With his excellent programing skills and love of gaming, Eric Ruth has created an 8-Bit version of Left 4 Dead, which is now free to download.

The game features single player and co-op player modes, along with two difficulty settings, all in the glory of 8-Bit NES appearance.

Downloads: Atomic Gamer
FilePlanet
Flavor Grenade
Strategy Informer

New Super Mario Bros for Wii. Looks awesome. What say yee?

Check out this custom made portable Super Nintendo! It is a bit clunky and big, but still awesome. It is called the Supertendo.

A fan of Contra NES put together a LittleBigPlanet world together, replicating the Contra levels and put the video together above. Brings back some great Contra memories.

It was recently announced that the Nintendo DSi will be releasing this spring for the United States and United Kingdom. The U.S. will get their hands on the new DSi on April 5th and the U.K. on April 3rd. The DSi was released in Japan back in November 2008.

Of course, Japan will be getting some additional colors for the DSi before the U.S. and U.K. even get to buy the handheld. It seems Japan always gets the good stuff first. I guess we Westerners just can’t handle new technology at the pace of the Japanese.

The new colors will include Pink, Lime Green, and Metallic Blue. Japanese gamers will be able to pick up the new colors on March 20th.

If you are quick you will actually see some gameplay.

Are you an old school Nintendo gamer?  Well, you might want to sport these Nintendo Nike kicks sporting the classic Nintendo colors.

The Nintendo shoes sport a 2-toned grey with some red accents and black sole.  They look pretty sweet.

Source: Kicksonfire.com; Nike Air Classic BW – Nintendo

A new DS, named DSi, was announced during this year’s Nintendo fall press conference.  The new version decreases in thickness, and gains a few enhancements.

Although they reduced the thickness, the screen gained an enlargement, increasing to 3.25in (wow that sounds like a penis enlargement ad).  The increase equates to a 17% bump from the DS Lite.  The sound output has also been “improved”, there are no details though.

Also included in DSi is a built in camera, capable of producing a 680×480 resolution file size.  There is an SD memory card slot to store pictures, and to view your pictures on the DSi itself.

Surprisingly, there is a built in “browser”, allowing users to download games and DSiware from DSi shop.  Pricing categories for the DSiWare are: Free, 200 points, 500 points, and Premium, 800 points. Players will get 1000 free points to spend at the DSi Shop that are good until March 2010.

The only problem is, Northern America will have to wait until 2009 for a release.  DSi will be released only to the Japan market on November 1st.  There are two colors for now, black and white.

Source: Kotaku; Nintendo Announce New DS: The Nintendo DSi

The update is compared to “the shift from Game Boy to Game Boy Advance.”  The hardware updates are rumored to include features such as high definition visuals, backwards compatibility, and either an internal hard drive or high capacity flash memory.

IBM and AMD currently have a joint development agreement to supply the hardware technology to the Wii console.  The joint agreement expires in 2011, so it is expected that the two companies will be involved in the next generation Wii console.

There is no anticipation of an official announcement for “Wii HD” until at least 2009.  Although some light may be shed this week when company president Satoru Iwata gives his annual fall presentation.

Source: What They Play; New Wii due by 2011

20-year-old gamer Matthew Pyke, and avid Advance Wars fan, was found dead in his Nottingham apartment last Friday.  Pyke and his girlfriend, Joanna Witton, were both fans of the Nintendo game, and ran a strategy-based website.

Witton found Pyke’s lifeless body stabbed in their home.  There were no signs of forced entry, but days after his body was found, a German gamer calling himself David Heiss sent a message to Mr Pyke’s girlfriend apologising for “having caused so much trouble lately”.

“One anonymous poster on the site forum suggested that other members may have known who was behind the killing. “We may know a lot of what was going on prior to the killing, but I, for one, am not going to say any more,” he said.

At 10.32pm on Tuesday Mr Heiss, from Limburg an der Lahn, near Frankfurt am Main, posted a message on Ms Witton’s Facebook page. “I will pray for you. You must be suffering unbelievable pain,” he wrote. “I’m sorry for having caused so much trouble lately. I hope you won’t lose all your hope. We will be there for you.””

Makes me wonder if there were ever psychos out there in online gaming plotting revenge after I pwned them.

Source: Gamer arrested over computer link to knife murder of Matthew Pyke