I’ve decided that I need to change the format of The Closeout Warrior mostly because I don’t have the time to keep it updated like I would like.
I really liked writing the reviews of the bargain games, and I’ll still be buying them on occasion, but the reviews will probably either show up here or on Stage Select should I decide that a game is worth the time to pen a few hundred words about it.
Yesterday, at the tail end of an all day marathon, I finally managed to finish Double Dragon on an actual NES without the aid of a Game Genie.
I’m awesome.
By now you’ve likely heard of Google Video, the service that lets you upload whatever video you might happen to have laying around. This service has implications that I could only dream of. I could finally see some obscure video clip that had been floating around the Internet for a long time, or I could see new and exciting short videos that I might not have otherwise have access to.
Recently, the ability to view random videos piqued my interest. I was not fully prepared for the absolutely inane videos I would find.
I’m not so much curious why people have these videos as I am why they decided to upload them to this exciting new service.
Some examples (these are the short ones, there are several that are over an hour long where these came from):
Eating a fortune cookie
‘Fun’ at an apartment
Drink water!
The daughter at the Putt-Putt
Walking down the hall of the Mariott
Micro truck race
whatever this is
school hijinks
Oh there’s more where those came from. Lots more. If you watch any of the above expecting something wacky to happen, you’re out of luck. It’s like being stranded in some kind of strange purgatory where all you can watch are videos of babies being babies and the things that people who just got a camera and don’t know what to do with it are filming.
Of course there are also some videos out there that are worth watching but consider it a profound stroke of luck or well-picked search terms that led you to them.
It looks like it’s getting to be about that time. With the launch just one week away, we’re already starting to see commercials that don’t make any sense appear all over the television.
Since I never owned an XBox and don’t have the money (or desire, really) to get a 360, I’ll just sit back and watch the launch unfold from my safe little corner of the Universe.
Sorry, I don’t feel up to talking about video games today.
Last night we had an apparent tornado in my neck of the woods. For those who need to know such things, I’m OK. My county and the neighboring county are now in a state of emergency, and the hospital I work for has been under a ‘mass casualty’ alert since early this morning.
It’s odd. I heard the thunder, the rain, and the distinctive sound of a ‘jet engine’ roaring above my house in the night, but didn’t think anything of it. It wasn’t until my alarm went off this morning that I even knew we had something serious happen. Even on the way in to work this morning, I only saw one downed tree limb, and it wasn’t anything bigger than what I could concievably have ripped off of a tree with my bare hands. Video from local sources is showing me that the damage is not terribly far removed from my house. That’s scary, especially since I largely slept through it.
UPDATE 9:16 AM
It looks like news of the storm has been picked up on CNN as well.
UPDATE 10:24 AM
Some Associated Press coverage.
This past week marked the official 20th anniversary of the NES being released here in the United States. 1up has a series of articles up that detail and celebrate the system that changed the way Americans percieved games and gaming.
I was going to write about the NES and how it shaped my formative years as a gamer. I even started to write about it a few times, but I realized that a look around this site already tells that story, so I don’t need to tell it again.
If you grew up with the NES like I did, just take a moment to reflect on how much gaming has evolved since then. If you missed out on the whole 8-bit experience, you can likely get an NES and a handful of decent games for a reasonable sum at a used game store to see what all the fuss is about.
I’ve been playing a whole lot of games lately, most of them pretty bad.
I’ve updated my alter-ego site, The Closeout Warrior with a review of Phantasy Star Online Blue Burst that you seriously need to read.
The materials for this project are largely the same as the last one:
1 computer
1 exitzer0
1 large pizza
1 2 liter of Mt. Dew
1 Adobe Photoshop
1 Internet
1 skillfully crafted portrait
1 scanner
1 X-Acto knife
1 ruler
1 FedEx Kinko’s
5 empty GameCube cases
5 mini CDRs
1 post office
I had this idea a while ago, shortly after the failure of my last project, but didn’t want to sacrifice the cases of games like Bad Boys Miami Takedown or Blowout because then they’d be sitting around my house naked… Gross. So the project was temporarily put on hold until I discovered that Nintendo sells replacement cases for GameCube games through their online store for about $1 each (plus shipping), and they conveniently came in packs of 1, 5, or 10.
If you were unaware there are actually CDRs made that are the same size as the GameCube discs, so they fit perfectly into these cases. While I was at my local Big Lots of all places, I found that they had a five-pack of the mini-CDRs for $2.49. Since I knew it was kismet, I went ahead and snatched up a couple of the packs, just in case my writer decided that I needed more coasters.
After I had the requisite materials, I called upon local Photoshop Kung-Fu artist, exitzer0. After toiling tirelessly throughout the evening, fueled only by pizza and Mt. Dew, and directed by the fevered, disjointed ravings of a madman, a layout was born.
Once we were satisfied that the layout would meet all expectations, I again made my way to my local FedEx Kinko’s, and had them utilize their printers to marry pixel and paper. I’m sure that at this point the employees there think I’m some sort of lunatic, but they wouldn’t be the first to make that assumption. The printing was done on some of the most expensive paper I’ve ever encountered. At $3.00 each, I fully expected each of the glossy two-dimensional renderings to hop in my car and drive me to whatever destination they chose.
Eventually I was able to wrest my gaze from the terrible beauty that became known as the Printed Works and began to prepare them for the journey that lay ahead. By utilizing both the X-Acto knife and the ruler in tandem, I was able to ensure that my cuts were straight and true. Upon completion I carefully placed each jacket into its proper position, taking extra care to ensure that all things lined up appropriately, then set back and was overtaken by wonder at the Things I had created.
By sheer force of Will, I was able to momentarily turn my attention to the creation of the Disc. My hope was that the materials contained on it would exemplify the wide range of talents that I posess, as well as any appropriate contact information. I certainly wanted the people who looked at these gems of creativity to be able to contact me since they would no doubt be compelled to by the sheer majesty of it all. Ultimately, I decided to include a writing sample consisting of my acclaimed Summer Vacation article and the Director’s Cut of my nearly-famous Video Game Movie. These things, when packaged with the Box itself, would create something heretofore unseen by mortals.
And so they are completed. Each one destined to an entity that (it is my presumption) would appreciate all that is the Game Box 2. One by one they leave the nest, and only after I am sure that they have vanished from the face of the planet will I reveal their destinations, lest someone else try to grab a piece of my thunder.
Well, it’s kind of hard to believe that three years ago today I added forums to this site. In that time there have been 2694 posts across 332 topics by 27 users resulting in a database size of 2.61 MB.
Posting on the forums has dwindled down to be essentially nonexistant, much to my dismay. So, I thought that it would be fitting that on the three year anniversary of putting them on my site that I’d take them off.
It’s been a fun ride. Should anyone wish to take part in an alternate messaging system I’ve set up somewhere else on the site, please contact me and I’ll give you all the necessary information.
