Worth Checking Out - Scale

We've seen some incredible games revolving around ideas of swapping, portals, cloning, but has anyone attempted to build an entire experience based off of scale? Steve Swink's Scale is an incredibly refreshing new Kickstarter project, offering a gameplay experience centered around the concept of allowing the player to manipulate the world around them using a very unique looking resizing mechanic. This unique device that you carry around with you allows you to change the scale of any item that you see - Vegetation, enemies, even levels to a size that you see fit on your quest to discover who abducted your cat, and why you have no memory of destroying part of a continent.

Inspired by the gameplay of Portal and the exploration aspects of Super Mario 64 and Zelda, I get the feeling that Scale has the definite potential to be an incredible immersive experience. The trailer also offers us a great idea of the type of abstract narrative we'll be in for. Why do I get the feeling that Valve might pick up this team and use this as a basis for Portal 3? Stay tuned, and support them on their awesome looking Kickstarter.

You play as young physics savant Penny Prince, inventor of a device which can suck the size out of one thing and shoot it into another. SCALE begins as Penny awakes in prison, convicted of 9,322,591 counts of Depraved Heart Murder for accidentally destroying the east coast. Someone has confiscated her cat. Against the express advice of the rehabilitative therapy coordinator now living inside her brain, she hastily reconstructs her device using materials from a nearby cellphone recycling bin and embarks upon escape in an attempt to regain her freedom and her cat.

Original Effect Debuts Original "Killer Instinct" Series of Figures

(via)

Killer Instinct (Not the videogame) is Original Effect's new line of original figures, and to kick things off the Chinese figure company has introduced SAM. Since the figure's original debut (seen after the break), SAM has gone through quite a few changes. The paint job on this figure is absolutely incredible and standing at 1/6 to scale, this is a must have for someone looking for an original figure. 

SAM will be up for pre-order on Original Effect's website over here, but for now you can hit the break for a few more looks at this awesome original figure.

Fortune Elephant Dream

Sometimes when you have no direction in your life, putting all your eggs in one basket is the most adventurous thing you can do. Fortune Elephant Dream is a short animation about a man with seemingly nothing to look forward to, in order to fill a hole in his life he bets it away. Trust me though, it's really not a s horribly depressing as it sounds, in fact it's a pretty damn fun animation. Directors Oliver Lourry, the folks from Noidentities, and their entire animation team have an incredible knack for character animation, giving both a realistic yet slapstick approach to the character's movements. 

The visual quality is topnotch, approaching some of the top animation studios with it's own identity. Mixed with an entertaining set of 2D art by Frederic Mace and Yue Wu, Fortune Elephant Dream gets an A+ in my book of animations for both sheer quality and entertainment. 

NeogeoX Gold Review

Hey guys, after some unfortunate shipping delays due to the monstrous Christmas shipping rush, we received a copy of the NeoGeo X Gold : Limited Edition bundle. I've been a long time fan of SNK, having grown up through the rise and fall of the arcades.

My first introduction to the prowess of the NeoGeo was at a local coffee shop with a cabinet running the ridiculously popular Samurai Showdown. Then came Metal Slug and a slew of other games that pushed the hardware beyond what the developers even though possible, but once the Arcades died a spectacular death it became increasingly difficult to enjoy the newer releases without relying on say, emulation. The NeoGeo X looks like it might finally solve that problem, through an ingenious combination of a handheld and a classic console. First, let's take a look at what the NeoGeo X is based off of.

Silhouettes From Popular Culture By Olly Moss

We recently received an advance copy of Olly Moss' upcoming art book debut, 'Silhouettes From Popular Culture.' Having featured Olly's work about a half dozen times since AwesomeRobo came online (The last being his excellent Dark Knight Rises poster), we were honored to get a sneak peek at what his debut book had to offer, and invite you to check out the gorgeous book in our video preview.

