Tag Archives: video game

Calsonic Skyline

This is the Calsonic-sponsored Nissan Skyline GT-R R34 from the early-’00s Japan Grand Touring Car Championship, but of course, you probably already knew that.

Whilst Alexander Paschoaletto‘s brilliant Skyline GT-R R34 doesn’t say ‘Calsonic’ anywhere on it, we (and most likely you) would have recognised it anywhere. That’s because this car is burned into our psyche (and retinas) from Gran Turismo, where it has, in various generations, featured as one of the star cars for over two decades.

White 3D-printed wheels, blue bodywork, and a yellow sun-strip have transported us right back to hours of early-’00s pixellated racing, and you can join us at the Deep Forest Raceway courtesy of Alexander’s photostream via the link above.

Bat Effect

We like a good mash-up here at The Lego Car Blog, even if we don’t really understand one or more of the things being mashed. Cue previous bloggee Slick_Brick, who has successfully merged Christopher Nolan era Batman (aka the best Batman) with the Mass Effect video game, of which we know nothing. We assume it has some lovely flowers in it though. Anyway, the results are excellent, with a neat Tumbler-esque rover driving through a wonderfully constructed alien landscape, and there’s more to see of Slick’s Bat Effect mash-up via the link above.

Suzuki’s Peak

If you’re of a certain age (like this TLCB Writer) then you will absolutely know this car.

Playstation’s Gran Turismo 2 ruled racing games in the late ’90s. Populated with all manner of awesome mostly-Japanese cars from the county’s car-building zenith, pixilated racing glory could be yours at the wheel of an Impreza, a Skyline GT-R, a Supra, an RX-7, or a multitude of other machinery.

Of course you had to work your way up through a soup of crappy Suzukis and Daihatsus to get to the good stuff, but even they had some late ’90s monsters available in digital form. OK, Daihatsu didn’t, but Suzuki did; the mighty Escudo Pikes Peak.

Based on the humble Vitara (although it resembled the Vitara about as much as this TLCB Writer does Ryan Reynolds), the Escudo Pikes Peak produced almost 1,000bhp from a mid-mounted bi-turbo V6, and could do o-60mph in 3.5 seconds. On gravel.

Built for one race (the Pikes Peak…), the Suzuki Escudo won the 1995 event in the hands Nobuhiro Tajima, before he returned in the mid-’00s to win a further six consecutive Pike Peaks with Suzuki, by which time the Escudo was already a legend with an entire generation of Playstation owners.

This instantly recognisable Speed Champions homage to the iconic Gran Turismo 2 star and Suzuki outlier comes from Sergio Batista, with custom decals and bespoke wheels maximising the realism (far beyond what 1999 gaming graphics could manage…).

Building instructions are available and you can re-live your youth at Sergio’s photostream via the link above.

The Greatest Racing Game…

…Is not Forza, Gran Turismo, or some other ultra-lifelike simulator. It’s Mario Kart, specifically on the ancient N64 console. Because where else can a dinosaur annihilate an Italian plumber with a dead tortoise? Exactly.

Flickr’s cshowd has captured the vintage Mario Kart madness wonderfully, and although his characters from the iconic video game are only built in digital form, if anything their slightly pixelated appearance is more appropriate!

There’re more to see of Bowser, Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, Mushroom and the other Mario Kart characters at his photostream – click the link above and fire that green shell!

Kongs in a Cart

This is not a car. But it is Donkey Kong (and Diddy Kong) riding in a motorised mine cart, which means it’s absolutely getting blogged.

Built by Peter Zieske, Donkey and Diddy’s cart is based atop a LEGO train motor, meaning an entire mine track could be constructed for it to traverse…

Whilst we dream of that you can check out more of Donkey Kong’s cart at Peter’s ‘Donkey & Diddy Kong album’ via the link above!

Itsa Me… Anti-Gravity Mario!

People have been lobbing green shells at one another for three decades, and the glorious carnage that is Mario Kart is just as appealing now as ever!

Mario Kart 8 was released in 2014, enabling Mario and his assortment of fellow racers to hover in ‘anti-gravity’ mode for the first time. And you could still lob green shells.

Cue Stephan Froden, who has recreated everyone’s favourite Italian plumber and his anti-gravity go-kart from nearly 23,000 LEGO bricks.

There are LED lights inside as well as motorised movements, and there’s more to see of Stephan’s wonderful homage to Mario Kart 8 at Ryan McNaught’s ‘Brickvention 2022’ album on Flickr, of which Stephan’s model and many other equally stupendous creations are part. Click the link above to lob your green shell!

HaLo MaSter ChEiF 3571!!!

When MOCpages was unceremoniously deleted in an act of cowardly internet douchebaggery, it threw thousands of wonderful creations, inventions, groups, and contests into the digital void. Alongside these though, it also took about three million ‘HaLo MaSter ChEiF 3571!!!’ builds with it. Sliver linings and all that…

We begrudgingly admit though, that Halo models can be good, as proven here by Flickr’s ZiO Chao. ZiO’s Halo Falcon and Warthog are both superbly built and presented, and are further enhanced with custom mini-figures and LED lighting.

There’s more to see of ZiO’s Halo models via the link above, where he hasn’t mis-spelled anything nor asked for likes and comments, which makes us ponder whether these are in fact Halo creations at all…

Chess Surfing

Has anyone ever played chess whilst surfing? Probably. After all, there’s chess boxing, which is just as ridiculous, although you’re less likely to lose your pieces doing that.

