The answer is still "Yes, it is," but Cousens fantastic Photoshop tutorial, in which he walks us through the step-by-step creation of his "Broken Link" digital painting, is extremely helpful in touching on the finer points of advanced techniques. A bit of computer arts knowledge wrapped in a tasty Majora's Mask coating might just spurn you too to up your Photoshop game.

Cousens' tutorial warns that this tutorial is not for the beginner, but for those "comfortable with radial gradients, overlay layers and clipping mask layers and have a good foundation level of artistic skill." Still, even for the Photoshop clumsy, it's a gorgeous little walkthrough.

Thanks for sending it our way, David.

Advanced Tutorial: Creating ‘Broken Link' [PSDFAN.com]

Nintendo has never been afraid of mining its own past for new product ideas — take the DS's dual screen design that echoes Nintendo's own Donkey Kong multi-screen Game & Watch.

The Wii Vitality Sensor appears to be another Nintendo dip into its own R&D backlogs. As game blog Game|Life points out, back in 1998, Nintendo released the "Bio Sensor" along with Tetris 64. The peripheral read the player's pulse by clipping onto their earlobe as opposed to the player's finger. The Japan-only Bio Sensor allowed players to speed up or slow down Tetris 64 based on heart rate speed.

The Bio Sensor was only supported by Tetris 64 before it flat lined. Nintendo is going to need a steady pulse of Wii titles for the the Wii Vitality Sensor to keep this new peripheral alive.

Nintendo ‘Vitality Sensor' Already Appeared on N64 [Game|Life]

In a word, Perfect Dark looks sharper, thanks to its high-definition upgrades and "sporting a silkier framerate than ever before." In hard numbers, that translates to 1080p resolution and 60 frames-per-second. The official Xbox.com product page also touts "All the original game features are included plus new Xbox LIVE ones."

First screens of the Xbox Live Arcade port of the 2000 classic await you in the gallery below.

Friends and classmates of the video creator tipped us off to the painstakingly rebuilt Super Smash Bros. homage, which wins points for using the Scout's trademark Six Million Dollar Man "Wananananana..." impersonation and the inclusion of a biplane from a Team Fortress 2 community made map. And the flying Dr. Isaac Kleiner is simply top notch.

The "Smash Fortress" editor has added a side-by-side comparison clip, which shows just how closely the two videos (and the game's circular logos) match each other.

Team Fortress 2 - Super Smash Brothers 64 Intro [YouTube]

That's funny, because the game isn't out on Xbox LIVE as a re-release. It would make sense though — Rare has started bringing other Nintendo 64 classic titles to XBLA. (Case in point: Banjo-Kazooie.)

IGN contacted Microsoft about the image, and the company replied it had "nothing to announce at this time." We are following up with Rare.

Perfect Dark Coming To XBLA? [IGN via NextDoorGamer]

Before the glory of motion control and touchscreen gameplay reversed Nintendo's fortunes, it settled for third place in the console wars, delivering the sometimes spectacular, sometimes mediocre Nintendo 64 and GameCube. Edge is currently looking back at the company's generation transition pains from way back in 1996, some of which you may already be intimately familiar with.

It's a fascinating read, even for someone who distinctly remembers reading the Next Generation magazine that previewed the Nintendo 64, its slate of games, its "Project Reality" technology, when the 64-bit console was full or promise, but seriously lacking in games.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the article for me is looking back at the list of games promoted as in development for the Nintendo 64 in video publications like Next Gen. These include third-party titles like Dragon Quest VII and Final Fantasy VII, as well as planned Nintendo titles like Kirby Bowl 64 and Buggie Boogie. While the former pair's relocation to the PlayStation indicated a massive change in console leadership, the latter two show how little of what was promised for the N64 made it to reality.

And Turok: Dinosaur Hunter was a $79.99 game? Yikes.

It's a good history lesson and cautionary tale. Worth a read.

Looking Back at 1996: Nintendo's Fall, Part 1 [Edge Online]

The secondary goal in this particular Super Mario 64 challenge is to collect all eight red coins while being consistently haunted by the mushroom. In the N64 version of the game, the mushroom has the ability to fly—at speeds slower than Mario—until it touches the player. And it will not stop following the player until it succeeds, not unlike an inverted Terminator.

