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Real-Life Mario Kart and Other Crazy YouTube Stunts
If you worry your kid's video game habit is sapping his ambition, take heart in these YouTube creations from gamers who’ve turned their obsession into art.
I play video games like a girl—by which I mean, I kick ass at most of them. The games that appeal to me are those that go beyond a hand controller and actually get you jumping, flailing and spinning like a lunatic. So you can imagine my joy when I stumbled upon the latest YouTube mini-trend: outrageous and creative clips that reenact video games in the real world, with actual people in the roles of the famous digital characters. From Mario Karting through the streets of France to Ponging around a Swiss auditorium, these homages were created by true fans. Now who wants to get pummeled at Rock Band?
1. The Original Human Pong Performance by Guillaume Reymond
Swiss artist Guillaume Reymond won the 2007 YouTube Creativity Award for his series of stop-motion animation projects reviving old video games. The project began with Pong, followed by Space Invaders, Pole Position, and Tetris. To represent pixels, he uses human beings, moving them from seat to seat in an auditorium. Recently, Reymond expanded his scope beyond videos to recreate Transformers characters using trucks and other large vehicles.
2. Guitar Hero Bicycle Stunt
What do you get when you mix video game obsession with the excess free time of suburban youth? This Guitar Hero tribute—and it will blow your mind. I don’t even want to know how many takes it took these guys to create this real-life replica of the music video game in which players use a guitar-shaped device to play multi-colored “notes” as they appear on the screen—according to the creators, it was “a lot.” It’s so well done that there’s been speculation that this video was actually professionally produced in a viral marketing effort by Guitar Hero.
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living in japan, shows like human tetris are totally not out of the ordinary, the game shows here are all a bit on the bizarre side. the best episode of human tetris features the Korean K-1 fighter Choi Hong Man, seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KM3DPELmMVw
The Mario Kart and Guitar Hero videos were brilliant. I'm not much of a video-watched online, so I hadn't seen any of these. I'll definitely be passing those two along.
I think the Human Tetris is awesome. Too bad the show didn't make it in the USA. As far as the other videos go, it's amazing what people have time for. Guess I spend too many hours working to make sure I hit all those correct colors for Guitar Hero.
Does trolling youtube really constitute a column?
Thank you.
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