The beautiful 144 page book, which featured a fabric cover and was decorated with gold colored print is a celebration of famous characters in pop culture, presented in a silhouette style reminiscent of Victorian era silhouette portraits. Olly did a fantastic job presenting classic characters in this new style, whilst still keeping them recognizable, and the end result reminds you about what made these characters so memorable. I'd highly recommend preordering a copy of 'Silhouettes from Popular Culture' before it comes out on the 30th, as it's obviously a labor of love by the English graphic designer/illustrator. Highly recommended.

Warframe - Alpha Gameplay Footage Is Looking Slick

There's been a serious lack of publicity for Digital Extreme's (Dark Sector, Bioshock, The Darkness II) latest original IP, and I'm not sure why. The title is looking fantastic in my opinion, with it's promises of a F2P squad based, coop PVE experience and one of the slickest art styles I've had a chance to witness in recent memory. It's been too long since we've been treated to a proper scifi shooter experience, and I'm getting some really good vibes that this might be the answer we've been waiting for. I absolutely love the art direction they took with the Tenno, making them streamlined, agile killing machines with the powers of the Warframe.

We covered the initial debut trailer back in June, but the difference this time comes in the form of gameplay present in the trailer at around 0:40, showing off some extremely fluid combat and the distinct combat styles of the two factions at play. We've been told that a closed beta is coming soon, so I'd highly recommend heading over to Play Warframe to pre-register for the beta. Enjoy the eye candy!

Wizard Wars

This was actually a really cool premise, perhaps the advent of DIY game shows on Youtube? 2 teams of magicians get an hour to create original magic routines. However, here’s the catch: The routines must incorporate four secret props (chopsticks, beach balls, erasers, fake oranges, etc.). After the hour is up, the magicians will perform their tricks before a panel of judges. Only one team can win. They called it: Wizard Wars.

Apocalypse Pizza

Post apocalyptic pizza, anyone? This fantastically fun animated pilot for a feature film developed by Andres Fernandez at French studio JeSuisBienContent (I'm Glad) narrates the story of a team nonchalantly tearing through hordes of zombies to deliver some pizzas to a group of survivors at the Eiffel Tower. The Justin Bieber track truly took this short to 11. If we had the money, lets say we'd be the first in line to pick this pilot up for development.

Insomniac Gives Us A Glimpse Into Their Canceled Pinball IP

Captain Starlight, intended to be one of the Pinball tables you'd play.

In this day and age, Insomniac has been best known for their Resistance and long last Ratchet & Clank series. While browsing Facebook recently though, Insomniac decided to share some images from a 2007 IP that never quite managed to get off the ground, 1080Pinball (1080P for short).

 The project was supposed to be the equivalent of what Rockstar did for Table Tennis back in 2006, creating the most realistic simulator of that sport on any system yet. I'm guessing Insomniac had that same mindset after releasing the first Resistance on PS3, but for whatever reason we're guessing other projects got in the way. We've gathered a bunch of images from the canceled IP, so take a look at them after the break!

6 Neon Posters By Mr Whaite

If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits eighty-eight miles an hour... (Via)

I absolutely love this idea. Mr. Whaite, an artist on Tumblr is a pop artist who likes to take classic movies and bring them back with a neon twist. If these were actually manufactured, I think they'd probably sell like hot cakes. A fantastic idea executed brilliantly by Mr Whaite, and he's got a tumblr full of them! Check out five more neon posters of various movies after the break!

Riding The Centrifuge

After having scored our seasons passes to the local amusement park, we decided to see if the camera could handle the crazy spin of the ride called Cyclone. The track, called Latin America is by the awesome band we've covered before: "Holy F***."

AwesomeRobo Goes To The Amusement Park

In order to celebrate RoboGal's birthday (last Sunday), we headed over to the closest amusement park with a GoPro camera and got a bit of footage of us riding a half dozen coasters and edited it together to a sweet track by LCD Soundsytem: Us Vs Them.  Enjoy!

Snack Attack Episode 6: AGAIN

We took a short break from Snack Attack following the sugar coma inducing Big League Chew episode that occurred in Episode 5 two weeks ago. After a week of residual nausea RoboGal convinced me to sit down and review a few more snacks.  In this latest episode we covered a total of four snacks. From the oddly named 'AGAIN' to the horrendously stale 'Super Topsy' cheese puffs, the snacks this week cover the usual range of sweet and salty.  Hope you guys enjoy the episode, images of the snacks after the jump!

