Life
Cheapskate: My Afternoon With GameStop
Written by Russ Crandall   
Tuesday, 09 March 2010 18:46


Truth be told, I don't like going into GameStop. I don't like being pressured to pre-order games, but mainly I just don't like how much they charge for used games compared to how little they give for trade-ins. That being said, I had a pretty good time at the store today.

I took 11 Xbox 360 games to trade in, ranging from good (Tales of Vesparia) to really bad (TimeShift). They're having a deal where you get an additional 50% on used game trade-ins, so I made more than I usually would have. 50% more, actually. What's even better is that there was a list of used games and if you brought two of those to trade in, they'd give you $40 towards Final Fantasy XIII; it just so happened that I had two of those games, and they would have only netted me $24 even with the additional 50% trade-in value.

All in all, I traded in 11 games that I'll never play again and I got Final Fantasy XIII, Heavy Rain, $24 in credit, and I renewed my GameStop "Edge" card for a year. Not a bad trip at all.
 
Cheapskate: 50% off Xbox 360 games at FYE
Written by Russ Crandall   
Sunday, 07 March 2010 21:56


There's this chain of stores that I had never seen until I moved to the DC area, and it's called FYE: For Your Entertainment. They basically sell video games, music and movies for slightly-outrageous prices. While at the mall today I noticed that they were selling a butt-ton of Xbox 360 and PS3 games for 50% off, so I investigated. I walked out of there with FEAR Files ($10), Perfect Dark Zero ($6) and Earth Defense Force 2017 ($5).

On a podcast, I recently vowed not to buy shitty games even if they were on sale, and this is my defense: 50% off games don't count. I have no idea how long the sale is going on, but it may behoove you to check out your local FYE in the near future.
 
This is a good wine: Red Diamond Merlot
Written by Russ Crandall   
Friday, 05 March 2010 19:55


I wasn't a fan of red wine until recently, but that changed when I visited Italy a couple of months ago. Also, two fun facts:

1. I hate it when beer gets warm, and since red wine is already served warm, it never goes bad while you drink it.

2. As far as I can tell, there's no such thing as "wine shits".

Since getting back from Europe, my wife and I have been experimenting with various red wines. Our only rule is that we're trying to buy bottles that are under $10. We tried out all of the Yellowtail brand wines (too sour), and we read about this brand called Red Diamond, based out of Washington state. I spent the first 20 years of my life in Washington, so we decided to try it out.

It has a sweet initial taste and it goes down really smoothly. That's about the extent of my wine tasting skills. We're a quarter of the way through the bottle. More to come. Maybe.
 
Just When He Thought He'd Gotten Away With It...
Written by The Easy Mode Staff   
Thursday, 25 February 2010 18:00
alt

Just when he thought it had slipped quietly under the radar, we go and spoil everything. That's right folks, someone around here just had a birthday. However, to spare this person the pain of public humiliation, we have gone to great lengths to keep their identity a secret, with the exception of a few subtle hints. Nudge nudge, wink wink!

So readers, can you possibly guess who the lucky birthday boy is? Need another clue? Then hit the link below to read on!

Read more...
 
Cheapskate: Peggle Nights for free!
Written by Russ Crandall   
Wednesday, 24 February 2010 17:57


PopCap Games has quite an offer going right now. If you sign up for their newsletter, you can gift a copy of Peggle Nights (PC or Mac) to a friend. In other words, if you have two email addresses floating around, YOU can be that friend.

I read about this offer last night, and I didn't plan on writing about it, but then I played a bit of Peggle Nights and decided that everyone deserves to play it. For free. It usually costs $20.
 
Indie Love Bundle - Six Games for $20 - 8 hours left!
Written by Russ Crandall   
Friday, 19 February 2010 15:30


If you have money, and you like video games, be sure to go to this site right now and check out the Indie Love Bundle. It features six award-winning games for $20, and two of them (Eufloria and Machinarium) were discussed on our last podcast. Four out of six work on the Mac, and all six work on the PC. The sale ends in eight hours, so thumb-twittling is ill advised.
 
What Once Was Old, Now Is New
Written by Mark Hill   
Monday, 15 February 2010 15:13
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Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I am back!

I returned from Vegas yesterday with a renewed spirit, a new wife, and a massive hangover. That's alright, though, because I'm ready to get back into some games! I haven't been able to play anything all week, and I'm suffering from major Mass Effect 2 withdrawals, especially since Russ was able to play more in one day than I was able to all week.

As a matter of fact, the only game related activity I did (aside from the massive amounts of craps and blackjack) was buy the pen that you see above. It's made from recycled game consoles, and is from a company called Remarkable (www.remarkable.co.uk) where they make pens, markers, and notepads out of recycled crap. Although it doesn't specify exactly which console my pen was recycled from, I'm pretty sure it was a Turbo Grafx-16. It just has that feel to it.

Oh yeah, and make sure you do something for the first time today, because it's Precendent's Day!
Read more...
 
Cheapskate: BF1943 for $10 on XBLA this week
Written by Russ Crandall   
Monday, 15 February 2010 12:11


Just in time to get pumped up for the release of Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Microsoft is offering the XBLA title Battlefield 1943 for the reasonable price of $10, down from the reasonable price of $15. If you haven't tried it out yet, I'd say go for it. There's a lot worse things you could spend $10 on. Like TimeShift.

Details can be found here.
 
Cheapskate: flOw for Free!
Written by Giang Cao   
Saturday, 13 February 2010 02:58
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North American PS3 owners should boot up the PSN store ASAP, because for today only thatgamecompany's flOw will be made available for free. Look for the make.believe promotion banner on the front page of the store and click through to find the free game. Do it now, because it's for today only.

After downloading it, you can dim the lights, take a deep breath and relax as you... wait - what do you do in this game again? Something about plankton I think. Plankton is good for you, right? Or is that just for whales? I don't think there are any whales in this game. Whale fail.

The offer ends unti 9pm 2/13 and is for N.A. users only. Unfortunately, it looks like they're actively blocking "outsiders" from downloading the free game. I think they call that racism.

 
Matchmaker: Love at First LARP 02
Written by Russ Crandall   
Tuesday, 02 February 2010 14:15

As we transition from our old site to this new one, we've decided to bring along some of our favorite posts as well. Enjoy our trip down memory lane.

Name: Ageran
Occupation: Studio Drummer
Realm: Inausk

Ageran, professional drummer known all throughout Inausk for his use of unconventionally-huge drumsticks (pictured above), has a hard time finding work. Problem is, he has two strikes against him:

1. He's Middle-Eastern. What, you thought that super-anti-terrorism and xenophobia were only in America? Sheesh, Americans are so self-indulgent!

2. He looks like a tiger, and as we all know, tigers are the most badass of the big cats. People are scared he's going to gut them the moment he starts to feel a little peckish.

And women-folk? Don't even ask. He hasn't been on a date since September 11th.

Read more...
 
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