Art Attack Friday has dipped it's toes into the nether-nets of the far east (aka 2ch) to uncover a series of Super Mario Bros. illustrations with rather curious origins. Originally stumbled upon while browsing the image bookmarking site ffffound, this lengthy collection of Mario Bros. fan art was drawn by an admirer of a popular singer named Hyadaruko from Nico Nico Douga, a Japanese video site. By using the 'anchor' method, common in 2ch threads, the artist has requested suggestions from the comments to create his illustrations.

The result is a plethora of drawings that captivate Mario and his companions in a casual and sometimes even humble disposition. The artist's mix of casual line work and crayon textured fill color Mario and his life as seen from the minds and hearts of his fans. With a tremendous amount of help from my friend Tatsuhiko Miyagawa and our very own Brad Rice, I present to you the first series of the work, fully translated after the jump. Enjoy! view full story + comments

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In case you haven't seen it before, I present to you the one and only  Pete Townshend of The Who calling out the individual who chose the colors for the "plastic bits" on the Rock Band guitar. To quote Mr. Townshend "When Viacom can buy some other colors, it'll be good". There you have it. Townshend took both Rock Band and Viacom to town. To TOWN suckers!

And that, my friends, was one of the great many wonders that transpired the night of the Rock Band party during E3 2008. Held at the Orpheum theater in downtown LA, the party was consumed with the gaming industry (and, lets not forget, The Who) for a private evening of rock star indulgences. Rock Band 2 was available for play in several locations in the theater, while an entire side stage outfitted with lights and speakers beckoned those who dared to perform in front of their colleagues. I make no light mention that our very own Nick Chester's performance of Billy Idol's song White Wedding on the drums accompanied by Sean Baptiste of Harmonix on the mic was by far the best performance that tiny stage has ever seen.

While neither Harmonix nor MTV had the instincts to provide us with substantial enough food stuffs to complement the liquored bounty found at the open bar, the party was damn fun, and with hope, an E3 evening tradition for years to come. Hit the jump to get a sense of what it was like to be at The Who's private concert, and be sure totake a look around the gallery for shots of the Destructoid crew at the party.

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While taking my first quick walkabout the showroom floor, I was passing the IndieCade section and happened upon a curious display of three colored cubes sitting in front of a webcam. Approaching the game with no instruction, I picked up the red block, each of its sides mapped with a different barcode, and aimed one of the sides to the camera. To my absolute delight and surprise, the monitor above the display suddenly revealed a tiny 3-D room in the box with delicate little stairs, doors, and windows. I didn't know what I was handling at the time, but I was instantly hooked.

While there were only three boxes/levels to tinker with, levelHead certainly made a thrilling impression on me at E3. Hit the jump to get a video demonstration on how the game works and my overall impressions of the game.

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This year's Into the Pixel exhibition was located on the convention's bottom floor, buffering the in's and out's of E3 attendees between the showroom and the center's main hallway. While its location managed to entertain busy passerby's with gaming artwork from both the 2008 and 2007 collections, the gallery space was rather unfortunate with the paintings spread too far out from each other, some works hidden from convenient sight.

That being said, this year's collection had sixteen total works from an assortment of games such as flOw, Fallout 3, and WipEout HD. While various shadowy scenes from Guild Wars seemed to be the most favorable in the eyes of the judges, I enjoyed getting a peek at some of the more colorful artwork such as Nick Thomborrow's entry from Sonic Chronicle: The Dark Brotherhood or Jay Epperson's charming work from an untitled game coming out for the DS. The best of the entire bunch was most definitely the piece chosen from the much anticipated Half Life Episode 3. The cool color palette used to define the mysterious, crow bar grappling silhouette standing in a sharply edged canyon sparked my excitement for the game to even greater heights.

Check out all of the works in the gallery and see if you can figure out what games each one is intended for. Then head over to the Into the Pixel website to find out more about the artists and the games the artwork is from while taking a gander at the collections from years past in the archives.

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WiiMusic is chockfull of all the instruments you'd expect to be available for waggling your Wiimote to, as well as a few other 'instruments' that you absolutely didn't expect. While the full hands-on report will be arriving to the site a little later on, I figured I'd whet your appetite for what's to come by introducing WiiMusic's Puppy Suit instrument. Available amidst the harmony options, the Puppy Suit is, well, your Mii wearing a Puppy Suit. Making puppy sounds. Oh yeah.

