When we last left The Iron Controller things were getting complicated. Mark was deep in training, while Alex was scheming, bending Kotaku Australia to his own, insane will.
Today, in chapter 4, Mark will finally unlock the true secrets of The Iron Controller. And prepare for the ULTIMATE BATTLE.
Kotaku’s Iron Controller series is brought to you by Netflix and Marvel’s Iron Fist. Danny Rand is an orphan, Monk, billionaire and living weapon. After a 15 year absence he returns to NYC to reclaim his family legacy. Marvel’s Iron Fist premieres March 17th only on Netflix.
Oh and you can also win $1000, but more on that after Chapter 4 of… The Iron Controller!
The Competition
Hey, want to win $1000 to spend on your entertainment unit courtesy of Netflix and Iron Fist. Yes, of course you do. And entering couldn’t be easier.
All you have to do is answer the following question in 500 words or less…
Where’s the weirdest place you’ve played video games?
Drop your answers in the comments below.
Terms and conditions can be found here.
What to jump to the final chapter? Here you go!
[referenced url=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/2017/04/win-1000-in-the-final-chapter-of-the-iron-controller/” thumb=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2017/04/ironc_5e-410×231.jpg” title=”Win $1000 In The Final Chapter Of… The Iron Controller” excerpt=”It has finally come to this. The ultimate showdown. Mark versus Alex.
Who will prevail?
(It’s also your last chance to win cash-money to upgrade your home entertainment. There’s also that.)”]
Comments
14 responses to “Chapter 4 Of The Iron Controller (And Win $1000!)”
Department Store toilets.
What?
I was Streetpassing……
Not necessarily weird, but pretty normal by our tastes…
we went camping once to Eden NSW (about 6-7 Hours away from Melb). There were 8 of us, so we ended up taking four cars. Basically each car had two people carrying 2 x CRT TV’s. We setup 4 tents, each tent had 2 people, 2 xboxes and two CRT’s… it was basically two weeks of HALO 2 in a fishing town, with LAN cables running from each tent to a switch located in the bigger tent.
we got pretty paranoid about leaving our stuff there, but it was in a caravan park, and we got to know the guys camping around us who were usually hanging around there. we even bought the security guard a slab of VB and he was stoked, so he did extra laps around our grounds when we went out.
Possibly the weirdest place I have played video games, would have been when I was in Tokyo. Not far from my hotel, there was a small arcade in the basement of a building, underneath a ramen bar. Now that in itself might not sound so weird, but for some reason (which I never found the answer to) this arcade was a hot spot for gay/crossdressing cosplayers. Didn’t matter what time of day or night I went there, there were always a group of guys huddled around a game, wearing either furry costumes, or some manner of girly attire. (Often the typical girl’s school uniform kind of thing) but occasionally, I’d see someone come in wearing a more ‘superhero’ kind of outfit, like full body armour, with plumped up breasts almost busting out of the top of their suit. Thankfully I only got hit on once when I was there, otherwise I may have stopped going (not that I’m afraid of them, rather I just prefer to avoid being hit on if it’s a constant thing.) Given they didn’t bother me or my friend much though, we went almost every day, as not only were the games cheap, they also had cheap huge cans of softdrink, and you were allowed to smoke in there too!
I’ve mentioned to my wife that if her labour takes an abnormally long time for our next child that I’ll play my 3DS in the delivery ward while I’m waiting. I don’t think I’d follow through with that though or I might find my 3DS crammed into an orifice in my body that’s not designed to fit that shape.
So I suppose the weirdest place that I’ve actually played a video game might have been at a school sports carnival back in high school. That in itself isn’t that weird of course, many students not interested in competing in athletics often played Gameboys and stuff, but what made it weird for me is at the time, I didn’t have a Gameboy, I had an Atari Lynx. That system was great, but what it was not great at was playing outside in the sunlight, due to its backlit screen you couldn’t turn off. So there I was, constantly trying to find some shade, maybe a big tree or a covered area near the canteen and toilets – any kind of darker areas of this huge athletics park, to play my Lynx. Of course, the 6 AA batteries the device required barely lasted 2 hours so I carried a spare set of rechargeables around with me.
I’ve also played video games while on a boat in the open ocean – supposed to be fishing for bait for game fish, but I got a bit bored of that so whipped out my Gameboy (I did have one by this time!) and started playing.
In a retirement village! I was actually living there for a short amount of time, which is weird because i was 19. I was up playing video games all night with headphones plugged in, and living the dream. At about 2am I heard a massive bang bang bang. Someone hitting the window, turns out I did not have my headphones plugged in, just sitting on my head. And the sound was just turned up really loud on the speakers.
Woops
On the top floor of Myer in the city.
Videogames, in a Myer store? Utter madness 😛
(also it later turned out that one of my best friends I’d made a year or two later was actually at that tournament and in a bunch of the photos, that was kinda cool)
Halfway through a 2 day plane journey I arrived exhausted for my changeover at the stinking hot Abu Dhabi airport only to find about 3000 other travellers and 4 seats…
The only clear space was next to the bins, there hot fetid stench strong in the air. I curled up next to them and played Pokemon Pearl until I fell asleep.
