The 10 Coolest G.I. Joe Ninjas

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Sorry, G.I. Joe fans, I hate to be the one who breaks it to you, but G.I. Joe is not based on the real US military. I know, I know, you should probably sit down and let that sink in. The military doesn't use laser-powered side arms, doesn't promote use of neon-colored uniforms, and doesn't fight robots all that often.

It also doesn't hire ninjas, although that would be incredibly awesome, and they totally should. In the government's defense, you can't just post an ad on Craigslist asking for ninjas -- hell, if someone came up to you and said, "I'm a ninja, hire me," it's almost certain he's not a ninja, or at least not a very good one. Ninja don't advertise. Thank goodness the Joes and Cobras have managed to have more than their share of ninjas on their payroll - and here's the 10 best! 10) Black Dragon Ninja

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In the Joe universe, there are Black Dragon Ninjas and Red Ninja Vipers. If I felt like making this an 11 item list, the Red Ninjas would be 11th, but far after the Black Dragons. Why? Because the Black Dragons are all about espionage, just like the real ninjas in Japan and the Red Ninjas are just foot soldiers in pajamas. Ninja skills are best used for subterfuge and assassination, not charging up at guys with laser guns.

9) Ninja Viper

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Well, if you're going to start a naming system for your troops that's basically [badass adjective] Viper, Ninja Viper is a must-have. And these guys are pretty badass. They're used sparingly, not like cannon fodder, and they're studying new martial arts moves all the time to enhance their skills. Sure, turquoise is a lousy color, but they probably do some awesome work against colorblind foes.

8) Shadow Strike

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How badass is this guy? He once infiltrated the elite Arashikage ninja clan just so he could fuck with it! It's like going to college just to party. His goal was to bring down the whole clan, not for any personal reason other than Cobra Commander asking him if he would. Sadly, he's only had one figure and isn't much of a name in the G.I. Joe world, possibly because he has freakishly long thighs.

7) Tiger Claw

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This guy oozes the "don't fuck with me" vibe, from his tiger paw print gi to his big belt, which is essentially saying, "My dong is monstrous, and if you fuck with me or the rest of the Joes, I will beat you to death with it, then take my black dong power home to your woman, where she will be satisfied in ways you can't even imagine, even if you had read a book about nasty sex. And we'll do it in front of your wedding picture, which she will then tilt downwards so the picture of you two isn't visible."

6) T'Gin-Zu

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Yeah, it's kind of silly, but I like the name. Yep, they named him after the knife that can slice a can, then slice a tomato. What that proves is beyond me, since you can slice a tomato with almost anything. A piece of paper can slice a tomato. Anyway, he's one of G.I. Joe's resident ninjas, who drives the battering ram/gun the Pile Driver. How awesome would it be to see this massive hunk of machine coming down on you and the driver is a fuckin' ninja? It's like going into battle and seeing your opponent is Dracula wielding the Sword of Omens while riding a shark with The Undertaker's face.

5) Slice

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Slice has had six different versions of his figure made, and only one is not totally embarrassing. The first two were about 90% cool, with the red color scheme and the fencing mask (don't underestimate how intimidating a fencing mask can be), but with a stupid leopard print on his pants. The later versions were even worse, dropping the mask and red and making him covered in padding and with little sunglasses that look like he's going tanning. Still, he bases his martial arts on the movements of scorpions, which ups him a couple places in my rankings.

4) Vypra

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Cobra, for all its internal problems, has never had an issue with hiring women. If you want to do evil, and don't mind the occasional rally where you stand at attention and listen to a man dressed as a snake yell, you can do pretty well. Vypra is employed by Cobra, but also, according to one of her filecards, is also the protector of a forge where ninja swords are made. Despite her martial arts skills, Cobra has her driving a jeep. Really.

3) Jinx
​Aside from Snake Eyes, Jinx is the only ninja on this list to appear in the current IDW G.I. Joe series. She died in it, but hey, an appearance is an appearance. Hot female ninja were a rarity in ancient Japan (although they did exist), but Jinx fit in well on the Joe team. She made cartoon appearances, comic appearances, and had three action figures that were a must-have for kids in the '80s. Hot ninja girls...ah, that sounds like a Cinemax film I can get into.

2) Storm Shadow
​He's been voted the #1 Cobra villain by the old Action Force Weekly, one of the few G.I. Joe fan magazines that didn't try to hire out soldiers of fortune in their classified page. He's got so much backstory that it would take hours to go through it all, but let's just say he's more than a ninja in white pajamas. Those white pajamas take balls to wear, since you can see them coming from miles away, which just shows how confident he is in his ninja skills. You might see him coming, BUT IT WON'T SAVE YOU.

