“Chess Set” by Jack Jake and Dinos Chapman
 
(via Design Boom)

“Magic: The Gathering” was a popular teenage contraceptive device in the 1990s. Unfortunately, despite its pronounced effect in curbing premarital sex, it led its frustrated users directly to the occult. This edit of an instructional video demonstrates its use.

(Everything is Terrible: Magic)

 
Interesting essay on how the work of late science fiction author Philip K. Dick can be seen to have prefigured today’s role playing video games over at the mighty Pop Matters blog.

The thesis of author “L.B. Jefferies” is straightforward enough: “Philip K. Dick?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s fiction is a defense of the validity of video games because despite the fact that they are not real, his stories argue that there is still something valid in the artificial.” Good point, if an obvious one as well. It’s a wonder that an article like this wasn’t written before. I think you Dickheads out there might enjoy this.

About Blade Runner, Jeffries writes:

The underlying argument of the film is that the real thing isn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t inherently superior to the fake. The android is not different from the real thing in any meaningful way. The ending to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? has Deckard finding value in a toad he finds in the desert even after he learns that it?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s artificial. Dick argues in the The Golden Man, ?¢‚Ǩ?ìThe external world supposedly consists of a number of different objects, but they can be known as different only because there are different sorts of experiences ?¢‚ǨÀúof?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ them. Yet if the experiences are thus distinguishable, there is no need to hold the superfluous hypothesis of external objects.?¢‚Ǩ¬ù

Or as Jonathan Lethem phrases it in his introduction to the Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick, looking at the world from this purely philosophical perspective of Dick?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s means that nothing exists. There is no perfect representation of reality. Engaging with various perceptions and ideas expands our identity and awareness of reality, but it?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s still just us putting an artificial value and standard to what is otherwise pure information.

That?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s what makes his work relevant to video games and the argument that they are art. Unlike the characters of The Matrix who reject the simulation out of principle, in most of Dick?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s stories, the simulation is just another perspective. Since even what we call reality is subjective in this context, adopting other perspectives isn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t really a problem because there isn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t any one valid interpretation of the world. In the story ?¢‚Ǩ?ìWe Can Remember It For You Wholesale?¢‚Ǩ¬ù, which the film Total Recall is based on, part of the appeal of purchasing virtual memories is that the experience will be perfect. The agent explains, ?¢‚Ǩ?ìYou?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢re not accepting second best. The actual memory, with all its vagueness, omissions, and ellipses, not to say distortions ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú that?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s the second best.?¢‚Ǩ¬ù

The protagonist goes to Rekall because he knows that in real life he can never afford to go to Mars and even if he did, he wouldn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t be a super spy saving the world. There isn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t any risk of dying or needing to be qualified to go on this exotic spy adventure. The film constantly plays with this by having Schwarzenegger?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s character never really know if what he?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s experiencing is real or not. When he finds out that his personality was just a construct to fool the rebel?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s psychics, he still rejects his old personality for the artificial one. Even if he was originally a bad guy who went undercover, Schwarzenegger?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s character embraces the simulated worldview because he finds it more fulfilling.

Philip K Dick in a rare interview at a French sci-fi convention in 1977:

Philip K. Dick?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s Defense of Video Games

 

 
Here’s a replica Big Daddy costume shot at the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta. The designer of the 60lbs costume says,

This costume is a replica of the Bouncer-type Big Daddy from the videogame Bioshock by 2K. This piece was completed in 7 weeks for its debut at DragonCon 2009, where it won 2 awards for “Best Journeyman” and “Best Professional Design.” After initial press after DragonCon, I was contacted by Ken Levine of 2K games who said, “You are the Big Daddy.”

This Bioshock Big Daddy costume is currently up for bid on Ebay.
 
See more of the photoshoot here.
 
(via Nerdcore)

Back around 1990, there was nothing in the world cooler than the NES. Michael Jackson tried with the “Dangerous” album. Macaulay Culkin tried to steal some attention. But outside of lingering buzz from Michael Keaton’s Batman, there was NOTHING in the world of the prepubescent male that could usurp the importance of the Nintendo, especially now that Super Mario Bros. 3 (aka God’s Latest and Most Important Transmission to Mankind Since the Angel Gabriel Dictated the Qu’ran to Mohammed in a Cave) was out.

That was why we were suckers enough to watch The Wizard with Fred Savage, collect Nintendo sticker books and eat Nintendo cereal. Hell, I didn’t even HAVE a Nintendo and I still did all that stuff just to compensate!

Then there were the Nintendo comics, published by a young Valiant press, later to become famous for resurrecting the Key superheroes (Magnus, Turok, Solar, etc.) and making them edgy and getting them video game contracts.

Comics Alliance reports on those lost gems:

The Super Mario Brothers aren’t just the stars of this week’s biggest video game release on the Wii, nor were they simply the heroes of one of the most disastrous films of the 1990s - they were also comic book legends.