Wondercon Toy Highlights

We were unaware that Wondercon was kicking off this weekend, but thanks to a reminder from a friend we headed over there in a hurry to see what the fuss was about this year.  We wandered the massive showfloor and aside from some Green Lantern/Thor announcements, there was nothing terribly earth shattering to report about. We put together a small video showcasing the toys that stood out from the crowd to see what you missed.

We encountered a bunch of cool artists, bought a few comics and gawked at the massive range of merchandise that exhibitors had on display.  One of the coolest booths was a retro fueled adventure called MattyCollector.com, which came off as a really cool initiative by Mattel to appeal to people who grew up in the eighties/early nineties with an extensive line of upscale figurines based off loved franchises from back in the day.

Their Ghostbuster and Masters Of The Universe lines brought back a ton of memories, with the quality of the new figurines blowing me away. The giant display for Green Lantern merchandise was also pretty impressive, showcasing a huge variety of figurines for the movie and from the past. On the Japanese end, the coolest things we saw was a Megaman figurine and a line of possible Revoltech knockoffs by Bandai for their Evangelion series. It was a fun, but overly crowded day over at Wondercon.

AwesomeRobo: Nintendo 3ds Unboxing!

I picked up the Nintendo 3ds today after a battle over whether to drop the money and a short hunt for a place that still had them in stock, and man..I do not regret it. Having kept myself in suspense about all the extra features, I was amazed at some of the features that Nintendo crammed into the system.

One of my favorite surprises came later, when I messed around with the AG(Augmented reality) feature that turned your desk into an archery range, among other things. The potential of this technology in itself has some amazing potential for creative developers.

Despite the slightly weak lineup of launch titles, there are plenty of amazing titles on the horizon for the system. Super Street Fighter IV convinced me to pick this up on launch day, and I have to say that after a few hours of online play, the purchase was worth it. I look forward to seeing what other titles Nintendo has up their sleeves to show off the potential of the 3ds.  Did you get a 3ds?  Leave your initial impressions or come discuss it on our forums!

Snack Attack Ep. 5: Big League Chew Challenge

In this special Snack Attack installment, I decided to review ten bags of Big League Chew.  Much to my disappointment, I couldn't get all 10 bags in my mouth at the same time and savor all that pink nastiness at the same time.  The obvious next step was to simply make sure I ate all the bags over time, which in retrospect I have no idea what made me think that was a good idea.  The consistency after a few bags started to feel like Staypuft had taken a crap inside my mouth.

Oh god.

The results speak for themselves. Thanks to RoboGal for standing  by as the medic for the copious amounts of dry heaving that resulted from attempting to enjoy this big league pile of crap.  Let us know what you thought about me removing baby sized wads of gum from my mouth.

Snack Attack Episode 4: Masters Of Candybar

In Episode 4 of our ongoing snack journey we hit up three more snacks from around the world, including the unfortunately-named Oreo knockoffs from Turkey and the generic scam of a candy bar simply known as 'Candy Bar.' If you guys like this AwesomeRobo original series, come discuss it on our forums! Cheers.

10 Junk Foods Brought To Life

I remember waking up about a year ago in a cold sweat, scared out of my damned mind.  I nudged my girlfriend awake and proceeded to talk incoherently about a nightmarish creature that had decided to invade my dream, with an annoying ass jingle to boot that made no sense.  I was being chased by some sort of grilled construct, and for some reason my inner psyche found that absolutely terrifying.  His name was Hamburger Joe.

Later that day I told my roommate John about my bizarre dream, unaware that he would go off and illustrate his interpretation of the greasy creature.  Unhappy with Hamburger Joe being alone, he would also go on and illustrate an entire gang of terrifying anthropomorphic junk food creations.  So without further ado, John Thacker's ten junk food abominations come to life after the jump.