Atari 2600 stuffed into Game Gear, Sega Nomad seen casting envious glances

Oh sure, there's bound to be some protrusion when shoving a retro console into a gaming handheld, but inelegant styling was a way of life for Sega back in the mid-90s. Modder Chris Koopa has achieved the impossible by stuffing an Atari 2600 (or the important parts, anyway) along with 40 games into a hacked up Game Gear and enabling it to operate for nearly a full workday with just five AA batteries. And yeah, there's totally a 2600 cartridge slot to allow for playback of original titles. You know you're oddly interested in seeing more, so tap the read link for a few shots from the rear / side.
[Via: technabob ]

Man hacks GameCube controller for the Wii with tremendous effort

Admit it. You've got an old GameCube from yesteryear laying around, and the slow economy (and fear for your life) is holding you back from running to your nearest brick-and-mortar to pick up a Classic Controller for your Wii. You know you want to play Super Mario 64 to work off that turkey, but you can't justify laying out the cash. Fret not; YouTube user marcan42 has you covered, courtesy of a PIC18F4520 microcontroller and makeshift GameCube connector, along with a chopped off Nunchuk extension cord. Of course, you could just pick up a different model, but that would be way too easy. We didn't say it was pretty, but if you're still intrigued, check the full vid after the break.
Update: As a bunch of commenters have pointed out, this can be done already by plugging the GameCube controller directly into the Wii. However, this mod lets you do it wirelessly -- err, if you don't count the big microcontroller and mess of wires.

[Via: Engadget ]

Nokia Quake III gains on-phone server, Bluetooth keyboard and mouse support

Remember when playing Quake III at a decent resolution required a $5,000 Alienware? Man, those were the days. Now, we can't help but be thankful for a few special Nokia handsets (the N95 8GB, E90 and N82 in particular) that can all handle the game by their lonesome. In fact, the latest version of the software adds a few remarkably awesome extras. For starters, users can now take advantage of on-phone server support, meaning that your handset can actually host a Quake III multiplayer battle (and may we recommend the server name "trashaccident?"). Also of note, the devs have tossed in support for Bluetooth mice and keyboards. We know, right? Tap the read link for all the juicy installation instructions.
[Via: Decoder ]

World Golf Tour - Time Waster

Just how far can you go with an online game? By some measures, World Golf Tour could be considered a Time Waster that is all grown up. It's trying to be a desktop-quality game provided online.
The game play is pretty much par for the course, as far as golf games go (sorry, I couldn't resist), and the course imagery is gorgeous, maybe a little too much so. As is typical in golf, there are only a few things that move: in this case the player, the ball, and the flag. Unfortunately, it's pretty obvious that these are rendered in 3D on top of a static image of the course, making them look out of place.
Worse, to achieve the beautiful effect of having photographic imagery for the game, you are confined to a set number of vantage points, many of which are fine when the ball lies in the center of them, but become very awkward when the ball is not. The terrain very obviously has undulations in it, and the ball seems to react fairly reasonably to the terrain, but you can tell that the ball's movement is somehow disconnected from the scene.
Although all of this seems like criticism, the truth is that these are compromises that are reasonable for such a beautiful free online game, if it wasn't for one fatal flaw: Flash. Unfortunately, on my reasonable speedy machine, Flash seemed to act up on every third shot, and would cause my shot meter to jump around sporadically, making it impossible to make a decent shot, never mind a good one. Now, I'm not very good at this as it is, but in one 9-hole round I had at least 8 shots completely ruined by a freezing display.
Now to be fair, World Golf Tour is still in beta, and hopefully they can iron out this very ugly divot in what is otherwise a fairly decent fairway.
You can play a skills game for free without signing up for an account, but to play a full round or to play with your friends, you'll need to sign up for an account and give away your email address and birthday. Is it worth it? I guess it depends on how much you like golf.
[Via: Download Squad ]