I was a big fan of the original Press Start, a direct-to-DVD affair that had a shoestring budget, ridiculous characters, and a great deal of heart. It was essentially a group of fans lampooning classic video game conventions, riffing on turn-based RPG's ("Why'd you let him hit you?" "It was his turn!"), random switch mechanisms (the main character has to push his bookcase over a switch to open his bathroom door,) and just about everything else.

Producer/director Ed Glaser explains, "The great thing about making these movies is that everyone involved loves the games we're spoofing. From the actors to the set designer to the composer, we all live this stuff on and off camera."

The new film reunites the heroes Zack, Sam, and Lin-Ku, and if that teaser poster is any indication, Count Nefarious Vile might be back to exact his revenge on the world that spurned him, or something.

You can follow the production of the second film at the Dark Maze Productions blog. Looking forward to seeing what they come up with next. Can they top the original? Most likely!

It doesn't get good until the POW SOCK OOF sequence, and the onamotapoeics are replaced with wirdy-dirds, so I guess this gets the NSFW tag? Sure why not. Bravo, Kreyg, now give us a tilt frame shot of the Penguin's hideout.

Original Batman Spoof Intro [Hot Blooded Gaming]

But play along, because it's funny. Why look, his site, the Van Gogh-Goghs, have unearthed from some New Mexico landfill documented evidence of 11 scrapped projects for the Atari 2600! The casualties included such licensing/adaptations as Bosom Buddies (a cross between Kaboom! and Donkey Kong, and Kramer vs. Kramer (like Pong with children). My favorite, because I like poop jokes, is Gunther Gebel-Williams' Cage Cleaner. The bogus rationale for the bogus game sounds like pure pre-video-game-crash self-b.s.ing: "You can't blow up asteroids in real life, but you sure as [expletive deleted] can clean up [expletive deleted]."

The Best Atari 2600 Games You Never Heard Of [The Van Gogh-Goghs, via Water Cooler Games]

Ben There, Dan That follows the adventures of programmer Dan Marshall and his reanimated zombie flatmate, Ben. What starts out as a simple hunt for a TV aerial to facilitate viewing of Magnum: PI turns into a multidimensional quest for a missing Yin-Yang.

If you don't mind some fairly primitive graphics, enjoy in-jokes about retro gaming and think you can stomach what Zombie Cow themselves describe as "the odd dabble of mild racism" (Eh? Careful with the irony guns, guys, that stuff can get everywhere) then BTDT is available for the low, low price of free - although Zombie Cow would certainly not object if you wanted to chuck a donation their way.

Ben There, Dan That [Zombie Cow]

I've always considered Mario's Italian accent to be on a par with the likes of Chico Marx; Not authentic by any means, but close enough for Americans. Brett Simmons directed this funny spoof for a fictitious Mario and Luigi Italian Lesson plan featuring his friends Tristan and Anthony. The opening credits state that this is "Tristan and Anthony's Italian Project" leading me to believe this might have been created as part of a school assignment. As live action Mario and Luigi spoofs go, this one is pretty clever, or at least that's my opinion. I'll let you judge for yourself. Flynn De Marco

The College Saga Website - Thanks Eric!

Why can't you boys play nice games like this? Ones in which you give your fellow man a Coke, thwart a purse snatcher, brighten others days, without any hope of reward? If only all aspects of our culture were built with soft edges and life were more like a musical, surely all our problems would be solved.

Brilliant commercial, Coke marketing team. Brilliant.

Thanks for the tip, Diogo! Michael McWhertor