Category: Games

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The Device Has Been Modified

the device has been modified So I saw this on Digg yesterday and wanted to post it, but decided I’d watch an extra episode Shakugan no Shana of instead. But here it is: The Device Has Been Modified (stream video). If you want to download the 100MB HD version of this, you should be able to find the torrent in the upper left hand corner.

This is actually a cross of a fan-made Portal Song and World of Warcraft video footage. I wasn’t too impressed by the the video footage (unless someone actually did the animation themselves), but the song was super catchy. To describe just how awesome the song is, I’ve accumulated over 8 hours for the past 2 days listening to this song at work and at home. It’s just been playing on repeat. As RayAlome says:

Ray AlOm3: lol
Ray AlOm3: you and ur quasi-portal music
Ray AlOm3: yea i was thinking you might like it
Ray AlOm3: it had that dramatic film quality

And I agree. The music has that sort of grandeur soundtrack feeling to it and I guess that’s what makes it so awesome. I don’t think the robotic voice really did much for me, but I guess if it wasn’t portal related, I wouldn’t have found it.

The best thing, the mp3 is available for download for FREE: Victims of Science – The Device Has Been Modified

Apparently the lyrics were taken from the Portal game itself and mixed with a dance song:

Hello,
Hello, and welcome to the enrichment centre
Hello, and welcome to the enrichment centre
Hello, your specimen has been processed
Hello, your specimen has been processed
Hello, your specimen has been processed
Hello, we are now ready to begin the test proper
Hello
Hello

The device has been modified
The device has been modified

Hello, there you are friend
Hey hey, hey hey hey, put me down
I don’t hate you,

Well you found me
Congratulations
Was it worth it

The only thing you managed to break so far
Is my heart
This isn’t brave
It’s murder
What did I ever do to you
You don’t even care, do you

Please proceed into android hell
Android hell,

Weighted storage cube, destroyed
Weighted storage cube destroyed
Weighted storage cube destroyed

Thank you for participating in this aperture science computer aided enrichment activitiy
goodbye
goodbye

Are you still there

Okay, I just watched the 720p HD version and I understand the scenes a lot better now. Hehe. As noted above, you can download the HD version by locating the torrent link in the upper left hand corner.

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Still Alive (Portal) – Free Song Download for Rock Band (Xbox 360 / PlayStation 3)

portal guitar Thanks to StanMan for forwarding me this link: Still Alive for Rock Band Free Tommorrow

ROCK BAND Media Alert

ROCK BAND™ TO FEATURE FREE DOWNLOAD OF “STILL ALIVE” FROM VALVE’S PORTAL™

This is a triumph … Harmonix Music Systems and MTV Games have teamed up with Valve to bring the song “Still Alive”, released as part of The Orange Box collection of games on PC, 360 and Playstation 3, into the Rock Band library. And, as icing on the cake, the track will be available as a FREE download on April 1 for the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, and April 17 for the PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system.

Written by Jonathan Coulton and originally performed over the end credits of Portal, the experimental single-player game in The Orange Box, “Still Alive” found its way into the heads and hearts of gamers and quickly became a cult classic.

“While the cake may be a lie, the free download of “Still Alive” is confirmed truth,” said Greg LoPiccolo, VP of product development at Harmonix. “‘Still Alive’ is an awesome song that brings together great gaming and great music. We’ve teamed up with Valve to deliver a free download of “Still Alive” as a “thank you” to our fans for their incredible support.”

“Rock Band has lit the industry on fire by opening a new market for cooperative musical gaming,” said Doug Lombardi, VP of marketing at Valve. “We’re delighted Harmonix has selected the track for inclusion in the growing library of tracks available for this phenomenal title.”

With the addition of “Still Alive” to the Rock Band library, there are now more than 70 tracks available for download in addition to the 58 tracks in the original game. To date, gamers have purchased more than 6 million downloadable songs for Rock Band since its launch on November 20, 2007.

