The Inevitable Super Mario Bros. UT3 Mod

We're eventually going to get to the point where someone recreates the Old Testament as Klingon musical theater in Unreal Tournament 3, but until then, we'll have to settle for custom characters and UT2D gameplay mods and user-generated content like this Super Mario Bros. style map. If only we could add mods to cancer research or something. The cure would be on the internet with a Creative Commons license by the weekend.

UT2D-SuperMario_Beta [PC/PS3] [Epic Forums - thanks, Samuraidino!]

Works? Check.
Combines two otherwise cluttering peripherals? Check.
Takes like 5 seconds and requires no adhesives? Check.
Seriously? We're really lazy. Check.
Sends at least one fanboy into "angry coma?" Check.

SOLD!

The Wii60 wheel [GoNintendo]

Unreal Tournament 3 To Bring Bigger Mods To Consoles

Unreal Tournament 3 has served as a console gamer's diplomat, successfully pulling mods long restricted to PCs to the PS3 and *fingers crossed* the Xbox 360. But past mods have been in small pieces, like Samus skins, more meant to customize the game than fundamentally exploit its robust engine.

Now the user-based developers behind Tactical Ops (a classic UT mod similar to CounterStrike) are talking about bringing Tactical Ops 3 to consoles. While the team doesn't think that the first release of TO3 will support the PS3 or Xbox 360 (due to issues like button mapping), they're confident in the possibility for future releases. And when console mods become the size of full games, we can't stand behind a waist-height object fast enough.

Huge Unreal Tournament III mod whets PS3 appetites [CVG]

Auto Guitar Hero Confirms Humanity's Worthlessness

Interesting story out of New Zealand. Modder Stacy O'Callaghan, "sick of all this American rubbish" in the GTA franchise, set about modding his PC version (doesn't say which) to include official New Zealand police insignia on the cops and the cop cars.

Now here's a familiar story, modder cooks up something and gets in legal trouble, although it's usually from the software publisher. In this case, "unauthorised use of a police uniform" is an offense under New Zealand's Police Act. And even though it's unclear whether this really fits the definition of that offense, the cops are looking at their options. A cop spokesman said the police are looking into the matter.

Honestly, what the fuck is it with Australasia and Grand Theft Auto? I'll just leave it at that. I've never been to either Australia or New Zealand, but crikey, their collective pants-wetting over American video games, this series in particular, makes them look like the schoolmarms of western democracy.

Gamer's Real Brush with the Law [stuff.co.nz.] [pic by Robert Kitchin, The Dominion Post]

A laptop sentry gun, of course. Or, well, a lot of pipes and electrical tape, and scrap metal shaped into the notorious weapon. Reader Thomas Masheder and his pal regularly play Perfect Dark for N64 to this day. And when his pal turned 25, Thomas went off to the hardware store in search of parts to build his gun.

Thomas advises that his friend's sentry is guarding his kitchen. Thomas's trash bins (pictured) are protected by the one he made for himself. I wonder if the sentry is sensitive enough to detect roach or raccoon movement.

Good work, Thomas. We've got two more of his pictures after the jump.

Hey! You got your Pong in my Breakout! You got your arm rasslin' in my Tetris! I swear, the only way to make boring classic video games playable and entertaining in modern times is to rig them to insane controls or pair them with another classic. Here are two.

Earlier this week I found Pongout — which actually has some replay value as you can't accept losing to such a ridiculous concept. And then TechEBlog discovered "Tresling," (left) a version of Tetris played by slamming an arm-wrestling opponent's arm into a controller. I like the video, complete with "Eye of the Tiger," but that was the theme to Stallone's "Rocky III" not his arm-wrestling vehicle "Over the Top" of 1987.

Here's the combo game I want to see: NCAA Hitman 08. As Agent 47, you begin as a top defensive back prospect in high school. Before the big rivalry game, you garrote the other team's star receiver, steal his uniform, line up at his position and nab 6 interceptions for TDs, winning the Heisman in the process.

Pongout [All Games All Free]
Tresling - Tetris and Arm Wrestling [Hacked Gadgets via TechEBlog]

Before you get all excited, this is a mod, not a Wii laptop. I saw this and racked my brain for an actual real world use, ending up with a vision of a Wii on a beach hooked to 1.4 miles of extension cord, and some Charles Atlas musclehead shadow-fighting with Wii Boxing.

If you can think up a more practical reason for a 7-inch flip-up LCD screen on your Wii, let me know in the comments. Pretty much everything I imagine involves an airstream trailer, a card table and a generator. Or a post-apocalyptic world where normal televisions do not work.

