Gametrailers has been doing an excellent (and totally nostalgia-inducing) retrospective on the Final Fantasy series. Here's Part I - hit the jump for all the subsequent episodes!

Full of swears, really long, very funny in how sadistic this modded SMB is. Truly sick.

The original auction page is gone, presumably because the auction was canceled, but while it was up, this auction was (as Kotaku puts it) officially insane. To the tune of $25K for 600+ NES games in mint condition. Yoinks.

In other news, sorry for the week-long hiatus. I was working extensively on configuring the new for-robots.com server, which was nothing short of exhausting, even with help. All should be running smoothly now.

Back in the day, waaaaaay back in the day, there used to be a Nintendo-funded spin-off cartoon that would air on weekday afternoons, just as the kids were getting home from school. My memories are fuzzy, but I think it would be a combination of live action and cartoon, and for the life of me, I can't remember what it was called (BIG props to the reader who does - hit me in the comments!). At any rate, Mon-Thurs the cartoon portion centered around some Mario theme, with Motherbrain (from Metroid) as the bad guy and King Hippo (Punch Out) and the Eggplant Wizard (Kid Icarus) as the henchmen.

But on Friday.... ZELDA! Little stories, and that awful catchphrase: "Excuuuuuuuuuuuse me, Princess!"

Now, the entire thing is all right here! Here's a taste:

This is probably safe for work. Unless you've got a boss who can ready tiny text at great distances.

A while ago, maybe 5 or so years, I ran across this great webcomic called Nestacos. It then disappeared. It featured pixelated sprites from NES games, the characters we all know and love, saying and doing nasty, horrible, awful, hilarious things. Like Megaman having passionate sex with Hello Kitty. Everyone wanting to get all up on Samus. Luigi leaking a sex tape of him and Peach to Mario. And so on.

And bless Flickr's bits, I found the whole series. Right here, in the creator's Flickr account!

I'm the best!

First and foremost, who wants to get me 8 of these for Hanukkah? Either the original or the Advantage model would be dope. Thanks in advance.

Jumping over to Japan, Kotaku has had some great (and nostalgia-inducing) live coverage of the Japanese Wii launch sale, moblogged right from my old stomping grounds of Osaka's Umeda district. I made friends with the San Francisco 49'ers offensive line right outside that Yodabashi Camera store where everyone is waiting. Look at the lovely queues, all nice and peaceful. Living stateside again sure is a different experience...

In other Wii news, under the DIY hacks heading, we've got a nice set of instructions on how to rig up your included Wii sensor bar to run off a 9-volt battery, no wires need!

Finally, in what probably comes as the most scary and shocking news, there's been some major developments over at Sony: Ken Kutaragi (the father of the Playstation) was demoted right out of the gaming division of SCE, and replaced with... well it doesn't really matter who. The point is, to put it in plain terms, if the PS3 tanks, Sony as a company is doomed. Period. Wired can catch you up in full detail if you've been missing out, but to take out someone who's single-handedly crafted products that have netted Sony somewhere around 80-90% of their profits since the PSOne because of a risky Blu-Ray strategy is foolish, and as a Sony insider noted, could eliminate the chances for a PS4. Ever. We'll see - it would kill a part of my soul to see Sony die, but it's not looking good.