For most of the gaming popular, this was the first game they ever took home. While there were the select families that had the Atari 2600 or even Pong, it was Super Mario Bros. that made its way into homes across the country in unprecedented number in 1985. After likely billions of hours played and incalculable deaths, there are people still playing in 2014 and trying to beat it JUST a little faster.

YouTuber LordSaradoc has made his name on the space with about 90 videos doing speedruns. Just about a week ago, he uploaded a new one where he looks to have broken the Super Mario Bros. speed run with not just a perfect run with no deaths, but also accomplishing it in world record time.  If everything is accurate, it looks as though LordSaradoc was able to complete the game in 4:57.69. In less than 5 minutes, he was able to run the perfect path doing what most people could only dream of accomplishing.

Though it slipped under our radar for the Kickstarter Watch, the team over at Ink Whiskey were able to successfully crush a $12,000 goal on Kickstarter by reaching just shy of $40,000 to get their concealed gaming flask to market. Most of the clever flasks we’ve seen are usually hidden inside other objects, like the famous classic novel that when opened reveals all the pages have had a section cut out to fit the flask.

The team at Ink Whiskey decided to go for something else entirely by actually making a flask that looks identical to classic NES cartridges. As my flask sits on my desk, it takes a keen eye to actually pick up on something being askew. The plastic housing of the flask, especially from a distance, is indistinguishable from a classic NES cartridge.

Most people would glance over it unless they got to the label. Drunk Hunt with a duck crashing into a bottle or the Bar Hop Bros where a familiar looking plumber is jumping inside of a bar are two examples of the clever puns from the Ink Whiskey team. In their initial run, there are five total designs (and a sixth special edition if you include the gold Legend of Drink Kickstarter exclusive) but hopefully the series does well enough that they can do multiple series of this.

Hey all! As I am sure some of the regular readers of The Flickcast have noticed, my favorite part of the Con season is taking pics at them. Unfortunately, due to some professional responsibilities, I was only able to get down to one day of WonderCon this year.

But because my time was limited, I didn’t waste it on panels and the like. Instead I hit the floor with camera in hand and got as many pics of the Wondercon sights as I could.

While WonderCon doesn’t have the size of San Diego or New York Comic Con, the fans there weren’t any less fervent with their cosplay love. This year I saw a lot of new and original costumes I had not seen before. While a pimped out Boba Fett was present, I also saw for the first time Paper Mario as well as a group of female X-Man villains. Alongside the working R2 units, there was a life sized Wall-E that sadly the picture doesn’t do justice as it captured all of the personality of the movie and brought it to life in front of us all.

Most people who consider themselves “Real” gamers and are over the age of 20 have probably played Super Mario Bros. more times than they can count and can most likely play through the first level blindfolded and know where every Goomba and Koopa Troopa is. But those Goombas and those Koopas are going to be there every time and noting is going to change, in this game or any other. Or is it?

In fact, the rules of gaming changed and a random element was introduced. While there were still some static NPCs and scripted events that were required for the progress of a game’s story, an open world based on behavioral patterns and the sandbox was born.

One of the greatest early sandbox games was Grand Theft Auto which put players in a city that reacted to their actions. But when it made the shift to a 3D environment the world and the interactions changed along with it. But it still didn’t feel like the world was truly alive.

For the most part, passersby would go without noticing the player or each other with the exception of pathing themselves out of the way of each other or reacting to the actions of the player. There was no fully random aspect to their interactions with each other or the world itself. But then things changed again.

Welcome to The Flickcast Presents the Best of Gaming 2012. This is going to be a five part series throughout this first week of 2013 concluding with the Game of the Year being awarded on Friday.

Best Use of the PlayStation Network’s Voice Chat – Journey

So any gamer who has a PS3 already knows that people with microphones don’t really exist, especially compared to the plethora of expletive spitting, homophobic prepubescents who have claimed to have slept with our mothers that troll XBox Live. What they may not know is that some of the best communication that has happened in 2012 on the PSN comes from a game that actually doesn’t even allow for voice chat.

In Journey, players are placed in the role of a robed figure who has no voice at all but can make a singing tone. Those connected to the PSN will occasionally be placed in random worlds with other players but have no method of communication other than the singing tone. This means that players are actually tasked with creating their own non-verbal communication.