Yes, it takes a little while to get going, but the excitable narration, even in Japanese, is top notch. The entire series of videos can be watched at YouTube.

Super Mario 64 Challenge [YouTube via NeoGAF]

The study's investigators themselves say other factors may contribute to one's perception of body-image. But, after watching groups of men and women play video game characters with "extreme" male and female body types, respectively. In as little as 15 minutes, both genders showed negative body-image behavior.

Two things: 1) It doesn't take 15 minutes of a video game to make a dude conscious of his spare tire. Any reasonably attractive woman strolling into the room produces a response called "gut-suck-in-itis," which is believed to be vestigial mating behavior from our days as savage eohippus-slayers and monolith-touchers.

Secondly, I did some searching around, and an AP story vows up and down the male study's game was — record scratching sound — "WWF Wrestlemania 2000." That's right, a fucking Nintendo 64 game. And if that is enough to give a guy a complex, then our self-esteem is far, far more brittle than that of any girl gamer facing down the jiggly queens of Soulcalibur.

Oh, the AP story said the womenfolk played a volleyball game. Please, please, please let it be Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball.

Anyway, I am not a psychologist or a scientist of any kind of training, but as presently described, these findings aren't worth much. Sure, I don't make a super-realistic avatar when given the opportunity, but I'm not sent into depression just because I don't look like Kratos. Come to think of it, it would be depressing if I looked like the Roid Dealer to the Gods.

Study: Gamers Self-Conscious To “Extreme” Body-Types [Endsights]

Check out the late night cable TV spot after the jump. It's MAXIMUM RISKY stuff, Diddy Kong Racing this ain't.

The most Risque Nintendo commercial ever [Infendo]

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

The Controller Bong [Aeropause]

Leading the charge this week is the Nintendo 64 classic Paper Mario, the graphically flat but gameplay deep role-playing game that has since spawned a GameCube and Wii pair of sequels. At 1000 Wii points, it's half of what you'd pay for the cartridge on eBay. Worth it for the LOLs alone.

On the NES front is Balloon Fight, the simple, Joust-like 8-bit semi-classic that Nintendo swears is "surprisingly addictive." It too spawned a sequel of sorts, the Club Nintendo giveaway Tingle's Balloon Fight. 500 Wii points? Yup.

Finally, we have the TurboGrafx-16 first-person shooter Silent Debuggers. At 600 Wii points, it might be good for a laugh. This is not an endorsement.

Keep on scrolling for the official line from Nintendo themselves.

WII-KLY UPDATE: THREE NEW CLASSIC GAMES ADDED TO WII SHOP CHANNEL

July 16, 2007

Ready for a fantastical summer getaway? Instead of a travel agent, visit the Wii Shop Channel, where this week's new game offerings invite you to explore some exciting and highly unusual locales. Magical 3-D realms, balloon-filled skies and a perilous space station are just a few of the exotic destinations you'll find.

Three new classic games go live at 9 a.m. Pacific time. Nintendo adds new games to the Wii Shop Channel every Monday. Wii™ owners with a high-speed Internet connection can redeem Wii Points™ to download the games. Wii Points can be purchased in the Wii Shop Channel or at retail outlets. This week's new games are:

Paper Mario® (Nintendo® 64, 1 player, Rated E for Everyone—Comic Mischief, 1,000 Wii Points): Paper Mario is a graphically innovative game that breaks from the confines of the RPG genre. Now slimmed down, everyone's favorite plumber flips, spins, jumps and hammers his way through scads of exotic worlds that teem with a huge and hugely entertaining supporting cast. Players control numerous old and new characters in a complex, nonlinear story that follows different scenarios depending on player choices. A dizzying collection of spells, attacks, skills and special items can be collected by players willing to thoroughly explore the lush 3-D environments.

Balloon Fight® (NES®, 1-2 players, Rated E for Everyone, 500 Wii Points): Control a character to pop your opponents' balloons before they pop yours. Sounds easy, doesn't it? Don't be fooled by this game's simple premise or cute exterior. Underneath you'll find a surprisingly addictive game with strategy to spare. After mastering the easy-to-learn controls, you still have to get a grip on the game's impressively realistic physics. And if that's not enough, there are the ever-increasing enemies and environmental hazards like lightning and water. Try the game's second mode, Balloon Trip, if you feel like taking a break from the action and just want to see how long you can stay aloft. And hey, who doesn't like popping balloons sometimes?

