Winners! The Iron Controller

Remember that time we offered up a ridiculous $5000 dollars in prizes thanks to Netflix and Iron Fist?

Well guess what: I have a winners list.

Want to know if you won some cash to upgrade your entertainment system? Mosey on into this post and find out.

For background, our Twine series (and therefore our competition) was split into five parts spread out across five weeks. There was a winner for each week and each winner takes home a cool $1000.

Let’s go through the winners week-by-week!

Week 1

The question:

In 500 words or less, if you could have any super power, what would it be and why?

The Winner: Rocketman

i can buy garlic bread for like $4 a loaf and a carton of coke zero for $7

im gonna be honest super powers wouldn’t improve my already perfect life.

Wait no

I want the ability to hurl 90kg over 300m

Week 2

The Question:

In 500 words or less, what’s the coldest you’ve ever been?

The Winner: bctalk

I was living in Japan, and my housemate was leaving at the end of the week. We decided to have one final adventure. We would climb Mt Fuji!

We spent the night drinking and working out how to get there, then the next morning I skipped work and we left, more than a little hungover.

We probably should have done more research. Climbing season was over and just getting to the mountain was a trek. We arrived late in the afternoon, bought novelty walking sticks and posed in the sun front of the sign that marked the first stop of the climb. It was the last photo the camera would ever take…
Again, we did very little research. Turns out we had decided to climb Mt Fuji during a forecasted typhoon!

Hours later we had climbed almost to the top, but it was pitch black and we were whipped by howling wind and rain. We managed to find one hostel/camp that was still open. We went inside, there was the owner and 3 gnarly looking Japanese climbers, with proper gear, even oxygen. We were 2 soaking wet Gaijin in cargo shorts, just happy to be alive. (Sidenote they gave us a list of 30 essentials to climb Mt Fuji. We had 8 between us!)

I needed to pee, unfortunately the bathrooms were outside and about 100 metres down the road. The owner lent me the umbrella that serviced people wanting to use the umbrella. I stepped outside. It was bad. The wind instantly tore the umbrella apart, leaving just a piece of the handle. I ran through the darkness and into the bathroom. As I reached it torrential rain began.

After using the toilet I decided to stay inside and wait out the rain. After about 5 minutes I was feeling cold. After 10, I was shivering relentlessly. After 15, I actually thought to myself if I stay here any longer I will die…

I ran back outside, nearly blown off my feet, desperate to make it back to the hostel and it’s fire. I some how reached the door and stumbles back through, but every item of clothing was soaked through. I was forced to sleep naked while my clothes dried next to the fire, but at least I would live.

We never reached the top. The next morning the mountain was evacuated, and we were led down a half flooded very steep path. I called work.

“I won’t be in again today…”

Week 3

The Question:

So, in 500 words or less, please tell me your strangest, weirdest, funniest video game controller stories.

The Winner: ramosbs

One of my favourite, most strange memories playing games as a pre-teen involved the original Halo: Combat Evolved on the original Xbox.

After days of summer holiday split-screen mayhem, we were getting a little tired of the same maps, the rocket launcher battles, the Warthog races. We first started to spice things up when we realised my mate Geoff was far too good to be playing with us – we decided he needed to try and beat us using only one hand. As expected, Geoff didn’t win any games using only one of his hands. As most things do with pre-teens, things escalated quickly. We all downgraded to one hand, primary and then secondary hands only, and then onto elbows. Before long, we were playing with feet only – keep in mind, four 12 year-old boys’ feet are not the feet you want handling those original, huge, hard-plastic nightmare controllers. The line was crossed when Geoff, intent on earning our respect back, decided he was going to try and play with his facial features only. I’ll never forget the picture of a 12 year-old friend slamming his face into a warm, dirty, smelly Xbox controller, while his three mates piss themselves on the couch next to him.

Suffice it to say, my older sister was not happy to find her favourite controller in the state it was in when she sat down to play Jet Set Radio Future that night.

Week 4

The Question:

Where’s the weirdest place you’ve played video games?

The Winner: Zetrox2k

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.

Week 5

The Question:

Tell us about the most intense 1v1 match you’ve had in all your years playing video games?

The Winner: DanMazkin

At a house party with a bunch of people I didn’t know, there was a TV with a PS2, and some guy wailing his hardest on a little plastic instrument with Guitar Hero 2. There was a group of people sitting in the room watching him in awe. Carry On My Wayward Son, classic.

“He’s the best at this, you should see him!” his friends were saying. “You play Guitar Hero don’t you?” one of my friends calls out. I try to stay modest, as I didn’t see much point in bragging about a game of hitting colours with a toy guitar. “Well let’s go head to head!” the guy says. “You pick the song”, he offers “but only on Expert”. So, Laid To Rest by Lamb Of God was my jam.

“I’ve got $10 on Dan! “$20! $30!” Wait, we’re playing for money now?! Everyone starts lumping cash into a pile. Suddenly there’s $200 sitting there, and I’m feeling some pressure. What if I lose? The song’s about to start. “Easy money!” he yells to his mates, laughing. Ok…let’s take him down.

The cash riding on the song didn’t matter after the first 2 bars, I was in the zone, my element, and Cocky-McCockFace couldn’t keep up. His song became more “chink” sounds than song, you could see the frustration on his face. While it wasn’t my mission, I managed to embarrass him in front of all of his friends. I won’t lie, it felt good.

Then, the complaints. “Nope. Bullshit! You only picked the song you were best at! Double or nothing. My pick this time!”. OK, best 2 out of 3? I couldn’t argue with that. At this stage, the amount of cash piling up was starting to get a bit stupid. Even with the confidence from my previous win, looking at that money made me shit the beginnings of a brick.

“There, good luck with this one!” He laughs, locking in his song choice.
The Beast and the Harlot – Avenged Sevenfold. I look at my friends. I try not to smile.

It was brutal. Savage. Our score stayed close for about 20 seconds, then I nailed the first Star Power, then the next, and before I knew it I was ahead of him by 100k points. I was owning it.

Then, the most glorious thing happened. He quit. Didn’t finish the song, didn’t even say a word. Just stepped back, dropped the guitar, and walked out. Of course, the entire room lost it’s shit. Some were rolling on the floor in hysterics, even the people who had just lost money were flipping out. I never thought I’d one day win the respect of a room full of people from Guitar Hero. Absolute madness. It was high-fives all around as I collected the money and divvy’d up the winnings with my friends. I never would have told them to put money on me for something like that, but I’m definitely glad they did.

Thanks to everyone who entered! Congrats to all the winners — we’ll be in touch!