XBox 360 Rally

I have been playing Video Games since the ripe old age of three. The first video game I ever played was the immortal Bad Dudes on the NES. At the time I didn’t appreciate the simple concept of rescuing the President from Ninjas, but now I do. The game that made me a gamer, however, was a little known title called ‘Dinosaurs for Hire’. If not for that 2D Side-Scrolling Shooter for the Sega Genesis, I would not be the nerd I am today.

One of the major factors in what makes a video game memorable is the music. Look at all the video games that are etched into our memories: Mario, Zelda, Sonic, Halo, Warcraft, Metal Gear Solid, Mega Man, Castlevania, Contra, and Final Fantasy are just a few of the games that are memorable in the eyes of the gaming public, and each and every one of those games has some memorable music. Growing up, I would pop Mega Man II into the NES, and leave it at the start screen just so I could listen to that killer opening theme. But of course, you’ll be hard-pressed to find someone who DIDN’T rock out to the Mega Man theme at some point in their lives. Regardless of what your favorite video game is, I promise you that you remember a song or two from it.

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Oh boy, you Brits sure do know how to crack me up. In two unrelated stories some pretty wild claims are made. First off is the Telegraph has an article up singing praises to the Marketplace and their video download services, which we have had in the States for a while, however it is just being rolled out in Europe. Don’t get me wrong, this is a good thing, as the article states, “It would mean movies could be watched at a much cheaper rate than buying or renting the DVDs or videos from high street stores.” Very true statement, however, they do take things a bit far by later stating, “it could spell the end for DVDs and videos and their high street suppliers.”

Maybe there is something going on in the UK that I don’t know about as far as price gouging of some kind, but just like illegal downloading of movies hasn’t stopped people from going to the theaters, and , such will be the case of people downloading movies and tv shows on the fly with their 360’s will not end DVDs, even just physcial rental services. The Video Marketplace didn’t get to be 2nd behind iTunes in the download department by sucking, but it sure isn’t changing the world.

Now the second article had me cracking up more than the first, BUT, I can admit makes a valid point in a way. MVCUK has their article up with the ideas that the 3 year warranty plan is going to help boost 360 sales. At first, as someone reading a 360 gaming blog, you are part of an elite sort, who understands the industry a little more than the common man (congrats btw!). So with that understanding, we all know that the 3 year warranty is there because Microsoft is not owning up to Xbox 360 red ring of death failures out right, instead taking a semi-pussy way out by just covering their asses without an apology to us, Joe Consumer. The valid point that the article makes that I can’t argue with, that Joe Consumer’s cousin, Ignorant Customer, will be in the store looking for a new console, and easily go “Oh wow, this one comes with a three year warranty!” That is just what I call some Fox News worthy good spin on a bad situation, damn you journalists!
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When I sat down on my couch, I was expecting to have every bit of news, speculation and rumor clarified for us, the people. I had G4 on my TV, I had the 1UP stream in IE, and in Firefox I had the Justin.tv feed via Scot Rubin’s head-cam. After Scot went to the latrine while still having his camera on, I closed Firefox.

Now before I get into any great detail about Microsoft’s Press Conference, let me just say that G4, a network that at one time prided itself as being “by gamers, for gamers” and now prides itself as sort of a nerd hub, did a HORRIBLE job! Now, I could excuse most of the commercial breaks, sure. But when they cut to commercial during the footage of Halo 3’s campaign mode, I threw my remote at the TV. Thankfully, I DID get to see the footage in it’s entirety via the stream. But this was just another prime example of how G4 has become a colossal failure in both it’s content, and it’s management.

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Here I am, coming to you LIVE from my couch! Here I am, ladies and gentlemen, ready to pass along the latest news from Microsoft on to YOU, the reader! …because apparently you don’t realize it’s on G4… or 1UP.com… or Gamespot… or Lord knows where else… EITHER WAY, let’s DO IT! Watch the Conference HERE!

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360-Gamer posted an article yesterday (link) outlining the troubles of Forza 2 with racism, and Microsoft doing little to help the situation, though I don’t agree completely with the statements in the article, it did strike a chord in me enough to rant a little. To address the first issue of the racism in Forza 2, or lets take it further, just racism on Xbox Live in general. I mean, this has started well before Forza, if I am playing Halo 2 on any given day and don’t get called a Mexican by at least one user, I now feel a little neglected. I do not know the average age of a Live user, but I guess it has to be under 14. Really though, that I don’t take in to account as much as I do the life the people that spout out these comments.