Downloadable content for the Xbox 360 will be available via Xbox LIVE® Marketplace using Microsoft Points and is downloaded directly to the Xbox 360 hard drive. Downloadable content for the PLAYSTATION 3 system’s version of Rock Band will be available on the PLAYSTATION®Store through the free PLAYSTATION®Network and is downloaded directly to PLAYSTATION 3 system’s built in hard drive.

Rock Band is rated “T” for Teen (lyrics, mild suggestive themes) by the ESRB.

I found this on Rock Band’s forums: DLC April 1st! Huge success!

Hey everybody!

This week we have a special present for you in celebration of April Fool’s Day. For $0 (0 Microsoft Points) you can download-

“Still Alive” by GlaD0s and Jonathan Coulton (master)

Due to work Sony is doing on their store they won’t be adding new material for a couple weeks so this won’t release on PlayStation Store this week. When they go back up with new material in a few weeks, though, it will be there lovingly waiting for you. For free. I’ll post something up here when it is available on that platform.

It will be available on Xbox360 on April 1st.

Also special thanks to Valve and to Jonathan Coulton for helping to make this happen. You rule.

If you don’t know what Still Alive is, you’ve been missing out. It’s the ending song for Portal (part of The Orange Box).

Unfortunately when I went to go download it right now, I was unable to connect to Xbox Live. That’s when I found this article: Reminder: Xbox Live Maintenance on Tuesday April 1:

On Tuesday April 1st from 0200-0500 PT Xbox Live will be offline for maintenance. As a result, the ‘My Xbox’ section of Xbox.com will be unavailable, and the Xbox forums will be in read only mode (you won’t be able to post.) The remainder of Xbox.com will be available.

Find out what time the maintenance will begin in your time zone

This is for maintenance, there are no new features on your that will appear on your Xbox 360 console or Xbox.com when the service comes back online. This is server maintenance only.

Those bastards! *shakes fist* Guess I’ll just have to wait till tomorrow. The freebie appears to be available for the whole week, unless you own a PS3, which then you’ll have to wait till Sony fixes their marketplace.

Update:

Here’s Xbox.com’s official story on it: Rock Band April Song Track Releases

Harmonix and MTV Games have announced the release schedule of individual song tracks and song packs for the game Rock Band™ for the month of April 2008. Fans will be able to purchase songs for 160 Microsoft Points per track (unless otherwise stated) and entire packs of songs are available at a discount.

Hooray, the April tracks are here!

Tracks marked with an asterisk (*) are cover songs as made famous by the listed artist. Tracks without an asterisk are original master recordings.

Week of April 1, 2008

  • Individual tracks released (this is a FREE download starting April 1):
    • “Still Alive” by GLaDOS and Jonathan Coulton (from the game Portal)

Rock Band downloadable content is playable and integrated into setlists in all game modes including Solo Tour, Band World Tour, head-to-head competition either locally or online, and from any Quickplay mode. Start flexing your fingers and mark your calendar for these exciting song tracks, available through Xbox LIVE® Marketplace.

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Dropkick Murphys Song Pack Free on Xbox LIVE Marketplace (Guitar Hero III)

Got this via RSS feed earlier this week:

Celtic punk will never be the same.

Guitar Hero III®: Legends of Rock will be kicking off the St. Patrick’s Day celebrations with a special free track pack from the popular Celtic punk band Dropkick Murphys.

Straight from the band’s sixth album, The Meanest of Times, the Dropkick Murphys pack will include master recordings of “Famous for Nothing,” “(F)lannigan’s Ball” and “Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ya.” The track pack will be available for free to download on Xbox LIVE® Marketplace.

Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock downloadable content is instantly playable and available in the Downloaded Songs set list in ALL game modes (Career, Co-Op Career, Quickplay, Multiplayer, Practice and all Online modes). Check out the Marketplace regularly for the latest tracks.

