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Archive for April, 2007

65nm Xbox 360 coming this fall

Monday, April 30th, 2007

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If you are unaware of what exactly this means, I shall try my best to explain. A 65 nanometer processor is the most advanced lithographic node that’s used in CMOS semiconductor fabrication… ok, that doesn’t help none. Ok, ok… look at the processor inside your computer. Odds are, that’s 65nm. K? Did that make sense? …no? …shit. I’m just going to move on with the article, and if you don’t know what I’m getting at… sorry.

Either way, Microsoft will be switching over from the 90nm to 65nm by the fall, because (in part, anyways) the smaller and cooler chip will allow Microsoft to redesign the guts of the machine, making it cheaper to mass produce. What this means is before too long (a little more than a year, I suspect), we could be seeing Microsoft cutting the prices on the 360. But not for a while yet. It’s enough for me to want to hold off on getting the Elite until the fall or winter, when the new processor is implemented into the console design. After all, it could mean the difference between lasting six months, and six years.

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Burnout Paradise sure is purdy

Monday, April 30th, 2007

There she is, the trailer to the fifth entry in the always-quality Burnout series, Burnout Paradise. All you have to do is look at that teaser trailer to see that the game is simply downright gorgeous. Outside the fact that the game is due for release sometime this winter, there really is no real knowledge of the game. But… we do have a quote.

“We have been working towards Burnout Paradise for quite some time. Next generation consoles have opened up a raft of new gameplay opportunities and the Criterion team has leapt at the chance to innovate and raise the bar to an all-new high. There are going to be some big surprises and a lot of new features but the core of the game is still pure Burnout. Instant accessibility will be reinforced by innovative on-line capabilities which will see Burnout Paradise smash racing conventions.”

That was a quote from Peter Hawley, Executive Producer of Burnout Paradise. In short — just ’cause it looks new, doesn’t make it new. Which in this case, is a good thing.

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We have a winner!

Monday, April 30th, 2007

Ok, for the past week or so, X360R has been trying to get rid of a copy of Crackdown. We call it a “contest” and the rules of it were fairly simple: Post your e-mail address.

…how did so many of you [censored] that up? Half of you… HALF OF YOU… didn’t post your damn e-mail, thus DQing you from the contest. A shame because three of you would’ve won, before I finally DID get a winner who followed the bloody rules.

PacoDG, you are the winner, congratulations.

Now, I doubt this’ll be the last contest we have here at the Rally. There are unconfirmed reports that we may have a copy of the Halo 3 Legendary Edition up for grabs sometime near the end of the year. They’re unconfirmed reports at this point because I haven’t paid it off at EB yet. Once it is, though… it shall be confirmed. Either way, next time there’s a contest, please, please, PLEASE… follow the damn rules!

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Monster Madness Delayed

Sunday, April 29th, 2007

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Monster Madness: Battle for Suburbia has been delayed a whole two weeks, being pushed back from May 16th to May 29th. While the announcement is not yet official, word of it broke on GamingTalkHQ when a representative of SouthPeak Games, the developer behind Monster Madness, confirmed the delay along with confirming that they are working on a patch to fix the connectivity problems with the Xbox Live demo.

I’m sure this is just heartbreaking news for about twelve of you. For the rest of us, we’ll just wait the two weeks, and then give the game it’s fifteen minutes in the limelight before we move on.

[GamingTalkHQ]

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t3h w31rd: April 29th, 2007

Sunday, April 29th, 2007

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People, this is a very special edition of t3h w31rd for you all this week. You see, there wasn’t too much “weird” stuff in the world of gaming this week, so rather than just skipping the segment I’ve decided to highlight some of the more interesting things I’ve found in my travels to find for you the truly stupid. I guess you could call it “t3h f4sc1n4t1ng”, but come on, that’d be silly.

So without further adieu, I present to you “t3h w31rd”.

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Call of Duty 4 Trailer

Saturday, April 28th, 2007

…looks amazing, doesn’t it? Yeah, well… too bad we’re not getting it on the 360. As of right now, Call of Duty 4 is slated as a PC exclusive due for release sometime this fall.

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Sneak Peek: Gears of War Movie Script!

Saturday, April 28th, 2007

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Who here likes Gears of War? Come on, be honest. We all like Gears of War. And when we heard there was going to be a Gears of War movie, we were all as giddy as twelve-year-olds at a Power Rangers reunion stage show. Well, prepare to whet your appetite further, for film site LatinoReview.com has gotten their hands on the exclusive Gears of War script!

