Awesome Leisure

If you think Jaimie Mantzel’s Attacknids are cool, check out what DIY Laser Guy did to the toy robot. He attached a 5W blue laser to a Stryder Attacknid and made it so he could fire the blinding beam via remote. Pew pew at 1:05.

An intriguing board game and mobile game hybrid where you play spies. Obtain your mission by scanning cards on a mobile app. Then send secret messages to other players, trade cards and lie and cheat your way to victory.

Man at Arms caps the year off with a much-awaited project. Tony Swatton and his crew made a life-size replica of the Falchion, Chrom’s sword from one of the year’s best games Fire Emblem: Awakening.

A highly intriguing run-and-gun game. Studio MDHR’s Cuphead is heavily inspired by 1930s cartoons. It features hand-drawn and hand-inked animation, watercolor backgrounds and a jazz score. Coming to Windows.

PC gamers don’t have GTA Online yet, but they do have Mod DB’s 2013 mod of the year. JC2-MP is a free fan-made Steam add-on for Just Cause 2. It lets thousands of players battle, race and more in the game’s open world.

A battery-operated rubber band gun that can carry up to 672 bands and fire up to 14 at once. But perhaps the best feature is not in the gun itself. It has an accessory that makes reloading much easier and faster than if you did it by hand.

There are many video game emulators for OS X, but OpenEmu sets itself apart by making it easy to organize and play games from 12 classic systems, including the Game Boy, NES, SNES, Sega Genesis and Nintendo DS.

A program that uses ordinary webcams to give you a digital avatar, which mimics your head movement and facial expressions in real time. You can use it to stream or record videos and make animated movies or video games.

A 30-minute indie movie inspired by 80s cop movies, and perhaps by 90s Saturday morning cartoons as well. Back the movie on Kickstarter and it will be released online for free. Remember kids, hacking time is dangerous business.

A preview of the fast-moving mech of Titanfall, the Stryder. While it’s clearly developed for speed and agility, it can also hold its own in combat. Interestingly, the trailer also shows human-sized robot soldiers.

The BBC is really getting with the times. This canonical short film is a prequel to the third season of Sherlock. The short sees Inspector Lestrade and Dr. John Watson peppered with omens that Sherlock is somehow alive.

As is evidenced by its price tag, carbon fiber isn’t exactly an inexpensive material to work with. However, if you do buy Sly Kly’s badass playing cards, you’ll be treated to a deck that will probably outlast all of us. Choose matte or gloss.

The fast-paced 1st/3rd person multiplayer shooter Strike Vector will be on Steam in 2014 and is now in open beta. Ships have a kitetastic jet mode and a close range hover mode, eight weapons, customizable cockpits and engines.

Musician Greg Johnson of Acoustic Labs is back with another great arrangement, this time plucking a warm and soothing rendition of the classic Back to the Future theme by Alan Silvestri on his Alvarez acoustic guitar.

Wearable drum pads that you can put over or under your pants or any other piece of clothing. DrumPants has a control box that can play hundreds of sounds, such as drums, synths, guitars and more. It also comes with foot sensors.

Author John Biggs may be known for his work at TechCrunch and Gizmodo, but he’s also been writing an adventure trilogy for young adults about a secret underground train system that connects New York and the rest of the world.

The retirement home of action stars gets a dose of young blood. Stallone’s character clashes with the co-founder of The Expendables – an arms dealer played by Mel Gibson – and is forced to add new members to the group.

Originally slated for Xbox 360, this Xbox One platform-puzzler makes you draw missing pieces of the environment for your character to progress. While it looks like the controls could work well with Kinect, it’s all joystick.

Netflix goes above and beyond the call of duty by making a trailer – and a behind the scenes video – for one of its most senseless shows, Fireplace for your Home. Orange is the New Black? House of Cards? Pshhh. Place of Fire yo!

Fluids flow and rush to the beat of The Glitch Mob in the official music video of the electronic group’s new single Can’t Kill Us. The track is from their upcoming album Love Death Immortality. Video by beeple.

Jim Beam’s first single-barrel is an exceptional bourbon, crafted in hand-selected barrels. It has a great, full-bodied flavor, but is immensely drinkable – with just the right amount of sweetness and richness. Out March 2014.

Johnny Depp plays an A.I. expert, dedicated to creating a sentient computer which houses the collective intelligence of mankind. When gravely injured by terrorists, his only chance at survival is to meld his mind with the machine. Bad idea.

Revisit 12 classic NES games, but with a twist. NES Remix for the Wii U switches things up by turning old tricks and challenges into mini-games and swapping characters into each other’s games. Available now on the eShop for $15.