It mentioned that it was free to starting from St. Patrick’s Day, but doesn’t mention any expiration date, so I’m going to assume this isn’t just some limited time promotion. Enjoy!

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Free Catan (XBLA) with 12 Month Xbox Live Gold Subscription

Not exactly a freebie, but if you’re planning to get a 12 month Xbox Live Gold subscription, you might as well sign up now and get Catan on Xbox Live Arcade, which is based on The Settlers of Catan board game.

catan Because you’re such a valued Xbox LIVE® gamer, we’d like to offer you the chance to give the gift of Catan on us! Through strategy, trading, and a little bit of luck, your friends can vie for control with their opponents over the resources and territory of a newly discovered island.

Now through March 25, 2008, get your friends to sign up for a new 12–month Xbox LIVE Gold Membership, and they will receive a free copy of Catan.*

GIVE THE GIFT OF CATAN

Here’s how your friends can get their free copy of Catan:
1. Sign up for a new 12-month Xbox LIVE Gold Membership.
2. Register at: xbox.com/sm8

*Gift to Friend Offer: Offer good only to new 12-month Xbox LIVE Gold members who have subscribed for membership and registered at xbox.com/sm8 between February 25, 2008 and March 25, 2008. Limit: one gift per recipient. This offer is nontransferable. This offer expires on March 25, 2008, while supplies last, and is not redeemable for cash. Taxes, if any, are the sole responsibility of the recipient. Any gift returned as nondeliverable will not be re-sent. Please allow 6-8 weeks for the shipment of your gift. Offer is not combinable with other Microsoft offers or rebates. Open only to legal residents, aged 14+, of the 50 United States (includes the District of Columbia).

I tried loading the page and it showed: Page unavailable. Not sure if it’s because I didn’t sign up for a 12 month membership during the time frame or if it’s just not up yet.

Update:
The page is finally up and you can find more details at www.xbox.com/giftofcatan.

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Aerosmith’s “Dream On” Free for Guitar Hero III

After mentioning that I got Rock Band yesterday, Angel-grrl pointed out to me that for a limited time, I can get Aerosmith’s “Dream On” for free! You can read more details on Xbox.com. Sweet! Given that many of you come here looking for free Xbox Live Arcade Games, I thought I’d shared this with you guys.

Aerosmith always comes ready to rock.

“Dream On” was the first major hit for the rock band Aerosmith, appearing on their debut self-titled album in 1973. And now, avid Guitar Hero™ III: Legends of Rock players will be able to try out their chops on the power ballad, by downloading it free of charge from Xbox LIVE® Marketplace. The song track will be free for a limited time only: Saturday, February 16, 2 A.M. PT (approximately) to Monday, February 18, 2 A.M. PT (approximately).

The song is a free download through the weekend in celebration of the upcoming Guitar Hero®: Aerosmith® game. Guitar Hero: Aerosmith will be the first music-based game to feature a single band, and gamers will be able to experience Aerosmith’s GRAMMY® winning career, from their first gig to becoming rock royalty.

Update:
How appropriate that today’s Foxtrot comic strip is on Chamber Music Hero.

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Rock Band

It’s been awhile since my last post. Just been busy at work and tired overall. I know I still owe you a File Server post and a Hot Pot post. Those will still come, I promise.

Anyway some weekends ago, Tekman held a gathering at his place and I got to check out a bunch of new board games including Polarity (more info) and Shadows Over Camelot (more info). Wrexen brought over his Rock Band for Xbox 360 and I gave it a whirl and it was a lot of fun. So I decided to get one and began looking for deals.

I had a $50 Circuit City Gift Card (which I had redeemed through MyPoints), but Rock Band was $170 at Circuit City. And the fact I had to pay sales tax made it even worse. The best deal I found was at Buy.com for $150 shipped (after $10 Google Checkout discount). We were looking at $135 @ Circuit City (after GC) or $150 @ Buy.com. Wasting a $50 GC to save $15 sounded quite unreasonable.

