Link roundup

1. 15% off t-shirts at Zazzle for the next three days with the code SPRINGSAVING. Perfect time to customize a chimera t-shirt.

2. LA Noire is getting lots of raves, but here's a fairly negative review, which makes the game sound awfully slow. (The companion story collection is a dollar download at Amazon.)

3. $25 donation to the American Liver Foundation gets you a free sketch from Chris Giarrusso.

Link roundup

1. Fascinating article about Stanley and Livingstone by Jess Nevins. (If you've enjoyed the various League of Extraordinary Gentlemen volumes, then you should definitely pick up his companion books.)

2. Steve Wing writing about comics:

And take the Hulk. The Hulk was this rampaging engine of destruction, sure, but still, deep down, he was basically a nice guy. That is, he was the reverse of how we actually were in seventh grade, me and Rick and Jerry: all too nerdishly nice on the surface, but underneath raging.

Via.

3. First 15 minutes of L.A. Noire.

4. First five minutes of Duke Nukem Forever.

Link roundup

1. From an extended discussion of Brink at RPS:

I was looking at the screenshots I’ve taken vs the screenshots we were sent for previews and things. And it’s just heartbreaking. A mess of text and cramped spaces, not these fantastic looking, exaggerated muscleguys in apple-crisp locales.

2. From Bill Simmons's portrait of Phil Jackson:

When I think of Phil Jackson, two guys come to mind: Young Phil and Old Phil. Young Phil was skinny with dark hair and a goofy mustache; he looked like he came from another era, like someone Larry Dallas would bring over to the Regal Beagle to meet Jack Tripper. Old Phil didn't look anything like Young Phil: white hair, a clean-shaven face, a heavier frame, and a body that was scattered in nine different directions. Still, Young Phil and Old Phil had one thing in common: They kept their cool at all times.

3. Vic Armstrong's World's Greatest Stuntman sounds great. i09 has an extended excerpt about the filming of Total Recall. For example:

Sharon Stone was funny. We all thought that Rachel Ticotin was going to be the big star, she was a fabulous actress, looked gorgeous and yet she went nowhere. Sharon Stone you couldn't drag into the gym, she just didn't want to train, didn't want to do anything, yet she became a superstar in Basic Instinct. Wendy was doubling Rachel and Donna Evans doubled Sharon and did all the kicks and everything else really, we mainly shot Sharon for close-ups. Though I must say she looked dynamite in those close-ups!

Gizmodo has an excerpt about Temple of Doom. The book is 34% off at Amazon.

Rick the Adventure Sphere dialog and t-shirt design (Portal)

Late in Portal 2, you gain the assistance of a robot known as Rick the Adventure Sphere ("designed for danger"). It's a pretty heated moment, so the natural inclination is to swiftly complete the task at hand, but if you take your time, Rick says one great line after another, including singing an adventure song and suggesting catch phrases once you beat the boss. You can enjoy his dialog in the video above. And there's a brand new t-shirt design by up for vote at Threadless:



Finally, speaking of Portal, here's Erik Wolpaw's recent NYU lecture:



Via.

*Portal 2 is 40% off at Amazon.

Link roundup

1. The established video game reviewing press has known for at least a week that Brink was a disaster.

2. Steel Divers, which is supposed to really show the 3DS off, was essentially completed for the DS and then repurposed for the 3DS.

3. Captain America wallpaper.

Brink launch trailer

I'm not crazy about first person shooters, but I like the character design and parkour antics in Brink. And as you can see from the first two stills, the trailer opens with a cool look.

Portal Frankenturret Papercraft; Portal Posters, and more

The frankenturret as a paper toy available for download. Also available: a gentleman dinosaur with a monocle:











Some of the Portal posters in this Flickr gallery.






Clever use of portals allows us to see Wheatley hacking the lock.

They Live the augmented reality game

They Live - - the winning entry in Kotaku's augmented reality game contest. (Just a mockup, alas.)

*Buy the Nintendo 3DS at Amazon.

Link roundup

1. I didn't expect to read this:

Thor on the Nintendo DS is not what you'd expect. Despite having to tie into a movie property and needing to work with certain likeness and story parameters, the developers at WayForward (Contra 4) have created a great licensed game. Thor plays incredibly well, and is a remarkably well-executed 2D brawler.