Well, legends might be pushing it, but brothers Mario and Luigi certainly have some comic book credibility to their name. TRsRockin.com has an extensive rundown of the plumber brothers’ many comic appearances, including a lengthy Valiant Comics run.

There are some definite gems among the Valiant work, including a story titled “Beauty and the Beach” found within the pages of “Super Mario Bros.” #4. Mario, Peach and Toad wash ashore on a mysterious island filled with Toadstools and secretly ruled by King Koopa himself. Things go south when a volcano threatens to erupt, prompting the selfish Koopa to flee the scene while Mario and his pals save the day. It’s really cute, if only for Toad’s hilarious swim trunks.

Ah. Set adrift on memory bliss.

(Comics Alliance: Remembering The Super Mario Bros.’ Surprisingly Cool Comic Books)

 
“Bloody, barbaric, free-for-all,” or the must-see ticket for the 2012 London Olympics?  Welcome to the wonderful and frightening world of Buzkashi, a sport which, thanks to our prior scrubbing of the Taliban from Afghanistan, is now bigger than ever:

Is the world ready for a sport played with a headless goat carcass?  Haji Abdul Rashid thinks it is and has big plans: corporate sponsors, television rights and beyond.  “We want it to become an Olympic sport,” says Rashid, who heads the Buzkashi Federation.

To understand how ambitious ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äù even crazy ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äù this is, consider the game. Buzkashi, which means “goat grabbing,” is a violent sport with virtually no rules.  Players, called chapandaz, gallop at breakneck speed over a dusty field, fighting over a dead animal without a head.  Once dominated by powerful warlords or tribal leaders, buzkashi is attracting a new generation of businessmen who are using the game to meet contacts and get clients, explains Said Maqsud, who owns a Kabul-based security company that employs more than 1,000 people.  “That is a new concept,” Maqsud says. “Now businessmen like me can be involved.”

Rashid knows the game needs to be standardized to export the sport, played principally in Afghanistan and some Central Asian countries.  Previous efforts to impose consistent rules have gone nowhere.  The game has no rounds or time limits.  Galloping horses regularly spill off the field, sending terrified spectators running for safety.  Some games are played with 12-man teams; others are scored individually with hundreds of horses careening around the field.  “It’s very violent,” says Maqsud, who also has seven buzkashi horses.  “Animal rights activists wouldn’t like it.”.

If you watch the below video and conclude this sport might not be right for you due to it’s lack of things, like, “rules,” there is a key regulation: when you’re carrying the headless, 100 pound goat carcass down the field toward the circle of chalk, you may whip ONLY the horses.  Because it often results in broken bones and trampling, the whipping of other players is strongly discouraged!

 
In Afghanistan, Galloping To Get One’s Goat

Tanooki. The mysterious animal suit you get at the higher levels of Super Mario Bros. 3 aka the greatest video game ever made. It lets you fly. It lets you turn into a statue. It is inscrutably Japanese. And, apparently, it’s REAL. Oh yes. The tanooki is real.

Also known as the Raccoon Dog, the Tanooki is endangered. Check out info here.

Domestic dogs and raccoon dogs are killed in brutal ways for their fur in China. The raccoon dog is a wild member of the dog (Canidae) family with markings resembling those of a raccoon. They are known to be skinned alive for their fur in China, where they are caged and killed in large numbers. Clothing with fur trim from Raccoon dogs has shown up in U.S. stores.

The Humane Society of the United States filed a legal petition with the Federal Trade Commission seeking to enforce the Fur Products Labeling Act against 14 major retailers and designers concerning false advertising and false labeling of fur garments.

(Raccoon Dog: Protect It)

(And… New Super Mario Bros for Wii!!!)

Discoverd via the 4Chan /x/ forum (Oh God please make this horrible addiction stop!), the Path is a horror video game for PC and Mac that looks like a very interesting take on the genre. I do think that (despite all screams to the contrary from traditionalists… traditionalists like myself), video games will be the most dominant art form of the next several decades. (Tim Martin of the Daily Telegraph, for instance, called The Path “an Angela Carter novel, as siphoned through The Sims.”) I’m hoping to see much braver experimentation with the form and I don’t think that I’ll be disappointed in the coming years. The Wiki says:

The Path is a 2009 horror personal computer game developed by Tale of Tales for the Microsoft Windows operating system and later made available for Mac OS X by TransGaming Technologies. It is inspired by several versions of the fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood, and by folklore tropes and conventions in general, but set in contemporary times. The original Windows version was released on March 18, 2009 in English and Dutch. The player can choose to control one of six different sisters, who are sent one-by-one on errands by their mother to see their sick grandmother. The player can choose whether to stay on the path or to wander, where wolves are lying in wait.

Check out the game’s site, where you can download a demo (PC and Mac) and purchase the game as well.