So I started researching a bit more into Rock Band and noticed it only came with 1 guitar, 1 microphone, and 1 drum set. The game is a 4-player game and can support up to 2 guitars (1 guitar, 1 bass). So I started researching on how much guitars cost. Apparently Guitar Hero III guitars worked on Rock Band, but not vice versa, which sucked. They also didn’t really sell wireless guitars separately, unless you bought the Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock Bundle and one of the reason why I’ve delayed purchasing GH3 was the fact that the original set included a wired guitar.

Anyway, I decided I would get GH3 just for the wireless guitar and figure out what to do there. Everywhere I’ve checked, GH3 with the wireless guitar was $100, so even with sales tax, it made the purchase much more swallowable. In Chinese we have a saying: 吞的露 (In Catonese, it’s really keng dat lok, but I’m not really sure how to write keng). Basically it refers to something you can tolerate.

So everything was all set and I made my orders. The total came up to a little over $200, which wasn’t too bad. I got my packages on Tuesday and gave it a whirl. It was indeed true that the GH3 guitar worked on Rock Band, but the Rock Band guitar did not work on GH3. I actually liked using the GH3 wireless guitar more than the Rock Band wired one, and decided some time down the line, I’ll probably sell the wired Rock Band guitar and get another wireless GH3 guitar. I did noticed that the wired guitar had extra buttons closer to the base of the guitar. At first I thought that was just the difference between a bass guitar and a regular guitar, but Desperajo said the lower buttons were more for people who wanted to look like they were riffing.

I invited some friends over tonight and we rocked till almost 3am. I think we started at around 9pm. Since not much of the music has been unlocked, we were playing in band tour mode, and for some reason, after every song, it would need to connect to the server and upload data or something and that took a big chunk of time.

rock bandrock bandrock bandrock bandrock bandrock bandrock bandrock band

Actually, before we started playing, we watched the South Park – Guitar Queer-o (S11E13). A hilarious episode if you haven’t seen it yet. It actually prompted me to get the Kansas – Carry On Wayward Son song.

Throughout the night, people have been complaining about the drum beats weren’t actually matching the music and I recall there was some way to calibrate it. I went into Options > Calibrate System, but after selecting LCD, it didn’t give me any options for calibration. Thinking that there was no actual calibration, we continued playing. The drum beats seem to have come a eighth of a note too early, so often times you had to force yourself to ignore the music and just play by looking at the screen, which then threw off other people. Haha.

Anyway, I was searching for calibration solutions online and found these 2 guides:

Apparently instead of selecting LCD, there was this “manual” option hidden at the bottom. I haven’t followed the exact steps on calibration, but a quick calibration based on the simple on-screen instructions resulted in me being a much better drum player. Haha.

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Free Xbox LIVE Arcade Game: Undertow

undertow Due to the fact that XBLA was having a lot of problems over the holiday season, they’ve decided to give away Undertow for free (regularly worth 800 points) to compensate for users inconvenience. Not only do Xbox Live Gold members qualify, but so do Silver members. This game is free only for a limited time:

Regularly 800 points, Undertow is free of charge beginning 2:00 a.m. PST Wednesday, January 23 and continuing through 11:59 p.m. PST Sunday, January 27.

This game has gotten really good reviews, with a metascore of 79/100. Be sure to get it!

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Samsung HL-T5676S 56″ Rear Projection 1080p HDTV For My Parents

First of all, let me wish everyone a Merry Christmas!

After being spoiled by my Vizio 46″ 1080p LCD TV at home, watching my parents ancient Pioneer 56″ regular rear projection TV (at least 10 years old) actually hurt my eyes. So I decided to get them a new HDTV for Christmas. I talked it over with my siblings and they decided they’d like to chip in. I had set my initial budget to less than $2000, but was really aiming for close to $1500.

