Gow in the dark party glasses

If you’re throwing a party, a good way to make yours stand out from all the other parties is to introduce the concept of glow in the dark party supplies to turn your next party into a little night time rave. There are plenty of supplies you can pick up from online vendors and they are all pretty cheap if you planned ahead like you should and ordered supplies in advance.

Before you open up your party to your guests, you should focus on gaining lots of decorations such as light up party supplies to adorn your venue. A black light works great for bringing up all the white and neon colored clothing that guests may wear as well as all the decorations that you can put up like glow in the dark posters and streamers. To exploit the black light further, you can even hand out highlighters and white T-shirts to guests so they can draw on eachother.

Your cups and plates can also be made to light up. There are plenty of light up party favors such as margarita glasses and plates that you can get online as well. We don’t recommend breaking open the contents of a glow stick and pouring that into a glass to make it glow in the dark though. Rest assured most products out there will be quite safe to use without you having to resort to a crude DIY job.

Lastly just a word of caution from personal experience, it would most likely be in your interest to remove all the furniture that you wouldn’t want people tripping over because it will be a party in the dark. Don’t put your crystal vase in the center of the dance floor.

An example of a VGA Cable

When I first got my Xbox 360, it came with the component cables. Over the years, I’ve used both the component cables and a separate VGA cable that I got to connect the device to my computer. I’ve noticed that the Xbox has a tremendous amount of potential when connected to an HDTV compared to just a computer monitor though and with the newest Xbox 360 consoles sporting HDMI, I loved the switch even more. The fact of the matter is, if you haven’t switched over to HDMI on your Xbox 360 because you’re lazy or something you are TOTALLY missing out. The HDMI picture is just so much clearer.

When you are buying a HDMI cable for your Xbox however, don’t make the mistake I did in buying one that just barely fit the amount of distance between my Xbox and my TV. This made for some awkward placements especially since I really stretched out my cheap cable connector and it eventually broke on me because someone kicked the Xbox once. Of course my alternative according to the guy at the local electronics store was to buy the most expensive type of cable because everybody knows that those will never break on me. See, the cable industry is kind of like the car industry in that it attempts to justify a huge price for a product that doesn’t really deserve the markup (see Mercedes Benz). While at least a Benz is a status symbol, I don’t think too many women will flock to your living room and check the brand of HDMI cables you have…

Any cheaper cable will usually do just be careful with it. Of course I still had to get a new cable so I opted for a third choice in getting a longer cheap cable that had a little slack in case the Xbox or TV were moved. Also, most cables out there are good enough quality that they won’t break on you anyway. This made it a much easier ordeal on my wallet and I had saved enough money to purchase a brand new Xbox game at full retail of $59.99! When you compare the qualities, I borrowed a friend’s brand name cable and compared it to my own. As you probably already guessed, there is no difference what so ever.

An Arcade Joystick for home consoles

With Marvel vs Capcom 3′s release, there is sure to be a lot of buzz in the fighting game circuit. This game had been a juggernaut in a field of stiff competition back in the 90s and early 2000s. It wasn’t easy to make it in the fighting game world back then because of all the other great triple A titles such as Street Fighter and King of Fighters. Personally, I’ve always preferred the Marvel vs. Capcom games because of all the great characters and the fast paced action over games like King of Fighters which emphasized counter attacking and blocks.

Playing these games are great fun but the roots of the design elements are in arcade machines. The 2D fighting game just plays better with arcade joysticks where one hand controls the movement and the other controls the attacks. There is definitely a perk to the joysticks because all the buttons are laid out in a intuitive manner and they were designed to played with the arcade joysticks. The combos are definitely much easier to pull off although it does tire out your hands that much quicker.

Fighting games that are on a 3D plane are also good to play with the arcade sticks because usually those will not contain as much jumping so the joystick will be used to control movement on the flat plane in 2 dimensions. You can now buy arcade joysticks for your home consoles like Xbox 360 or PS3 which work just like the good old days with the exception that you no longer have to spend money per game played. Now you can get that retro arcade feel of playing games right from the comfort of your own living room!

Game rack

If you play as many video games as I do, then chances are your gaming area is a bit of a mess with wires and disc cases everywhere. Not the case when it comes to casual gaming but a hardcore gamer would most likely have articles of their gaming life strewn all over the living room floor. Organizing can be a pain and many standard home entertainment tables and shelves are not equipped to handle the amount of controllers and other peripherals that a gamer would have.

This is why you should invest in a neat little piece of video game furniture like the rack pictured above. It is equipped to hold multiple consoles, a small library of games as well as any controllers that you may have. It keeps all of your accessories in a neat little bundle so you are not tearing up the room looking for your Xbox Live mic set. It also makes the room look neat and presentable if you have guests over.

Consolidating all your gaming gear onto one shelf will also make it easier to move in the event that you get a new TV in your room and want to move all your gear in there. Instead of moving multiple pieces of video game furniture, all you have to do is pick up this one shelf and move everything. Voila!

If the above rack is not your style, there are plenty of different ones to choose from at one of many of the online specialty stores that carry them. Don’t wait until you start losing discs and stepping on controllers before you invest in this must-have!

Turntable Skin for DJ Hero

Its been said that our generation (Generation Y) is a very individualistic generation and we like for everything we own to say something about us. There is no reason then why that wouldn’t transfer over to even the electronics that we own. The above is a picture of the Decal I put on my DJ Hero turntable. I have it for the PS 3 but the spin booth is all the same regardless of console. This particular one is named GEOM Land which I’m assuming has something to do with geometry?

Either way, no matter what your taste is, you can likely find DJ Hero Skins to fit your style. You can buy them from a brick and mortar store or any electronics store like Best Buy but your best bet for both variety and price is to visit an online website that carry them. I’ve walked into stores where they literally had maybe two to pick from as opposed to the hundreds of different designs that you can find online.

