Joy of Gadgets

There are a few games I spent far too many quarters in as a kid. One of them was Punch Out, a boxing game that pitted you against such boxers as Glass Joe, Piston Hurricane, Bald Bull, and of course the dude at the end: Mr. Sandman. They also made versions for the NES, though it nothing comes close to the original.

It’s nice to know that the folks at Nintendo haven’t forgotten there’s a bunch of us 12 year olds in the mid 1980s that grew up to become 30-somethings wanting to relive a taste of our misspent youth. They are revamping and bringing the classic game to the Wii.

Of course, based on the trailer, it’s probably going to be different than the original arcade game, or even the weak NES version. Hopefully it’s easier to manipulate than the boxing that comes on Wii Sports, which is difficult to get the moves right.

Via TechEBlog

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Tetris has to be one of the most addicting games ever invented. Two of my favorite implementations, aside from the original, include Bloxeed, an arcade game from 1990 that added some “extra” blocks that made the game interesting, and an old Mac game called Wesleyan Tetris, which made snarky comments as you played and did things to mess with you throughout the game.

Meanwhile, if you want to want to show your addiction to Tetris, you might want to decorate your house with these Tetris tiles. They are just like tiles you’d put in your shower, countertops, or backsplashes, but they are in different shapes and colors. Just like real Tetris pieces. And you can pick your colors, too!

I don’t think my wife will be allowing me to decorate with this stuff any time soon, but it’s fun to dream.

Product page via TOKYOMANGO

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A couple of months ago, the folks at Cahoona Games sent me a review copy of Marble Maze for the Nokia N95 and Nokia N82. I feel bad that I didn’t review it before now, but I certainly played it several times in the meantime!

The reason this game needs these two specific phones is that it actually uses the accelerometer to move the little ball through the maze. This limits the game to the N95 and N82, both of which contain an accelerometer.

It’s like that old labyrinth game where you take the ball on a table and try and navigate it through a maze without the ball falling into a hole. Marble Maze is exactly like that, except you can hold the maze in the palm of your hand and there are 40 different mazes to go through.

This game is so worth the $5.99 it will cost you to pick it up.