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 don’t know if it is unfair for me to bundle all Halo related news into one post, or is it unfair for all the Halo related news to attack me on a daily basis where I can see www.Halo3rally.com happening.

First up is some interesting news for those who need a Halo toy that goes beyond what Todd McFarlane can do (which is already amazing), comes a one of a kind statue that is being auctioned off on eBay of a female Spartan. The user is kindly donating 10% of the winnings to the “American Breast Cancer Foundation.” I found the link which was described on Digg as being “Super Hot” which already made me not want to like it, but as you can see, it is amazingly detailed with sniper rifle in hand, not all cartoony Jessica Rabbit over boobified/assified and such, this can easily be labeled as just plain bad ass. Not $1500 bad ass, but if you have the cash and you are that much of a fan boy, definitely place your bid cause you only have a couple of days left. (Click here for auction page which also has a lot larger pictures in different poses)

Our next Halo blip comes from a recent Penny Arcade comic that hit close to home with me. Click the thumbnail below to read the comic.

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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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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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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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Corgi International is cool. They’re the guys who brought us those really, really awesome Lightsabers, and now they’re at it again with Halo. Corgi International and Microsoft today… well, yesterday, announced a partnership that will give Corgi the rights to create collectibles for Halo, Halo 2 and the upcoming Halo 3!

Now, as you could probably deduce from the title of this piece, as well as the rather quick Photoshop job I did to bring both rifles into one picture seen above, the first two items from the Halo-universe will be the BR55 Battle Rifle, and the Covenant Carbine. Will you go out and buy it? You know you will, nerd. So will I.

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When Joyride Studios went kaput, many were left wondering where they were going to get their 6″ Halo fix. Well, not to fear, boys and girls. Paul over at Toy Bender has given word that Todd McFarlane’s company has taken over, and will now be heading the Halo Toy parade for Halo 3, and possibly beyond. Says McFarlane:

Halo is one of the top video game franchises of all time. We get to put our company’s touch on a sci-fi epic that is visually and thematically stunning. Through its game-play, Halo has been able to attract a very large and loyal audience, most of whom happen to be our customers as well, which makes this an excellent partnership.

Suffice to say: Freaking Sweet. Now, if you are unaware of McFarlane’s work for whatever reason, let me reassure you that he’s in good hands. He’s known by many for doing his spot-on MLB figurines, like the one below:

Yeah, like that one. Look how detailed it is. It’s amazing! If the Halo figurines are anything like that one, we’re in for some kick ass collectibles.

[Toy Bender]

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Translated from french:

It is known that Bioshock will have right to its edition collector which will include/understand CD of musics, a DVD making-off and a figurine but we did not know what will resemble the latter. It is today thing made with these first images of the prototype. They are thus not the final colors but just an outline.

Check out the pics of the toys yourself, click thumbnails to enlarge pics:

This is making my Lost Planet VS/Mech toy look like poo.

[source]
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While doing my daily new readings, came across an article on a little company called Joyride Studious, then do toys for this little known series called Halo.

The writer of the blog goes on further with the negative news:

“I shot an email over to the Johnny Lighting folks to see just what was going on. Apparently, the RC2 corporation that owns Johnny Lightning, Joyride, and several other brands announced in January of 2007 they were discontinuing most of it’s collectibles lines. I couldn’t believe it at first. I’ve been cruising toy websites and reading ToyFare since Toy Bender started, and don’t remember seeing this mentioned anywhere. While I couldn’t find the exact press release stating JoyRide’s demise, I did find some extremely boring financial statements that confirmed that this is sadly true.”

My thoughts below; (more…)