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.
My Face is on the Front Page of Giant Bomb
It was announced that Facebook bought Oculus VR today. When I did my evening check-in on Giant Bomb, I noticed something familiar about the promo shot Alex Navarro chose for his article covering the matter.
Let's zoom in on that...
Oh, it's me!
I had a photoshoot back in September 2013 and took my Oculus Rift development kit with me to get a nice promo shot I could use for any future coverage of the device I might do. I uploaded it to the Oculus Rift page on Giant Bomb immediately upon receiving it, and it looks like Alex decided to use it! The photo was taken by David Pascua, who did a great job of angling everything so the cord and control box aren't visible.
Favorite Concept Art of 2013
DmC: Devil May Cry
Best 2012 Game of 2013
Winner
Call of Duty: Black Ops II
Runners-up
Adventure Time: Hey Ice King! Why’d you steal our garbage?!!
Uncharted: Golden Abyss
Criteria:
1. It had to come out in 2012.
2. I had to beat it in 2013.
Best Unlockable Achievement of 2013
Winner
"Click on door 430 five times."
The Stanley Parable
Runner-up
Gunpoint
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
In Kansas Until November 30th
My brother and I flew to Kansas yesterday to visit my mom for her birthday/Thanksgiving and I won't be making any substantial updates until December 1st. I will still be playing video games, however, as on the 22nd I had my Wii U shipped to her house so we could all play this:
Thanks, Hastings! (I'll buy it when I'm back home sometime.)
Last December we all played through New Super Mario Bros. U. Sounds like a good tradition to me!
PlayStation 4 Acquired: Setting it up for the very first time
I picked up my PlayStation 4 from the closest UPS Customer Center (about a 40-minute drive) right before 9 AM hit on November 15th, 2013. Thanks to an informative post on reddit, I didn't have to wait until 4 or 5 PM like I usually have to do with UPS packages.
My local UPS Customer Center.
Making sure my PlayStation 4 shipped OK before leaving the parking lot.
On my way back home I stopped off at Walmart to pick up Killzone: Shadow Fall, but, along with a few other games and the console itself, they were completely sold out. Luckily there's a GameStop right by it, so I managed to get the game there.
In my kitchen.
I strapped a GoPro to my head and unboxed the console and accessories, transitioning into a direct capture (in beautiful 1080p) of the PlayStation 4 user interface as I set up and personalized my console. The only parts I cut are where you can see me inputting my passwords. Other than that, the intention of the video is show what the experience is like for a person first turning on their PlayStation 4. The load times have improved since recording.
Jump to the 11:37 mark to go straight to the direct capture of the UI.
27:10 - Settings
33:55 - Trophies
37:28 - Friends
39:22 - PlayStation Store
50:03 - Library
50:29 - Live from PlayStation (viewing livestreams). I am very impressed with how well they pulled this off.
1:01:00 - Putting in the Killzone: Shadow Fall disc.
Killzone: Shadow Fall (PS4) - Chapter 8 Scripting Bug
Earlier tonight I encountered a scripting bug on Chapter 8 of Killzone: Shadow Fall that prevented me from progressing through the story. I believe it was due to the timing of my incapacitation which caused it. I show what happened, and then what is supposed to happen.
Oculus Rift: Museum of the Microstar
Watch me get sick as I cover the Oculus Rift version of Museum of the Microstar, a narrative-driven experience made by RUST.