Since we have a large living room, I decided the most economic way to go was rear projection DLP. They have the space and they really need a large screen if you want to see anything from the couch.

I search the regular stores online: Costco, Circuit City, Best Buy, etc. and found a interesting few. I was pretty set on getting the Samsung HL-T5676S from Circuit City. I had a 10% off coupon, I could get 5% back with my credit card, and I could get an additional 3% back via BigCrumbs (cash back service). I talked it over with Ungsunghero and he even offered to sell me his $300 gift certificate at a discount (I forget how much). Anyway, Ungsunghero seemed interested in helping me search for a TV insisted on helping me spend my money and a day later, he showed me this: Samsung HL-T5676S Projection TV 56-inch Slim 1080p DLP Rear Projection HDTV at OneCall.com.

At that time, there was an additional $50 discount. Given that there was no tax and free shipping, this would come to a total of $1450, whereas the Circuit City one would’ve come to a total of $1600+. Anyway, I called up OneCall to figure out how the shipping would go. I needed the TV to arrive before I leave so I can help them set it up. They said it’d take 3-4 days and I thought that’d work out nicely. I placed my order over the phone and the customer service rep was very helpful in explaining everything: how the process will work, what to do when I receive the TV, and what to do I notice any problems with it.

I had placed the TV on Wednesday and was expecting it to be delivered on either Monday or Tuesday, but surprisingly on Thursday morning, I get a call from FedEx Freight asking me if they can deliver the TV between the hours for 10am-2pm on Friday. Wow! Their ship center must be really close by.

I began setting up the TV that afternoon and it was amazed at the quality.
samsung hl-t5676s hdtvsamsung hl-t5676s hdtv

Here’s a shot of old Pioneer 56″ TV:
pioneer 56inch tv

I knew we’d need a TV stand, and was hoping one of our existing ones would fit. Unfortunately not, so we had to improvise with a temporary stand:
samsung hl-t5676s hdtv and temporary stand

My parents found a stand they liked at Walmart, but they were out of stock. However, the next time we went there, it was suddenly in stock again:
samsung hl-t5676s hdtv and stand

Seeing stuff in 1080p off the media center PC is always neat. I connected all the existing equipment to the TV and most of them worked fine. Turns out our VCR was dead, but that wasn’t due to the TV.

I also learnt that Charter Communications (our cable provider) used HRC instead of STD, so I was initially surprised that scanning the cable TV resulted in 0 channels found. There was also an IRC option. Looking further into this, it turns out HRC stands for Harmonically-related carriers and IRC stands for Incrementally-related carriers, 2 different methods for modulating video over cable network. From the source:

Standard:
Frequency_in_MHz = ( 6 * ( 8 + channel_designation ) ) + 1.25

HRC:
Frequency_in_MHz = 6.0003 * ( 8 + channel_designation )

IRC:
Frequency_in_MHz = ( 6 * ( 8 + channel_designation ) ) + 1.2625

However, I was quite shocked to find out how many QAM channels there were. There were at least 8 Chinese channels include Jade/TVB (翡翠台), which according to Charter was removed from analog cable and moved to digital cable and said we’d need to purchase a digital cable subscription to watch it. Guess all we really needed was a QAM tuner.

My brother brought home his Wii and we enjoyed playing Super Paper Mario, Wii Tennis, Wii Bowling, and Ghost Squad so far on it. Ghost Squad is actually quite fun. Reminds me of Time Crisis.

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Black Friday

It’s been awhile since my last post. It’s been a pretty crazy week so far. I hope everyone had a wonderful turkey day.

Anyway, as many of you guys know, the day after Thanksgiving is usually the biggest sales day of the year, known as Black Friday. After shopping Black Friday at retail stores back in 2002, I’ve sworn I’d never shop in person again on Black Friday. Plus with the internet, there’s just as many good deals available.

