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News Updated January 20, 2011
JAck Of All Games Completed, WCG hopeful Thristee321 offer job as Jamal's partner in Co-Op games.
I noticed occasional hits from the website, Countdown321.net This is the official site of Life to the Power of X champion and WCG ultimate Gamer contestant, Jamal Nickens. He's been a good friend for a long time, if you don't believe me, look up "Nordonia Open" on youtube.com and you'll see a young me be a host, and a young Jamal be the co host during the first season and a contestant on the next 2 seasons. Jamal and I are coming together on 2 different projects, and I'd like to mention a third on this page.
First, Jamal is the all-time all-around game master. He beats quite a few games in a typical rental period. He has been the most consistently good player in our group. When Jamal won Life to the Power of X, I being the creator of the local hit show Jamal and I were involved in, created a show where Jamal puts himself at a distinct disadvantage and wins over 50% of the time. Jamal was playing well on Level 4 on Colecovision Games when he was age 3 (this was before I met him, so I can't verify, but based on above performance, I believe, and the time frame adds up mathematically too.) He's been playing many games well since then. I came up with a phrase to describe him, "The Jack of All Games". He may not be the number 1 performer of any one particular video game, but bring multiple genres, systems, eras, or any other qualifier of video games, and he'll beat you if the games were weighted equally. The phrase "A master at none" only applies to Jamal being the top single-game player who practices one game 8 hours a day, and plays nothing else. I was kicking around the idea of a tournament that Jamal would do well at, and later, in between Life and WCG, thought he would make a good house contestant you have to beat to win on a video game game show. What the American Gladiators did for all-around athletic competitions, and Ben Stein did for trivia game shows, Jamal will do for video game competitions. He'll challenge any player in games of their choice, not his, mix them up with 3 other contestants and their favorite games, and Jamal should come out on top over 50% of the time, the theory being, you may win your game that you picked against Jamal, but how well will you, Jamal, and 3 other random contestants do on a third contestant's favorite games, and a fourth and fifth too? If you happen to live in, or travel to, the Cleveland/Akron Ohio Area, and would like a competition to see how well rounded of a gamer you are, email my contestant hotline at netgameshowsATaimDOTcom Remember, in an Anti-spamming campaign, to replace the capital words, AT and DOT, with the @ and . symbols respectively. This way we know you're smarter than the average computer opponent Jamal usually crushes.
Speaking of Jack of All games, there was a good friend of his, and through Jamal, mine, who was thinking of applying to WCG Ultimate Gamer 1, but didn't and is now trying for Season 2. In a pre-production test run of Jack of All games, in an abbreviated 3-opponent game for Jamal, one person came in first place in all 3 main games. This means he beat Jamal in 2 random games neither picked. His name is Jake "Thirstee321" Pfister. And he won your vote to be a WCG Ultimate Gamer Season 2 contestant. Thank You, he came in fourth, and won a first-place or two in season 2. Anyone who can beat Jamal and 2 other random people in 2 random games the other 2 random people chose deserves my and your vote for WCG Contestant.
Since then he appeared on the show and came in fourth out of 12 contestants. Since then, if we have a 2-person team show on Jack of All Games, Jake is the first person offered to be Jamal's partner. The only criteria is that 2 players must play a game co-op. It could be 2 vs 2, or 4 teams of 2, the key feature is that it has a 2-player co-op feature.
Also of Note, the other person who edged Jamal by one point in that game, Jeremy "Friktion321" Reilly liked the game enough and can give the show better production talent (namely Jeremy) and equipment (namely the borrowed equipment from his Kent State Video Production School) where he'll make the final production version of the show to air on youtube.com . I did a second video, mainly to see if I can do a good show, and to see how much better he can do, and Jeremy said for someone who had no formal training and just one Digital SD camera, a DVD recorder, and basic knowledge and access to iMovie, I did as good as I could do, based upon Jamal's request of showing enough contestant footage to make the human drama watchable. I showed it to a couple of companies, just to show the concept of the game and the fact I have Jamal on board, and like the show enough where they'll want to see a more professional version when ready. The potential sponsor wanted to see even more footage of the game, and the contestants during the games, and Jeremy can help with that.
Cilck on this link to the youtube show, Jack of All Games.
I was scheduled to be host. As it turns out, we needed a fourth contestant at the last minute. So stepped from behind the podium and stepped to behind a joypad. Of course, I wasn't prepared. I was dressed to be the host, not a contestant. Since the decision was made AFTER I arrived at the studio, I had to pick games from Jamal's collection instead of digging through my own. Plus I didn't have had a couple weeks to practice my games and try to beat Jamal. What really hurt my chances even more was that he didn't have a Colecovision. He used to, before I knew him, but a relative of his broke or lost it. Hopefully with the prize money he keeps away from the contestants, (including admittedly, me,) he can buy a used Colecovison and used games with any gift certificates. Which is funny because a friend of my brother kept my Colecovision, but is hard for him to give it back to me, plus they lost contact with each other.
This is really episode zero. If we get sponsorships from future shows, but no money specifically for the pilot, we'll re-invite the other 3 contesteants separately. Jamal admitted that 2 of them are siblings. What wasn't admitted is that the third is a Call Of Duty regular teammate. So all 3 contestants were 3 of a kind and friends with each other. Ideally, the game should be played against people every participant doesn't know. But otherwise, and a couple things that Jeremy said he could have done better if given a chance, and a bigger budget, it's a good pilot episode. It'd be interesting to see an old school gamer go up against an XBox 360 FPS master, a Wii Sports master, and a SNES/Genesis Action/adventure player for example. You can replace any specialty with any other, I'm just trying to show diversity in games.