With a combination of GifCam, CyberLink PowerDirector, and Photoshop, I made my first gif while watching Giant Bomb's June 21st, 2013 Unprofessional Fridays show earlier this month. Vinny was playing SpyCraft: The Great Game when one of the game's characters suddenly got shot in the head in the middle of his dialogue, which caused Jeff to make a face that instantly reminded me of the "BRB Using Imagination Since No Pics" meme. I captured it with GifCam and exported it to an AVI file. I added the text overlay in CyberLink PowerDirector, and then turned it into a gif with Photoshop. I was surprised by how easy the process was. The only annoying part was trying to shrink the gif's file size into something reasonable. The first version was about 24 megabytes. I managed to get it down to about 11 megabytes. Anything further and the quality goes down too much for my liking.
Xbox One Acquired: Setting it up for the very first time (Day One Edition)
In my kitchen. Again.
Exactly one week had passed since the launch of the PlayStation 4, and once again I was at my local UPS Customer Center to pick up my Xbox One, a trick I had learned on reddit that would net me the console several hours earlier than if I waited for delivery to my home. I had just dropped off Kitty and White Fluffy Kitty at the vet for boarding, as my brother and I were leaving the next day to visit my mom in Kansas for her birthday and Thanksgiving, returning on November 30th. Eight years ago to the day - November 22nd, 2005 - I was picking up my Xbox 360 from GameStop on my way to Indiana to visit with family and wouldn't get the chance to properly play the console until I got back home and hooked it up to my very first HDTV. Perhaps the next time Microsoft releases a console I'll actually be home to play it!
I did manage to capture myself messing around with the user interface a bit before having to get ready for our flight, along with strapping a GoPro to my forehead beforehand as I drove to UPS and unboxed the console. I wanted to release this on the 22nd but didn't have enough time before leaving for Kansas, though I had managed to livestream my first Xbox Fitness workout. I had ten people watching me exercise. Weird!
Now we're back and I finally play some games!
Here's the video I made, along with relevant timestamps:
2:22 - Unboxing the Xbox One
12:37 - Turning it on for the first time
14:00 - Initial setup
24:18 - After the update
24:38 - Kinect setup
28:45 - Setup Complete. Intro video.
30:00 - Home screen
30:30 - "Let us show you around". Xbox One tour.
33:11 - Speech Tutorial
42:19 - Friends
43:07 - Gamerpics
44:37 - Posing for Gamerpic with Avatar
45:58 - Friends continued
47:22 - Jeff Gerstmann's "KI Dance" Game Clip
49:03 - Achievements
53:20 - Brad Shoemaker's "Ryse: Son of Rome" Game Clip
56:28 - Internet Explorer
58:10 - Watching a YouTube video via Internet Explorer
1:01:24 - Totally topical Charlie Sheen jokes by the Xbox One tutorial narrator. Who thought that was a good idea?
1:07:21 - Privacy settings
1:08:16 - Settings
1:16:20 - Customizing Avatar
1:21:00 - "Xbox, Bing Killer Instinct"
1:23:15 - "Xbox, Use a Code" - Scanning Day One Achievement
1:24:06 - Xbox Music
1:28:09 - Xbox Movies & TV
1:29:22 - My appearance as a strip club patron in the We're the Millers trailer
1:32:27 - My games & apps
1:33:27 - Apps
1:36:30 - "Xbox, Snap"
1:39:12 - Twitch
1:40:55 - Trying to Snap Netflix while watching Twitch
1:41:44 - Netflix
1:43:45 - Xbox Fitness
1:49:25 - Snapping Twitch while using Xbox Fitness
1:51:48 - Hulu Plus
The Art of Video Games: Wii
The Art of Video Games: Wii
Smithsonian American Art Museum
September 2nd, 2012
| Action | Super Mario Galaxy 2 |
| Target | Boom Blox |
| Adventure | The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess |
| Tactics | Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure |
The Art of Video Games: Xbox 360
The Art of Video Games: Xbox 360
Smithsonian American Art Museum
September 2nd, 2012
| Action | BioShock |
| Target | Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 |
| Adventure | Mass Effect 2 |
| Tactics | The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II |
StreetPass 3: Smithsonian Edition
Last month, on our way to visit our mom in Kansas for Christmas, my brother and I spent a few days visiting Washington, D.C.; Philadelphia, and Gettysburg. Having not had a StreetPass encounter since the ones with the Whiskey Media staff in June of 2011, I was eager for more. Luckily for me, at least three other people had the same idea on December 17th at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History. My Mii got to meet Max from Virginia, sarah from Virginia (I'm thinking they're from the same family since both of their Most Recent Software titles were nintendogs + cats), and nick from Coahuila de Zaragoza, Mexico. Max and sarah helped me finish my Pikmin and Metroid: Other M puzzles, respectively. I took more steps that day than ever before with a total of 7,545.
