11.08.2010

The Radd's Basement Logo Museum

Now that I've completed my latest redesign, you might be thinking: "Wow, he sure does change this place a lot for a blog that nobody visits." Well my uninformed friend, a little bird (named Google Analytics) told me that more than a few people come here!  I'm currently ranked...  Well, it's higher than you might think, but to give you a frame of reference, it's less than Amazon.  And less than Google, and less than Yahoo.  Less than Microsoft, less than porn sites, less than other blogs...  Hmmm, looks like not a lot of people come here.  So I guess I change it for my own enjoyment ya jerks!

We're coming up on the 2nd anniversary of this blog, and I've changed it a lot in that time.  I thought it would be fun to look at the logos I've designed since things started (now with free bonus theme music!)




Theme song: Sega Mega CD System - We always played this music at EGM, reminds me of working there.


This is the first logo I designed when the blog started.  I remember I was sitting there with a bloody nose and drainage tubes sticking out of my nostrils from my surgery.  I was bored and had been thinking of re-starting my website for a while.  So I logged into Blogger and got to work.  This logo of course is based on the Electronic Gaming Monthly logo of the 90's using Adobe's AntiqueOlive Nord Italic font.  Simple and easy.




Theme song: Metal Gear Solid Main Theme - One of the greatest pieces of music of all time, I played this while designing this logo.


No matter how good I think my work is I eventually get tired of it.  I got to work on a new logo, and I had been playing a lot of Metal Gear Solid, so I came up with this one.  If you look hard enough you can find a font that looks like every logo in the world.  I used the most powerful tool in the world, it's called Google.  I typed "Metal Gear Solid font", and had a new logo 30 minutes later.  This logo is based on the special edition of MGS2, called Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance.




Theme song: The Hampsterdance Song - No comment.


This one...  Will take some explaining. See, sometimes I'm just bat-shit crazy.  This happens a lot around the first of April.  Every April 1st a band of rogue hamsters take over the blog and vandalize it.  I've been unable to prevent this the past two years, maybe it'll be different next year.  Anyway this logo seems to be based on the Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater logo, but made by hamsters.  This led to the creation of...




Theme Song: Snake Eater - The James Bond inspired opening track to Metal Gear Solid 3.


...a proper Metal Gear Solid 3 logo, based on the special edition of Metal Gear Solid 3, Subsistence.




Theme song: Transformers The Movie Theme - 80's cheese inspired this logo.


One of my favorites, this one took some time to get just right.  Made to look like the cardboard flap on the top of every Transformers toy box.  Made it easy to tell when I was getting Transformers as birthday and Christmas gifts, because you could always feel that flap inside the wrapping paper.




Theme song: Pac-Man Championship Edition - The thumping backbeat to the speedy sequel to Pac-Man.


And this brings us to the current incarnation, the Pac-Man logo.  One of my favorite games ever, Pac-Man just celebrated his 30th anniversary, and stands the test of time.  So what better way for me to pay tribute than to rip off his font.  For the first time I also used a matching background image for the site.  Around Halloween time the site became haunted by ghosts, and I thought a matching logo would look cool, so I hung on to it.



There was also a failed Super Mario Bros logo, but I didn't like the way it came out so I never used it and must've deleted it.  Maybe someday I'll bring it back around.  So um, there you go.

Radd's Basement - Wasting your time better than a game of Farmville.

11.02.2010

Funny story...

I got a text message from @duckhead around 10:30 PM last night:

So I call him up. Turns out he was out running, and saw an arcade cabinet in someone's garbage. Not only an arcade cabinet, but it looks like it has six buttons. It couldn't be... Could it? A Street Fighter II machine? In the garbage? It was dark and he just had a chance to do a quick inspection but it looked complete. He wondered if he should maybe grab it and bring it home before someone else comes along. I was in my Jeep and at his house within ten minutes.

We hopped in his pickup truck and drove a mile or so down the road to the house in question.  Sure enough, there's a full size arcade cabinet, with two six button joysticks.  This is too good to be true!  On closer inspection we got a good look at the marquee on top of the machine and saw this:

Yep.  This was a "Street Fighter The Movie" cabinet.  Yes, the horrible game based on the horrible 1994 feature film starring Jean Claude Van-Damme that's so horribly horrible that I act like I've never heard of it when people mention it to me.

Well, an arcade cabinet is an arcade cabinet, and this one was FREE, no matter how terrible the game inside.  So without a second thought we used our years of arcade expertise to quickly disassemble the machine and lift its heaviness into the truck bed.

On returning to his garage, we were astonished to find that the only things missing were the actual game JAMMA (who cares right?) and the monitor.  Everything else, lights, buttons, joysticks, coin mechs, power supply, and the cabinet itself are in fantastic shape. What a find!

He has plans to turn it into a Capcom Multi-CPS machine which will be pretty awesome when it's finished.  Replace the old buttons and joysticks, replace a few rusty bolts and a good dust and polish, and that machine will look brand new.  It won't be as cool as mine of course ;) but it'll be pretty damn sexy.  I'll ask him for some before and after pictures for you to check out.