But what is a Puppy Suit? Where did it come from? How on earth does it make music? Take a look at the above video (sorry for the loud showroom noise in the back) and then hit the jump to hear more about this musical furry costume and a special explanation of the instrument by yours truly to the puppy loving Chad Concelmo!

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Tucked beneath the ruckus regurgitating out of the WiiMusic stands, Rhythm Heaven, the sequel to Rhythm Tengoku, sat quietly on its own amidst the other DS games by Nintendo. I had plenty of time to try out all three mini games featured at the show, and after a session of ten or so minutes it had completely won me over with its offbeat style and catchy beats. Hit the jump for some hands-on impressions of the game that, in my opinion, is the best thing Nintendo has to offer this year at E3. view full story + comments

After months of profusely salivating over Mirror's Edge trailers, Rev. Anthony and I had the extreme pleasure of profusely salivating over the game itself with a few minutes of hands-on gameplay at EA's showroom. Guided by one of the game's producers, both of us took charge of Faith's limber parkour maneuvers over a few rooftops and building sides with . I can say that we left with very positive impressions, which you have the privilege of hearing from our ridiculously attractive faces after the jump. view full story + comments

There's a certain nostalgia involved in the idea of meeting up with the neighborhood kids and tossing around the ol' pig skin. Backyard Football 2009, the newest edition of the best selling kids' football game, takes a fun-sized approach to the NFL by featuring famous players in their child-like form. Tom Brady is no longer the hulking football superstar that you know today, but the cute little kid with a great throwing arm.

Backyard has everything you'd expect from a football videogame placed within the context of a friendly neighborhood 7 on 7 game. Super stadiums are replaced with locations like a school field, a farm, or even a castle courtyard. Players can choose from all 32 NFL team uniforms and logos, with at least one pro kid player from every team. Once teams are formed, players can choose between single game or season mode, or play in two player mode with another person. Finally, while playing stats will certainly help you choose the best players for your team, each player has a happiness level which will also help determine how they'll perform on the field.

With fun environments and power-ups paired alongside NFL action, Backyard Football 2009 looks to be a casually fun sports game that's mainly for kids but may rouse some youth inspired competition for older gamers. The game will be available on the Wii, DS, PC, and PS2, and is expected to be released this October.

While the DS elves are busy tinkering away to satisfy the hardcore gamer, Atari has got you covered in the kitchen with their upcoming game What's Cooking? with Jamie Oliver. Featuring the celebrity cook of Naked Chef fame, the game has dual properties for both the gamer and the food fanatic. Players will be able to sift through 100 of Oliver's original recipes and practice virtually cooking them á la Cooking Mama style with a more realistic twist.

Where What's Cooking gets kind of neat is the interactive cookbook and shopping list. If a meal in the game tempts you enough to try and cook it in real life, you can convert the recipe into a shopping list that you can tote along with you in the supermarket. Once you get home and you get down and dirty with the ingredients, the interactive cookbook will deliver you the recipe steps hands-free, with voice activation used to get you to the next step.

In the original spirit of Oliver's creative cooking style, the game also allows you to add your own recipes or change the ones already provided. What's Cooking? With Jamie Oliver is expected to be released this fall in October.

You think Natsume just stopped celebrating the 10 year anniversary of Harvest Moon with two new games? Pfft. Not even. Natsume felt that the franchise was well deserving of a few more shiny commemorative items to mark its success and ensure that hardcore fans were taken care of.

Along with the release of Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility for the Wii and Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness for the DS, fans will be able to purchase some excruciatingly cute plush versions of their favorite pets and farm animals. While the cow and the chicken were on display at the Natsume suite, I was lucky enough to come away with the above little black cat. I named him Chippy.

If hoarding a plethora of adorable animal plushes isn't your personal Harvest Moon fan style, then go ahead and cover all of your DS related paraphernalia with the Harvest Moon DS starter kit. The kit includes a cow themed cover for your DS, game cartridge containers, a stylus, and more! Be sure to check out all the goods in the photo gallery.

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The second new Harvest Moon game Natsume is releasing to commemorate the series' 10 year anniversary is Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness for the Nintendo DS. In this version of Harvest Moon, you are situated on a deserted island that's lost all of its inhabitants. Naturally it's your task to grow your farm by tending to your plants and animals. By doing so you'll create a fertile environment and eventually entice people to move back onto the island.

