XBox 360 Rally

Hi, boys and girls. It’s just me, your friendly neighborhood JW, here to remind you all that we’re currently looking for people to replace us here at Xbox 360 Rally. All you have to do is go HERE, fill out the form, and wait to hear back. It’s really not that hard.

So, get to it already — so Paco and I can get to the NEW site!

I want to give you all a heads up on a pretty f’n nice contest being put on next Sunday by our good friends at -->PlatformNation.com --> (Home to XBL Radio, The Gamers Pub, The Fanboys, and PSH Radio). The full list of prizes are:

• Halo 3 Legendary Edition
• 20 dollar MS Point Card
• 10 dollar MS Point Card
• 5 dollar MS Point Card
• Speedfreek from KontrolFreek.com
• A Xbox 360 skin from GamerGraffix.com

• You are all in luck, as the tournament will be taking place on a Sunday, a day I normally work, so I probably won’t be present, which means you have a chance of winning, as well as I have played with JW, he is a Halo 3 noob who poses no challenge to you if he gets in. Here is the official rules and all that fine print stuff that you need to know:

• To sign up add your gamertag to this thread (click the link), nothing else but your gamertag.
• The times will be Sunday nights, 6pm Pacific time, so if your unable to make it, please don’t add your name to the tournament.
• Teams of 4 people each will be chosen at random, chosen by my tournament software, not any people
• This is a single elimination tournament
• Sign up will end on the 19th
• The tournament will start on the 21st
• All the round details (who is playing who, maps and game types)will be out on the 20, you must check the forums to keep yourself updated, I don’t have the time to prep everyone every round.
  Each round will be a best out of 3
• The final two rounds will be a free for all with the top 4 advancing to the finals and then the top 4 battling it out for the grand prize.

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Folks, I don’t think you know how hard it was to find a winner for this contest. Every entry received was like a gift from God herself, yes, corny, I know, but seriously, too many entries kicked mucho ass and it took much fighting between JW and myself to pick the final winner (we do it American Gladiator giant q-tip style if you want to know…… for the younger audience, it looks like this).

As you know from JW’s recent posting, we are both out of here, but, man, we are leaving whoever comes in to fill our giant shoes (hitting G4’s The Feed giant shoes! Hitting the front pages of DESTRUCTOID, Kotaku, Joystiq, and so many other great video game blogs giant shoes!), err.. what was I saying.. oh yeah, we are leaving whoever comes in some of the coolest readers to any site I have been a part of. You know who you are you regulars that may not have always commented, but I check the stats and IPs of who visits like a weirdo (I seriously have OCD about that stuff). This contest really proved it. I can’t put up all entries for this contest (out of pure laziness I assure you), but I really wanted to show some off that made it into the final rounds of the giant q-tip competition.

Note: The following are in no actual order, just wanted to show off some of the work you guys yourself put in, don’t worry if yours isn’t shown below, it was received and treated with as *almost* as much love as the winning entry, which of course you can now see at the top of every page on the site.

(Reading this and want to get in contact with any of the artists/designers above, feel free to hit me up at ocap1 at hotmail dot com and I will get with the designer to let them know you want to give them some freelance work and/or want to know their age/sex/location for hot steamy text sex!)

In two pretty unrelated Halo 3 blips, “Chevmeister” over on the Bungie.net forums has posted downloads for all the multiplayer maps sans weapons, power ups, vehicles, etc, just a nice empty sandbox for you to fill (not sure why Forge wasn’t made like this already). Click here and start downloading those right away, awesome job to all the users that helped out with that, this should come standard with Forge and placed as part of the first update that Halo 3 will receive, but for now, at least they made it easy enough for users to share such things (possibly they can share their information with the Unreal Tournament devs).

The second part to these quick blips, Halo 3 madness has invaded even the intelligent people over at MIT, known for their pranks, have transformed a statue of John Harvard into Master Chief with his assault rifle in hand. For larger pictures with different views, click here, they made sure to get some pretty detailed shots in before the prank was taken down at the early hours of 8am where I guess only those in on the prank got to enjoy it, and of course all of us with an internet connection and a love for good old fashioned shenanigans.

[Thanks to Xbox360Fanboy for Cleared Maps info | MIT Prank info thanks to Brian over at TalkingNFL.com]
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And now, in a bit of absolutely pointless news, the achievements list for CSI: Hard Evidence has been discovered. There are, brace yourselves… five achievements.

Just five. 200 a piece, for the standard 1000 points.