Did I miss the announcements for all the previous winners?
The weirdest place I have played video games would have to be at St. George Hospital, Kogarah, last year. My grandfather was seriously ill and I had been visiting him for consecutive days and it was getting all a bit too depressing and hard to take. So I pulled out my iPhone and began playing ‘Worms 3’. Playing definitely helped ease my nerves, but my family didn’t take too kindly to my actions because they thought it was disrespectful. Everyone was making a fuss so word reached my granddad, who got everyone’s attention. He said he didn’t want to see a fight over such a trivial matter. He called me to sit beside him and show him the game. He watched me play and appeared pleasantly bemused by the game’s sounds and animation. He even threw in a few wise guy jokes about my generation’s immaturity and how modern entertainment is really scraping the bottom of the barrel. Seeing him in a happy state calmed everyone down. He passed away two days later, and I like to think I helped him go a little more peacefully.
Weirdest place that i have played video games is the bath. With the advent of wireless controllers one can sit in a nice soothing bath and play as long as you can see the tv from the bath in the other room. Recently i bought wireless headphones as well so i can now also hear clear as day!
In the depths of a University laboratory, waiting for a machine to process human bone.
Does this need more context? OK.
I wrote my thesis on Atomic Force Microscopy of human bone. An AFM requires stability, as it’s sensitive to vibration, so the lab for it at the uni I went to is down in a basement room, embedded in the rock. For hours during my honours year, I’d go to use this machine, waiting for it to image my pre-prepared samples and spit answers back. I’d sit there with my PSP, playing Lumines and waiting for the machine to process everything.
The field of science is fascinating; the process itself sometimes requires just killing time.
In the rafters of my old home…
So my dad was heavily Anti video game back when i was a kid, but i always wanted a gameboy from the moment i saw one, against my dads wishes my Grandmother bought me a game boy in 1992 along with Metroid 2 and Probotector.
We lived in a workshop/Shed that had been converted into a house and Due to how over reactive my father is about things he hates i hid the gameboy on a wood pallet that i hauled up into the rafters and tied off about 8 meters from the ground and used to have to sit up there and play it so that i didn’t get busted.
I actually have incredibly fond memories of beating Metroid 2 while up there and almost falling off due to my excitement 😀
Where’s the weirdest place you’ve played video games?
I was 6 years old when the GameBoy Pocket came out, which my eldest brother got for his birthday. As the GB was his, I spent most of my time watching him play, and when I managed to find it unused, my parents would confiscate it from me.
In my 6-year-old wisdom, one day I found it lying on my brother’s bed, took it and hid it in my jacket, and went to find somewhere private to play it. At that time, I had a strange, clear plastic umbrella which was very deep (comes down really far around you), and so I took it and ran down our battleaxe driveway in the rain.
Being a young boy, I sat down on the pavement at the end of the driveway, pulled the umbrella down over me like a dome, and had the BEST Pokemon Blue session of my life. I’m pretty sure I caught my first Sandshrew (my favourite Pokemon) that day.
It was monsoon season as our small tourist boat cut through the calm brown of the Mekong Delta, Vietnam. Our destination was a lovely picnic spot where our guide had prepared a small BBQ and supplies for a delicious local lunch. However, as sudden as the change of wind, the sky began to blacken overhead. Our guide, Thuy, remained calm; however you could see the look of consternation on his face.
As white lights began to illuminate the swelling black mass, echoed by the ominous rumble of thunder, we knew we would never make to our destination. Thuy took a hard starboard and led us down an unassuming estuary. His English was excellent, but given the pressing anxiety of the situation all he could say was “trust me, I know a place.”
We pulled into a small riverside village just as lashings of rain began to whip across the canopy of the boat. Locals rushed out with umbrellas and ushered us into a large thatch-roof pavilion. It was a farming village, where the locals harvested sugar cane and rendered it down into delicious soft, chewy candy.
They couldn’t have been more friendly or accommodating. As the torrential rain began to cascade down in earnest, the young men of the village brought out braziers of hot coals as the women prepared delicious sole fish to be smoke over the coals. In the corner and old man played a haunting tune on a three-stringed bow.
After an hour people were getting restless, a common symptom of monsoon season, Thuy told us. I decided to take this chance to explore the village. Most of the buildings had a very open feel, with most of the living quarters only having three out of four walls. It was in one such place that I spotted to young children with an old analogue TV.
They had a Super-Famicon, the Asia-only release of the SNES and they were playing Donkey Kong Country. I quietly sat beside them and watched as they struggled with the final mine-cart level. After a few more rounds of frustration, one of the kids handed me the familiar rounded controller. I grinned as I moved Donkey and Diddy up to the edge of a platform. They both seemed to object as I willingly leapt of the edge, however a look of excitement light up their faces as they realised I had jumped into a secret barrel!
One bonus stage and a boss fight later and we were on to the final world. We played for a few more hours, the kids watching with great delight as I thwarted King K. Rool on my first attempt. When they rain finally let up I thanked them for the strange yet warming encounter. It was all in all a remarkable day.