Once the island regains its popularity you can collaborate with other residents to ship off your crops, compete in festivals, and mine for precious gems. More folks in town also means more choices for single mates to marry, so keeping your town in shape is essential. Town quality is also always monitored by a status percentage, giving the player extra initiative to reach the ultimate perfection at 100%.

Finally with the DS capabilities, Island of Happiness orients your chores around actions with the stylus, such as pulling out vegetables or petting your farm animals. Wifi capabilities also enable users to compete with each other based on their stats to compete for special items. Altogether Island of Happiness seems like a colorful and entertaining addition to the Harvest Moon series with plenty of rich potential for play. Gamers can expect it to release on August 26, the same date as Natsume's other celebratory release, Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility.

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Upon dropping by the Natsume suite to see what was going on in the "Serious Fun" neck of the woods, it was brought to my personal attention that it is Harvest Moon's 10 year anniversary. Imagine that! A whole decade of virtual corn picking and cow herding to celebrate! Joy!

To commemorate this occasion, Natsume has two new games to add to the Harvest Moon franchise, the first being Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility for the Wii. While this addition to the franchise retains and enhances almost all of the gameplay qualities signature to the series, Tree of Tranquility has a story-line to accompany your harvesting adventures. Players start the game on Waffle Island, an island that has had the unfortunate circumstance of losing all fertility due to the death of an ancient 'Mother Tree'. Since you're a newcomer, the mayor of Waffle Island assigns you the task of restoring the life by nurturing plants and animals to fruition. But traditionalists fear not! You can still progress through the game in a non-linear fashion and save the island at the same time. Rapture!

This iteration of the game will include all other classic characteristics of the series, with chores such as gardening and tending the farm enhanced by use of the Wiimote. As the most expansive Harvest Moon adventure yet, the game will include more animals to tend to (like Ostriches!), property to purchase, and part-time jobs to try out. Players will also enjoy a few chore-related mini-games such as stone-skipping and horse racing to play. The game looks truly lovely in pure Harvest Moon fashion, and will be released this summer on August 26.
 

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To cap off a looming wave of mediocre game announcements, Nintendo concluded their press conference this morning with another Wii title that was, well, mediocre. Introduced in a disorienting array of strobe lights and smoke, Nintendo announced their upcoming game WiiMusic with a drummer using both the Wiimote, the nunchuk, as well as the WiiFit balance board to play a full drum set on stage. This less than mellifluous act was thankfully followed by a playful Shigeru Miyamoto, who tooted away at his Wiimote across the stage while his Mii emulated his actions on a saxophone. You can imagine the kind of musical racket that was to be expected from that point on.

WiiMusic is intended to be played by anyone, musicians and non-musicans alike. With a set of over 50 different instruments, including instruments like the violin, guitar, taiko drum, and even cowbell, the user simply moves the wii controls in the manner applicable to the instrument to make the pre-assigned music play. Players will also have the option to play various mini-games with the instruments, but if you don't want to be the only one alone playing your invisible tuba, you can join forces to play songs together as one big happy band. This was aptly demonstrated through Miyamoto and gang's painfully choppy rendition of the Super Mario Bros. theme as shown above.

I'll admit, initially when I saw the virtual drumming onstage, I thought 'Are you serious? Yet another attempt to beat Rock Band?' Although it's clear that WiiMusic is looking to be a different kind of game altogether, it may not be enough to entertain anyone for more than a few minutes. Sure, it might be a step up from Beamz technology, but it sure doesn't seem to be any more compelling.

Wandamagick (aka Icecream Katana) serves up a generous spoonful of kawaii fanart for today's Art Attack Friday feature. With a rather large bredth of gaming experience, Wandamagick pulls characters, from Viva Piñata to BioShock, into her utterly charming world of cute. While to you it may seem sacrilegious for her to have transformed the likes of Sander Cohen and Diane McClintock into cheek-pinchable rascals in her fanfic LittleRapture, to me it's nothing less than sacr'adorable.

Alright, so I've made my point. I think her fanart is pretty swell, and her keen sense of humor definitely seals the deal for me. Who can hate a hunky varsity jacket-wearing Pyramid Head, or snowman-making Big Daddy? She even makes Haze's nectar look great with her drawing of a euphoric soldier running around singing Take on Me. Check out the rest of her work (with, believe it or not, some NSFW stuff) on her DeviantArt, or get a peek into her wonderfully geeky UK life on her LiveJournal.