I think about how when I was younger, hanging out with my friends, just as “boys will be boys,” we would end up at some point saying the most vulgar comments we could think of at each other, trying to get on our last nerves (I can admit to being so childish even now, that I still call my cousin who is about my age as many gay terms as I can, as he comes back at me with as many fat jokes as he can muster). Now this would be carried out onto the school yard during athletic games, maybe not as far as calling a person a “N*gg*r” or a “J*w” (as I hear on Live all the time), but certainly everything else, such as sexuality to peoples “mommas” would come into play, and really, this was fair game.

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Is your gamerscore a bit flat? Having trouble getting that extra boost you need to impress your friends? Well, worry no more, my friends — Gamespot is here to help. You may have seen their guide to 6,000 points from last year, as well as their guide to 1,000 points over XBLA. Well, they’re back at it again with the definitive guide to earning 9,000 points in under 48 hours!

Now, before you take the plunge and try to amass these points, make sure you have these games:

Fusion Frenzy 2
TMNT
NBA Street Homecourt
Cars
Major League Baseball 2K6 (NOT 2K7, 2K6)
NCAA March Madness 07
NBA Live 07
Madden NFL 07
Fight Night Round 3
Open Season

If you own all of those games… well, screw you, first of all… wealthy prick. Secondly, you’re set up perfectly to unlock these 9,000 points. And if the 9,000 goal is too lofty, you can also get 6,000, or 1,000 through the Arcade alone!

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It’s no secret that the Xbox 360 has had a checkered history when it has come to console quality. Peter Moore, aka Bald Chuck Norris has thrown out single-digit numbers in regards to the percentage of 360 consoles that have experienced the Red Ring o’ Death (3-5%, if memory serves). But now a new report from Smarthouse claims that the failure rate for the Xbox 360 could be as high as 30%! And in addition to that, there is some controversy regarding the repair policy of the Xbox 360. First paragraph of the Smarthouse article reads as follows:

Retailers are claiming that Microsoft has had to handle a failure rate of over 30% with their Xbox 360 console. More than 100 consumers have written to SmartHouse complaining of either poor service from Microsoft or total failure of their gaming console. One consumer was even given back a refurbished unit in exchange for their original Xbox console

Now I can tell you from personal experience that I’ve had two different Xbox 360 consoles die on me. Paco famously had his die, before the towel trick brought it back to life. Some of our friends have had upwards of four or five die on them. So the 30% number is definitely believable, and needs to be addressed immediately.

[Smarthouse]

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Looks like the Japanese community is warming up to the Xbox 360 more and more. We all knew how when Blue Dragon came out, it basically became a system seller. When playing “Lost Planet,” I always find rooms filled with those from the land of the rising sun. Now looking over to Amazon.co.jp, you can see on the Top Sellers list, it has hit the number 3 spot. Not too shabby for a game not coming out till June and with both PS3 and Wii lacking in games, at least in the near future (I stop counting all the times they give big announcements on upcoming games, only to have the dates pushed back over and over). Of course the 360 as we all know isn’t the big thing in Japan, or a little thing, but this is positive news and their user base can only continue to grow (and that of course can help branch off into more developers working on our baby).

[Note: if you are into RPG's at all, I think its time to make a silver account and give Eternal Sonata a try yourself, then start saving your pennies for when we get a release date in the states)

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Code has been spread. All we can do is pray that Bungie has been using all this time they have to prepare for such people trying to mess with us honest folks who want to play.

This is just not even a full entry, but just a post saying you should take a sec and read this. Like I said, lets all just pray that Bungie is more so prepared than they were for Halo 2.

Also, I am still extremely pissed at Halo 2 right now, I can’t believe not more people are.

Whilst browsing among this world wide web, I came upon a blog post, “What Happened to Microsoft Europe’s Xbox 360 Killer Instinct?” The article will go on to bring up facts, comparisons, and just about all the reasons one could think of that I believe Rare needs to make a good game to give their name justice once again.

*weaps tears at Perfect Dark Zero, Kameo, and now.. that XBLA Jet game, I can’t even remember its name*

Yes, a Killer Instinct on 360, we already know it would support online play, hell, take it to the next level and have 4 player fighting ala Smash Bros. There would be of course things like leaderboards, but what I would really be excited about, is seeing it in HD. Killer Instinct was always a game that showed off graphically (for its time), so I could see them trying to do that again.

P.S. I wouldn’t mind if it was still a 2D fighter or they evolved into 3D.

[source]
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