Sure, it’s only an early 22-page rough draft of a script that will ultimately be fleshed out to well over 100-pages, but the read is still pretty damn awesome, and paints an image in your head that is nothing short of awesome. It’s obvious to see why Stuart Beattie, who’s credits include Pirates of the Carribean: Curse of the Black Pearl, and my all-time favorite Tom Cruise movie, Collateral, was picked to pen the screenplay.

Now, if we could just get our hands on the Max Payne screenplay…

[LatinoReview]

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Lots of Halo 2, Halo 3 News

Saturday, April 28th, 2007

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The latest one of Bungie’s weekly updates has gone up on their site, and this one isn’t short on the info regarding both Halo 2, and Halo 3. That image you see above this being amongst that info, but I’ll get to that in a minute. But first, let’s get the Halo 2 news out of the way so we can get to the meat and ‘taters that is Halo 3.

Basically, because so many people are having problems downloading “Blastacular”, the new Halo 2 map, they’ve pushed back the ranking reset and the new matchmaking options until next week.

…there’s your Halo 2 news. Now, ON TO HALO 3!

First thing first — the internal Beta Testing at Microsoft is to determine the scaling for Halo 3, or in simple man speak, they want to make sure Halo 3 runs well with a lot of people on it. While they are testing to make sure Halo 3 is scaled properly for a large user base, don’t go thinking that this somehow confirms the absurdly wild rumors of 128-player matches. In short, games are still 16-on-16. Period. End of line.

Now, you may be wondering what exactly they’re doing with the Beta that’s taking so long. Well, to answer that, they’re testing a new feature. What new feature, you ask? Why, “Saved Films”, of course! That’s right, people. You’re gonna be able to save game footage of your awesome escapades. I don’t think this’ll effect the gameplay much (unless you find the one Speilberg-wanna be bastard on the server), but it sounds like a pretty fun addition.

Now to the Public Beta. Since Bungie is testing their new matchmaker, you won’t be able to have all the control over a custom match as you’re used to. Boo hoo. But they promise that your favorite game type, whatever it may be, will be in the Beta in one form or another. Which is good for people who like variety, unlike me who usually just gets down in Capture the Flag.

There’s also split-screen, so you and a friend who was not fortunate enough to cough up the money for Crackdown (which we’re giving away for FREE, I might add) can throw down against each other. One of the cool features they’re wanting to show off involves you lucky schmucks with HDTVs. Instead of the image being stretched to fill the screen either vertically or horizontally, they’ve gone and windowed the action, thus giving both of you a smaller, but more clear and proportionate image to focus on, instead of some horribly stretched view.

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There’s the controller layout. Shut up about it.

What else, what else… um, a couple of updates on maps that they don’t name (outside the code-name “Jub-Jub) that let us know they’re coming along smashingly, and… oh, yeah, the picture.

That picture you see in the banner, which you can see in full resolution HERE (I warn you, it’s freakin’ big), is from their new line of marketing called “Emotion”. Simple. True. Powerful… and it makes me want my girlfriend to dress up as Cortana only that much more. But that’s neither here or there.

So there you go, the Bungie weekly update rolled up into one slightly-shorter package. Enjoy.

[Bungie]

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Saints Row, LEGO Star Wars II, now Platinum Hits

Friday, April 27th, 2007

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I really don’t have to add any bit of information. I mean, sometimes a picture just speaks for it’s effin’ self, right? Well, this is one of those times. I didn’t originally catch it when I deleted the newsletter (whoops?), but when I went to look for something else I accidentally sent to the good ol’ recycle bin inside Thunderbird, I saw it, read it, and found the above image.

Saints Row, and LEGO Star Wars II are now both available for the low, low price of $29.99. If you haven’t picked either of them up yet… well, you fail. But now you have a chance to redeem yourself. So buy them NOW!

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360 Losses Shrink!

Friday, April 27th, 2007

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…it’s not often I get to break out the Sales Figures banner, but I digress…

Microsoft has reported it’s quarterly earnings, and their Entertainment Division has marked up a loss of $315 Million dollars, which actually is a marked improvement over last year at this time, where they lost $415 Million. They explain this impressive slash in losses like so:

EDD operating loss decreased during the three months ended March 31, 2007 primarily due to decreased products costs from lower sales of Xbox 360 consoles and increased Mobile and Embedded Devices revenue, partially offset by expenses related to the launch of Zune and increased Xbox 360 console warranty expenses. EDD operating loss decreased during the nine months ended March 31, 2007 primarily due to increased Xbox 360 platform sales and improved Xbox 360 console margins, partially offset by expenses related to the launch of Zune and increased Xbox 360 console warranty expenses.

