XBox 360 Rally

Hi, kids. I’m back. Now, don’t get too excited — it’s not full-time, by any stretch of the imagination, but I have returned to that which is my home to do what I do best — talk Xbox. Over the next few days I’ll be getting back into the swing of things, and before long I’ll be my good ol’ self once more.

…this is where I’m supposed to plug my website, BingeGamer.net, but I won’t. I’m better than that.

It’s no secret that this past week or so Xbox LIVE has been giving a lot of people issues. Whining and complaining has occurred on countless message boards, and I’m sure even a few tears have been shed by the overly zealous Halo 3 jackasses. Well, I address each and every one of you who feel they have been wronged by Microsoft, and demand compensation when I say…

Stop your bitching.

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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!

Hi, folks. I know that things ’round here haven’t exactly been on the ball. In fact, this is the first update in a good bit. If you haven’t been around, though, here’s what is up: Paco and I are at 1PStart now. It’s another site on the 451 Network, and it allows both Paco and I to cover all aspects of gaming. In a way, it’s our dream gig minus the absurd amount of money. We still do Xbox 360 news, we just do it over there now.

We’re currently in the process of finding new guys to replace us. Considering our unnaturally high levels of awesome, you can see how it’s been hard to find worthy replacements. But, we’re workin’ on it. Give it a wee bit o’ time.

Folks, I don’t think you know how hard it was to find a winner for this contest. Every entry received was like a gift from God herself, yes, corny, I know, but seriously, too many entries kicked mucho ass and it took much fighting between JW and myself to pick the final winner (we do it American Gladiator giant q-tip style if you want to know…… for the younger audience, it looks like this).

As you know from JW’s recent posting, we are both out of here, but, man, we are leaving whoever comes in to fill our giant shoes (hitting G4’s The Feed giant shoes! Hitting the front pages of DESTRUCTOID, Kotaku, Joystiq, and so many other great video game blogs giant shoes!), err.. what was I saying.. oh yeah, we are leaving whoever comes in some of the coolest readers to any site I have been a part of. You know who you are you regulars that may not have always commented, but I check the stats and IPs of who visits like a weirdo (I seriously have OCD about that stuff). This contest really proved it. I can’t put up all entries for this contest (out of pure laziness I assure you), but I really wanted to show some off that made it into the final rounds of the giant q-tip competition.

Note: The following are in no actual order, just wanted to show off some of the work you guys yourself put in, don’t worry if yours isn’t shown below, it was received and treated with as *almost* as much love as the winning entry, which of course you can now see at the top of every page on the site.

(Reading this and want to get in contact with any of the artists/designers above, feel free to hit me up at ocap1 at hotmail dot com and I will get with the designer to let them know you want to give them some freelance work and/or want to know their age/sex/location for hot steamy text sex!)

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

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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Researchers have discovered that 45% of Americans age 12-17 spend more than two hours per day in front of their televisions, and that 1 in 7 children are classified as overweight. In other news, the sky is blue, flowers tend to smell “pretty”, and Paco loves himself some booty.

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No Mutants Allowed is known as one of the most loyal, knowledgeable, and respected groups of Fallout fans on the planet Earth. By me. Others as well, but since I’m writing this it’s my opinion that matters. But I digress.

This Fallout 3 preview from No Mutants Allowed is, without a shadow of a doubt, the most comprehensive, in-depth preview yet. However, it’s not entirely a positive preview of the game.

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I swear to Christ, some of you people are just downright idiots. Not you guys in particular — Lord knows our readers are uber-cool. But I am talking to the Xbox 360 fanboys… no, not the website of that name. Again, they’re cool, too. I’m talking about the ACTUAL fanboys! You know, the [kittens] who swear up and down that the “xbox is teh awesum ps3 sux lolz!”. I’m talking to those guys. Why?

Because they’re the ones who are BUYING BioShock on eBay!

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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

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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Y’all ain’t gonna believe the weekend I’ve had. On Friday night my hard drive crashed, which required me to stay up all night rewriting 0s on the entire damn thing before, finally, reinstalling it that Saturday morn’. Yay. THEN, after finally getting my hard drive rewritten and getting everything reinstalled onto the machine, I finally get some Zs.

Cut to Saturday night. I’m playin’ Counter-Strike Source (because I rule) when my monitor goes black. Pitch-effing-black. Out of frustration, I kick my tower and it dawns on me “…hey, my tower isn’t supposed to be that hot.” So I popped it open, and I’m greeted with smoke. SMOKE! Without thinking I reach into the machine and rip out my RAM, before finally putting the kibash on the fire with an extinguished. My hard drive, mother board, and graphics card were all lost.

So now I have a new PC, and am ready to haul that ass as Paco and I continue to milk this site for all it’s worth in an attempt to gain fame, fortune, and booty.

-JW