XBox 360 Rally

360-Gamer posted an article yesterday (link) outlining the troubles of Forza 2 with racism, and Microsoft doing little to help the situation, though I don’t agree completely with the statements in the article, it did strike a chord in me enough to rant a little. To address the first issue of the racism in Forza 2, or lets take it further, just racism on Xbox Live in general. I mean, this has started well before Forza, if I am playing Halo 2 on any given day and don’t get called a Mexican by at least one user, I now feel a little neglected. I do not know the average age of a Live user, but I guess it has to be under 14. Really though, that I don’t take in to account as much as I do the life the people that spout out these comments.

I think about how when I was younger, hanging out with my friends, just as “boys will be boys,” we would end up at some point saying the most vulgar comments we could think of at each other, trying to get on our last nerves (I can admit to being so childish even now, that I still call my cousin who is about my age as many gay terms as I can, as he comes back at me with as many fat jokes as he can muster). Now this would be carried out onto the school yard during athletic games, maybe not as far as calling a person a “N*gg*r” or a “J*w” (as I hear on Live all the time), but certainly everything else, such as sexuality to peoples “mommas” would come into play, and really, this was fair game.

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Head to http://www.xbox.com to see extremely minor changes!

The real news here is im back from Ecuador! After spending far too much time in the Miami airport waiting for a connecting flight for over a day, I am back home in my underwear writing here on the Rally. JW has been doing an awesome job as per usual, in fact while writing this I am checking out on all the news I have missed out on while being in the video game bootleg capital of the world (okay maybe second place to China, but seriously, if you want to complete a PS2 collection for a buck fifty a game, head to South America). I have my email open in another window checking out some great entries on the contest here for you to WIN GTAIV! (July 2nd people, make sure to get your entries in if you haven’t!)

However, I must sleep now as not to endure the pain of sun burn I received while staying on the Galapagos Islands, so to end on an odd note, that Michael Jackson picture is from the Guayaquil Airport, just some souvenir shop, I have never laughed so hard or been so sad all at the same time seeing Jackson used to sell hats and other crap.

Today brings to a close one of the greatest cock tease demo of them all, the Halo 3 Beta. Now with my cousin out of town, I was able to nab his 360 and hook up my hard drive to get some more game time in (see: Red Ring of Death). Though I didn’t get to play the full time the beta was available, I actually feel I got to play enough of it, didn’t touch custom games, but I was already getting sick of playing the same levels over and over, good levels mind you, just annoying after a while.

Well, since I still had this working 360 over this weekend, I did manage to nab the new demo’s available. I can’t lie, I am very impressed so far. Check the rest of this entry for my thoughts on the new stuff.
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Looks like the Japanese community is warming up to the Xbox 360 more and more. We all knew how when Blue Dragon came out, it basically became a system seller. When playing “Lost Planet,” I always find rooms filled with those from the land of the rising sun. Now looking over to Amazon.co.jp, you can see on the Top Sellers list, it has hit the number 3 spot. Not too shabby for a game not coming out till June and with both PS3 and Wii lacking in games, at least in the near future (I stop counting all the times they give big announcements on upcoming games, only to have the dates pushed back over and over). Of course the 360 as we all know isn’t the big thing in Japan, or a little thing, but this is positive news and their user base can only continue to grow (and that of course can help branch off into more developers working on our baby).

[Note: if you are into RPG's at all, I think its time to make a silver account and give Eternal Sonata a try yourself, then start saving your pennies for when we get a release date in the states)

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Its happened. I have had an Xbox 360 since launch, and on this day, it has given me the red rings of death.

Now I must stay up till whatever time Xbox 800 number offices are open to get a box to send it out in. This is not looking well since I feel this may make me miss playing the Halo 3 Beta.

Any suggestions? Im thinking of going to Costco and buying a 360, only to return it when I get mine back from Microsoft. A little unethical? How do people feel about the “towel trick”?

(Note: thanks Xbox.com forum people for such support, ethical or not ..heh)