XBox 360 Rally

In a column published yesterday in The Virginian-Pilot, Bob Molinaro attempts to make the case that violent video games have desensitized the masses to the tragic injury of Buffalo Bills Tight End Kevin Everett. He states that he wonders if, quote, “the catastrophic injury to Buffalo Bills tight end Kevin Everett will make any real impression on the desensitized adolescents and adults raised with the cartoon violence of “Madden ‘08″ or “NFL Blitz,” or the absurd blood-and-guts scenarios associated with other Xbox games.”

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Chip Ganassi Racing, in association with both Target and Microsoft, have revealed the new Halo 3 paintjob that will adorn driver David Stremme’s #40 Dodge Avenger. The paint scheme, which will replace Stremme’s usual Coors Light sponsorship, will make it’s only appearance of the 2007 Nextel Cup season at Dover International Speedway on September 23rd, 2007.

In addition to having the sponsorship and rather sharp paint scheme, there will also be kiosks at DIS, allowing NASCAR fans the opporitunity to try our the final, complete version of Halo 3 two days before it’s official launch on the 25th.

Read the full press release, as well as get a closer look at the #40 Halo 3/Target Dodge Avenger, after the break.

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Halo 3 will be released at 12:01am on Tuesday, September 25th, 2007. Odds are you will see many hundreds of people lined up at your local EBGameStop, Best Buy, Circuit City, or 7-11 hours in advance. Unless you plan on going to the Metreon in San Francisco, in which case you may already be in line.

That’s right, ladies and dudes — there are people already lining up outside the Metreon in anticipation of being the first to get their hands on Halo 3. I hope they brought a lot of tacos, and batteries for their Game Boy, because they’re going to be waiting thirteen days. That’s 312 hours. That’s 18,720 minutes. That’s 1,123,200 seconds.

…that’s a really long ass time!

Now, while I am most impressed with their fanaticism to be the FIRST to get their grubby little hands on Halo 3, in the end it is a futile effort. After all, they live on the pacific coast, three hours behind us sophisticated East Coast folk, but I digress.

UPDATO MAGNIFICO!
You guys… I blew the image up in Photoshop, and it looks like it’s from the damn Pontiac IMAX showing! So, to those people who went to the IMAX showing that I inadvertently insulted… my bad.

[Thanks to Brad, Emily, "capthaize" (pot much?) and Paul Foley for sending me this image... repeatedly... could I get a source link?]

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GameTrailers has released their list of the top five reasons why they can’t wait to play Halo 3. All the Wal-Mart advertising aside, it’s a pretty kick ass list of things to be excited for. However, I don’t think this is so much a list of things to be excited for, as it is a list of reasons why Halo 3 will own you, your family, your friends, your spouse, your dog Sparky, your job, your manhood, your spleen, your car, your self-esteem, and after about two weeks, your hygiene.

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If there is any true injustice in the world, it’s that Halo 3 will be released on a Tuesday. That means that normal human beings will have to suffer throughout four whole days before they can board their windows, lock their doors, and throw down on some Halo 3. But, if you simply can not wait until then, odds are you’re going to need to think of an excuse to get you out of work/school/date/jury dity/wedding/funeral. Thankfully, GameDaily has a few ideas on what you could tell your boss/professor/girlfriend/judge/wife/ex-wife.

My personal favorite of the bunch, unfortunately, has nothing to do with my life at all:

Just want to let you know that I can’t make it to work today. My kid got in a fight at school with a real Brute. Busted him up pretty bad. The principal, Sergeant Major A.J. Johnson, called me this morning and asked that I come in. Says he plans to give both kids a psych evaluation using some new software called Cortana. Will keep you posted.

…either I need to come up with another excuse, or find a way to knock a girl up, have her give birth, raise them to roughly ten years old and have him get into a fight… or adopt, but why do that when I’m just going to give him or her back?

[GameDaily]

NOTE: You know, this has inspired me for an idea for another UNOFFICIAL contest. In the comments section, if you come up with a sick day letter that just floors me — and I mean REALLY has me laughing until I pee (or come close) — I’ll give you my copy of Halo 3 Legendary Edition.

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In the wake of the massive BioShock fiasco, it seems that GameStop doesn’t want to be the next Toys R Us, and have gone to an extreme length to ensure that they don’t. In an e-mail sent to all GameStop and EBGames locations in (at least) the US, GameStop has laid the law down: Break the seal, get fired.

I’ll repeat that, so that you can fully soak that in: If you break the seal, that is, if you so much as open the shipping crate… you get fired. Even if you accidentally open one of the boxes containing a version of Halo 3, you get axed. I had a hard time believing that, so I called my cousin who works at a tri-city GameStop… he wasn’t working. So, I e-mailed him. He replied an hour later:

yah dood its nuts. we were told if we open these boxes we get fired. that includes district managers too! so dont be coming asking me to get u ur copy lol!

So there you have it. Lousy grammar aside, that’s the word straight from a GameStop manager. So, when you GameStop employees start receiving unmarked boxes… be careful.

Really careful.

…like, REALLY careful.

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Well, as I discovered from a rather… “colorful” comment from a Mr. “threekingdoms” (which has been deleted), this story was originally broken by Rated-M. This is the perfect time to remind you all that neither Paco or I are omnipotent; we can not, and do not visit all 12,000,000,000 websites on the internet. If you know of a site that broke a story that we may like, click on the “Contact Me” link to the right, and send us the link.

Don’t leave rather eclectic comments full of false statements and hyperbole. You only come off looking like a nitwit. Do you understand that, Mr. “threekingdoms”?