AR below denotes After Rebate and I haven’t included shipping/taxes (too lazy to calculate that).

So far my count:

It’s been quite an eventful shopping day. 🙂

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Animal Crossing Tragedy

So I saw this on Digg: Animal Crossing Is Tragic (mirror) (mirror 2)

I wouldn’t exactly call it a tragedy, but it was really touching and sad. I typically don’t find YTMND sites to be that interesting, but this one truly has been nicely done and the soundtrack they added is a true tear jerker along with the story told by comic strip panels.

Anyway, as with most things, I get obsessed with finding the source. The story itself is already touching, but if it was indeed true, it would make it feel that much more real. I noticed the comic strip text was replaced with English and and the original text was whited out. On one of the panels, there was some Korean text and that gave me an idea of where to start searching.

I found the source story: 동물의 숲과 한 북미 유저의 이야기. It is indeed a Korean site and story, but English translation was provided:

About two years ago, I bought the game Animal Crossing. It was fun for awhile, me and my brother played it for about a month, then got tired of it.

I’m always trying to convert my parents to videogames, however, and thought that Animal Crossing would be simple enough for them to get into. I let my mom set up a house, and she soon got into the game in a big way. (As a kid, she had polio, and now she had multiple sclerosis. She was largely homebound, except for the once our twice when she’d either leave to go shopping or to church.) Spending all day at home in a wheel chair bored her, so the relief Animal Crossing provided her was kind of amazing. She’d spend so much time playing it, that it became something of an obsession. She played it so much that she was constantly getting kidded by the family. She payed off her house in the game, she collected all the fossils, etc. Whenever I saw her playing, I thought that the game must have long since stopped being interesting to her, yet she kept playing- even after me and my brother had long since stopped.

Her condition got progressively worse, and she eventually stopped playing. About a year ago, she passed away.

I had forgotten about Animal Crossing, I hadn’t played it in over a year and a half. Today, however, I decided to visit the village again and see what was up. Weeds had grown everywhere, the villagers wondered where my mom and I had gone.

Then I came to my mailbox, it was full of letters with presents- all from my mom. Every letter was pretty much the same. “Thinking of you. Thought you’d like this present. Love, Mom” Even though I’d stopped playing, she continued to send me presents. I look back now at how I made fun of her for playing even after she’d done everything, and I realize now that she was probably spending her time getting presents for me.

Anyway, I know it’s probably cheesy, but I was just amazed at how much this affected me and I thought I’d share. Show your parents as much love as you can, while you still can guys.

Going through the trackbacks in the comment area, I found the original comic: 한 북미유저와 동물의 숲. Different music was used with this page, but it was equally sad. The original comic is located on thisisgame.com, but I have a backup copy here:

animal crossing tragedy comic strip

It appears this is from a comic called This Is Game. This particular strip is #18 and titled: 동물의 숲. According to Babelfish, that translates to: Forest of animal, probably something related to Animal Crossing.

This story turns out to be quite old. Given that the original story was posted on December 14, 2005 and the comic strip was posted on January 2, 2006, I guess someone just happened to have come by this recently and made it into a YTMND page.

If anyone can tell me what the music is, I’d really like to know.

UPDATE: Thanks to DefaultName, Vudhai, Jake, and Mike for pointing out that the music is the opening sequence from Final Fantasy X. It’s titled To Zanarkand. You can listen to the music performed by an orchestra in this video: 03 – To Zanarkand. This was apparently taken from the Tour de Japon DVD.

UPDATE #2: According to Dan, the Japanese version of Animal Crossing was called Animal Forest, and the Korean version might’ve been named the same way. According to Wikipedia, Animal Crossing in Japan is called どうぶつの森 (Doubutsu no Mori), which does indeed translate to “Animal Forest”. どうぶつ is the hiragana form of 動物.

UPDATE #3: DathVader, the owner of blog that posted the comic states the story is indeed true.