The levels of epic are staggering!

[Xbox 360 Achievements]

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Ok, people, here’s the deal — Paco and I are on our way out. We’re taking over at 1PStart.com in an effort to restore it to it’s former glory. …that, and I just plain want to write about another game every once in a while, is that so wrong?!

Anyways, here is what we’re looking for: A competent, capable writer with a love for all things Xbox. Now, by competent writer, we mean someone who spells “you” correctly, and knows when to capitalize. If you can do that, you’re a shoe-in. So, CLICK THIS DAMN LINK, do the required stuff, then get paid to play video games and write about stuff.

…hell, Mike and I did the hard stuff already, and YES, the GTA4 Banner contest will continue, and I will still give you a copy of GTA IV… or something. So, hop to it.

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I swear, these Xbox 360 Achievement listing sites all sound the same. Achieve360Points, Xbox360Achievements, Xbox360Points, Judean People’s Front, People’s Front of Judea, it’s all the same! Regardless, Achieve360Points has posted the Call of Duty 4 Achievements list. There are a total of 37 for 1000 MS Points, and if you’re too lazy to click the link, read after the break for the full list.

Also interesting to note (I didn’t catch it right away) that NONE of these achievements are multiplayer. Huzzah! I [bleep]ing hate multiplayer achievements.

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I have emailed Hudson with no reply on whether this is pure lulz coming from the Dtoid guys, which though is possible, this is looking to be pretty true so far. A little background, much like sites such as Joystiq or Kotaku, Destructoid was a gaming blog, but with a little twist, they are more community driven and just a lot more fun, all while still keeping up with the video game news. Destructoid is pure indie, there is no AOL or other such “network” of sites backing them up, pure independent media. So for them to get the connections with Hudson, who is a company that would certainly have the fun enough attitude to support an indie web site that had a recognizable character that represents them (Mr Destructoid) into their game, it all does make sense.

If you see their announcement page for this news (Here) you will see the other new character models and levels that will come in the “Bomb Up Pack 2″ later this month. I have yet to get a press release for the pics of the new characters and levels, so I just await an email back from Hudson to at the least take this out of the Mill o Rumor section. No matter what, hats off from myself and JW here at Xbox360Rally.com for making it into one of the best XBLA games made (if its true!)

For now, here is the other updates that we should be seeing in the DLC pack:

* * Ten New Characters – In addition to Destructoid, other new characters include “Bomberella” the cavewoman and “El Bombito” the matador, resulting in countless new ways for players to customize their in-game Bomberman. Other characters include Alien Bomber, Bomb the Fool, Bomberbell, Flower Bomb, Debbie Downer, Bomber X, and Bomb of Doom. Check out the gallery for a first look at the other characters!

* * Two Additional Levels – New arenas include “Medieval Times,” a level in which bombs and sorcery collide and that allows players to select any gimmick they want, and “Full Tilt,” a level set at a racetrack which features speed circles that dictate how fast players move.
* * One New Game Mode – “Bomb Shelters” will allow players to hide from explosions in a small, fireproof building.
* * Two New Leaderboards – Dominate the competition on two new ranking systems on the Xbox LIVE® network. The new leaderboards will track performance on both a weekly and an all-time basis for the speed circle gimmicks on the new “Full Tilt” map.

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Xbox360Achievements has posted the complete list of achievements for the upcoming 2K Sports basketball sim NBA 2K8.There are a total of 50 achievements for 1000 points.

Most of the achievements are your typical basketball affair. Scoring 30 team assists in a single game, or having 15 team blocks will net you 20 points apiece, while achieving a certain “scoring line” (points, rebounds, assists) with a particular superstar will net you 25. (Example: Recording 35 points, 7 rebounds and 7 assists will unlock the LeBron James achievement)

One of the more interesting achievements is the “Sprite Slam Dunk”, which you unlock when you win the Sprite Slam Dunk contest with LeBron. What makes this interest is that, to my knowledge, this is the first time I’ve ever seen a sponsor for a Xbox 360 achievement. I’ve heard of them being in games in the past, but I’ve never SEEN one in a game until now. Personally, I think it’s rediculous. I’ve been one who’s been against in-game advertising for a long time, but even those who approve of such advertising have to admit that this is a bit excessive.

UPDATO MAGNIFICO
Ok, I’m an idiot — I completely forgot about Fight Night Round 3. So there’s one.