Cue David Roberts‘ ‘Wipeout Racer’, named after a video game that’s named after a surfing fail, and coloured like a chess board. Or a British police car. Or a Victorian cake. Or TLCB Towers kitchen floor. But none of those made for a tenuous title link.

Anyway, David’s chess surfing spaceship is apparently coloured as it is to cause other pilots to crash, or ‘wipeout’… See, it all makes sense.

There’s more to check (hah!) out at David’s photostream – surf on over via the link above!

Bugzilla

There were Elves everywhere.

This morning has been a stressful one here in TLCB Towers. Maybe we got complacent. Maybe we thought the Elves had wised up to the threat of remote control creations. Or maybe we’d simply forgotten this particular narrative, but whatever it was we were rudely and wholly reminded of the Elves’ propensity to smash one another to bits if given the opportunity.

The ‘opportunity’ arrived in the form of this, Michael217’s incredible Volkswagen Beetle monster truck ‘Bugzilla’, as featured in the video game ‘Wreckfest’.

All-wheel-drive via a Buggy Motor, Servo steering, enormous suspension above even more enormous wheels, and a slew of body-mounted spikes give Michael’s creation almost mythical Elf-squashing abilities, which were used to full effect by the one at the controls.

At least a dozen were flattened in the corridor with amusing cartoon tyre prints running down their lengths, a few were splatted against the skirting boards, and a handful were even impaled on ‘Bugzilla’ itself thanks to the spiky bricks mounted all over it.

Of course the Elf that found Michael’s creation was ecstatic about the whole event, which seeing as it’s likely a victim of multiple past smushings itself is probably understandable.

We have much cleaning up to do now, which probably includes a few trips to ‘Elf Hospital‘, so whilst we do that there’s loads more for you to see of Michael’s brilliant ‘Bugzilla’ build – which includes a V6 engine, opening doors and hood, and a detailed interior too – at the Eurobricks discussion forum, with the complete image gallery available on Bricksafe.

Click the links above to make the jump.

Itsa Me – Mario!

And Ima here to ruin your day!

No one wants to be blue shelled, but it looks like we’re going to be thanks to Cecilie Fritzvold‘s ‘Iron Builder’ entry. Mario’s kart might just be two wheels, a steering wheel, and an ‘M’ badge for all we can see, but so wonderfully edited is this shot it’s all it needs.

Join the race via the link above and cross your fingers for a Starman power-up!

Cyberpunk 2077

The news about Cyberpunk 2077 seems to suggest that it is incredible to behold, but underneath the visual splendour it’s actually unusable rubbish. Kinda like a Lamborghini Countach. Or an Instagram influencer.

However, it does look spectacular, helped by the brilliant artists behind its ‘Night City’ setting. A megacity in a free state, independent from government control and inhabited by Keanu Reeves for some reason, Night City also includes this; the Quadra Turbo-R V-Tech.

Whilst it sounds like a kid’s laptop, it is visually awesome, managing to look both like a 1980s supercar and a concept from the near future.

This stunning recreation of the V-Tech Speak’n’Spell superbly captures the Cyberpunk 2077 aesthetic, and it comes from Hasan Kabalak who has deployed some brilliant building techniques to create it.

Custom decals add to the impact and there’s more of Hasan’s creation to see at his Flickr album, which includes outdoor shots, build steps, and close-ups of some of the outstanding details to be found within it.

Click the link above to jump into Night City in 2077.

Street Fighter

Street Fighter is one of the highest grossing and most loved video game franchises of all time. It’s also one of the worst movies. Being neither a video game nor a movie, this ‘Street Fighter’ supercar by Flickr’s Steph Ouell nevertheless allows us to link to the incredible movie trailer, and it’s also a great build to boot, with the full suite of Technic Supercar functions. See more at the link. And definitely watch that trailer.

The Future’s Bleak

The future of motoring is bleak. Cars will make zero noise, they’ll steer and brake automatically by law, travelling above the speed limit will be impossible thanks to GPS limiters, and on top of all that – if the video game Cyberpunk 2077 is accurate – they’ll look like this. Boo.

Sheo‘s ‘Economy Class Car’ from the aforementioned video game captures this miserable future superbly, with opening doors, a detailed interior (complete with a surely superfluous steering wheel), and an exterior design somewhere between a Bond Bug and a skip.

Visit 2077 at Sheo’s photostream via the link above, whilst we find videos of noisy V8s and pretend the inevitable isn’t happening.

Star Salvage

Considering how rubbish we are at writing about anything that’s not a car, you might be wondering why the last six creations to feature here haven’t been cars. We’re wondering that to…

Anyhoo, this ‘not a car’ is apparently a DRAKE Vulture from the video game ‘Star Citizen’, a single-operator salvage ship recreated (rather wonderfully) by Flickr’s Volker Brodkorb in mini-figure scale, meaning it measures eighty-three studs long and over forty studs wide.

A complete interior, working landing gear, and opening loading ramps all feature, and there’s more to see at Volker’s photostream. Click the link above to take a look, whilst we instruct the Elves to find us a bloody car.

Sunray

We’re effectively children here at TLCB, thus we find bright colours very stimulating, particularly when they’re deployed in a manner such as this. David Roberts‘ ‘Sunray’ takes its cues from the classic video game ‘Wipeout’ and there’s more to see of his superbly liveried anti-gravity racer at his photostream – click the link above make the jump.

*Today’s excellent alternative title song.