Category Archives: Video Games

Video Games

Don’t forget the Midwest Gaming Classic!

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Olympia Resort, the location of the excitement. (Those lamps are very Helmut Ajango…)

It’s only 1 month away now! We’re doing a thing called the “Benheck.com Experience” where we’ll have some tables and be modding stuff and what not, so you can meet a lot of the forum members, modders and I’ll be there too of course. Bring whatever junk you want and I’ll sign it!

You can check out their website at www.midwestgamingclassic.com. Set in the Milwaukee suburb of Oconomowoc, which has a lot of O’s, it’s the biggest and game classic gaming show in the Midwest, if not everywhere!

See you there!

Video Games

Xbox 360 combo at Circuit City for a Great Price!

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Still sitting on the fence about getting an Xbox 360? Rumors in the press got you down? Well consider this:


What a bargain!

As we all know, Circuit City is going under. This is very sad for me as I always preferred them over Best Buy. But as James Earl Jones said in the Lion King “everything is a circle of life”… or whatever. Find opportunity in despair!

Right now Circuit City has 10% off on game systems and 30% off accessories. This means you can get an Arcade console for $180 and a 60 gig add-on hard drive for $70… a total of $250. Equivalent to the $300 Xbox in functionality, yet the same price as the Wii.

Of course the $300 Xbox would now be $270, but keep in mind with the Arcade you still have a much better chance of it being a Jasper, also the hard drive add-on comes with 3 months of Xbox Live as well!

If you need an Xbox and there’s a Circuit City close to you this deal is really too good to pass up. Also, strangely enough, our Circuit City has been getting NEW stock in yet, including a whole pile of Jasper 360’s, the newest lot number I’ve seen yet in fact (0850X) So why not check it out?

For information on how to spot a Jasper Xbox 360 in the wild, see this page. Happy hunting!

NOTE: It’s even cheaper now, 20% off minimum.

Video Games

3600 Controller

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OK so yesterday I had my Facebook status as saying I was “being frustrated by potentiometers” – a rather normal day for me, really. For whatever reason this prompted one of my friends to suggest I build an Xbox 360 controller inside of an Atari 2600 controller shell. And I thought “That’s dumb enough to work!”

A mere 5 hours later I had what you see above – the 3600 controller! This is an Atari 2600 controller with wireless Xbox 360 controller guts inside of it – batteries too. The big red “fire” button is “A”, other buttons are attached to the top:

Granted this wasn’t a pay project (rather a UPP – un-paid project!) but it was a nice break from what I was doing. It isn’t usable for standard Xbox 360 games but adequate for many Arcade games and other low-level tomfoolery.

For the sure-to-be thrilling story of how I did it, check after the break. I kind of did a cheat to get controller guts into this small of a shell…

Oh you can also download this pulse-pounding demo video of the controller in action.

Note: despite the mention of Facebook, I prefer to limit it to people I know / acquaintances, so please do not be offended if friend requests go ignored.

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Video Games

MAGfest 2009

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Well I am here at MAGFest now… so yeah… I guess anyone that came can try to find me an say hi.

Looks like my slot is at the same time as the Angry Videogame Nerd, so I guess I have to compete with him. Regardless, should be interesting, there’s arcade machines and beer here, what more do I need?

SATURDAY EARLY AFTERNOON:

I did my panel, it went pretty well. Didn’t have to compete directly with Game Nerd which was cool. Lots of fun stories and truths you’ll never find on this site (such as “the Xbox 360 laptop originally was built to advertise our ghost town documentary trailer”) and for some reason I went WAY off topic with my Christian Bale Batman impressions. That’s what you get when you goto a Benheck panel / let your heart win.

Our Sonic Boom podcast panel is at 6 PM, so I hope to go even more off-topic during that.

The party on the top floor of the Hilton with the balcony was awesome, I could see all of DC which I know well from the 50 hours I spent playing Fallout 3. Haven’t seen any super-mutants yet…

-Ben

Video Games

Pelican Case Xbox 360

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Behold – a completely normal looking Pelican case!

My latest project is an Xbox 360 stuffed inside of a Pelican 1490 case. The intention here to create a “tough” portable Xbox 360 that can be transported with ease.

Enter missile launch codes here.
Xbox 360 inside a Pelican 1490 case

This unit includes:

  • 17″ widescreen LCD monitor.
  • Built-in speakers.
  • Power cable compartment.
  • Reworked top-loading DVD drive.
  • Removable hard drive.
  • Ethernet and USB ports.

This unit was built because I’ve had a lot of requests for game consoles that could be used overseas by our servicemen and women and I thought it’d be interesting to take a crack at the concept. It was not built on consignment, a rarity for me these days, so it is up for grabs. I’m also interested the larger-scale possibilities of this kind of project if anyone has any ideas/money.

For the fairly detailed “Making-Of” check the story after the break. You can also click here to view a video demonstrating the unit.

The idea for this unit was inspired by Clint Green’s cases that I saw last May in D.C., you can check out his site at www.greenbarron.com/armoredgaming.

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