Tis the mood of the world, we guess? Director Leonard Menchiari has created an 8-bit game for your mobile device around the topic of Riots, hence the name, Riot Game. According to the PR for the game, in Riot, the player will experience both sides of a fight in which there is no such thing as "victory" or "defeat".

Admit it, you have a little bit of Olympic fever? We are paying attention far more than expected, and perhaps because London provides a familiar backdrop, we don't mind archery at 3AM anymore. Artists are getting into the spirit, and each Olympics that pass is a new opportunity for the creative community to apply their taste and sensibility to various sports. Flikli has produced a nice 8-bot montage of the Olympics, getting us one step closer to watching Fencing.

A great idea from Benedetto Bufalino and Benoit Deseille. In conjunction with the Festival of Trees and Lights in Geneva, Switzerland, the artists collaborated on a string light installation using Pac Man characters. The light effect recreated the chase of the ghosts and the infamous arcade character, Pac Man. 

PBS' Off the Book specials are fantastic short documentaries covering a wide-range of subjects, and new one recently aired and posted was "The Evolution of 8-Bit Art", talking about the wide-reaching impact the simple pixelated artform has had on the greater whole of contemporary culture, music, art, and memory. It has grown so far beyond Atari and Nintendo, with even the current E3 convention showcasing a nostalgia for the power of 8-bit.

Remaking classic, well-known bits of pop-culture into 8-bits of artwork is a common thing these days, but we are really enjoying how artist Joe Spiotto has taken three classic Alfred Hitchcock films and turned them into Nintendo games. Psycho never looked so tame.

As evidence by Nintendo and Super Mario Bros, any bit of information can be processed through 8-bit graphics and be highly legible. It worked for Zelda, Mike Tyson, and Bases Loaded, and now it works for Hollywood, thanks to this 8-bit movie poster project by Eric Palmer. Jurassic Park, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Kill Bill, all here. And you can order a print for yourself on Palmer's Behance profile.

Five years ago, I got myself in a bet to reach Mike Tyson (through 12 fighters) in Mike Tyson's Punch-Out without being hit by a challenger (sans Game Genie). That means no Glass Joe, King Hippo, Bald Bull, etc, could hit me. I succeeded, and promptly lost to Tyson in about 30 seconds. Now, there is a poster to show my achievements.

Czech designer, Pavel Novak, created this "8-bit Invader" projection mapping work on the side of a building at Tomas Bata University's Department of Visual Arts in Zlín, Czech Republic. Anyone with a little nostalgia for the old games, and new ways to morph them, will enjoy this video.

My nostalgia for old video games stems from the "simpler" times of video games, when controllers had 4 buttons and a d-pad, graphics were all 8-bit, and you had to blow into games to get them to function correctly.  Ahhh the wonder years.... well some other people share my old timey views, and one of those people (Ninjamoped) went out of their way to make some awesome 8-bit styled art. Watch the video after the jump . . .

This video, which has nothing to do with the 8-bit Mario imagery, is like some twisted Chris Cunningham meets Shakespeare meets Bizarro Land starring Super Mario himself. This is disturbing, but kind of interesting and weird as well. Video after the jump . . .