The Miis I met, along with some of the new features Nintendo added recently.
The next morning, on the 18th, I was excited for more SteetPass opportunities. If I got three in just one museum, how many would I get today? Though I crushed my previous record of 7,545 steps with a new, and current, record of 17,396, I got nothing. At first I was sad, but then annoyed because I realized the wireless functionality of my 3DS has been turned off somehow. I wondered how many encounters I missed as I turned StreetPass back on.
Ahhhhh, my legs!
I encountered another person, Aggan, on the 22nd while in Kansas, but only via Super Street Fighter IV. Much like my fights with Jeff and Matt, I got my ass kicked.
Fast-forward almost two weeks later and we pass by someone on a road near our home, will rhein from North Carolina, who happened to have their 3DS on as well. On the 13th, at the Genghis Khan exhibit in Raleigh, North Carolina, I encountered Fupo, also from North Carolina. Supposedly it was their birthday!
I think that price drop is working!
StreetPass 2: Giant Bomb Staff Edition
I haven't had a lot of luck with StreetPass encounters. Shortly after the aforementioned post, I met two other Miis in the form of Gamessa and Clif, making for a total of three people I've come across since the launch of the 3DS in March. My experience with this feature has been disappointing, especially since receiving duplicate puzzle pieces in Puzzle Swap is common when purchased with Play Coins, as opposed to being guaranteed a new piece when encountering a fellow player. Having never been to a convention where it's common for people to pack their 3DS, I was excited to see what would happen when I visited the Whiskey Media office on June 24th. Arriving back at my hotel later that night, I had completely forgotten that my 3DS was still on and in my pocket. I excitedly took it out and booted up StreetPass Mii Plaza to be greeted with this:
Can you guess who?
As you can see from the second pic, I totally had the inside scoop on Matt Kessler's first review.
I then loaded up Puzzle Swap to reap my rewards.
Patrick helped me finally complete my Mario and Bowser puzzle.
Though I've technically finished Find Mii, I still have a few more hats to collect. Here's what the guys look like when pissed off at ghosts.
Ryan is a badass.
I also had the StreetPass functionality for Super Street Fighter IV turned on, and was surprised when I saw that Jeff was one of my opponents since I didn't encounter his Mii.
They both kicked my ass, by the way.
And those are probably the last StreetPass encounters I'm going to have for a very long time.
Oh, and if there was still any doubt as to the identity of the man in the following photo (from this thread), I think Ryan's Mii is enough evidence to lay this mystery to rest:
Case closed.
The Luchazine
Cover by Kat Smith (Turbo_Toaster) of Whiskey Media
The Luchazine was a community-run magazine founded on the forums of Giant Bomb by Goran Popović (editor-in-chief) and Abhishek Chaudhry (lead designer).
The first issue was released on the Giant Bomb forums on June 14th, 2010, which is when I first noticed its existence (The E3 Live Stream Thread that I made was mentioned on page 8 under the "Terrific Thread" section). Thinking it was pretty cool and wanting to be a part of it, I applied for a writer position for the second issue, but I had missed the deadline due to going to the wedding of my friend, Jeremiah, in Kansas.
