In Inversion, your primary weapon is the Grappler – which is like a Gravity Gun on steroids. Wielding the Grappler, you can move massive environmental objects, changing the landscape of the gameplay arena with a pull of the trigger. And while you can manipulate objects with your Grappler, you’ll also encounter zero gravity and other gravitational anomalies in the environment, which should make for some unique combat situations. You’ll also need to use your gravity manipulation skills to solve a variety of puzzles that keep you from reaching your objectives.

Think your opponent is crouching behind that bus? Just pick it up and move it out of the way. Or better yet, drop the bus on his head. Or just toss him aside like yesterday’s garbage.

Inversion is also one of the first games to feature Havok’s new Destruction physics engine, which provides incredible destructible environments – woo hoo! The game is being developed by Saber Interactive – best known for the time-manipulation shooter TimeShift.

Expect Inversion to land on Xbox 360s and PS3s some time in 2010. Keep an eye out for this one. Just don’t try and hide behind anything. I’ll find you and drop a bus (or two) on your ass.

The images above are of the first ever mouse that was made to float by the variable gravity simulator. The mouse apparently panicked, so the next mouse to float was sedated, and it “seemed content with floating.” Uhuh. Anyway I don’t know if the pics were shot from above or from below; either way the view’s kind of a letdown because you can’t really see that the little fella is floating. But what’s important is…Variable Gravity Simulator! Man what an awesome combination of words. The point of the device – and the mice – is to study the long term effects of gravity on humans. But I hope that we can build larger and stronger VGSes so us common people can try what these lucky mice are enjoying.

[LiveScience via Neatorama]

This quirky homebrew variant on Pac-Man from IMWILL envisions a world where nothing is bolted down, including the interior walls of the maze. Once the gameplay kicks in, gravity switches off, and Inky, Blinky, Pinky, Clyde, the power pills and dots all get to floating around the darkness of space.

You won’t be able to get through this game by memorizing patterns while playing this version. Heck, you’ll be lucky to survive a 30 seconds without a floating ghost smashing right into you. Your only hope is to gobble up a power pill, which turns on gravity for a few seconds, sucking every object in the direction of the red gravity arrow – but the ghosts never turn blue for you to chomp on. Good luck with all that.

The whole thing sort of reminds me of that time Homer Simpson let that bag of potato chips loose in the space capsule and had to eat them all.

It’s actually kind of fun once you get the hang of it – and definitely much harder than the original. If you’re ready to head into zero-Gs with Pac-Man, you can grab a download of the game here (Windows PCs only, bummer).

[via Indiegames]

The shape of the chair is definitely weird; even Varier says it’s weird. And we all know that weirdly shaped furniture = expensive furniture. Not one to rebel,the Gravity Balans sells for $1,200. Clearly only handsome painters with level 2 stubble who love to nap after painting will be able to afford this.

Each of the 250 Gravity Balans recliners will be signed and numbered by its designer, Peter Opsvik. Buyers can customize their purchase with various colors and accents, and can even choose to have a “kid-friendly” version. I assume that the kid-friendly version can be used to go sledding. While experiencing zero gravity.

[via Asylum]

The robot uses a “simple switch as a sensor and stands on only two wheels with inverted pendulum mechanism. When the robot is going to fall the motor starts and moves the robot to the direction it is going to fall, so the motor torque about the center of gravity that is higher than the motor makes the robot balanced.” Check out this video to see it in action.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

The maker helpfully put up a tutorial in case you’re inspired to make one of your own! Although I’m not sure why you’d do that, other than to mess with your cat or something.

[via Make:]