The blog has moved to Giant Bomb dot com. As always, you can type in www.belowstupid.com to go there at any time.

This move is being made for many many reasons, not just the experiment I ran in the last post to see what people thought of the beta. My time on Gamespot is over, and I hope to see you over at Giant Bomb.

Don't believe me?

beta.gamespot.com

You can now also find me at: http://www.giantbomb.com/profile/UnlivedPhalanx/

No I'm not leaving Gamespot - yet, this is merely a second place to find all my content for those of you that are leaving now.

-- Jacob.

PS - A new something over at bargainbinforyou.com

Link below is now non-private, thanks for bringing that to my attention. Happy E3.

http://vimeo.com/1336027

Preface:

This was perhaps one of the most social gaming events I've been to in a long time, probably since the Halo 3 launch. Anyways, the video is 20 minutes long but I'm sure you'll find most of it enjoyable since Doug Buffone used to make his about that long in the past. Unfortunately I can't embed it due to Gamespot's uploader being useless so I had to use Vimeo. Enjoy:

http://vimeo.com/1336027

This week on Bargain Bin For You: Larry Niven's "Ringworld"

Hey everyone,

It's Sunday at 1:14 AM and I just walked in from Video Games Live in Austin Texas. I have to say I had a great time. I wanted to let everyone know that we had a very successful 2-camera shoot on the lot of VGL and Sunday (today I guess) I'll be editing it and you'll see it up sometime Monday. Also up Monday: a new bargin bin for you dot com item, this time one of my favorite books!

-- Jacob.

PS - I got my balls busted by Tommy Tallirico, for full details you'll have to wait until Monday =P

Hey all, I've been working on a new site that's taken a lot of my free time. The site is: http://www.bargainbinforyou.com

It's for all my non-gaming related stuff. I hope you enjoy it and it will get more regular content than this blog unfortunately as I'm not gaming much right now.

But stay tuned! This blog will get a video blog from the VIP ticketholder area of Video Games Live! All that and more coming up!

So I got a new Macbook. Yeah, I got tired of constantly using a Windows machine and I have to say that this Mac is the most elegant piece of hardware I've ever owned. In addition, I took the time to install Win XP on it so I could play some MechWarrior 4: Vengence / Mercenaries and also some Mech Commander 2. Games I LOVE the world over and haven't played in years.

Any Battletech / MechWarrior fans in the house?

I've been meaning to check in with you guys but I've been super busy you know, working and making an album. Have you ever made an album before? It's freakin hard! Anyways a lot of my free time has been trying to work through some games or write more lyrics for....the album! So check out the site, we JUST launched it and I know it looks hella bare right now. I'm trying to con Hallway Giant into doing the banner for the site. Visit us at: www.endlesswinterproject.com and while you are there follow the link to our MySpace and add us!

In gaming: I've been playing a lot, so I'll run it down by title.

Ninja Gaiden II - I tout this constantly as the sequel to the hardest game ever made. I've never finished the original Ninja Gaiden, and I was worried about this title. Let me tell you, the addition of "dummy" difficulty mode didn't make me feel good, except for the fact that now I could actually play the damn game! I love how refine the combat feels and one of the first things someone said as I was playing through the first hour or so is, "It looks like you have a lot of control, is any of that automatic?" After I assured her it was not, I killed some people.

Rock Band - I refuse to buy a massive drum kit, so I eventually got my hands on a friend's set and have been playing through the solo tour as well as inviting peeps over to finish up the Band World Tour. I hate you Metallica.

Grand Theft Auto IV - It's sad but I still haven't beat this game yet. Still playing through the missions with Phil Bell, no spoilers please. I'm somewhere about an hour or so from the end.

PS - Did ANYONE freakin' see the Summer Finale of Battlestar Galactica? That was so FREAKIN EPIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And our sad goodbyes.

You know I thought that graduating High School would be more exciting than it was. It turns out it was a very depressing night. Sure we got our diplomas and listened to a 2 hour speech from our Salutatorian about how corrupt getting #2 in the class was considering he was bumped by 1/16 thousandth of a point from Valedictorian. We said our goodbyes to each other and walked out into the world as High School graduates.

I thought it would be more exciting you know? It was kind of heartbreaking really.

Well I have to go, my Nintendo powered Grad party kicks off in 2 hours, I'll be back to talk about Wii and 360 and Macintosh a bit next week.

Hello All,

Sorry it took so long but as many of you know, Staph is a monster and I haven't been doing much until just recently. I'm now mere days away from graduation (assuming I passed my Algebra II final) and I did an interesting thing for my English IV AP Final. We did a reenactment of "The Pardoner's Tale" by Chaucer entirely in Halo 3. Call us crazy but we just had to try!

Here is a link to our project up on YouTube.

(Make sure you click the high quality option, it makes things loads easier on the eyes!)

Hope you guys enjoyed that, regular programming will resume in a week.

All, quick update

I've got a staph infection in the tendon the connects my right leg to the groin area, already had an operation to open it up, but I'll be out of commission for a while, see you in a week or two! Until then enjoy some GTA!

PS - While I'm confined to my home or office chair for the foreseeable future, I'll be hard at work on "The Endless Winter Project" which is a music album I'm putting together, you blog readers will get first access soon!

It seems like it's that time of year again, well almost year (probably week in this case). In a constant struggle to entertain myself and to rip off Jeff Gerstmann over at Giant Bomb Dot Com, I've decided to film a segment about energy drinks. I know what you're thinking, and no it's not a complete invasion of Jeff's creativity or anything because I've decided to put a different spin on this segment. Unlike Jeff who drinks what's available in America, I've decided to import some Japanese drinks, and when I say Japanese I mean, I have no idea what is in them!