Silent Debuggers (TurboGrafx16, 1 player, Rated E for Everyone—Fantasy Violence, 600 Wii Points): Make your way through a dungeon-like space station and defeat the prowling monsters in this real-time first-person shooter. You're a member of the elite Debuggers, a group of warriors who are jacks-of-all-trades. Assigned to inspect an unmanned space station, you have exactly 100 minutes to get in, destroy the monsters lurking in each block, make your way to the lowest level and deactivate the automatic detonator placed there. With each monster that slips by you, the core block becomes harder to survive in, so speed is key in preserving the facility and each separate block. Experience the thrill of survival as the timer ticks away and you uncover the truth of the events that occurred.

For more information about Wii, please visit wii.com

1. The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time (N64)
2. Resident Evil 4 (Multi)
3. Super Mario 64 (N64)
4. Half-Life 2 (PC, Xbox)
5. Super Mario World (SNES)
6. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES)
7. Halo: Combat Evolved (Xbox, PC)
8. Final Fantasy XII (PS2)
9. Tetris (Multi)
10. Super Metroid (SNES)

According to the editors of Edge, the listing was determined by factoring in thousand of votes from its readers, feedback from "creatives working in the videogame industry" and "countless rounds of deliberation among the Edge editorial staff."

Having played all but one of these games to completion, it looks to be a fairly solid but totally safe list of fan favorites. They wouldn't have necessarily been my top ten, but at the very least, they're all damn good games. Except for Super Mario 64. Sweet Jesus, did that game eat a bag of dicks.

Apple iPhone! Yes! [Geek Sugar via Boing Boing]

Via Insert Credit comes this Starfox VHS prom video Nintendo sent out in 1997. It's pretty thick on the propaganda, but it's so blatant that it's actually refreshing! None of that current style PR that's designed not to look like PR. More game company sweat shirts and ridiculous torture scenes that sound like press releases! Brian Ashcraft

Making The Rounds [Insert Credit]

The Force is strong with this one: Darth Vader's Nintendo 64 [The Tanooki]

The Nintendo 64, sorely underrepresented on the Virtual Console will get another futuristic racer with F-Zero X and Sega's bringing some Tails to the VC with Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Sonic 2 was also recently rated for the Xbox 360, adding one more potential title for Xbox Live's answer to the VC, the Sega Vintage Collection.

When is Sega going to announce that thing anyway? Michael McWhertor

ESRB Game Ratings

Sure, we've all got our favorites. Via CNet UK comes a list of the five best controllers. Without adieu, they are:

• 1). Atari 2600 joystick: Featuring a simple stick mechanism for moving around and a red button for firing. It's not technically a gamepad, but it's so crucial to gaming history there's no way we couldn't mention it.
• 
  
• 2). SNES controller: This exercise in ergonomics is a curvy, multi-coloured, multi-buttoned evolution of the angular NES controller. This was the first controller to have shoulder buttons — a revolution that made an arcade staple like Street Fighter II a viable proposition in the home.
• 
  
• 3). Nintendo 64 controller: This is one of the most important joypads ever produced. Not only did the N64's controller feature an analogue joystick, which made playing games such as GoldenEye realistic and subtle, but it also featured a pistol-like trigger button underneath.
• 
  
• 4). PS2 controller: Nintendo may have started the analogue-stick-on-a-pad idea but Sony really took it to the bank. For many gamers, the DualShock gamepad is the best gamepad ever made... Having two analogue sticks meant you could play games in a completely different way to anything available before.
• 
  
• 5). Xbox 360 controller: It was the first wireless pad to come as standard. Its comfy, solid design offers dual analogue joysticks and two analogue trigger buttons underneath. There's also a built-in jack for connecting a headset.

Top Five [CNET UK via The Last Boss]

For one, putting to rest any rumors that Blizz has plans for a fourth secret race, studio reps confirmed that only the Zerg, Protoss and Terrans will be playable. They spoke briefly on StarCraft II's system requirements, game speed, resource management and how long the game has been in development, shining a very faint light on the the near-decade in waiting sequel.

And as far as a console port of the real-time strategy game, don't count on it. Sorry, Nintendo 64 owners. You're stuck with the original forever. Michael McWhertor

Q&A session details Starcraft II [Gamespot]