XBox 360 Rally

Microsoft and Namco have announced today that they are bringing the first ever PacMan Championships to the Xbox 360… sponsored by Quiznos. No clue why it’s sponsored by Quiznos, but it’s sponsored by Quiznos.

The creator of PacMan, Toru Iwatani, had this to say about the partnership.

“NAMCO BANDAI Games and I are proud to partner with Microsoft on the Xbox 360 Pac-Man World Championship, which celebrates how popular Pac-Man remains to this day. The success of Pac-Man stems from its fun gameplay and host of characters that have been enjoyed by families for generations. It will be exciting to see Pac-Man fans from around the world compete on Xbox LIVE Arcade to become the first-ever Pac-Man World Champion.”

The competition will boil down to ten finalists, including nine from the following nations: Asia, Australia/New Zealand (since apparently they’re both now one supernation), Canada, Japan, Mexico and the US and Europe will each have two finalists. The final entrant, dubbed the “wild card” will be a fan from either the US or Canada that can best show why they are indeed the ultimate PacMan fan.

The winner of this competition will receive, no joke, twenty-six years of free Quiznos subs (one sandwich per week, ever week, for twenty-six years), 100,000 MSPoints, and a customized PacMan Xbox 360. Everyone else gets hosed.

For a complete list of qualifying nations, as well as list of criteria you have to meet in each nation, go to THIS link.

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That’s the question posed by Microsoft to you, my friends — is your mom a gamer? I know my mom is… kind of. My ma has always firmly supported my gamer lifestyle, and she has a perfect record in Dead or Alive 4 (she’s 34-0).

Now, you may be curious as to why Microsoft would be curious about your mother (hehe), so let me explain. Microsoft is holding a contest and are asking you all to tell them why your mother owns. The grand prize? An Xbox 360 Elite, and $100 for “flowers.” Knowing how gamers are, most of us would probably wind up spending between $20-$40 on games, and the other $60 on games.

So go to the link above, and write to Microsoft telling why your mother is a gamer. The winner will get the grand prize, the rest will be thoroughly embarassed. Like me.

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[Imagine a really cool picture up here, because I refuse to put Mark Wahlberg's mug on my site]

Paramount Pictures (my personal favorite film company, so long as they keep pumpin’ out the Trek) and Eyespot today have announced a new contest revolving around the new Mark Wahlberg flop-in-the-making, Shooter. Here’s how it works:

You go to THIS page and register. Once that’s done, there are a bunch of film and audio clips that are available for you to mix and match, and turn into a theatrical trailer for the film. You still follow? Awesome. Once your trailer is submitted, the people will have the chance to vote for their favorite one. The winner wins the grand ol’ prize, which is: An Xbox 360, Gears of War, Call of Duty 3 and Rainbow Six: Vegas.

Get it? The Xbox 360’s best SHOOTERS, for a movie called SHOOTER?! BAH HAHAHAHAHAHA–ok, get to editing.

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If you’ve bought Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2, you may have noticed that when you last played the game you got an auto-update notice. Now, right away you may not have noticed exactly what this update did, but after closer inspection, it’s actually done a good little bit to enhance your gameplay experience, including some cross-promotional items, and a new map.

Read after the break to find out how to unlock these new items. Also learn when you can play against the developers, and get your asses kicked by the Frag Dolls.
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Microsoft came out swinging already today, with announcements of a 512MB Memory Unit, as well as bumping up the file size of their file limit on XBLA to 150MB. You’d think that would be enough, right? Well, if you did think that, then Microsoft wants you to know that you fail at life.

If you don’t know what XNA is, I’ll sum it up for you: A Freeware version of an Xbox Development Kit. Follow? Good. If you’re good at XNA, or just need a kick in the pants to create your dream game, this is it. Microsoft today has announced that they will be holding a contest for all you aspiring designers out there. The grand prize?

A cool $10,000 in cash and a spot for your game amongst the elite of the Xbox Live Arcade family. To put it in mob terms, your game gets “made.” Exciting, isn’t it? The contest, called “Dream-Build-Play” will run from now until a winner is chosen in August, on the one-year anniversary of the program’s release.

…that’s it, really. So get to developin’, and whatnot.

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Remember when I brought up the story of the Hollywood Arts honoring Tommy Tallarico, and having an auction where one of the prizes was a cameo in Halo 3? Well, the auction is now underway over at eBay, but something struck me as most peculiar in the description:

The ultimate coolness…your voice, as a character, in one the most played video games ever…imagine it!! Be a part of history!

Voiceover will be recorded at Blindlight Studios in Hollywood, CA before May 15, 2007 or this package will have to redeemed for Halo 4. Winner is responsible for transportation and accommodations to and from Hollywood, CA.

…huh? So, what is being said here is that, if the winner doesn’t get out to California by 15 May 2007 (Sorry, that’s how we write it in the Army) the winner gets a copy of Halo 4?

Either someone doesn’t know how to use the numeric pad on the right side of the keyboard (because a slipped finger would make it “Halo [Enter]” instead of “Halo 4″ or somebody just let a BIG secret slip. Either way, as of when this was written, it hasn’t been corrected. So keep your eyes open.

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Peugeot, the Italian Automotive Company that co-sponsored a contest with Microsoft Game Studios today announced the winner to their “design a car” contest. For a brief recap, Peugeot and MGS held a contest in which you were to design concept cars for an “upcoming Microsoft Game Studios racer” which, as we all figured out in about five minutes, would be Project Gotham Racer 4. Well now we have a winner, and that winner (seen above) is… “Flux.”

