With Halloween on the way, it seemed like a good time to feature some cosplay in The DS Life! As you can likely guess, the most popular costumed gamers we've posted about so far were the cosplaying Link duo (see gallery below), who took their inspiration from The Legend of Zelda's Four Swords spin-off.
We've picked out another group who've dressed themselves up as the colorful Link clones, and while they might not seem as "sensual" as the blondes we featured before, we think they better capture Four Swords' bouyant, playful feel.
Yes, two columns for the price of one! The price, of course, being nothing.
This week's installment of The DS Life / Promotional Consideration looks at an advertisement for Mystery Case Files: Millionheir that ran in several "mainstream" publications like celebrity gossip magazines In Touch Weekly and Us Weekly. The print piece features Ugly Betty'sAmerica Ferrera and sub-Saharan Africa's leopard. Surprisingly, the latter doesn't maul the former, despite the ESRB's "violent references" warning.
Rena and Lisa make up Vanilla Beans, a Japanese pop idol duo with a fanciful style that separates them from typical J-pop groups. The two recently appeared at Tokyo's Shibuya Crossing to promote their new music single with an interesting publicity stunt -- dressed as retro flight attendants, they sat inside a window-fronted truck for passer-bys to watch and wonder, "What in the world are those strangely dressed girls doing in there?"
Sitting inside a closed window display all day can get boring, but the two thoughtfully brought something to pass the afternoon.
For this week's image, we'll visit a new region, Central America -- Guatemala specifically -- where a young girl is teaching her uncle how to play with a Nintendo DS.
"As a child in Japan, I used to go to a temple and write out a wish on a piece of thin paper and tie it around the branch of a tree. Trees in temple courtyards were always filled with people's wish knots, which looked like white flowers blossoming from afar." - Yoko Ono
Since the 1990s, Yoko Ono has helped install Wish Trees around the world, just like the ones she used to see in Japan, inviting passerbys to write down their wishes and tie them around the tree's branches. So far, the project has gathered over a hundred thousand wishes.
Many of the wishes are what you'd expect from such an idealistic installation, hopes for peace on Earth and goodwill towards all men. Some are goofy, like petitions for super powers, and a few are even vulgar, such as this one here. The bit of paper we're featuring for this edition of The DS Life, however, is a wish that might melt your heart. Join us past the post break!
As someone who planned and enjoyed a wedding less than a year ago (actually, my wife organized it all, as I was busy blogging), I can tell you this -- it is a difficult thing to find a good wedding photographer.
It's tempting to hire anyone local who seems the least bit adequate with a camera, so long as they're cheap. Even worse, you might consider relying on that friend of yours with a fancy digital camera, or on some dude videotaping the ceremony.
But if you manage to fight off that rational part of you that keeps begging you to hire a photographer for a sensible price, the next time your friends pull out their bland wedding photo album, you'll be able to smugly think to yourself, "Ha, our wedding totally kicked their wedding's ass."
Midas wasn't sure what he should do when the phone, which sat unattended across from him, began to beep. His father left the handset on the chair before stepping away for a moment, and Midas was too young to know what the appropriate action would be for situations such as these.
Would it be rude if he answered the phone? How would he explain to the caller that his father was currently indisposed? What exactly does "indisposed" mean, anyway?
Children aren't known for their patience, so it was only a few seconds before Midas hopped off his chair, peeked at the mobile's screen to see if it was a number he recognized, and lifted the phone to his ear.
No, the above clip isn't our primary subject for this week's The DS Life, but it is related and, not to mention, totally awesome.
Looking for a more console-authentic experience with Guitar Hero: On Tour, Hack A Day reader Eric Ruckerman modified a wireless Guitar Hero PS2 controller to fit a Nintendo DS and wired the peripheral's buttons into the system. He also added a transmitter to play the game's sound through his home sound system.
Pretty slick, but how can he see the notes coming down on the screen? A mirror would help! Anyway, step past the post break for a shot of Eric's setup and a photograph of someone playing Guitar Hero: On Tour with more traditional controls.
Even we were surprised to learn that, after a year of running this pictorial column every week, we've yet to cheaply resort to exploiting cat photos. Dogs and babies, however, are common fodder.
Never one to let a good thing last, we've packed this week's edition of The DS Life with no less than nine kittens! The images all have two things in common, felines and DSes. It's your job to find that missing component -- lulz!
Despite the title, this post has nothing to do with Prism: Light the Way, one of the DS's most interesting but overlooked puzzlers. Circuit City has the game on sale for $9.99 this week, though, so you should totally look into picking it up anyway!
For this week's edition of The DS Life, we'll look at several images taken from photographer Patrick Brosset's collection of light painting shots, long-exposure photos taken with streaks of light drawn over the scene. What does this creative technique have to do with the Nintendo DS or gaming? Join us past the break to find out!
No one's looking -- at least, no one she can see -- which means it's the right moment for a little break. After the chaos of doing and cleaning and accomplishing, it's such a relief to reach into a pocket and feel the cool, smooth corners of a DS Lite. The oblivion of game time is only a few seconds away, and when that's all you have to spare, those moments are precious.
The discs, colored green, red, yellow, and blue, tumble towards her, spilling like candy from a tipped box of Sprees, almost too many of them to catch. Her fingers lift then push, then lift then push over and over again above the corresponding frets, more mechanical than graceful. Imagine a pneumatic robot hand, and you will understand the choreographed taps of her digits; it is as if they learned to dance from footstep diagrams.
She does not sing the lyrics or hum the melody or tap her feet with the rhythm, she has attempted to faultlessly play this track enough times that she is long past enjoying the song. Truthfully, she has always loathed "Rock and Roll All Nite" as a shallow anthem. This time, though, Gene Simmons is singing her victory, as she is only a few chords away from a perfect score.
"Haven't had a dream in a long time. See, the life I've had can make a good [woman] bad. So, for once in my life, let me get what I want. Lord knows, it would be the first time." - The Smiths, "Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want"
Wikipedia describes Domo -- the brown, open-mawed creature depicted above -- as "a strange creature that hatched from an egg." Other details: he lives in a cave with Mr. Usaji, he dislikes apples, and he loves Guitar Wolf, a Japanese garage punk band. From what my wife tells me, they used to put on some really wicked shows.
For this week's installment of The DS Life, we will examine Domo's life in three different acts:
_cg_oct22_kjgfdhd_thumbnail.jpg "Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars")
