Our first mod is a relatively recent one. The modder took a nice, fully functioning Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt combo cartridge, gutted it and turned it into an admittedly clean and portable NES emulator. Sure, the gutting made most of my 1986 memories fade into a terrifying pit of blackness, but at least this wasn’t a golden Legend of Zelda cartridge or anything.

Christ! That’s ugly. But pimpin’ ain’t easy, so we’ll give it a break. Unfortunately for me, my psyche receives no such break, and I am reduced to but two hearts, and my Master Sword no longer shoots laser beams.

The greatest platformer ever created by human hands, now a lowly 160GB USB drive. When will the insanity end?

Never, apparently. A mere month before the Super Mario Bros. 3 USB “creation” came to light, someone took a classic Game Boy, removed everything in it that made it a timeless piece of video game lore and replaced it with a hard drive. Half a heart left, and there’s this incessant beeping in my ears. Jack needs food, badly.

When I grip an NES control pad in my hands, its hard edges digging unforgivably into the soft flesh, I go to my happy place. When modder Taylor Merrill does the same, he hears the theme song from Sanford and Son. He also hears friends and relatives because he managed to get a Samsung Eternity phone into the controller that defined a generation of early console gamers. Good for you all. My childhood just ran into a goomba, jumped straight up into the air and fell off the screen.

Okay, not quite – Logitech expect it to land in mid-November. And it’ll set you back $600 (as opposed to the $US300 RRP in the States) and will work with either your PC or your PS3.

Logitech G27 Racing Wheel for PC and PS3 to be Available in Australia

Real Metal, Real Leather, Real Racing

SYDNEY —November 4th, 2009 — Logitech Australia today announced the local availability of the Logitech G27 Racing Wheel. Replacing and improving upon the venerable G25 Racing Wheel, the Logitech G27 Racing Wheel is designed to deliver the definitive sim racing experience for the PC and PLAYSTATION®3. With the G27, whether you’re sliding sideways around a gravelly curve, or screaming through the streets of Monaco, the world’s greatest circuits feel closer than ever.

The G27 features a powerful, dual-motor force feedback mechanism that smoothly and accurately delivers high-fidelity force effects to the hand-stitched leather wheel, so you can feel traction loss, weight shift, and the surface of the road. The helical gears deliver exceptionally quiet steering action, virtually eliminating noise and unwanted vibration. A six-speed gated shifter lets you choose exactly the right gear for the turn, while new RPM/shift indicator LEDs let you know just when to up- or down-shift. And the clutch pedal makes heel-and-toe downshifting possible, keeping your gear changes quick and your RPMs high all the way around the track.

Nick Angelucci, Logitech Australia’s Product and Marketing Manager said; “In designing the Logitech G27 Racing Wheel we have improved upon the highly esteemed Logitech G25 with easy access to more programmable buttons on the wheel, better feeling from the shifter module and improved responsiveness from the force feedback transmission. It all adds up to making a wheel that delivers an unsurpassed racing experience, all from your own lounge room.”

The Logitech G27 Racing Wheel is expected to be available in Australia from mid-November for a suggested retail price of $599.95(AUD) inc. GST. For more information about the Logitech G27 or Logitech visit www.logitech.com.

As you can see, a removable mask also turns the face into Skeletor. For $US25, you too can celebrate bad taste and creepy peripherals this Halloween. Yes, Sorceress! [USB Geek via Technabob and DVICE]

Really, this controller-gone-bug is the work of Industrial Design student James Killinger. Using just three screws from an external source, he rearranged and reattached the joystick’s parts to create this completely new form. (There’s not even much fudging with mass since 70% of the joystick’s original components are seen in the recreation.)

Now if only Sega had released the gruesome robo-insect controller in the first place instead of the typical version directly above, we might all be playing Sega Siis right now, and it would be Sony/Nintendo releasing all the Sonic games…somehow or other.

The “security code” installed on this NES controller flash storage mod isn’t going to keep anyone from accessing the files inside, but that’s not really the point:

You see, the code in this case is one of the most well-known codes in all of video game history. The Konami Code. Hell, even God knows it.

Again, there’s no real security here, but in any event it’s miles ahead of what most people use to secure things that are really important to them. [8Bit Fix - Thanks, Gusto]

The bundle will set you back $200, which is a saving of $50 over buying them separately. Although the idea of adding yet another plastic gaming controller to your home may not interest you, knowing that Forza 3 includes V8 Supercars for the first time may persuade some of you to rearrange your peripheral closet to make that extra space. Also, it may not. You can preorder now from selected retailers, if you’re interested.

[Xbox]

The cut is available on all versions of the controller except the Halo 3: ODST shock bundle. Considering the most basic wireless controller has a $79.95 RRP, that means you can save $16 and grab one for $64, although the Xbox page does make a point of stating that it’s up to retailers to set the final sale price.

The deal is available through Big W, Clive Peeters, Dick Smith, Domayne, EB Games, Game, JB Hifi, Myer and Dick Smith Powerhouse.

[Xbox 360 Controller Deal]