Rob LeFebvre - page 42

This video by game video YouTube user NicksplosionFX is perhaps the most awesome thing you’re going to see all day.

It’s a shot by shot recreation of the stunningly fantastic Game of Thrones television show introduction sequence done in the style of Nintendo’s classic Super Mario Brothers video game.

Whether your a Game of Thrones fan, a classic Nintendo nerd, or a combination of the two, you’ll love that the video maker also has a side by side comparison of the two videos (below) so you can critique his recreation with all your righteous nerd fervor.

Barry Allen, also known as The Flash, gets his own TV show this fall on the CW, the network that brought you Smallville for ten years.

In this extended trailer (below), we get to see the fastest man alive’s origin, which in this version seems to be a combination of getting hit by lightning and being doused in some weird green chemicals.

While the exciting superhero scenes in the trailer below are probably culled from the best bits of the show, which will may more likely consist of mostly long, lingering looks and beautiful people in soft lighting, we have to say we’re pretty excited to see the return of the DC speedster to the small screen, even if his costume looks a bit silly.

When your girlfriend grabs the iPad and won’t give it back, you know you’ve got a hit game in your hands. Well, her hands. Seriously, I had to arm-wrestle her to get the iPad back so I could do this review.

Demons vs Fairyland seems at first glance to be yet another cute, fixed-path tower defense game with free-to-play in-app purchases, but the sheer breadth of options available to upgrade your tower defenses, along with the adorably cute artwork and epic music, take this game to a whole new level of awesome.

But seriously, she still won’t give the iPad back.

Sure, the health benefits of not sitting all day are substantial, even if the positives of standing all day are inconclusive. The trick, it seems, is to change position often, or maybe even to walk while you work.

The Rebel Crank-Up 1000 standing desk is a boon to those who want to be able to work in an erect posture but still sit down when they need to; sitting improves fine motor control and lessens leaning, for example.

As I stood at the review unit Rebel Desk sent my way, I couldn’t help but feel cooler, hipper, and more upright than I had in various office jobs over the years. Whether I’ll lose any weight from standing all day or not is debatable — one study showed an extra 50 calories burned per hour of standing — but at least I’ll have less time in the saddle than I used to. That can’t be a bad thing, can it?

The Rebel Desk makes all of this standing and sitting again super easy with a thick tempered glass top (it comes in a Teak model, too) and some seriously sturdy desk legs. This is one solid piece of office furniture.

Answer: because the new standalone ToonsTV iOS app, for iPhone and iPad, is only available in Finland.

If you happen to have a Finnish iTunes account, though, you can now download your very own standalone iOS app to watch Rovio’s surprisingly broad offerings of animated entertainment, ToonsTV.

Sliding two distinctive iRings between my middle and ring fingers on each hand and then conducting the bouncy electronic beat coming out of my iPad mini and into my big fat headphones made me feel less like a conductor and more like an awkward boxer, punching at a touchscreen.

Once I relaxed into it, though, the music started to flow and my hands began to dance; this is one cool iOS music-making peripheral.

The iRing is made for making music, but the potential here is stunning: Imagine a video game controlled with your hands, a webpage that scrolls at a speed you define with your fingers, or an e-book that turns pages with a swipe through the air. This is a truly innovative new product.

iOS still beats Android when it comes to quality apps and games. But lots of us use Android tablets and smartphones for one reason (price) or another (freedom), so we might as well make the best of it.

You can find some great games on the Android platform, many of them free or low cost, too. So don’t settle for the same old free-to-play crap — download these great Android games today.

A list of links and prices follows.

Look, making an app that will run on your iPhone is hard.

Luckily, adsy.me just made it chimp simple for normal folks like you or I to make a mobile app right on your iOS, Android or computer. You don’t need to download anything, learn to code, or even leave your touchscreen.

Make an app to show off your disco band, complete with links to Soundcloud, or share recipes with your friends, linking them to your favorite chef sites. Explain your passion project and connect your Twitter followers to a wealth of knowledge that you can curate on your very own mobile app.

Seriously, if you want to make a mobile app and have no clue about C++ or Xcode compilers or other such fooferaw, adsy.me is your best bet.

We’ve all got them: the freaky friends. Those who comment on and like every. single. status update.

Those who post long, ranting political polemics to your happy cat poster images. The friends that creep you out in a subtle, yet plausibly deniable way.

