Kotaku: birthday

Happy Birthday Half Life, Now You Are Ten

Stuart Houghton — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 15:20:00 MST

For a ten-year-old, Gordon Freeman has some pretty sharp facial hair. Yes, ten years ago this very day, those idiots at Black Mesa opened a pesky interdimensional rift and let all kinds of horrible beasties spill out into our universe. The big dopes.

Valve are celebrating Half Life's tenth anniversary by selling the game on Steam for just 98 cents (1998! Do you see what they did there?) until 12:01 pm PST on November 21. If you haven't yet played through this bit of gaming history, now might be a good time.

Buy Half-Life 1 [Steam]

Happy 9th Birthday Dreamcast!

Mike Fahey — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 10:20:00 MDT

Nine years ago today Sega introduced the little engine that couldn't quite to North American shores. The Dreamcast burst onto the video game scene with the roar of a lion, which unfortunately turned out to just be the noise the GD-ROM drive made when accessing a disc, spinning up, or idling. It brought with it the hope of a new era of online console gaming, and for the Phantasy Star Online fans out there it delivered. It gave us Soul Calibur, one of the greatest console fighting games of all time, Jet Grind Radio, which introduced the world to cel-shading, and Seaman, which completely creeped an entire generation the f*** out.

In some alternate reality somewhere we're currently playing the latest games on the Dreamcast 2 while Sony and Microsoft struggle to keep up and Nintendo has become a third-party software developer. Today is the day to indulge in this fantasy. Drag out your old Dreamcast, draw a big "2" on the lid with a sharpie, and pop in Soul Calibur, or Dragonriders of Pern, or Record of Lodoss War, and dream of console success, just like Sega did nine years ago.

Happy Birthday Chuck Norris

Mike Fahey — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 18:00:01 MDT

Some babies are born head first....others feet first...but only one was born beard first. 68 years ago today in Oklahoma a legend was born. Carlos Ray Norris was once a shy, non-athletic boy, who was often tormented by his classmates for his mixed native-American heritage, but he used his lust for revenge to help him become the most powerful being on the face of the earth. As an Air Policeman (I'd assume sans plane, just flying round and arresting people) in the US Air Force he would earn the nickname Chuck and started studying the martial arts so hard that he had to create his own - Chun Kuk Do - because nothing else was good enough. Actor, ass kicker, inventor of the roundhouse kick, and star of the Atari 2600 game Chuck Norris Superkicks, without Chuck's influence the video game industry would just be a bunch of cutesy pet sims. Let it ring across Barrens chat on every server - Happy Birthday Chuck Norris! He might be 68-years-old, but he could still kick all of our asses at once without even blinking.

Special thanks to Kevin for reminding us of this special day!

Happy Birthday, Dreamcast!

fdemarco — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 12:00:00 MDT

Today marks the eighth birthday of one of the most underrated and unappreciated consoles ever to hit the market, The Sega Dreamcast. The little system gave birth to some really great games including Crazy Taxi, Soul Calibur, Rez, Wetrix, PowerStone, and many others. Although it didn't do to well commercially and eventually left the market when some heavy competition appeared on the scene, The Dreamcast nevertheless garnered a rabid cult -like following. Despite it's failure on the commercial front, the system still lives on thanks to the tireless efforts of homebrew creators and fans, giving extended life to an otherwise dead system. So, Happy Birthday Dreamcast, we hardly knew ye.

The REAL Mario Party

fdemarco — Sun, 13 May 2007 18:00:00 MDT

Four year old George is one lucky kid. Not only does he get this kick ass invitation to his party (I love the thumbs up) he gets an entire Mario themed party done remarkably well. Highlights include the Chomp Chomp pinata, home made Mario and Luigi hats, and Piranha Plant decorations. Really great work by whoever put this together. Man, I wish my birthday parties had been this cool. It really makes my Ziggy themed party look like crap. Flynn De Marco

Mario Themed party [Flickr]
[via the Tanooki)

The Cactuar Cake

fdemarco — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 12:00:00 MST

Kotakuite Shaunomacx's girlfriend loves Cactuars. According to him, she eats, drinks and sleeps Cactuars. So, for her birthday, Shaunomacx made her this terrific Cactuar cake! These little anthropomorphic cacti have made an appearance in every Final Fantasy game in one form or another since Final Fantasy VI, so my guess is that the girlfriend is probably also a big Final Fantasy fan. As Shaunomacx succinctly put it in his email,

What else can you get a girl who has a plush Cacty as well as a nice Cactuar styled hat?

Wow, a Cactuar styled hat. I can only begin to imagine what that looks like. Flynn De Marco

8-Bit Link Is A Real Treat

fdemarco — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 16:00:09 MST

We've see a lot of gaming cakes, but here are some gaming cupcakes!

Little Gia is a new Zelda fan, apparently having reached a gaming epiphany with Twilight Princess. She wanted a Link cake fro her birthday, so instead of going the traditional route, mom, dad, grandma and her "crazy gaming uncles" came up with this 8-bit Link made from 143 delicious cupcakes.

At 36" by 44", this might be the biggest game related dessert treat we've seen. I have to say it was a pretty clever idea to use the cupcakes in place of the pixels. Maybe this will spawn a whole new generation of gamer cakes. Anyone want to try for a Samus? Flynn De Marco

link cake's photos [Flickr - Thanks, Chris]

Happy Birthday, Shiggy!

Brian Ashcraft — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 18:21:01 MST

Today, Mario/Zelda/Donkey Kong, hell, pretty much everything Nintendo, creator Shigeru Miyamoto turns 54. Yep, he's a little old for the sword and shield bit, but whatever. Happy Birthday! Brian Ashcraft

LA Times On Bush's DS Lite

Brian Crecente — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 16:00:13 MDT

The LA Times ran an editorial on Saturday about the president who wouldn't grow up. The piece looks at George W. Bush's sixtieth birthday and the world's fascination with it. The story points to, in part, Nintendo's decision to gift the prez a DS Lite and Brain Age as part of the birthday hoopla.

It's sort of an empty editorial, but does touch on how the presidency can age people and whether Bush will maintain his youthful (read fratboy) persona.

I wish the paper tried to figure out if Bush received the DS Lite and is playing with it. Brian Crecente
The president who would not grow up [LA Times]

Happy Birthday Link

lsmith — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 07:00:09 MST

We weren't exactly keeping track (face it there's a lot of birthdays in life to keep straight, anyway), but 4ColorRebellion is and pointed out that the dude after Zelda's heart turns 20 years old today. Happy birthday, Link. A run through of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link might be in order later this evening.

Happy 20th B-Day Link [4ColorRebellion]