$30 at Amazon.

Kotaku likes the Wii and DS versions too. Just like my experience with the Force Unleashed 2, the Wii version was pretty good fun, while the PS3/Xbox versions got terrible reviews.

2. Gawker:

We all know reality television shows, including and especially American Idol, are basically serial hoaxes. But couldn't they try a little harder to maintain the illusion? Idol producers went to elaborate lengths last night to falsely present Jennifer Lopez's on-air performance as "live," but they left behind a few editing artifacts proving that it was taped.

3. And also at Gawker:

Kate Middleton's Brother Pretends to Be a Lawyer to Get His Dirty Pictures Off the Internet.

Link roundup

1. "In honor of the new crime thriller video game L.A. Noire coming to Playstation®3 and Xbox360® on May 17, 2011, the Los Angeles Times and Rockstar Games present this special archive edition Crime Map detailing just a few of the fascinating and frightening crimes that made 1947 such a landmark year for LAPD detectives." Via.

2. From a longer article about design school, advice I wish I had when I was still in school:

Ask anybody that went to school what they thought of it, and you will get the same response. “It was ok, not great. But this one teacher changed made it all worth while.” It’s exactly that one or two teachers that you connect with that make the school experience “worth it”. When you find your mentor, go out of your way to take more classes with them. Ask them for guidance and have them critique your work HARD. Their advice will be more than worth the tuition.

3. Plastic Army Men with PTSD and various injuries. (Some might find these offensive.) Via these sites.

*Previously: Killzone Army Men.

Halo meets Portal

Halo given a Portal level.

Link roundup

1. RPS calls The Old Republic's player vs. player component "a tedious, miserable experience."

2. Good example of how websites try to take advantage of SEO to build traffic. (Seems like such a miserable, joyless way to make a buck.)

3. The Conan trailer is one of the worst trailers I've seen in recent memory (I hate everything - - the editing, the music, the look of the characters, the behavior of the characters). By comparison, this two-minute scene from Drive is excellent.

Free Thor side-scroller

Here's a decent, free game - - Thor: Bring the Thunder!. Via.

Zero Punctuation reviews Portal 2

Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw reviews Portal 2. (See, he doesn't hate everything.)

Portal 2 walkthrough with commentary; Chell screenshots

A Youtube user uploaded a Portal 2 playthrough, edited down to the developer commentary portions. Above is part one. (The paint/gel mechanics are derived from a student game called Tag: the Power of Paint. Very interesting to listen to how the designers "train" the players as they play through the game.)

And speaking of Portal, here's some Chell screenshots:






The Valve store sells Aperture Science tank tops, but no orange jumpsuits.

Portal fan art, Aperture logos, Ratman's lair wallpaper

Chell by Mike Krahulik.



Aperture logos through the years.



Ratman's graffiti wallpaper. Via.

And speaking of, this video shows off Ratman's lairs in Portal 2:



*Buy Companion Cubes at eBay.

Link roundup

1. From LA Magazine:

My parents both worked at the park in the summer of 1959, a year into their marriage and just four years after Disneyland opened. My dad was assigned to the cars of Autopia (back then kids would frequently knock out their teeth on steering wheels)

2. Zero Punctuation reviews the 3DS (and hates it).

3. Phil Saunders has been posting lots of Tron Legacy concept art.

*Buy Disneyland posters at eBay.

Dirt 3 video game bundle comes with a $300 remote control car

The Dirt 3 limited edition comes with a Traxxas Ken Block Gymkhana Fiesta, which sells for $300 alone. So, the bundle with the game and car is practically a steal for $300 at Amazon. Via.

The reaction video for that Borderlands proposal

OK, if you missed it when I posted it this morning, here's a very funny wedding proposal video Gearbox created for two fans of Borderlands:



And here's the actual proposal video:




*Buy Claptrap toys at eBay.

DC created a super hero costume tailor shop in the real world

As the video explains, Mr. Lee's Tailor shop was opened in Madrid to create costumes for super heroes and villains. It was a promotion dreamed up by Leo Burnett to advertise DC Universe Online.

*Buy DC Direct action figures at eBay.