Or maybe there’s the friends you want to get your freak on with who really don’t need to see you in those embarrassing photo updates that you send to your frat brothers.

However you rank your friends, Facebook has some non-intuitive list tools to help you finely tune your groups of friends. Here’s how to use them, and then how to view your profile through the lens of any specific person on your friends list, to make sure your list tweak was effective.

Thank goodness for a game with just a few things to learn how to do.

Too many environmental puzzle games try to do too much, packing in all sorts of stuff you have to figure out to solve the ever-increasingly difficult levels.

Not so with Kiwanuka, an elegantly smart game that only has a couple of mechanics, but tons of fun levels to solve with them.

Oh, and it’s a little bit weird, too.

With the global reach of Twitter, it’s totally possible you’re following a few folks that don’t necessarily Tweet in your native language.

When that happens, it’s TweetDeck to the rescue with its very useful translation function.

Here’s how to make that work.

Saunter up to the bar, pardner, and we’ll tell you all about our little town here.

We need a sheriff around these parts and you look like you’d fit the badge nicely. Here’s a gun; get out there and collect rewards, shoot wild animals and round up the bad guys.

Oh, and don’t mind the funny green light ’round these parts. It’s just how we get things done.

Don’t Starve is a brilliant yet brutal video game that will not hold your hand as it leads you inexorably toward a messy, starving death.

Until now, it’s been a single-player affair, which just reinforces the theme of loneliness present in every ticking second of each of the in-game days and nights.

Klei Entertainment, at the frantic urging of its fan base, is finally bringing a final feature to the game that we all wanted: a shared experience.

This summer, we can huddle together with other players, avoiding the rampaging hounds of doom and giant tree monsters bent on our destruction in ecstatic togetherness.

Getting your MIDI keyboard connected to your iPad or Mac can be a frustrating experience. You’ve got to make sure you’ve got the right wires that connect to your output device of choice, and then you’ve got to make sure you never ever lose them.

Hopping onstage for a gig at the local brewpub can be a frightening experience if you’ve lost that one special cord that goes from your keys to your Ableton Live setup on your Mac, and missing out on a recording session because you can’t find that special 30-pin adaptor for your iPad is just a pain in the butt.

The folks behind the excellent JamStick, Zivix, have your answer, then, with a cool-looking little round gadget called a PUC that connects any MIDI keyboard or other capable device to your iPad, your Mac, your iPhone, your PC — you name it, if it’s got Wi-Fi and can run a MIDI app, you can use the PUC to send your MIDI performance to it.

Imagine a game that mashes up the best of a classic strategy game like speed chess and a modern hit like League of Legends. If you do, you’ll probably come up with something like Aerena: Clash of Champions, a steampunk-themed turn-based strategy game that uses the hero mechanics of other massively online battle arena games like Dota 2 in a painstakingly created digital board game arena.

The game will go free-to-play this Wednesday on Steam (it’s already out for Android tablets — iOS versions to come soon), and is a great new gaming experience — we’ve been playing it all morning. It takes only a short while for the casual gamer to learn how to play, but there is enough strategy and balanced mechanics to give core players a ton of depth.

If you’re super savvy, though, you’ll grab the early access copy today for $10, which nets you a full $30 worth of downloadable content, extra heroes and more. Either way, Aerena is a brilliant game and deserves your attention.

Mobile gaming is an ephemeral thing.

The unending stream of iOS games runs too fast and too fat for any individual to figure out which ones are worthy of your time and/or money. Freemium games? Check. Casual games? Sure. Hardcore games ported to your iOS device of choice? Plenty.

But which ones should you sit down and play right now? Our crack team of reviewers took a moment to call up the games they return to, day after day, when they feel like experiencing the finest the mobile gaming world has to offer. Above are the eight best iOS games you should download at this very moment.

Ubisoft’s upcoming Watch Dogs console game is hoping to upend the traditional boundaries between single- and multi-player gaming, allowing you to hack into other players’ games on the fly, earning experience and renown points which you can then use to level up your own character’s skill levels.

The game was a huge surprise at last year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), and has since been getting a ton of attention from gamers and the press as the May 27 release date looms.

