself a one-month exclusive on a brand new action adventure game. BackStab, produced by mobile game makers Gameloft, has a “free roaming 3D environment” (old school 3D, not the fancy new stuff), filled with some decidedly yummy-looking graphics and what appears to be an emphasis on battling multiple enemies at once. All we’re seeing here reminds us of desktop or console games, not the usual mobile fare, so we’re most intrigued to see this game in action. It’ll hit all of Android eventually, but for the first 30 or so days after its launch in Q2 2011, it’ll be only on Sony Ericsson’s Xperia Play. Check it out in the gallery below.

Continue reading Xperia Play to be exclusive launch device for Gameloft’s BackStab action game

Xperia Play to be exclusive launch device for Gameloft’s BackStab action game originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 22 Mar 2011 13:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Disabled gamers currently form a small, but growing portion of the gaming community, and the folks from the UK’s SpecialEffect video games charity are seeking to get a lot more of them gaming. SpecialEffect — with an assist from UK Prime Minister David Cameron — just opened a Video Games Visitor Centre to give those with disabilities a place to experience cutting-edge gaming tech designed for the disabled, like eye-controllers, in its GamesRoom. The Centre also has a GamesLab where “games and hardware are tested for accessibility” so game devs can adjust their wares to get even more people dishing out pwnage than ever before — bring it on!

UK charity opens gaming visitor center / gaming gadget incubator for the disabled originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 14 Mar 2011 05:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Are you a developer seeking the widest and most profitable distribution for your mobile software? The traditional platform for achieving such goals over the past couple of years has been Apple’s iOS, but Android’s rabid ascendancy has recently turned that into a legitimate question. A question that OpenFeint is looking to sway even further in Google’s favor by announcing it will fund the porting of games from “other app stores” to Android with the help of Chinese online game operator The9. The specially selected games will of course get saddled with OpenFeint integration and the whole effort does have the waft of a publicity grab to us, but hey, it’s another few pennies thrown into the bottomless well known as “Android gaming.” Surely something worthy will eventually come out of it, no?

[Thanks, Calvin]

Continue reading OpenFeint and The9 will stimulate devs to port their games to Android with cold hard cash

OpenFeint and The9 will stimulate devs to port their games to Android with cold hard cash originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 10 Mar 2011 08:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Candy crane, teddy picker, claw machine, whatever you call it, this arcade mainstay was robbing children of their golden tokens long before we slid into our first pair of Hammer pants, but despite the changing face of the plush offerings within, the crane game’s remained mostly the same. Now a team of students at the Bartlett School of Architecture have produced a Kinect hack that could change the way you drop that claw. The rather temperamental delta robot enlists the ever-hackable peripheral in combination with Processing and Arduino to mimic the movements of a user’s arm. As you can tell by the video below, the delta hasn’t quite figured out the subtleties of human gestures, but the robot’s creators say they intend to implement “several autonomous behaviors” once all the kinks are worked out. Frankly, we’d pay our weight in tokens to see the crane game bite back at an unsuspecting whippersnapper. Video after the break.

Continue reading Kinect hack turns Arduino-controlled delta robot into aggressive claw crane (video)

Kinect hack turns Arduino-controlled delta robot into aggressive claw crane (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 07 Mar 2011 23:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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