XBox 360 Rally

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 (ocap1@hotmail.com) or JW (the4thamigo@gmail.com) 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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CharlieOscarDelta.com has opened up the first wave of availablity to get into playing the COD4 Beta via their forums. The above screenshot was taken by me last night, which was just a sign that they were making sure their servers were set to handle the amount of traffic the site was going to get for all you players going to sign up for the Beta. Well, I was right, and it is up, they require answering some questions and sending off an email. Here is their official rules:

Copy and paste the text below into an email to firstwavelotto@beta.infinityward.com, fill in the answers and send it in. Make sure you copy and paste the text below EXACTLY otherwise your email may be lost. Now here’s the email:

Gamertag:

Location (city, state, country):

CharlieOscarDelta username (if you have one):

Rank on CharlieOscarDelta:

What is the current level cap for the beta:

What button do you press to activate your streak rewards (radar, airstrike, etc):

What button do you press to use your weapon attachments or explosives (m203, c4, etc):

What’s your all time favorite multi-player game (for reals):

Want the answers, here you go:

Level cap = 11

Streak rewards = Right on d-pad

Weapon Attachments = left on d-pad

If you aren’t registered on CharlieOscarDelta.com, go there now so you can answer what your rank and user name there is. Then keep an eye on this page for more ways to get in when or if they see fit.

Xbox360Achievements.org have posted the complete achievement list for the upcoming frat party favorite, Guitar Hero III. There are 59 achievements, totaling 1000 points.

Some of the more interesting achievements include scoring 750K on a single song (Now That’s Impressive - 20), winning 500 online ranked matches (Big Ol’ Pile of Wins - 20), earning a total of 100 Million career points (100 Million!?! Gulp!?! - 30), and, of course, unlocking everything (The Long Road Ahead - 100).

Check out the full list at Xbox360Achievements.org.

[Xbox360Achievements.org]

Microsoft, Xbox 360, Activision, Red Octane, Guitar Hero III

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.

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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Capcom, known for being pretty interactive with their fans imo, has had a little contest going on, that is going to be ending on August 1st (Wednesday), Brian Dunn the blogger for Capcom explains the contest so easily a caveman could understand it:

You get to make suggestions and then vote for the best Achievement, which will make it into the final game.

We want to put your thinking caps on and come up with any Achievements you would like to see make it into Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix. Post your suggestions for Achievements in the comments section here.

Simple enough, right? Well get to posting your idea (click here to do so!). After they pick 10 of the best ones, Brian will post them up on their forums for you to vote on, the winner’s suggestion will make it into the game! Be creative but realistic with your idea.
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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!

Microsoft, Xbox 360, Gamespot, Achievement Unlocked, Gamerscore

At 2a.m. this morning, Gears of War received two updates. One included 8 brand new achievements, with Epic continuing the trend of having some pretty amusing titles for them, more on that in a bit.

The second part to the update included some tweaks to the controls and other little gameplay fixes: Improved Roadie Run to reduce getting snagged on cover,Tweaked up the amount of damage done by the Lancer Assault Rifle in multiplayer, Fixed split-screen players interrupting the other player’s actions when they die, Stopped Annex scoring whenever a “Connection Error” dialog box is displayed, Reduced the duration that corpses remain visible when hosting an Annex match, Reduced the range of possible Annex bleed-out times selectable by host, Addressed a number of multiplayer exploits.

Some of the new achievement names include “THIS! IS! ANNEX!” (re-read that in the 300 voice), “Inconceivable!,” “Nub Pwn3r,” and “Purdy Mouth,” to check out the details on those achievements along with the other new ones, as well as how they are had, and even help getting them, see one of my favorite sites, Achieve360Points.com.
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Gears of War, Xbox 360, Achievements, Geek Score, 300, The Princess Bride

Mark Rein has announced via the Epic Games message boards that the next Gears of War update will include new achievements (if you own the Annex and Hidden Fronts DLC), as well as all the typical bug-fixing, etc. Rein said, and I quote:

Folks,

The next Gears of War update is coming along nicely. We don’t have a release timeframe for it yet but I just wanted to let you know we’re making significant progress. In addition to the previously mentioned plan to improve roadie run we’re also going to have new achievements relating to Annex and the Hidden Fronts DLC. Of course no title update would be complete without more exploit squashing and the ever-popular “general housekeeping”.

[Epic Games]

Microsoft, Xbox 360, Epic Games, Gears of War

Last year, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance was hailed as one of the best games of the year. Comic book fans hailed the plot as being one of the best stories to ever be told inside of a comic book game, while gamers praised the game for providing a solid game that you could go back to time and time again.

Activision would like to thank you for all their support. In fact, they already have. In an open letter from Activision’s Global Brand Manager, who goes by the name “Daniel” does just that. But pay close attention to the last paragraph:

While the Ultimate Alliance VIP experience is coming to a close, we do have some nice “downloadable” surprises coming your way so stay tuned for that.

It seems a little late to be coming out with downloadable content for this game, but hey… if it’s good, I’ll be there.

Activision, Raven, Marvel Comics, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, downloadable content

If you aren’t aware of Xbox360Achievements.org, you should be. If you have ever wondered what those “Secret Achievements” are that are inside some games, these are the guys you turn to in order to find out those nasty little secrets. Well, if you go there right now, you will find achievements for two games that aren’t exactly available to the masses: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2.

Without listing every damn achievement, I’ll just summarize: TMNT has 23 achievements adding up to 1000 points, and GRAW 2 has 43 achievements adding up to 1000 points. When you look at the GRAW 2 achievements, you can already tell that you’re gonna be putting some serious time into the game, not to say you wouldn’t otherwise, though. As for TMNT… they’re weak. You could do every one of those playing one time through, if the stars aligned.

…yeah, it’s a slow news day for the 360, and I’m not going to take the Joystiq route and post stories of people’s consoles breaking and try to pass it off as “news.”

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Achievements
Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 Achievements