Wii Gets Even More Compact With Personal Seven-Inch Screen [Game With a Brain]

Big fan of this site. One of my employees brought us out to his car to show us what he created under the hood. I laughed so hard. He loves the original NES and wanted to make a tribute under his hood. Whatever excites him. I wanted to share this with everyone.

PlayStation 3 Mod Is A Well-Executed, Horrible, Horrible Idea

Who wants more storage? Everybody, that's who. What's the best way to get it? Just swap out the hard drive because Sony lets you Mod your PS3! One tweaker built this external enclosure for an additional 500GB of storage. While we admire the execution complete with shiny, matching plastic and the official PlayStation font, it sorta looks like the PS3 got jealous and swallowed a Wii. And a side of fries. And maybe one of those pies. Damn that gluttonous PS3 is making us hungry.

UPDATE: The creator wrote us about the project. We pasted his note after the jump:

Make your PS3 even Bigger [Geek Pulp] Thanks Jason!

Clearvision PlayStation 3 LCD...Not Quite Your PSP3

Wouldn't it be great to have a mobile PlayStation 3? Sure it would. And this Clearvision 7-inch LCD Gaming Monitor is a good place to start. No, it's not as portable as the PSP (or even the PSOne ) but...well...OK, this thing is a horrible, horrible idea it's a portable almost portable PS3 for goodness sake! Subvert those Sony engineers surely working on the PS3P somewhere deep in their R&D labs and design your own. Buy the monitor, spray paint the whole thing metallic purple, slap a few Lair stickers on there and you will be the talk of the town, really.

PS3 Clearvision 7" LCD Screen [Madcow via PlayGadgets]

Super Mario Galaxy Wii Mod, Even Hotter With The Lights Off

Jug Hero, The New Global Phenomenon

Two players are assigned one jug instrument each, which they blow puffs of air into to score points. Players also "clink" their instruments together in a social "cheers!" that allots them bonus points.

[Yeeeahhhh. Here's the correct version. We now return you to your regularly scheduled Kotaku Time. Sorry about that. OSG]

Sometimes I pick up my controller, even if I'm not playing any games, and fly it around imagining it's a space fighter. That's about as far as I get with modding these things. But HacknMod has a few fun projects cooler than that, if you don't mind putting your controller, or two, out of service while you get it right. Even if you aren't mechanically inclined, they're cool to look at. The how-tos include:

• Add LEDs to the buttons (but we've already seen that here)
• Rapid-Fire Mod
• Custom Paint Job
• Integrated Messenger Kit (above)
• Tilt Controller

Tilt controller, of course, isn't a pure Wii-style hack, but it is pretty cool (see the movie). Most everyone could get the custom paint job right. Everything else after that requires some serious skill or acceptance of the fact that you will probably ruin one controller before getting it right on another.

5 Ways to Hack your Xbox 360 Controller [Hack N Mod]

A Half-Life 2 Mod and a History of Video Game Physics

My undergraduate thesis was long, kinda boring, and involved dead imperialists; two students at McMaster University have created a Half-Life 2 mod called Half-Life Havoc for theirs, and attached a little paper on the history of video game physics.

Half-Life Havoc (HLH) is a lesson in video game physics created in Half-Life 2 using the included level editing tools. Taking inspiration from games like Garry's mod and Portal, HLH aims to create an environment where players can take some time to appreciate the complex physics simulations that are present in modern games. HLH is made up of a series of rooms, each of which has a puzzle or game that illustrates a feature of Half-Life 2's physics engine. Commentary nodes spread throughout the level teach the player about what is going on in each of the games and gives insight into video game physics.

Half-Life: Havoc

Microsoft: Others "Inviting Trouble" By Supporting Mods

I think there's a potential risk on any platform where you're allowing...where you're running in what we call native mode, where you're writing straight to the metal, not a sandbox layer like XNA, and then that runs a script engine and you let people do that in that script engine.

Solid Snake To Make Inevitable UT3 Appearance, Unofficially

The current list of video game all-stars making unauthorized appearances in Unreal Tournament 3 thus far includes Master Chief from Halo, Samus Aran from Metroid and now Snake from Metal Gear Solid. Specifically, we're talking about Old Snake from MGS 4, the latest top biller to get a fan made UT3 mod.

We may be jumping the gun a bit here, as the modder currently slaving away on Old Snake is still, well, slaving away. But the attempt by modder "genZ" is already looking solid. Pun unfortunately intended. Who out there with some Zbrush or 3D Studio Max skills is willing to whip up a very threatening Mega Man?

MGS4 Old Snake [UT3 Forums - thanks, Esq!]