Aside from being cheaper and better in quality purchasing online can also make your skin unique. Now that might not appeal right off the bat but consider the following scenario. Me and my friends get together pretty often to have an Xbox tournament (what can I say, I’m Asian) so we often bring our own controllers because there isn’t usually enough to go around. We then have to go through the trouble of figuring out which controller is which and I’m pretty sure we’ve all traded controllers a few times.

That never happens to me anymore with DJ Hero because I can just look at the turntables and figure out mine based on the DJ Hero Skins that it has attached to it. Now that may not seem like much but I’m sure that has happened to a few of you before and I’ll bet that one guy with the different color or the decal on his controller never had an issue. Anyway enough talk about the skins, I just want to wrap things up by saying it is a small investment definitely worth your while to both protect and decorate your electronic gadgets.

Xbox 360 console video game skins

The eye squinting pearl white that comes with all generic Xbox 360s before this current generation took them to a smaller sleeker look most likely still populate most people’s houses. While I initially liked the look, it does seem to detract from the all black motif that I have going on in my own gaming room. After all, most electronics come in 1 color; black and they go well together, with the exception of that glaring-sore-thumb-white Xbox in the middle of all of it.

I was able to purchase a few head boards online but sometimes they mess with my ejector tray. That is why I would recommend these Video Game Skins for the Xbox 360 and all other electronic gaming accessories that you might have. They come in all colors and designs to fit whatever your personal (probably not as refined as mine) tastes. These stickers are easy to apply and remove later on if you decide you no longer want that Sailor Moon theme while you’re playing Gears of War.

I’ve noticed that skins, like cables show a huge difference in price between buying online or buying them in a physical location. If you go into electronics stores, they will most likely have a small selection of skins and stickers that you can choose from but at an unbelievably high price. If you buy Video Game Skins online however, there is much more variety for you and they are quite a bit cheaper. That is my two cents for the day. I definitely recommend buying them online.

Whats more, a lot of independent artists will post up their work online so there are a lot more designs out there that you will never find in a physical store location.

Ever wish you could have that little bit of edge when it came to raw finger mashing prowess? You can practice until your fingertips are raw or you could just pick up the Xbox 360 Intensafire mod for you Xbox 360 controller. Whether you’re playing an FPS like Call Of Duty: Black Ops or you are doing the E-Honda/Chung-Li on Street Fighter 4, the speed at which you can press down repeatedly on a given controller button comes into play when taken into the arena that is Xbox Live. The Xbox 360 Intensafire mod will help you become a more effective player no matter what game you compete in on Xbox Live.

We’ve all been there, going against the guy on Xbox Live who wins every single chainsaw duel on Gears of War 2, or getting our head blown off by that other guy with the uncanny ability to nullify all recoil with the SMG in Modern Warfare. Now the rest of us average gamers have a chance to get a kill for a change with this rapid fire mod for Xbox 360 controllers. The chip (pictured below) also comes with a screwdriver so you can pop open the controller as well as adhesive so you can put everything back together again once you’ve applied the mod itself.

Unfortunately due to evolution being too damned lame to provide us with natural rapid fire fingers, the only way to get such fantastic results is by using the Xbox 360 Rapid Fire Controller Mods to give you that little bit of extra help in bringing down your enemies. Some like to think of it as cheating but personally I like to think of it as time management. Most of us are too busy to put in the number of hours required to hone our trigger pulling fingers until we are able to achieve a level close to what the Intensafire mod can give us after a brief one-time assembly. Remember, you’re only a cheater if you get caught and the Intensafire is undetectable on Xbox Live! =)

Gameinformer magazine recently took a survey of videogame failure rates. The Wii came in at about 6% while the Playstation 3 had a fail rate of roughly 10%. The Xbox has always been notorious for the “red ring of death” and so not surprisingly, it was the highest coming in at over 54%. We’re guessing that the survey interviewed a lot of new Xbox owners who have not yet had the pleasure of going through the Xbox replacement process. The new consoles with the Jasper motherboard may have also helped. If the survey had been conducted only on Xbox owners of more than 3 years, we’re pretty sure the fail rates would have been much higher. Despite the high frequency of the RRoD and Microsoft’s poor customer service, fans are not deterred as only about 4% of people actually indicated that they would not be buying another Xbox 360 due to the high failure rate.

[Source: Joystiq]

“The LIVE Engagement Team is looking for a LIVE Community Director to manage its LIVE community strategy and execution across a range of properties, from Xbox LIVE to Windows Mobile. This senior position will play a vital role in the community space as the LIVE Engagement team builds and program’s Microsoft’s next-generation, LIVE-enabled casual and social gaming platform across the Web, the console, mobile and beyond.”

Microsoft is apparently very keen on the idea of integrating their Xbox with the PC and even Windows Mobile. Microsoft is most likely trying to take advantage of the fact that the Windows platform is nearly universal in order to boost the presence of the other two.

[Source: ARStechnica]

As of August 8th, Halo 3 has become the first Xbox title (both original and 360) to sell over 10 million copies. Of course if you’re reading this blog you probably won’t be very surprised. Halo 3 had excellent reviews and the original halo was instrumental in building up the popularity of the Xbox Live network. The game opened to over 3 million sales in just its first week alone and even now, after 2 years, it still commands a respectable 30,000 sales weekly. In fact, the only reason some analysts are projecting slower sales in the near future is due to the release of Halo 3: ODST.
BTW: Halo 3 is the latest of only 35 games in all of history to sell over 10 million copies; the number 1 being Wii Sports which straddles atop the list at an astounding 45+ million copies sold.

[Source: VGChartz]