Even better, you’ll be able to interact with the very same game and players via a free mobile app, letting you increase the heat on rogue players, as you can see in this fairly long and detailed play through video below. Sure, the video is ridiculously longer than most gamer’s attention spans, but it’s well worth a look.

Tweetdeck, now an official Twitter app, is one of those social networking clients with a ton of features that may be a bit of overkill if you’re a casual user. It’s got a columnar interface with tons of customizability, letting you decide what, specifically, shows up in each column.

If you’ve got multiple accounts on the big bird service you might want to save some column space by merging all your accounts into the columns you’re interested in.

May the fourth be with you on Star Wars Day this year.

The droid-loving folks over at SMS audio (a company majority-owned by rapper 50 Cent) have put out a set of surprisingly good on-ear headphones based on the company’s entry-level Street by 50 on ear wired headphones.

Each set boasts a Star Wars-themed logo on the ear cups (see below) with associated fan service pack-ins like stickers and a poster.

If you’re looking to get away from it all, you might want to check out this game. …and then it rained is an arcade game full of sound, rain, and colors, and it’s the perfect game for a quiet few minutes away from the hectic pace of your life.

With true zen-like minimalism, there are just a few simple mechanics at work here, but it may just be the best game you play all week.

Check out the video below to see how it plays.

New game Mutants: Genetic Gladiators aims to be your go-to when you want to battle it out with comic book-style monsters that you mutate and create yourself.

The game, from French publisher Kojobo, originated on Facebook, gathering almost 6 million players with a turn-based arena battling scheme that mixes role-playing level-up mechanics with an interesting combat system that uses various monster “genes” to add to the strategy. You’ll choose three mutant gladiators for your battle team, and then pit them against other teams — both AI-controlled and actual other players — for ultimate supremacy.

Check out the launch trailer below for some hot comic-book creature battling action.

Of course you have the Nintendo 3DS in your bag — it’s an outstanding handheld gaming system with a bevy of first- and third-party game titles that range from the strategic to the evocative.

You know the device is capable of some brilliant gaming for adults, but good lord, Nintendo, could you maybe bypass the primary colors? Maybe offer, say, a black version? Something in gold, maybe? The sophisticated folks at Waterfield know that you’re a grownup now, so they’ve created the City Slicker, a lush cocoon of a 3DS and 3DS XL case with a proper leather flap that ages along with you.

Chatting on Facebook has become rather de rigueur for many of us these days, as the social networking giant makes it easier and easier to stay in touch via its blue and white website and dedicated mobile apps.

If you’re anything like me, chances are that your buddies chat you up as often on Facebook Messenger as they do on iMessage. This multiple platform chatting solution is all fine and dandy when you’re just dealing with your friends, but what about the boss? Your mother in law? That friend who is trolling your Facebook page to see why you’re not at her party?

You need a way to hide the fact that you’re online and chatting from these folks, and we’re going to tell you how.

Sid Meier’s Civilization V is the best “4X” (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate) game out there, and it can be yours for 67 percent off the regular price of thirty bucks right now in this exclusive to Cult of Mac offer from publisher Aspyr.

Civ 5, as it’s colloquially known, is the distillation of all that is good about the $x genre, which is why the game received universal acclaim and a score of 90/100 on review aggregator site Metacritic.

Aspyr wanted to find a way to acknowledge the support of Cult of Mac readers.

“It’s an exclusive deal for Cult of Mac readers on one of our most beloved titles,” said Aspyr’s Michael Blair. “This is a big ‘thank you’ to the Cult of Mac readers and to Cult of Mac for covering Mac gaming!”

You may not need a mouse much these days if you’re rocking a Macbook or Magic Trackpad, but if you do any kind of gaming on your computer, you know a mouse is essential kit.

Pro gamers rely on lag-free, incredibly high-tech controllers and gaming mice, and Steel Series is one of the top contenders in the field. Their series of gaming mice and keyboards are precision engineered to provide whip-fast response to any twitchy input a gamer needs in their chosen gaming environment.

The Steel Series Sensei wireless gaming mouse is an ergonomic marvel with ten buttons, its own software control app and some scary-quick response times.

Despite all that high-tech nonsense, it’s super easy to use and feels good in the hand. Which is important when I’m jacked into an all-night MMO session with 12 of my besties, raiding the lair of whatever monster it is that we’re all trying to kill.

I love this damn mouse more than I can say.