1) Snake Eyes
The US military took a big risk in hiring a ninja who doesn't talk, doesn't show his face, doesn't follow orders, often goes off on his own without telling anyone what he's doing, and has a shadowy history with dozens of now-criminals. He's still the most popular member of the team, with lips or without, and brings shadowy ninja expertise with him on every mission. But he's more than just a strong, silent master of the katana blade: as the above clip shows, he's also a breakdancer. Man, that show was weird sometimes.

Best Cubicle Ever!

Sid Meier's Civilization: The Board Game Looks Wonderfully Complex

From the creators of the World of Warcraft and StarCraft board games comes Sid Meier's Civilization: The Board Game, the second board game inspired by the addictive turn-based strategy game.

Sid Meier borrowed concept for the original Civilization video game from an Avalon Hill board game of the same name, so it seems a no-brainer that the computer version get its own physical counterpart as well.

Eagle Games certainly thought so, publishing the first Sid Meier's Civilization: The Board Game in 2002. It was a nifty little game, with a simple rule set for basic play and an advanced set with more video game mechanics involved.

The new Sid Meier's Civilization: The Board Game, due out this fall from Fantasy Flight Games, has nothing to do with that version, and judging by the company's past works and the shot of the game layout above, I very much doubt there's anything simple about it.

Two to four players start the game with a city, a single scout, and an army figure. From there they will build an entire civilization, advancing its technology, forging trade relations, and waging war against their opponents.

I'm a big fan of Fantasy Flight, owning the World of Warcraft Board Game and several expansions. I've never played it, though I did spend several hours setting up the game once, only to run out of time. Hopefully Civilization is a bit easier to set up.

For more on Sid Meier's Civilization: The Board Game, check out the link below.

Announcing Sid Meier's Civilization: The Board Game [Fantasy Flight Games - thanks diedan!

Take a Break and Watch This: 'Sucker Punch' Teaser Trailer

Animatronic Halo Elite Costume Will Have You Screaming “Wart, Wart, Wart!”

courtesy of devicemag
We’ve seen home made costumes from many videogame series. Most use cardboard boxes and paint, the guys at PeteMander GFX went above and beyond to make this suit as realistic as possible.

Standing at least 7 feet tall, this mountainous suit would make any Master Chief wannabe wet his own pants.

And here is a brief making of video …

Gallery of Lightsabers

The Video Game Alphabet

Super Mario Bros. Crossover Xplained: An Interview with the Creator

courtesy of gamexplain

Who’s Jay Pavlina? This is a question you may not have to ask for much longer, as his latest (and first!) flash game, Super Mario Bros. Crossover has set the gaming web on fire. Not only has it made the rounds on the blogosphere, it’s also currently the top-ranked game on Newgrounds.com. The game’s concept is simple: What if you could play through Super Mario Bros. as one of several other heroes of the 8-bit era, such as Mega Man or Simon Belmont?

We sat down with Jay Pavlina to find out more about the development process, how he came up with the concept, what other characters were cut from the final game, and much more in this in-depth interview.

GameXplain: I understand that this is your first time programming...well, anything! Were you inspired to start programming in order to create this game, or did the concept develop as your skills matured?

Jay: There’s a few different reasons I decided to make this game. The main reason is that I just wanted to know what it was like to make a game. Second, I really wanted to play a game like this, but it didn’t exist. Also, I wanted to take a break from making movies and try something different.

I already had many of the skills needed to make a game because of my filmmaking background. I was already comfortable with graphics, sound, and animation. The only new thing that I needed to learn was how to program. And that’s basically why this game exists.

The concept originated because I wanted to make a game, but I didn’t want to have to worry about anything besides the programming. That’s where I got the idea to remake an existing game. All of the pieces to the puzzle were already there, I just needed to figure out how to program in order to fit them together. But then I thought, if I’m going to rebuild an entire game, I might as well add stuff to it. Otherwise, I figured all of the work wouldn’t be worth the effort.

I chose Super Mario Bros because that’s the game that spawned everything else. I figured if I knew how to make the original, I could learn how to make anything else based on what I learned. I had always dreamed of characters from one game visiting the world of another game, and since I’d never really seen it done (besides games like Super Smash Bros.), I decided to do it myself. I’m very pleased with how it turned out.

How did your background in filmmaking help with the game’s creation?