It was on July 9th, 2010 that Matt Kessler, former intern and current news writer on Giant Bomb, wrote a quick article titled "Have You Seen The Luchazine?" and posted it to the front page of Giant Bomb, giving the magazine a lot of exposure. I became even more interested in writing for the magazine, and was sure to send in my application for a writing position on time. I wrote a short piece titled "Four Minutes of Terror", which detailed a recent event where I thought I had lost all my Xbox 360 saves in the process of transferring them over to my new Xbox 360 S. I had written it while sitting in the middle of my storage room's floor in Killeen, Texas, as this had been after most of my and my brother's stuff had been packed up and sent to Oklahoma. It was also right before we left for our trip to Japan, so it was quite a hectic time in my life. It was at the Shinagawa Prince hotel in Tokyo in July of 2010 that I received a reply back from Goran with confirmation that I had been hired to write for The Luchazine. Though it was a little while before issue 3's release and I had yet to do any work, I was credited in the magazine (mistakenly as "Charles Alan Raliffe (Vito_Raliffe)").
It was around this time that a forum had been created for The Luchazine staff via Zetaboards. Before, everything was done through email, and the forums were a clean, organized solution for everyone. When people started to post their drafts for issue 4 on the forum, I started to copyedit them on my own so as few mistakes as possible would be released into the final magazine. I had then been promoted to Associate Editor on August 19th, 2010, which meant that I was to copyedit all first drafts posted. If another version of a draft was posted afterward, I did not work on it.
On August 29th at 2 PM Central Time, I made my first appearance on The Luchacast (The Luchazine's podcast), which also happened to be my first podcast ever. The podcast was released as The Luchacast Episode #3: Mario Might Be Evil on August 30th. It was a lot of fun! I actually had to go out previously and buy a $30 Logitech headset since too much background noise could be heard via my webcam. All my friends I had talked to were surprised this was my first podcast, especially with a bunch of people I had never spoken with before.
Work continued on The Luchazine Issue #4, and on September 11th at 11 PM Central Time, I participated in my second podcast ever, The Luchacast Episode #4: Weak Week. We had previously recorded for about 50 minutes, but started over due to the podcast "running too long". This affected the quality of the released version, with the unheard portion being much better and natural. The episode was released on September 13th.
On the same day, The Luchazine Issue #4 was released. It was the first issue I had actually worked on, and was by far the most successful release The Luchazine had ever seen, mostly because of the incredible work the design team did. I was credited as "Charles A. Ratliff (Vito_Raliffe) - Associate Editor" and had my name placed at the top of the Staff list, even though everyone was usually listed alphabetically. Along with editing first drafts and doing promotional work, I also wrote two articles, both of which can be seen at the previous link.
A couple of weeks after the release of issue #4, I decided to mail in the cover to the offices of Whiskey Media. I went to Walmart, printed out a high-quality version of it, and then went to Hobby Lobby to have it framed with museum glass. I printed out a note I had written to go along with the frame, including The Luchazine logo at the top to make it a little fancier, and shipped it via FedEx. The total cost was nearly $140. The only proof I had that the cover ever arrived was a photocopy of the signature given when it was delivered, until my attention was brought to this Tested video where the cover can be seen between Will Smith and Jeff Gerstmann as they talk about iPhone games. Ethan Lance of Whiskey Media later posted a picture of it in a blog he had written:
This is what I sent in.
Work immediately started on The Luchazine Issue #5 after issue #4 was released. I was promoted to Executive Editor on October 9th (editing drafts, handling schedules and deadlines, promotional work, along with writing). The magazine went through three different versions due to delays imposed by the founders. There was an October 7th version, an October 25th version, and a November 25th version. The Luchazine project was then suddenly and unexpectedly ended by the founders on November 27th. None of these problems had anything to do with my work on the magazine.
I wrote four pieces for issue #5 that were never officially released (I posted them up on Giant Bomb at the same time I posted them here on my blog):
The Ultimate PlayStation Move Breakdown
Electric Town: An Akihabara Arcade Experience - Part II
Igiari! - The Takarazuka Revue's Phoenix Wright Musicals
And that, as they say, was that.