The winner, who would also have his concept car appear in full-scale model form at the Frankfurt Auto Show (Yeah, I never heard of it, either) was a one Mihai Panaitescu. When asked how he named his concept car, he was quoted as saying:

The name Flux was inspired by the continuous change and flow of our daily lives during work and play.

…that’s deep, dude. He went on to further explain the name, in regards to the actual auto manufacturer:

The shape also represents this flow with transitions through hard and smooth lines, between straight and curved all of which are characteristics of Peugeot.

You can expect to see this automotive masterpiece, as well as God-only-knows how many other cars when Project Gotham Racing 4 is released [hopefully] this fall.

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The Old Spice/Microsoft Gamerscore Contest is now open for registration, but there is a problem: The servers suck.

I’ve been trying on-and-off for the past two hours to register for this thing, and I’ve been getting absolutely nowhere. I try, but I continue to get nowhere with this. So my advice to you all is simple: Wait a few hours for the servers to die down. Once the initial influx of people are done, the servers SHOULD be able to handle the load of us making our Gamerscores matter.

Of course, if you have a girlfriend, you probably won’t care to register until the 15th.

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Hollywood Arts, a non-profit organization located in Southern California (thus, “Hollywood”) focused on helping teens who are down on their luck by getting them involved with the arts: Music, Art, Hair & Makeup, Video Game Programming, etc. Well, they are holding a charity event in Los Angeles on February 14th to honor Tommy Tallarico (seen left, peering into your soul) with being Hollywood Arts first recipient of it’s “Dreams Award.”

It’s no secret that before Tommy Tallarico amassed more money than you can possibly imagine, he lived on the beaches of Los Angeles in his car.

The Charity Event will also be holding an auction over eBay starting at 10pm EST (7pm PST) on the 14th, which will run through the 21st. Included in this auction will be the opporitunity to have an audio cameo in Halo 3, a big ass Master Chief statue, a tour of Valhalla (Bungie Studios) and many other items of video game paraphernalia. All Proceeds of the auction will go towards completion of the Hollywood Arts arts and media center in Los Angeles.

Read the full press release after the break:

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Old Spice and Microsoft are teaming up to make those gamerscores we all are addicted to inflating actually matter. Starting February 12th (or “Next Monday”), Microsoft will hold a contest in which, after registering for the contest, you have 60 days to bump up your gamerscore by 1,500 points. Upon achieving this goal, you will receive a slew of pretty nifty crap.

Let me give you a run down of how this will work: There are three different tiers for the contest. Tier 1 will consist of absolute noobs (0 points) to the slightly experienced (4,999). Tier 2 will consist of those who game, but aren’t driven solely by those damn achievements (5,000 - 9,999; I fall in this group). Tier 3 will consist of people who either play games for a living, or live in their mothers basement (10,000+). The prizes for each tier break down like so:

Tier 1: One Game Picture, One Dashboard Theme and the full version of Contra from the XBL Marketplace. (Note: I would like to see you be able to pick a different game, should you already own Contra like I do)
Tier 2: The Tier 1 package, along with 100 Microsoft Points and a T-Shirt.
Tier 3: You guys, for all your hard work and dedication to your games… or lack of a social life, whichever, you will be rewarded with the Tier 2 package (which, incidentally, includes the Tier 1 package), along with 100 extra Microsoft Points, and a copy of Fusion Frenzy 2. So it’s like getting 200 MSPoints, a t-shirt, a free XBLA game and $10 at Gamestop.

Ok, all cynicism aside, I’m glad to see Microsoft turning this pretty cool feature into something that is more than just bragging rights. Who knows, it may even push those achievement whores to buy more 360 titles so they can try and jump up in tiers. A few games I suggest to help you rake in those achievement points:

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
The Godfather
Marvel: Ultimate Alliance
Dead Rising
Star Trek Legacy
MLB 2K6
NCAA Football 07

Remember, now — you need to get 1,500 points in 60 days. AND you’ll need to register. I suggest the registering first. Outside that… happy hunting.

Click that link right under this sentence to read the official statement.

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Have you ever wanted to have something of yours featured in a video game? No, the face mapping in Tony Hawk and Rainbow Six: Vegas doesn’t count. Well, if you ever DID want to take part in creating a video game, Microsoft Game Studios and French Automaker Peugeot have announced a contest that you may be interested in.

Here’s what it boils down to: You design a car that you would like to see in an upcoming Microsoft Game Studios racing game (*coughprojectgothamracing4cough*) and submit it to THIS website. Then you, the other contestants, and people like me who have no artistic talent whatsoever, go to this website and pick our ten favorite selections. The winner will get his or her car rendered as a playable car in an upcoming Microsoft Game Studio’s title (*coughprojectgothamracing4cough*).

Damn, I must be coming down with a cold, or something. Regardless, it should also be noted that by winning this, you’re still not guaranteed the car will appear in the game. MGS says it’s still dependent on “technical consideration”, which basically boils down to “if every entry sucks, you’re all screwed.”

So, future artists, get to… um… artist… ing? If it helps, here are a few of Peugeot’s ACTUAL cars:

Car 1
Car 2
Car 3

So feel free to let your imagination loose on this.