XBox 360 Rally

Since myself and JW’s days at Xbox360Rally, we have been able to provide some pretty good prizes for contests and giveaways. Today I bring to you something we have had under wraps for a while now, the motherload of prizes from just two poor gamers like ourselves. Right now you are about to enter to win a raffle for:

Call of Duty 4 Collectors Edition (Xbox 360 Version)
Call of Duty 4 T-Shirt (XL, has a cool design btw)
Call of Duty 4 Hardcover Art book (sweet!)
Call of Duty 4 Official Strategy Guide

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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!)

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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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!

Some people will win copies of the game, others can have a chance to be on MTV’s TRL (omg!!1!!!). A winning band out of all the bands will actually open for a concert (a possible insult to real rockers?). You get the gist of this all, lets see the dates so you can show up with your friends/band and rock out to win some free stuff. The Rock Band tour rigs will travel to local college campuses and other locations around the country including:

Las Vegas, NV
September 9 – 16, 2007
Milwaukee, WI
September 13 – 16, 2007
Sacramento, CA
September 20 – 23, 2007
Columbus, OH
September 20 – 23, 2007
Seattle, WA
September 27 – 30, 2007
Chicago, IL
September 27 – 30, 2007
Portland, OR
October 4 – 7, 2007
Pittsburgh, PA
October 4 – 7, 2007
Oakland, CA
October 11 – 14, 2007
Cleveland, OH
October 11 – 14, 2007
San Francisco, CA
October 17 – 21, 2007
Philadelphia, PA
October 18 – 21, 2007
San Diego, CA
October 25 – 28, 2007
Baltimore, MD
October 25 – 28, 2007
Los Angeles, CA
October 31 – November 18, 2007
New York, NY
November 1 – 4, 2007
Boston, MA
November 8 – 11, 2007
New Jersey
November 15 – 18, 2007
Phoenix, AZ
November 27 – 30, 2007
Atlanta, GA
November 27 – December 2, 2007
Austin, TX
December 6 – 9, 2007
New Orleans, LA
December 6 – 9, 2007
Dallas, TX
December 13 – 16, 2007
Orlando, FL
December 13 – 16, 2007

Check Rockband.com/tour beginning September 9th for more information on dates, locations and Rock Band news. If I get my press badge in time for the Orlando show, I will definitely be attending and bringing you back some exclusive shots and interviews.

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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First, thanks for the many entries for the contest. After taking like ten minutes weeding through the entries that were valid (c’mon folks, I said you had to put your GamerTag in the post!), I was able to get them all in to a random.org list click that “Randomize” button and come up with the top 5 commenters, so in order, with their winning entry comments:
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Sega, kind enough to give us here at The Rally 5 copies of Sonic the Hedgehog on Xbox Live Arcade for you. Here is how to get it! Take Sonic and put him in another Xbox 360 game. This can be a full title or arcade game. Scour here at the Rally for screenshots, or just do a Google image search, however you want to find the screens, do it (Note: If you find an image that is watermarked, points will not be taken off). Next, take a picture of Sonic and put him in the game screenshot you just got however you see fit, add rings for bonus points. I did quick entry of my own as an example using Sonic in Crackdown, I know you can do better:

Here goes all the official mumbo jumbo:

• Image of Sonic on Image of some Xbox 360 Game (Full title or XBLA title)
• Post here in the comments with a link to your image or email myself () or JW () directly with the image.
• Include with your comment or your email with your GamerTag.

• Enter as many images as you like, however you can only win one copy. Contest will end on Monday, September 3rd at 11:59pm EST, so you have two weeks to figure something out and get it to us.

Some Helpful Tips:

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Xbox Live Arcade, home to so many arcade classics. When I think of arcade classics, I think of Golden Axe. I remember my friend getting his Genesis for Christmas and this being one of the earlier titles we used to play as much as we could. Easy enough beat em up type game play, balancing between magic and using the beasts themselves as weapons, to even fighting off little trolls/elves to get power ups, it was just plain fun. Well JW and I want you to have fun too! Thanks to Sega, The Rally has been hooked up with 5 copies of Golden Axe on the Xbox Live Arcade to give up to our readers… I’m talking about you. Since there is a couple of millions of you readers and all of you are like our children, we can’t just pick 5 favorites, so it shall be decided randomly, literally, with the help of random.org. Here is the official rules on how to qualify:

Make a comment on this page including two things:

• Why you deserve Golden Axe.
• 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 Saturday, August 25th at 11:59pm EST, so make sure to get it in before then.

That is it. I will throw all valid comments into a random list which will then pick the top 5 choices on who will receive a copy of Golden Axe. Sega has also done us a solid with some copies of Sonic on XBLA, a contest is in the works for that title, which will require MS Paint (or Photoshop) plus a little creativity, not just on detail though, we know not everyone is elite with Phothoshop, but hey, we’ll get to that later in the next day or so, but for now, leave a comment on why you are worthy of a free game, and make sure to include your GamerTag. Winners will be announced on Sunday (26th). Don’t worry about holding out for Sonic, you can enter both contests and win them both (damn we’re nice).

Random note and update: Thanks to all the people who have entered for the “Win Grand Theft Auto IV” contest we are having (link). If you haven’t heard by now, GTAIV was pushed back a bit, however, the contest is still ending October 1st. The prize of GTAIV will still be valid, unless you would like a game sooner, then we *might* possibly just let you pick another title that is available at the time.

Though labeled as episode #49.5, this is in fact their 100th episode of the show. To celebrate, through out the podcast, they have lots of guest callers in, a lot of retrospective on the show itself, as well as some thoughts on where it will be going (and how you can be a part of it all). If this is your first episode of the show, I suggest checking some older episodes to hear great interviews and good discussions on the 360 as well as gaming in general. As for now, check this episode out, there are chances to win:

• Mad Tracks for XBLA
• Def Jam ICON autographed
• T-Shirts
• Two Worlds Mini Swords
• Xbox 390 Back Sack (sounds disgusting, but I am sure this one is a good prize whatever it is)

• To find out how to get these freebies, check the link below:

  Click Here to Choose a Format to Download the Episode

The servers are melting. Paco spilled his cola on the keyboard. JW’s out back trying to wrangle the horses. In short, we’re all kinds of FUBAR, so we may not be able to update as much as we’d like today.

Sorry, peeps. We’ll be back soon.

There has been a lot of controversy regarding a recently posted rumor regarding SEGA’s possible Tokyo Game Show line-up. Now, I was originally very defensive of this piece because of who sent it in. He, a long-time go-to guy named Rob, has sent me exclusive tips for four years, and until this most recent one, they were ALL accurate.

Regardless, after the link had been posted by reader “Cedge”, I immediately contacted Rob via GoogleIM.

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