World’s Smallest Nintendo Wii Fits in an Altoids Tin

The Nintendo Wii has been modded countless times, but this particular build is an especially wee Wii. This isn’t some kind of Raspberry Pi emulator. What you’re looking at is a fully functional Wii gaming system crammed into an Altoids tin, dubbed the “Kill Mii.” I doubt if anyone can go much smaller than this.

So how exactly did Shank Mods manage this? Well, much like the Atari 2600, you can cut off the majority of the Wii’s motherboard and still have a functioning system. Sure you are ditching things like the GameCube controller ports and SD card slot, but who needs those anyway? After that, you just need to install a new firmware that tells it to ignore things like a lack of disc drive and load games as ISOs from an attached USB flash drive.

The system has a battery that can run the device for about 10 minutes per charge, which is longer than you would want to play on this thing given its wonky controller setup. Still, it’s an impressive build and wasn’t designed to provide a great user experience. Like many other mods, it was simply done because it could be done. So what’s next? Who wants to build an even wee-er Wii? No doubt someone will eventually take up the challenge.

[via reddit via HackADay]

You Can Play as Magneto in Grand Theft Auto V

Grand Theft Auto V already has a lot of ways that you can be destructive in the game, and now here comes one more. You can now play as the X-Men villain Magneto thanks to a mod from JulioNIB. So if you ever wanted to see Magneto let loose in Los Santos and just destroy everything, you can live that dream.

The video below pretty much shows off what Magneto can do. This includes basically every power that we saw him use in the X-Men films like the “steal your guns and shoot you with them” power. And obviously picking every damn thing up and throwing it. You can also super punch vehicles, create a tornado, and rip things out of the ground.

You can rip stop signs out of the ground and impale people, make planes crash into each other and a whole lot more. When you think about it, Magneto is basically just a kid with superpowers throwing a tantrum and breaking his (and everyone else’s) toys.

PC gamers can get the installation instructions here. This just proves that they could make a kick-ass X-Men game if they wanted to, using the GTA engine. I would love to see the whole team against Magneto.

[via PC Gamer via Kotaku]

‘Minecraft’ mod fosters a collaborative effort against climate change

A Minecraft modder has added some fresh gameplay issues for players to deal with in the form of climate change. Nick Porillo's GlobalWarming mod alters the atmosphere based on certain actions like smelting ores. Temperatures will rise as carbon emiss...

Mario 64 Modded to Play at 60 Frames per Second Looks Beautiful

Nintendo’s original Mario 64 game ran at 320×240 at 30fps, and only 20fps in some areas. Now, a modder has figured out a way to get the classic 3D platformer to run at 60 frames per second without negatively affecting the game’s physics. And boy does it look awesome.

Kaze Emanuar’s video shows off this mod, which makes the game look downright lovely. The whole thing is very, very smooth. Hit the 0:35 mark for a comparison between this game and the original. You can really see the difference. At least I can. Just make sure you have the YouTube resolution set to 1080p/60 to view it properly.

After all of these years, people are still playing Mario 64. That is a real testament to how great this game is. I don’t think that there has been a Mario game since that has captured the hearts of video gamers in the same way. I was never a big N64 guy, but you bet that I played this title for hours on end back in the day. I would love to try this version myself and see how good the entire game looks.

It’s your move now Nintendo. This is proof that you can give us some old games with increased frame rates, and they’ll look amazing.

[via Digg via Geekologie]

Adam Savage Modifies a NERF Blaster, Gives It 1,000 Shot Capacity

Is there anything that Adam Savage has not created or modified or tinkered with? Probably not. His latest great creation is a one-day modification of a NERF Rival Nemesis ball blaster, with which he added a custom 1,000 round magazine. Adam has a lot of balls to make this project. NERF balls.

The original blaster only holds 100 rounds, so this is quite the upgrade. But that’s not all Adam did. He also added a bi-pod, a red-dot scope, and gave it an awesome custom paint job.

As you can see by the end of the video, it’s really good for shooting people in dinosaur costumes. My question is who cleaned up the balls after? I apologize, I know that sounds dirty, but it’s a valid question. There are balls all over the floor. I bet he made the dinosaur clean them up. That poor dino never gets a break.

This gun looks awesome and it does a great job shooting with the extended magazine. Come on NERF, why can you not sell cool things like this? If Adam can do it, so can you. And you can charge me whatever you want.

[via Geekologie]

Northerners Need This LEGO Snowblower

I don’t know about you, but I’m sick of shoveling snow every year. Even when you use a snowblower, it requires you to push the thing, while you freeze your butt off. Definitely a first world problem. What I need is this LEGO Technic 42070 6X6 All Terrain Tow Truck that was modified into a functional snowblower by The Brick Wall.

Sure, it’s not super powerful and it isn’t the most effective snowblower, but it’s made of LEGO! And you don’t even have to push the thing around. Who cares if it looks like it would take forever to do its job? That’s what robot slaves are for.

It took three weeks to build this impressive LEGO beast. I’m not sure how many weeks it takes to actually clear the snow. Sorry, that was mean. I’m trying to be nice to all of the machines so that when they take over the world, hopefully I’ll be spared. Seriously though, this is a pretty cool mod. If it just threw the snow to the side, it would be perfect.

What I really need is a snowblower that collects the snow inside of its body, and makes snowballs that can then be launched at children when I’m finished clearing my driveway.

[via Laughing Squid via Geekologie]

Modder Turns NERF Rival Blaster Into 2,000-Round Minigun

It’s always fun to see people mod NERF guns into badass killing machines. Well, not killing machines exactly, with that foam ammo, but still, they can be pretty awesome. NERF’s Rival blasters fire small foam balls at speeds of up to 70 miles per hour. foam or not, that’s pretty intense. But not one to settle for the ordinary, Captain Xavier cranked things up a bit, hacking his NERF Rival into a spinning minigun fed by a 2,000-shot backpack.

You will be amazed when you see that Captain Xavier’s Rival can now shoot up to 20 foam balls every second. It does this for a over a minute and a half without needing an ammo top-off. With a gun like this, you definitely need a backpack. Ammo doesn’t last long when you are spraying foam balls like crazy.

It really is amazing to watch. The first 18 minutes of the video walk through the build details, but if you just want to get right down to the firing demo, skip ahead.

It’s completely awesome – aside from the fact that his wife is going to kill him when she gets home and finds her yard littered with little foam balls. Still, it’s totally worth it. I wish that NERF would just sell these weapons like this, without us having to mod them. I assume they don’t because they’re worried about things like child safety and lawsuits.

[via The Awesomer via Sploid]