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!

Odds are you’re going to be heading out tonight for the highly-anticipated Halo 3 launch. Hell, it’s very possible that you’re already there, reading this on a laptop… in which case, I pity your soul. But, all the same you should know what to do to survive this Halo 3 onslaught, and get through the night.

So, after the break I’m going to give you a few survival tips to help you get through the long, difficult night ahead.

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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.

Xbox 360 Rally, JW, Stuff, Job Openings

(Xbox360Rally’s Most Overused Picture of the Month)

Woo, got my copy I pre-order from GameStop (a day or two after it came out, but its okay), put my toy on my wall, then booted up. I went through the game on hard, beat it, felt great, missed saving a little sister somewhere on the way so I suck cause I didn’t get that achievement, whatever.

Now I am going through the game a second time on easy just to get all the photography achievements, its cool because now I am really appreciating the different characters and character types. Harvesting a little sister *quick spoiler ahead* is cool with the heart pulling out and all (or ADAM slug, whatever). I am having fun choosing different abilities and combos (for the most part I have just been using plasmid powers and having the camera out as my weapon at all times).

Here comes my qualms, after all that praise, when it is said and done, this game was pretty short. I don’t consider myself a tough ass player, so when I beat the game on hard within a week, I didn’t think much of it then, but usually I don’t beat games on hard. Now on the second play through, I can see this being “Crackdown” where I might not have many reasons to ever pick up the game again after you beat it once. I would pay good money to see a multiplayer. I know how the developers feelings on a multiplayer was, but think of a game like “The Darkness,” it seems almost like the multiplayer was tacked on, but it ends up being really fun (when you get a non-lag game, but hey, they are fixing that). Think of a FPS multiplayer with the plasmids flying around, and a playable Big Daddy (that of course is tuned to be a fair fight against a human/splicer)

This game needs some new downloadable content, maybe not just right away, but multiplayer would be at the top of my list of course, however i’d settle for some extra missions maybe, just not crappy extra different new weapons/plasmids thrown in the game as the DLC. No matter what I have said, if you haven’t bought this title yet, go rent it now.

(These thoughts inspired by the game itself of course, as well as The Digital Gamer really laying into Bioshock, or at least the critics that overpraised this game)
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Bioshock, 2KGames, Overrated

In an interview with website Canaljuegos, Peter Molyneux let some good info fly. On top of the pretty large statement he made about the Wii controller not being as impactful as Xbox Live is saying a lot. I can see both sides though, I mean, yeah, the Wii wiggles around for you to make movement, while Xbox Live is making connecting through online play the most simple thing a person can do. Though Nintendo and Sony offer their free online services, Xbox Live users just know “you get what you pay for” and with Xbox Live, it is the best.

Other things discussed in the article include praise to Lionhead (well deserved). They are working on another title right now, a casual type game, that may feature elements of an older game he was working on, “Project Dimitri.”

On Fable 2, a good amount is discussed about emotions playing a part in the game much like moral decisions. In a question about online play, he replies with “This not something I can talk about at the moment,” which we all know means online play is going to have some part in this game.

I am really starting to enjoy the crazy character that is Molyneux, he speaks his mind (”most RPG’s are shit“). I just hope Fable 2 lives up to the first title and then some.

[Full Interview]

GamePro is currently running a story about a supposed “Halo 3 tax” on it’s website. After looking over the evidence presented in the GamePro article, I have to say that I agree. You know, like I did the first time when XBLRadio originally broke this story.

I am not someone who will start fueds with websites without provocation. However, when another site runs with a story broken by another site, going so far as to use images from the original story, I take issue. If you want to report this, fine. No problem. But give proper credit when credit is due.

[XBLRadio Original Article]
[GamePro Article]

GamePro, XBLRadio, Best Buy

Video game rentals, we all have to do it. With titles that come out like Shadowrun, that may seem “kinda cool” in some ways, but you know in your heart you can’t justify plunking down $60 for a game you just aren’t sure about, we as gamers have to rely on game rental services. I started writing this a little over a month ago, noticing that Blockbuster had 6 copies of Transformers (all on the shelf), while their one copy of Overlord they ordered for the store had not even arrived yet. Quickly, I went home with a copy of F.E.A.R. and the desire to find something better. Let it be known, I have been using the Blockbuster GamePass service through my little brother for well over a year now, the most obvious problem with them however, is they are Blockbuster, or as I know them, ‘the devil.’ I have been using Netflix for many many moons now and with that I have a certain bitterness with Blockbuster as far as late fees plus crappy selection of movies, but hey, this is about the games.