Making movies is extremely challenging, stressful, and sometimes damn near impossible, so I wasn’t afraid of tackling a big game project. As I already mentioned, due to making tons of movies, I already knew how to do everything except programming, so that’s all I needed to learn. But I’d say that it helped me more because of the confidence and determination it gave me. I have already made some big movies, and I pushed through them even when they seemed impossible to finish. My experience with movies gave me the power I needed to push through the difficult times of making the game.

A year is a long time to dedicate to one project. How did you find time to create it? What kept you motivated? Were you ever tempted to give up?

I must be clear here. Only an insane person can complete a project of this magnitude alone. Seriously. When I say insane, I mean you have to be different than the average person. I am proud to be insane. Having passion is also extremely important.

I was only able to finish the project because I wanted more than anything for people to play it, including myself. I actually started the project in February 2009, but I quit in April because it was just too hard and I didn’t think I was smart enough to do it. I started making a smaller casual game to try and learn some more things. I worked on that game for about three months, then after a break and a few other small projects in between, I decided to tackle this beast again. I was much more confident with my skills and was eventually able to figure it out.

Making this game sort of felt like hacking away at a giant cement block with a chisel. I would push myself to work on it each day, even if I had no idea what I was doing, and I felt like I was just hacking away at this huge block. But eventually, I was able to get it into the shape I wanted more or less.

I went into crazy, obsessed work mode in October 2009 and didn’t come out of it until the game was done in April 2010. This means that I pretty much did nothing but work on the game all day, every day, including weekends. That’s what I mean when I say only an insane person can do a project like this. My work habits are a bit extreme, but it allows me to do great things. Don’t work like me unless you’re crazy too.

Fixing bugs was really annoying. Every time I’d play the game and hope I fixed all the bugs, then something would go wrong, and I would just feel absolutely horrible. Sometimes I just wanted to cry or throw a tantrum of some sort. Luckily I’m a pretty disciplined guy. But I certainly said to my girlfriend multiple times every day, “The game is never gonna be done.”

As far as finding the time to do it; I make time for things that are important to me. Don’t think that I was living in a fancy place in extreme comfort while making this game. Sometimes I was living in the worst conditions you could imagine, including sleeping next to railroad tracks because I didn’t have money for rent. Even right now I’m supposed to pay rent but have no money. I am what you would call a starving artist. I do what’s important to me and hope the money will come eventually. And I hope I can inspire other people to put safety and security second to doing what they’re passionate about.

Were there any unforeseen hurdles that cropped up during development?

Basically everything I did was an unforeseen hurdle. However, the biggest, most annoying piece of garbage that I had to deal with while making this game was fixing bugs. I HATE bugs. I hate them. Seriously. I wish I could just write code and it would work, but it doesn’t. Even now there are bugs in the game. I wish the game could be perfect and everyone could have a flawless experience playing it, but there are always still some little mother f’ers that I overlooked. Bugs are hands down the absolute worst thing about making games, and if I could change one thing in the world, it would be to not have bugs in code. Not really, but I hate them and hope they die. :)

One other annoying thing was programming Link’s boomerang. I still haven’t gotten it right. In fact, it’s the only thing in the game I’m unhappy with.

Mario, Mega Man, Simon, Samus, Bill, and Link--that’s a fantastic selection of characters, but were there any others you were considering adding? Were any cut for time or developmental reasons?

Yes, originally there were nine characters, and I’d really like to get these characters in at some point if possible. The other three characters were going to be Ryu Hayabusa from Ninja Gaiden, Luigi, and the SOPHIA battle tank from Blaster Master. I also considered the guy from Bionic Commando. Most of the characters got cut due to time, but Luigi got cut due to a different decision. Originally, the game was going to have a story where Mario got captured, so Luigi recruited his friends from other videogame worlds to help get Mario back. But I decided not to worry about the story and just focus on making the gameplay awesome.

Who is your favorite character to play as and why? Do you feel the game plays better as certain characters versus others?

Well, I like every character except Mario just because he’s old and the others are new. I really like Simon because of his challenging jump controls, although most people complain about that. I like that each character plays very differently so that it’s almost like playing a different game. I worked very hard to make all of the characters my favorite because it means they are balanced. But if I had to pick, I’d pick Simon for his shitty jump controls.

I love the small touches you added for each of the characters, such as Mega Man donning his famous helmet after grabbing a mushroom, or even the ‘low heart’ sound-effect indicator when time begins to run out as Link. How did you come up with those?

