Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare — Hold X to pay respects
It’s one of the biggest gaming releases of the year, and Conan O’Brien found the whole thing very confusing, not least the “hold X to pay respects” prompt at a military funeral. “What’s does that mean? That’s crazy,” said O’Brien. “Is there a button for ‘I’m here because I thought I might meet somebody, but I didn’t care about the guy.’”
Mega64 messes with Reggie
2014 was the year Nintendo lightened up. The traditionally conservative gaming giant let low-budget comedy show Mega64 loose on its U.S. president, Reggie Fils-Aimé, in the run up to June’s E3 gaming conference. The result was the Fils-A-Mech, an ‘indestructible’ android suit complete with lazer death-ray eyes, let loose in Nintendo of America’s headquarters.
The Fils-A-Mech returned to do battle with Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto on the E3 showfloor.
Real-life Streets of Rage
Like many fan films, this real-life re-creation of Streets of Rage, the iconic Sega Genesis beat-’em-up from 1991, strikes an uneasy balance between insanity and inspiration. Coming in at just shy of 30 minutes, it’s a gleeful romp through all eight stages of the game, including a cartridge failure at 18:32 and some neat touches like characters not being able to pick up weapons properly. Keep watching and you can see how these fans shot the film in chilly Minnesota, entertaining the locals — some of whom wander straight through filming — in the process.
The Half Life 20-minute speedrun
When I first played Half Life way back in 1998, it blew my mind. Seeing this 20-minute speedrun — which takes advantage of save glitches, mods, and altered scripts — is almost as mind-blowing now. It took over four years of planning, preparation, and execution to pull it off.
YouTube user Redgrave192 sums up the Half Life speedrun concept perfectly: “I like to believe this is how Half Life played out canonically. Freeman took one step out of the tram, thought to himself, “F*** this,” and immediately started flying all around the facility, blowing stuff up and saved the world from an alien invasion before anyone even knew one was happening.”
Seniors react to Oculus Rift
YouTube duo The Fine Brothers put virtual reality hardware Oculus Rift in the hands of some older folk, and their reactions were pretty priceless. Some of the testers got dizzy just walking just round a Tuscan villa, but they still had to ride a roller coaster. And then things got kind of creepy in the Horror Tribute demo.
“This is the damnedest thing I ever saw,” said cast member Jon. “It was neat.”
Assassin’s Creed: Unity parkour
Plenty of parkour videos are on YouTube and other services, but Devin Graham’s (aka Devin Supertramp) four-man exploration of the streets and skyline of modern-day Paris is pretty special. Made in collaboration with the French Freerun Family parkour team and Ubisoft for the release of Assassin’s Creed: Unity, it must have turned some tourists’ heads during filming.
Free to Play: The Movie
Free to Play: The Movie is also free to watch. It’s a feature-length documentary from Valve, the maker of Half-Life, Dota 2, and the Steam digital store and network. It follows three professional gamers from around the world competing for a $1 million prize pool in the first Dota 2 International Tournament. It shows just how far e-sports has come in the last 10 years. You can watch the full movie below.