Now unfortunately, my bleeding fanboy heart has to acknowledge that while Microsoft is losing less money with the 360, they’re also not selling (or shipping, for that matter) as many consoles as they were just a few months ago. But, considering that they’ve already sold (at least) 10.5 million units, their goal of reaching twelve million by this June, while a long shot, is hardly impossible.

The next quarter should see improved sales of Microsoft’s gaming console. Between their supply of consoles Microsoft has already produced that are just sitting in their stock rooms, as well as a summer line-up that is looking to be top-knotch, we could see Microsoft’s deficit continue to shrink.

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Mill o’ Rumour: Crimson Skies 3… er, 2?

Thursday, April 26th, 2007

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The Mill o’ Rumour is churning yet again, folks. With what? Word that Crimson Skies 2, which is actually the third game in the series, is in development as we speak, and can be expected around the Holiday season, 2008. God I hope this is true. Between a new Crimson Skies game, and Star Trek XI, I would be in heaven. But I digress.

This rumor has been gaining steam thanks to a poster over at the GameFaqs message board by the name of Xanatos11. I guess the other ten were destroyed by the T-800, or something. Either way, Xanatos11 posted the following, taken from the most recent issue of OXM magazine:

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New Marvel: Ultimate Alliance content on the Marketplace

Thursday, April 26th, 2007

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Major Nelson brought a bit of sunshine into our dark world today, when he announced on his blog that the new Hero and Villain packs for Marvel Ultimate Alliance are, at last, on the marketplace. Individually, each set runs for 500 MS Points, but combined they only cost you 800 MS. And if you don’t already know, here’s what you get with the two packs:

Heroes (seen above):

Nightcrawler
Hawkeye
The Incredible Hulk
Cyclops

Villains:

Dr. Doom (WTF?)
Sabertooth
Magneto
Venom

If you haven’t picked up MUA yet, but plan to in the near future — hold off a month. By the end of May, a new version of MUA is due out that will have the four characters boxed with it — not to mention new achievements for all you point whores out there.

[Major Nelson]

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Sneak Peek at Crackdown DL

Wednesday, April 25th, 2007

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Look at that screenshot right there. Yeah, pretty, isn’t it? Well, that’s a screenshot a developer posted of the upcoming Crackdown download that will be soon available on Xbox Live. This screenshot implies that, at the very least, the download will give us a new vehicle, and at most, a whole new type of gameplay to add a little longevity to the impressively popular title.

By the way, if you haven’t picked up Crackdown, you still have time to enter our contest for a free copy! Do it! NOW!

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Mill o’ Rumour: KotOR MMO?

Wednesday, April 25th, 2007

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Electronic Gaming Monthly, who used to be journalists, is now reporting that BioWare has formed a new team to develop a new Knights of the Old Republic game. One problem, apparently it’s not KotOR 3.

EGM has reported that BioWare has formed a team of Super friends to develop a Massively Multiplayer KotOR. This is a bad idea, plain and simple. The MMO market is already overly saturated with games piled upon games. Guild Wars, WoW, Everquest & Everquest 2, Dark Age of Camelot, City of Heroes/Villians, The Matrix Online (more or less), Second Life, not to mention that there already IS a Star Wars MMO, Star Wars Galaxies.

Now, unless LucasArts is willing to slap SOE in the face by letting someone else develop a new Star Wars MMO, I don’t see this happening, even though I am sure BioWare WOULD make a great MMO. For now, in any case, I hope it’s not true. I just want there to be a KotOR 3 to tie up the story, and then… go nuts with it. I’d love to play a KotOR MMO, but for now just give me the final entry in the Trilogy, K?

[CVG, Again]

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Last Call for Crackdown!

Wednesday, April 25th, 2007

Ok, people. I’m going to make this as clear as I can, ok?

Click here!

Enter yourself to win a free copy of Crackdown and rejoice. The entry for the contest ends on Sunday, and it’s at that time that I, through an intricate series of rolls involving a 100, 20, 12, 10, 8, 6, and 4-side die, will determine who is, in fact, the victor. It’s at that time I’ll e-mail you and go “Hey dickweed, you won.” Or something to that effect. You’ll send me your address, and 451 Press will send you YOUR copy of Crackdown!

So quit beatin’ ’round the damn bush and enter. Jabroni.

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