Been totally not gaming this week and it has felt pretty weird. It's probably like smoking all your life then suddenly finding yourself without a lighter or a place that will sell one for a week. That was a weird reference I know, and I'm sorry.

My Wii just came back from repair and my 360 is STILL out, God knows when that thing will rear its head again around here. I hope before Gears of War 2 comes out (or better yet, GTA IV), but I won't hold my breath.

So in the mean time, one of my favorite shows of all time Battlestar Galactica has started up again. To signify the final season I'll be flying this new banner provided to me by Cheesebob57 until the end of the season. If you've missed an episode so far, my current favorite way of getting back episodes legally is thru Amazon Unbox. For $1.89 you can get the best SD quality reruns I've ever seen and the server that deals the downloads is way fast. Click here to view the Amazon Unbox for BSG page.

If you've been watching the video-casts I put up once and a while you'll I've been planning a new segment, and it's finally ready to air. We're going to finish editing it on Tuesday (not much to edit really) and I'll post it near the end of the week.

Living life in Austin Texas is pretty grand if you like music, and I do, which is good. I've added a portion to the top of the blog where I'll highlight bands that I've seen that are worth telling people about. I'll leave em up there for a bit, since I don't get paid for the ads, they are something I like to do for bands I love. On April 7th, I saw Sick Puppies and my good friends Dropping Daylight at Emo's Lounge and below are some pics (click for full version):

Sick Puppies rocks the night away at Emo's Lounge in Austin

Dropping Daylight was my first concert years ago.

The guitarist, Seth, and I have developed into good friends over their tours.

No show is complete without meeting the band, all members were extremely nice and gracious. However, the singer, Shim, was feeling very ill as is evidenced by his expression here.

When my 360 comes in or if I decide to do anything with the Wii soon, I'll keep you posted here, like usual.

Time has come to pass judgement on my newest game for Xbox 360, Dark Sector.

For me this game has been a lot of mixed reactions. I remember being really excited for the game when THIS TRAILER came out for it years ago. I was even more excited when the game finally landed on shelves. Looking back, this game is not anything close to that first trailer. I guess scrapping a project really does that to a title.

Also, this is the first document I've ever written in Google Docs (docs.google.com) and I have to say I'm really impressed with the service. It seems to have worked out really well.

You may have noticed I'm a silver member, my subscription ran out and due to some problems with my 360 and because technical support can't seem to do their job, I'm STILL waiting on a replacement box. I spent 30 minutes with an oversight manager for the support company and he said he was really sorry and opted to just send me a brand new 360 for all the troubles in return instead of getting a repaired one back. Works for me, box should be here today or tomorrow.

Until then I'll probably be playing Dark Sector on the "Brutal" difficulty for the acheivement points, since I've got nothing else to do right now.

I might go back and play some Portal after that, just because I can. I'll subscribe back up and play some Halo 3 and COD4 online with everyone once my new box arrives.

Until then, have a good one.

Click here to read the review or click on the image

Edit: Box JUST arrived, about 2 1/2 weeks later.

UPDATE: While uploading the video, an employee from Retro emailed me that it was in fact a GPU issue and Nintendo will giving me a replacement within the week. So now I REALLY need flash based games for the next 7-10 business days as I will have neither a 360 nor a Wii....great.

Dark Sector First Impressions: Pretty good so far, only about an hour in.

So I made a mistake about a week ago, I was in a town 80 miles south of Alpine called "Lajitas." Google map that, it's nowhere. Putting it mildly, I had more technology in my backpack, than the entire town combined. That was a weird feeling. Nontheless, I spent a week in a really nice hotel at the end of town. The town was so small that there wasn't even a traffic light there. People kind of just drove however they wanted.

I played just a little bit of my DS while down there, I had a few movies and TV shows on my iPod Touch which ate up a lot of the down time I had. However, I'm looking forward to getting back out there and interacting with the Gamespot Community again. I hope you all have been behaving while I've been gone. I'll be getting back out there over the course of this week.

Here are a couple pictures I took with my trusty Kodak V570, the full res ones are of course in my images section.

This was someone's back yard, neat huh!

Left side - Mexico, right side - Texas State.

Never seen this movie, might rent it on iTunes or Netflix now.

See you guys once I get settled in enough to make a new video blog or have enough time to play a game or two.

PS - This just in, right as I was making the blog I was notified I've been accepted at The University of Texas in San Antonio!

..Is where I will be for the next 7 days, preperation work and normal work plus school have largely been the reason I haven't been around on the site for the past week or so (sorry Mods!) and I'll be back and ready to game when I get home. I'll be without internet while I'm down there.

Also, been playing a TON of Brawl, and it's a lot of fun for fans of the genre, unfortunately, due to not having internet I'll be unable to give you guys a review until a lot later on and by then you'll all have it anyway.

See you guys on the other end of Spring Break!

PS: just for you Cheesebob57

The game looks and plays really sharp, I'd seriously give it a look if you're a fan. However, it's not going to change your mind if you don't already like the series.

Well I was getting re-addicted to Half Life 2: Episode 2 and Portal when I discovered this largely unwelcome glitch that actually fustrated me to the point of hysterics about mid-way through the chapter "Riding Shotgun" in Episode Two. I felt obligated to document what exactly was going on. Here's a shaky-cam video of the glitch:

As you can see, if the gnome ever falls out and you step on it, it'll send you flying. I should note however, this is on a retail unpatched copy of The Orange Box while in God-Mode, it's possible that the gnome thing may kill you if not in God-Mode or may have been corrected in patched versions of the game.

More coming soon!