[Xbox360Achievements]

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First, thanks to all who entered! So many replies, most good reads (including my mother doing an entry it seems), but since the comments do nothing (”My eyes! The goggles, they do nothing!”), it is all up to random.org, here is the results, with the winning comments because you weird people took the time out to write this stuff (not the first guy, but you other two!):

-”Yeah, I do not think I that I deserve the beta more than anyone else. But if I did get it, I would definitely get the most I could out of it, so it would not go to waste. Only less than 2% chance so far.”



-”count me in its one of a few reasons that will get me away from my responsibility’s and kill ,kill kill,reload and kill,kill some more.I absolutely love military games and this is worth my wife bitching at me after about 6 to 8 hours of brutal assaults…..Hoorah!”



-”I deserve this because it hurts when I pee, I need some relief.”

As a bonus, I am sending all three of you friend requests (Is this really a prize), catch me online and we’ll play some Beta and I’ll catch you up on some tips and strategies (more likely though you can help me because I wouldn’t call myself the best). Hey, are you already in the Beta?, leave comments on things you like and don’t like about the game so far, any comments you want on it, and who knows, we here at the Rally may just take those questions/concerns/etc to Infinity Ward themselves.

Thanks for playing folks, sorry we didn’t have a couple of thousands of invite codes to give away (ala GameSpot.. those bastards!), but we do what we can to get some free swag to you!

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Quick update: Contest got put out at just the wrong time, but now its a little better. Who knew the day I started this Call of Duty 4 Beta Invite contest that all of a sudden Eurogamer AND GameSpot would copy our give-away and offer a crapload more invites. Rest assured, they are on our shit list. Well, the contest is still on, and as an added bonus, it is now 3 people who can win a code. Either way, if you get a code from elsewhere, go ahead and enter here too and find a friend to give the code to!

The Call of Duty 4 Multiplayer Invite only Beta. Didn’t get in?! Here is your chance. I received a copy of an invite myself just recently (Thanks EternalDarkWing of DESTRUCTOID), thing is, I had already been invited and have been enjoying the Beta for a while now, and it seems since our janitor JW doesn’t have a working 360 at the moment (DAMN YOU RED RINGS!), he is willing to give up his code as well on top of me giving up mine (I think it is safe to say our spots in heaven are reserved). We want to make this as quickly and painless as possible. Now, since the word on the street is they are going to cut the Beta till the 30th of this month (though nothing is confirmed), this contest is going to be a quick one to make sure you can get to playing as soon as possible so you can start leveling up! Without further adieu, the official rules on how to win one of the two beta codes we have:

Make a comment on this page including two things:

• Why you deserve to be in the beta.
• Your Xbox Live GamerTag.

• Make sure the email contact you are required to put in to leave a comment, is a valid address. Contest will end on Friday, September 14th at 11:59pm EST, so make sure to get your comment in before then.

Exactly like how the Golden Axe contest went, all entries will be thrown into a random.org list and the top 2 choices get to start kicking ass in the most played demo/beta out right now (you know you have someone on your friends list playing!) That’s it! That is all it takes, stop waiting, make a comment and just make sure your valid GamerTag is in there too!

Half-Life 2 is one of the grestest FPS titles to ever grace the PC. So great, in fact, that to this day Gordon Freeman will still take you out back and own you with his crowbar. It has spawned one of the most popular online games in existance in Counter-Strike: Source, and (to my knowledge) is the #1 downloaded game on all of Steam.

So, when news came that Half-Life was coming to the Xbox 360 with the Half-Life 2: The Orange Box, there was much rejoicing. Lord knows that, with the looooooong awaited Team Fortress 2, TOB will surely be a seller. But, if the idea of playing through one of the best stories ever written isn’t enough for you to keep coming back for more, how about this little fact:

There are going to be 99 achievements to unlock.

…yeah, 99. That’s what we, in Flint, call a “shitload”. That averages out to ten points per achievement, and should have you coming back for more, and more, and more.

[Achieve360Points]

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UPDATE: DEAL IS DONE!!
They literally sold out! That is how good of a deal this was.

Prey is $11.99 right now. You MUST buy it, right now. Non-used games of this high caliber do not get cheaper. If you really need to think twice, quickly download the demo available on the Live Marketplace, and you will be sold. You will be wanting to give 2K five extra bucks for making this deal too cheap. IGN gave it a 9, GamePro gave it a 4.75 (out of 5), even the touchy GameFaqs reviewers all seem to lean toward the positive . Amazon’s deals of the day are so-so sometimes, this is not one of those times, this is a must buy if you like first person shooters at all, also one of, if not the cheapest deal I have seen on a brand new product (especially of this quality).

