Shout out goes to Gump for pointing me to this (because Gametrailers certainly didn't tell me - at least, not yet) but the winners for that Gametrailers contest have finally been announced, almost a week after the original date of announcement. As I feared, I did not win - but the good news is that it would seem I lost only by small margin, and the guy who beat me most definitely deserves the $500 (in my opinion). His video is over twice the length of mine and features real actors, costumes, and all that good stuff. There's some very nice touches in his video that I really appreciated.
 
 
  
For example, keep a sharp eye out during the live-action "Playing Silent Hill" segment. At one point, the girl he's "controlling" walks toward a door but doesn't line up with it right - she's partially facing against the wall when the "game" triggers the open door action. When she appears on the other side of the door, she's perfectly centered with it. That's totally a videogame thing and it's a really nice little detail to include when you're acting this kind of thing out in live-action.
 
Does it suck that I didn't win the $500? Most definitely. That $500 was going to be Christmas for us, if I won. I was going to get a condenser microphone to use with video reviews, a Wii, and Wii Fit for my Mom. Now I can't even get one of those things, let alone all three. On the flip side, I should be thankful I at least got $50, as the 500 GTP "honorable mention" prize is almost kind of an insult. GTP is what you use to buy junk in the Gametrailers Auction House, and items there typically cost 2,000-3,000 GTP and it's for stupid stuff like strategy guides and T-shirts. 
 
Question now is: What do I spend the $50 on? Technically I should save it to buy some meager Christmas presents. But there's other things I wanted to buy, too... but I'd feel awful if I spent this on them without knowing how much I was getting from my job, if anything at all.
 
Edit:  Actually, now that I look, the rules page mentions nothing about a $50 runner-up prize. Would it be too arrogant to think that they're giving me $50 because they liked my entry so much? It's like they're saying "You were so close!"

'Sup. I probably should have posted about this earlier, but I forgot. New text review! Mario & Sonic Winter Olympics for the DS. Hoo-yah. If you want a little sampler, have at it:

But the real meat of Mario & Sonic, one would think, is the all-new “Adventure Tours” mode, replacing “Mission Mode” from the original Mario & Sonic game. Adventure Tours is a full-fledged story mode for the game, taking Mario and Sonic through a variety of imaginary Vancouver locales as they chase down Dr. Eggman and Bowser, who have sabotaged the Vancouver Olympics in order to start their own evil version of the Winter games. Given that the bulk of one’s playtime would presumably be spent playing a story mode like this, “Adventure Tours” is listed as the third item on the game’s main menu – under both the Single and Multiplayer modes. It only takes ten minutes to see why, exactly, a design decision like this was made.

While on the subject of reviews, I've decided to open a Blip.tv "channel" for my video reviews.
 
 
  
I've actually considered getting a separate Youtube channel for quite some time now, but Blip offers a lot of the "partnership" options Youtube does without having to wait months (or years) trying to qualify. On top of that, Blip also lets you do all kinds of cool stuff like subscribe to my channel through iTunes and various other services, so really, it's fun times for all. I'll still be posting my video reviews on Youtube, though, because I don't want to be "one of those people" - but I think the primary version that I embed here in my blog and whatever else will be the Blip.tv version.  Tell your friends!
 
So yeah. Thursday (tomorrow, as of writing this) will mark one week since the deadline for the Gametrailers "User BOO-vie" ended. They still haven't announced the winners. There's this constant feeling of "What If" in the back of my mind that is driving me absolutely bananas. What if I lost? What if I won? What if I won and they can't contact me about winning? I don't know, man! It's all crazy! Augh!

So Gametrailers is having a video contest. Or, should I say, was having a video contest, because the deadline for entries is in about three hours. The contest itself was to make a scary, game-related halloween video. A few years back, I won $1000 (in Gamestop gift cards) for a video I did, and loving Halloween, I decided I'd give it a shot again. The prize this time is $500 on Amazon, which obviously has a lot more than just videogames on it.
 
I decided on a "Motion Comic", done entirely in pencil, because that seemed like the sort of thing I could get done quickly and easily. By the time I finished my Luigi game, I had barely a week left to make my entry. Finding motivation was tough - after winning the $1000 on Gametrailers back in 2006, I began entering a slew of other contests over the span of a couple years - and 99% of them resulted in nothing more than wounded pride (some of them actually ended wounding more than that - let's just say "super terrific carpal tunnel syndrome" and leave it at that).
 
Gametrailers basically said that "anything goes" with regards to content, as long as it stuck to the theme. To quote: 
 

 "It doesn’t matter if the form is machinima, live-action, clay-mation or pencil drawings, as long as it is fits the theme."

Below that, they listed a few "inspirational" videos - mainly things like scary gameplay montages and the like. As I browsed the few entries I could find, I discovered that most of them stuck closely to the "inspirational" videos Gametrailers had pointed out. I needed to set myself apart from the pack. I chose an original "animation", drawn entirely in pencil (since that would be the easiest to do within the time alotted). I drew up some storyboards and slowly, I got the ball rolling. What this basically meant is that I had to go in to "crunch-time mode" - no recreational activity (no videogames, no TV, etc.), and especially no internet. In the past, when I'd have to resort to these sorts of measures, it would only last for a single day. This time, I would spend the majority of the week locked up with no internet access, drawing like a bandit. At the peak of productivity, I counted drawing over 20 images in a single day - all told, it was probably more than I've drawn in the last three years combined.  Believe me, my arm was ready to fall off, I had drawn so much.
 
After days of drawing and hours of editing video, I finally uploaded the finished product to Gametrailers barely even an hour ago. Only now is it beginning to sink in that I may have spent all that time and all that effort and I still might only get a runner-up prize (500 GTP for use in Gametrailers' stupid "Auction House". 500 GTP is barely even half the cost of what most items end up "selling" for).  I'm not 100% satisfied with the final product, but I honestly did not have any time to do anything more than what I managed to finish.
 
If you want to give the video a look, be my guest. If you need me, I'll be over here, flipping out with stress. 
 
 

Just heading to bed (yes, at 6am). I've fired up The Graveyard Shift's live audio stream if you want to give it a listen - hit up:
 
http://www.graveyardshift.tk/
or
http://blazemp3.sepwich.com/graveyard/
 
Got 27 hours of Halloween music and stuff queued up, should be a good time. Remember: You can also listen on your PS3 or your Wii! If you're hearing a weird bumper about SAGE or whatever, that should be going away soon. I'm also trying to post some public-domain horror movies to the video stream but that's very slow going.  I've been so busy this Halloween!
 
Tell your friends!

 
  
So yeah. Here's that thing I mentioned in my last blog post. Sort of a minigame-fangame thing that's kind of like Pac-man and kind of not. If you want to download it, hit up this link right here.  Everything about this game is pretty simple - if you've ever played Pac-Man, that's more or less what's going on here, though there are a few key twists. It'll probably be more fun if you figure those out for yourself, though, as I've made them obvious enough in the game itself that they should not need explanation. If you need controls, they too, are pretty simple. There's a readme if you want more info, but you probably don't need it.
 
As I said in my last blog - I may come back to this later and add a few more ideas, depending on how well its received. But for now, I have to move on to another (higher profile) project. I should also get around to writing that M&S review...