THE LATEST FROM BEN HECKENDORN – THE NESTARI

It’s been awhile since we last checked in with console hacker extrordinaire Ben Heckendorn, so we figured it would be time to head over to his website and see what he’s been up to. Turns out, it’s another handheld system – the NEStari.

This time, Ben has taken an Atari Flashback 2, one of those "Nintendo on a chip" systems and some technical know-how and built a combination Atari 2600 / NES handheld. I don’t know about you, but I really do wish I had this guy’s technical expertise – I’d probably spend all day building consoles. (ok, I’d at least spend all day starting console projects)

Be sure to check out his earlier projects if this is the first time you’re visiting his site – you’ll probably be drooling in no time flat.

• The NEStari – BenHeck.com

THE ART OF FORZA MOTORSPORT 2: CUSTOM CARS

I’ve been playing quite a bit of Forza Motorsport 2 on the Xbox 360 lately, and while the game itself certainly is a load of fun (despite the lack of an in-car cockpit mode – and no, I won’t stop harping on that), the thing that I’ve been the most fascinated by is the incredible custom artwork some players have already come up with. I can’t begin to imagine the patience making some of these designs must require, as I gave up on my first custom paint job attempt after about 30 minutes and only a few shapes.

Perhaps the greatest feature of the game is the fact that the individuals who have spent the time to create these great designs can then put them up for sale via the Forza Motorsport 2 Auction House. Say what you want about the time spent coming up with some of these designs, but I can guarantee that the people who made them are swimming in credits right now and can easily afford to purchase just about any other custom painted car they may see. Doesn’t seem as much of a waste of time now, does it?

As for the rest of us – you know, the ones who couldn’t make a decent design to save our lives, we can spend our time racing for credits so we can also drive around in a car that amazes our friends. Since no article about the custom paint jobs available online would be complete without some examples, I’ve posted some pictures of the best cars I’ve managed to come out of the auction house with.

Click on the below pictures for larger sized images.

I guess the ultimate compliment I can give some of the designs I’ve seen is that I can barely believe they were made using the in-game vinyl decal system. To all those custom car painters out there, I salute you – keep up the great work!

• Forza Motorsport 2 – Official website
• Forza Motorsport 2 Auction House (View Only) – ForzaMotorsport.net

BUILDING MY OWN DAMN CONTROLLER FOR XBOX LIVE ARCADE

I’ve griped enough about how bad the Xbox 360 controller is for Xbox Live Arcade games that I’ve decided to do something about it. I’m currently in the process of building two simple arcade style controllers for the system, one using a 4-way joystick and the other using 2 8-way joysticks.

The goal right now is just to make them functional. In other words, I’m not going to go all out on these and make them pretty – no lexan covers, no panel art, no t-molding, etc – the idea here is just to make something that works. If they work out well enough, then I’ll think about going all out and making a control set with all the bells and whistles.

I spent much of yesterday just planning out the design, and most of today running around getting supplies, marking up some of the wood and making cuts for the 8-way. The project definitely won’t be done for at least a week as to save cash, I ordered the 360 controllers I’m going to hack off Ebay on friday, so finishing the project tomorrow isn’t going to happen,

Once the thing is finished, I’ll post a short article detailing the whole process for those that are interested. Here’s what I’ve got so far – it’s not much, but hopefully by tomorrow the panel itself will be finished and all that will be left is the controller hack and wiring.

NEW BEN HECKENDORN NES PORTABLE

Ben Heckendorn, creator of the Atari 2600 handheld VCSp and author of the ExtremeTech book “Hacking Video Game Consoles“, has created his latest portable masterpiece. The nPod is a handheld, cartridge based, NES that merges a NES cartridge port to the processor of one of those “multi-game” NES clone TV units. I picked up Ben’s book at the same time I grabbed ExtremeTech’s other book “Project Arcade”, and the projects are all well laid out, but I just haven’t gotten a chance to build any them yet. I figure the next thing I build will probably be the tabletop arcade machine I worked out last summer, but the temptation to build a VCSp is always pretty strong. Check out the nPod here.

Major Nelson tells readers how to make their own 360 Dashboard blade backgrounds

In his daily blog, Xbox Live’s Major Nelson told readers how to make their own background images for the blades in their Xbox 360 dashboards. While regular users are limited to only having the same image for all blades, it still is pretty neat. From MN’s blog.

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“I just loaded one of the water ballon pictures as my Xbox 360 dashboard background, and it looks pretty good, so I thought I’d go through the steps of you can to do it:

All you need to do is download the hi rez version of this photo, then put it on a USB memory stick. Pop it into your Xbox 360, and sign in with your profile. Once you sign in, go to the Media Blade, then to Pictures. Go to Portable Device (this is your USB memory stick) scroll to find the photo (you’ll see a thumbnail) and when you have the photo highlighted, press X. That will make the photo your background on all blades as seen below. (You can not make a different image for each blade, only developers can do that with themes.) “ – Major Nelson
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Pretty nifty indeed. I haven’t tried to add one yet, but rest assured, once I finish tonight’s site updates, I’ll be trying to find one that suits my style just right.

How to make your own Xbox 360 Arcade Controller

I’ve been looking for wiring diagrams for the Xbox 360 controller for awhile now as I’m intrigued with the idea of building a full sized Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved arcade cabinet. Anyway, while searching for said information, I came across this tutorial on how to build a working arcade controller out of a 360 wired pad over at GamersReports. While the example uses a Street Fighter II Anniversary Edition Arcade Stick for the controls, it shouldn’t be too hard to just apply the same idea to regular arcade parts and make a custom one. Too bad, there wasn’t a tutorial for the analog sticks, or I could have started planning to play Geometry Wars: RE in style someday! Click here for the tutorial.

If you’ve played Project Gotham Racing 3, you’ve probably noticed the Geometry Wars & Geometry Wars: RE arcade machines in the back of your garage. Well, everytime I look at them, I can’t help but think how cool it would be to build a full sized machine using that design. It probably helps that I’m a Geometry Wars: RE addict.

Anyway, like the news bit says, I came across this tutorial for building an arcade controller for the Xbox and think it may be time to use a lot of those arcade parts lying around here that are earmarked for stalled projects.

So anyway, let’s discuss both the tutorial article as well as building custom controllers here for a bit. Post some pics of your creations if you have them, and if you happen to know of a site that explains just how the analog sticks on the 360 controller work, please, please, please let me know. That GW:RE cabinet really would be nice.

LEGO PINBALL MACHINE

You know, when I was a kid, the coolest thing you could make out of Lego blocks was probably a "castle". Well, it seems they’ve come a long way since then and now include motors, switches, servos, gearboxes and their own computer programming language. Put all that and someone with some serious time on their hands together and what do you get? A fully working Lego pinball machine, that’s what! I don’t know about you, but I certainly wouldn’t mind having one. Click here to head on over to pinballnews.com to see it!