CLICK HERE AND GET ON IT NOW!

When we announced the Sonic photoshop contest, I honestly didn’t expect to get some of the quality work from you guys that we received. Believe me, picking just 5 winners was hard, very hard. So below are not only the 5 winners, but also some bonus pictures that were near winners and deserve to be seen, they were quite amusing. Lets get this started.

First Place: Loved this piece, you got the gold Sonic turning into the blue Sonic right when PacMan bit the pill, so simple, yet executed well, congrats!

Second Place:Loved the detail’s of the cars hitting in the background shooting off the coins, quality on this was top notch. Click on the pic below to experience in its full size.

Third Place: I was surprised at not more Gears of War ones, but its okay, because this entry saved the day by not only being nice quality, but brought teh funny. Click on the pic below to experience in full size.

Fourth Place: Simple idea, pulled off perfectly, got a giggle out of me, and the caption helped a lot with the sarcasm, nice job for an underrated game (Dead Rising folks!)

Fifth Place (A TIE!!!): How can there be a tie you say, well, it is because h00d00 entered a million times! For the most part his were all top quality too. In fact I couldn’t just pick one of his entries as the top five, so I went ahead and gave up two spots for him (don’t worry, he is still only getting one copy of Sonic). Now this first one just was such an obvious choice to have as an entry, c’mon, Sonic, in a race, basic, yet perfect. Click on the picture to enlarge to full size)

h00d00’s second entry came close to home with me, because it touched on an issue I remember covering not too long ago, about the XBLA game Durandal and people getting motion sickness (link)

So there are the five (and a half) winners! Hope you agreed, if not, drop a comment. I also want to leave you with some of the ones that didn’t get to the top five, but damn, they are well worth a mention and a view:

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Last week sometime while on Bomberman Live, I got the dreaded red rings. Inconceivable I thought, I mean, I just got a nice “new” refurbished machine no more than a couple of months ago. Before that, I was running on my launch console for years. Well, I shut down the machine and turned it back on ten minutes later with no problems since then.

Forward to this week, my Bioshock pre-order arrived, woohoo, game of the century and all that, I turn it on, I play for hours and hours. The next day, I play some more hours… then… it happened.. RED RINGS! I couldn’t believe it. I tried using that new service.xbox.com page Microsoft set up, it gave me errors. I didn’t want to towel trick just yet, because the 360 does work if I let it cool off, so screw it, whatever, I just waited to give a call as soon as I woke up (which was roughly an hour ago).

Spoke to my fine Indian friend at the Microsoft call center, I always have found them pleasant even though the whole situation is a hassle to have to make the call in the first place. As I was on the phone, memories of a gamer getting a free game out of Microsoft came to mind for having to get a third 360 because of the red rings (Note: I can’t find the link to that guy’s account, but when I do I will update this post so you see how he did it too). Either way, the long and short of the conversation was:

Me: Hey, I run an Xbox web site, this is now my second time having to get a refurbished machine, and I have only had this for a couple of months now, is there anything you can offer me, a controller, a free game, something, to make sure that I do not have to give Microsoft bad press over this issue.

Them: Hold on, let me check on that *puts me on hold*

*comes back* I have Kameo, Xbox Live Arcade Unplugged, Project Gotham Racing 3, and Viva Pinata which I can offer you.

Bam! So not only do they send me an extra 1 month of Xbox Live Card (if you have got a refurbished machine, you know this is what you get already), but now a free game. I highly highly suggest doing this yourself I am having no hopes of getting an HDMI machine, but I the free game is making me feel all happy. Now, if problems arise before I get my coffin, I will in fact just towel trick till I get the box to ship my 360 in.

There you go, get the red rings, get a free game, here is the cliff notes to do it yourself:

• Call 1-800-4MY-XBOX (Screw services.xbox.com)
• Say this is not the first time this has happened and you run a web site and will give bad press, tell them “What can you offer me!?” (be polite)
• Pick a game, say thank you.
• Now, just play the waiting game.

• “Ah, the waiting game sucks. Let’s play Hungry-Hungry-Hippos!’” - Homer J Simpson

  UPDATO MAGNIFICO:
  September 4th, and I have already received my copy of Viva Pinata! I thought it would be inside the box or something, awesome job Microsoft! (I guess it would be more so awesome if the machine never broke in the first place, but they admit their mistakes and are definitely fixing it!)