I worked very hard on designing the game so that everything would seem very natural and be nostalgic at the same time. I looked for every possible opportunity to bring in the character’s individual abilities and characteristics and make them fit into Mario’s world. When I couldn’t find a perfect fit, I had to be clever. Each character needed a second’s left sound, and I was also trying to get by without adding any more music because I didn’t want to increase the file size. So yeah, I just kept trying stuff and using the character’s low-life sounds worked best. I think I like Mega Man’s seconds left sound the best. That is a catchy tune.

I’m glad you appreciate the nuances with the graphics. I didn’t want to add any additional overlays to the screen than the original game had because I didn’t want to change the experience, so I needed to represent each character’s power state with their physical appearance. Most of the time I just changed the colors, but in some cases their costumes change, like Mega Man and Samus.

Speaking of the characters, was there any particular reason you decided to use the Link sprite from the Legend of Zelda as opposed to the one from the 2D-based sequel, Adventures of Link?

Originally, I had both the Zelda 1 and Zelda 2 sprites in the game. Link would start out small, just like he does now, but when you got a mushroom, he’d grow into the Zelda 2 version. However, I just found that Link so much more fun to control when he was little. In the bigger version, you have to crouch to hit Goombas and throwing the boomerang in all eight directions is more awkward. When I was playing as Link, I would actually avoid getting the mushroom because I wanted to stay small, so I just decided to take big Link out of the game. Also, I think Link’s sprites in Zelda 2 were a bit on the ugly side, and they didn’t fit so well with the Mushroom Kingdom.

Was it difficult to balance the game for each of the characters? I noticed the addition of a moving platform just before the flagpole for some of the characters--did you have to add or change anything else?

I had to add platforms to any jumps that the new characters couldn’t make. The platform in front of the flag pole is there because you wouldn’t be able to reach the top of the flag pole without it. The biggest change I had to do was managing the water levels. I didn’t have swimming animations for anyone except Mario, so I decided to make the characters have less gravity while under water. I really like that feature and it adds to the variety of the game. It makes me wish there were more water levels.

Perhaps the biggest different between this and the original Super Mario Bros. (besides the new characters) is the ability to backtrack through a level. Was there any particular reason for this design choice?

The only reason I did that is because I think it’s annoying in games when you can’t go backwards. I know it’s not like the original game, but I like it better this way. That is just a personal preference.

Did you expect this much attention when you first started the project? Are you happy with how the game’s been received?

Holy shit! I was just making this game as my own personal project and thought maybe a few people would check it out or something. I had no idea it would be like this, but I’m very pleased because it means I can get exposure for my other work, which I have been trying to do for a long, long time. I couldn’t be happier.

Clearly you’re a huge fan of the 8-bit classics! Do you still have time to play games these days?

I think it is more fun to work on creative projects than to play games, but I use playing games as a vacation. So anytime I want to take a vacation, I’ll have a list of games I’ll play, and I’ll play games straight for about a week, doing nothing else. Now that I’m starting to incorporate video games into my movies and other work, I play games for research as well. If there’s a cool game I wanna play though, I’ll always make time for it.

So with Super Mario Bros. Crossover complete, what’s next for you? Any plans for a sequel, perhaps in the 16-bit era?

Actually, what I released is an unfinished version of the game, or sort of like a demo version. If everyone knew what I was really planning, I think they’d freak out even more. But I just released this version because I was going a bit insane from working on it for so long without anyone playing it, so it was sort of a necessity for me to let people play it and get some feedback. As long as I don’t get sued, you can expect more stuff like this from me. If I do get sued, you can still expect awesome stuff from me, but it will include my own original characters instead of already established characters.

And if you like this, you will love the project I’m working on this summer. It’s a video game parody feature film, but I will not reveal which game it is of until later. My movies are almost exclusively comedy, and I think people that like the game should consider checking them out. I’ll be posting both my new and old movies to my website, exploding-rabbit.com, very soon. I have always wanted people to share my work with because the stuff I do is a lot of fun and very unique. I hope people consider subscribing to my blog or Twitter account to see some hilarious movies and other fun games very soon. I promise I will work extremely hard to make everything I do the same or better quality than “Super Mario Bros Crossover.”

And I could leave on that note, but I just want to say one more thing. To anyone that has a dream of something that you want: go for it. It doesn’t matter how many times you fail. It doesn’t matter how many people tell you you’re crazy. It doesn’t matter how many obstacles are in your way. All that matters is that you follow your heart and do what you truly love. If everyone did that, the world would be a very different place.

Well said Jay, I couldn’t agree more. For more information about Super Mario Bros. Crossover, be sure to visit Jay Pavlina’s site, Exploding-Rabbit.com.

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