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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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Master Chief has made his debut… in wax form. Madame Tussauds in Las Vegas unveiled their newest piece to their collection, in a 7′2″, 275lb wax statue of Master Chief. As you can see from the above image, Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz officially introduced the piece, and gave a speech to commemorate the event:

“For me, the launch of Halo 3 will be the entertainment event of the year. It will be as big as or bigger than any of the summer’s movie blockbusters,” said Wentz. “Master Chief is as much of a hero today as characters like Spiderman, Frodo and Luke Skywalker were for previous generations.”

…God, I want to vomit. This is the biggest game to be released this year, if not for many years, and the best you can do is the second-fiddle for a sub-par pop-punk band? …I expected more from you. I really did.

Read the full press release after the break.

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Bungie has posted their weekly update and it’s chock full o’ pretty pictures, like the one of Cortana you see on the left here. I have no shame in admitting that I find Cortana insanely attractive. Regardless, the new Bungie Update shows off a few more of the Todd McFarlane figurines that are on the horizon. Click the thumbnails at the bottom of the page to get a better look.

Also being showed for the first time are the Kotobukiya statuettes of Master Chief. Now, if you don’t know who ArtFX/Kotobukiya is, they are the people who make the very detailed Star Wars statuettes — like this one. They’ve also released figurines based on Dead or Alive, Witchblade and Batman. I would post thumbnails, but come on — y’all can click a link and visit the page yourself.

[Bungie]

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A month or two ago we reporetd that, with the demise of Joyride Studios, Todd McFarlane has taken over as the chief export of Halo collectables. Well, G4 was able to get their hands on a few, and have them posted in their daily round-up of daily tech news, The Feed.

…and yes, I’m hamming it up in hopes that we get featured in it more.

The detail in these figures is second-to-none. I’ve gushed over how awesome McFarlane’s studio is in the past, and this is just getting me more and more excited.

Click on the thumbnails to see a more detailed image. It should also be noted that, while the images below are all from the Grunt two-pack, we can also expect to see six-inch versions of Master Chief (duh?), Cortana (another duh), a Jackal Sniper, and a Brute Chieftan. Awesome.

[The Feed] (G4)

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As if the constant rumors of Metal Gear Solid 4 coming to the Xbox 360 weren’t enough, here’s a bit of news that will surely get the fanboys in a fit: Final Fantasy XIII is being developed on a cross-platform engine. Go ahead, get giddy. I’ve give you a minute…

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…you ok now? Good. This bit of information was revealed by Square Enix’s Hiromichi Tanaka during his GDC keynote address, down in Austin, TX.

Development is proceeding smoothly now, with the framework now beginning to take shape. Last year we went through a development reorganization, with the development of our own cross-platform middleware – the white engine. This is the foundation for FFXIII and the new MMO.

Now it should be noted that this by no means means that Final Fantasy XIII will be coming to the Xbox 360. BUT, it does leave the door wide open for future Square Enix titles developed on the “White Engine” to come to the 360 in the future.

[Gamasutra]

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(Again…awesome image)

Earlier this week we reporetd on the “mysterios BioShock update” that was released, to which 2K Games didn’t really tell us what it was for. Well, now we know:

Just a few bug fixes, nothing big. It took care of some reported audio issues at the main title screen, as well as the unstable autosave system.

Yup, that’s about it. Nothing new has been added to the game, so y’all can get right over that. Now, if you don’t mind me, I have a Microsoft Tech Center to call.

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So, there was a guy with the gamertag ‘Scar’ who somehow got his hands on the Halo 3 Epsilon Beta. So rather than playing it in secret, gushing about it’s awesomeness only to his closest of friends, this guy posts about it on the INTERNET!

Hello? Dude? The internet… yeah, it’s EVERYWHERE! My 90 year-old grandma surfs the damn internet!

Either way, Microsoft found out that it was him, and banned him from Xbox LIVE… until the year 10,000!

(Thanks Mark for the image)

UPDATO MAGNIFICO!
If you thought being banned until 10,000AD was bad enough, I have something else that will either make you even more sad for this guy, or will make you laugh his ass off — he had a gamerscore of 61,000!

UPDATO MAGNIFICO 2.0!
Ok, so apparently Mr. Scar here didn’t steal Halo 3 Epsilon, or somethin’. I’ve seen him on just about every message board refuting this claim — it doesn’t matter, dude. You still got your ass banned until long after we’ve colonized Mars. The story isn’t so much about the fact that you got your hands on Epsilon as it is that Microsoft gave you the eternal ban hammer. Suck it up, and move on.

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Are you one of the many (many being, like, twelve) Oblivion junkies out there that aren’t connected to Xbox LIVE? Well, I have good news for you kind folk: Shivering Isles is going to be heading to retail stores everywhere. In disc form, even!

Bethesda Softworks announced today via press release that their award-winning expansion to the almost universal pick for 2006 Game of the Year, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, will be heading to retail stores across America sometime this October and will also feature the Knights of the Nine Downloadable Content. A price has not yet been announced.

Read the full Press Release after the break.

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I have just lost a ton of respect for 2K Games. Now, it’s well known that there have been plenty of complaints regarding 2K Games and the secuROM system, which essentially limits how many times you can install a game. Some have been outraged by this (*cough*) while others don’t see the big deal. For the record, the big deal is this: I’ve installed Star Trek Voyger: Elite Force roughly a dozen times on my various machines. If secuROM was included with that game, I’d be boned x11. Now that you unnderstand why some people are so pissed about this, let’s move on.

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