Off to the Internets, I knew that Gamefly was the big contender here, but I wanted to find something else, I had already heard the stories of Gamefly discs being stolen by mailmen as well as their horrid turnaround shipping times. I remember the company Gameznflix.com, they have to be good, they were smart enough to jump into the extremely small market of online video game rentals early on, and at the same time compete with Netflix to be the Blockbuster of online (I am ignoring that ‘the devil’ has an online service of their own, damn my bias). So off to check online reviews of GameznFlix… oh man, not good. Coming from the CAG forums, in a sea of many quotes I could pull from, here is my favorite, “I’m done with Gameznflix. I had 20 games in my queue, half new, half old, and they failed to ship me a single game after 14 days.” Even the guys at XBL Radio have dropped support of the company. Want more current GameznFlix issues, look no further than NeoGAF.
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Take a look at that picture right there. As you can see, one of these things is not like the others. You aren’t seeing things, either — that middle price is $42.99, while the others are $39.99. The top is Microsoft, the Bottom is Circuit City. So who is in the middle?

Best Buy, of course.

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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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When I first saw the Resident Evil 5 teaser trailer at E3, I was stunned. Hell, we were all stunned I would hope. But even then, deep down in the cavernous depths of my void mind I heard that little cynical voice of mine shouting “Racist! Capcom is racist!”. At the time I didn’t think anything of it. After all, I’m by and large a douche bag as it is, so I figured this was just me being my sarcastic self.

…wow, I was wrong.

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Glen Angus, conceptual artist for Raven Software who’s work has appeared in such titles as X-Men Legends, and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, has unexpectedly passed away.

A few months before his passing, his son, Teddy, was diagnosed with severe autism. For those of you who have never had to deal with autism in your family, the treatments for such a disorder are extremely expensive. So expensive, in fact, that most families simply can not afford it. The image you see to the left is a rendering done by Angus was done in honor of his son.

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GamePro has a feature article up listing the “Six Reasons The Xbox 360 Is in Trouble” .. please indulge me as I show you point by point exactly why they were completely wrong.

1. GamePro claims the Xbox 360 is unreliable. I would agree with this in the past months, however, right now I do not, with the new heat sinks and new chips, that just about covers the unreliability issue to keep the system running fine, at no cost to us. This is one reason that the Xbox might have been in trouble, had Microsoft not fixed these issue (better late than never), and a 3 year warranty for those who aren’t buying it now (bonus!)

2. It only sells marginally better than Xbox? C’mon, that is pretty good for a system that sold with no huge big franchise game at launch (Perfect Dark? You all know that game sucked).. and the more obvious reason, the $100 difference in launch price, on top of the Xbox one’s price went down a hundred bucks in six months from launch.

3. A recent string of bad publicity is the next claim, I say to that, if you are negative, you will see the negative. I can turn a blind eye to all that with the Falcon console redesign coming soon and an E3 show that wasn’t that bad, nothing can stop them now! (Note: Oh man, I feel the fanboy beast within me has awoken with this last response, Ill admit that, for that I am sorry, lets move onto the next point).

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Paco and I make a good team. Why, you should have seen us last night at the club. Paco was over by the bar, mackin’ on some fine women while I was over by the door, distracting the security guard by repeatedly punching his fist with my face. We work well together. Either way, once we left that joint we were drivin’ around talkin’ about what games we’d like to see show up on the Xbox Live Arcade.

…what? We’re gamers at heart.

Either way, now that my swelling has gone down, both Paco and I are proud to present to you the games we want to see on Xbox Live Arcade.

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So yesterday on Major Nelson there was the usual list of what is on the marketplace today. Call of Duty 3 map pack, cool. All Pro Football 2K8 ReelMaker to create highlight reels, neat. I own neither game, so on I went surfing away on the net. On Digg I found an interesting post, “More downloadable content that should’ve been in the game to begin with!” .. the link went right back to Major’s page with the 2K8 listed, with the Digg user ranting on in the description portion how this should have been free. I am not too up to date on sports games lately, so seeing this did pique my interest, so off hunting for info about his rant I went. My findings were a little shocking.

1) The $5 download is only 108kb in size, that is awful small for a file that is marked as a “powerful replay editor” with the ability to construct your own highlight reel, add to this that the game was literally released just 5 days ago, those developers must have been working day and night on this lovely program that is only 108kb with so many features *sarcasm* .. let this part sink in first, 108kb, 5 days later, they just screwed you if you either bought the game and especially if you just bought the file (file = unlock code)

2) This isn’t the first time 2KSports has done this. Like I said, I haven’t touched a sports game in a bit, so this is really, all new to me. Please let me point you in the direction of Kotaku for a second, an article from December 21st 2006, has College Hoops 2K7 listed with a magical 108kb ReelMaker download, five bucks (link), feel free to be disgusted at the downloads for other games offered that all were obviously on the disc to begin with, thus you are just paying for the key to unlock this.

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