ALL ABOUT ME: New News On The Delay Of My "Free Halo 3"

Today I recieved a "Halo 3 Essentials: Disc 2" in the mail today to appearently replace a faulty disc (I've never owned Halo 3). Livid doesn't begin to describe it. I've explained to them over and over during the course of THREE previous calls that I don't need a "repair" disc, that I'm eligible to recieve a free copy of Halo 3 for a promotion they ran.

Anyhow, I called up the super friendly people at 800-4-MY-XBOX after recieving my "H3E:D2". This time I talked to a very nice guy named Jeff. English is his first language (Look, I don't care if you're lime green, come from venus and breath out of your ass while talking through your eyes, as long as we can communicate clearly to each other and you can understand what I'm saying, we're good). In two minutes Jeff was able to accomplish what had previously been a herculean task. He found out that they're running about a week behind on sending out the free game. He said that I should recieve it in the next couple of days and that if I don't have it by the first to give them another call. Why couldn't the first person I talked to tell me this? Why did I have to tell them several times that I've never owned Halo 3, that I'm just trying to get my free Halo 3 disc for this specific promotion? Updates forthcoming as needed :)

SAVAGE RUMORS UPDATE: EB has joined Best Buy in being X'd out of Xbox!

In a rumor first postulated right here on Fuzzy Voltage here is a story from Kotaku AU. Appearently EB hasn't had ANY Xbox 360's since X-Mas either. Something very odd is going on. Here's an excerpt from the story:

"I called countless EB Games stores across the country this morning, and at each store, was told the same thing: they had no Premium 360s in stock, and had not received new stock since before Christmas. None of the managers I spoke to had any idea why they weren't being restocked. Most of them sounded more than a little pissed off about it. Little strange that store managers would be kept in the dark about such serious supply problems, unless...well, unless the supply problem was at a higher level.

Bear in mind these claims are, at this point, unsubstantiated by either EB Games or Microsoft ("Microsoft does not comment on rumour and speculation"), but the consistency of the supply "issues" across the country is, at the least, highly suspicious."

ALL ABOUT ME: Free Halo 3 promotion proves, so far, to be an exercise in nothingness

I finally made the decision to purchase the Xbox 360 when I found the following promotion: If you own an original Xbox and currently have an Xbox Live account and you purchase a 360 between November 1st and December 24th and transfer your live account from your old Xbox to your new 360 Microsoft will send you a free copy of Halo 3.

I was waiting for the right sale/incentive to make the jump to purchase the 360 and this was definitely it. A free copy of what amounted to this generation’s version cabbage patch kid? I’m so there. So on November 27th I picked up an X360 pro. I went home and registered on the Xbox.com site for the promotion and transferred my Xbox live account to my new 360. Woo Hoo! Now I just had to wait “through January 18th” to receive my copy of H3.

Nearly two months later and by January 16th I still hadn’t received my free copy of Halo 3. I had what I guess you’d call a premonition that I wouldn’t be receiving my game on time so I decided to call 800-4MY-XBOX to see what the status was. The long and short of that first call is that it took them forty minutes to tell me my disc would be arriving on the 18th.

As you might have guessed, the 18th came and went and I’m still Halo-less. I called Xbox customer support on the 20th and spoke to a very nice service rep. I’m going to stop right now to mention that everyone I’ve talked to at 800-4-my-xbox is frighteningly polite, which is fine because I’ll take unnaturally nice over commonly discourteous any day. They also keep referring to the free copy of Halo 3 as a “replacement disc”. During each call I have to inform them at least once that it is not a replacement disc but a free promotional disc. Anyhow my call then gets forwarded to a supervisor named Miss Chiqui (pronounced cheeky) who graduated with a doctorate in warm fuzzies. She is extremely polite, sweet, and helpful (I’m fully convinced that Xbox customer service reps are the direct descendents of the Stepford Wives). She tells me that she’s extremely sorry that my replacement disc hasn’t arrived and will send out another one. I decide that if it’s easier for them to say “replacement” instead of “promotional” then who am I to correct them? I thank her for her kindness and understanding.
I also decide after getting off the phone that should I end up with two Halo 3 discs that one will be auctioned off to benefit small animals.

So about a week goes by and I still haven’t received Halo 3. I put in another call to the Xbox help-line and after being put on hold for a merciful 5 minutes or so I’m told that it will take up to six weeks for my disc to arrive. Hoo Ha Marines! Looks like I’m Call of Duty bound for another 6 weeks or so. That’s ok because I can hone my much need-to-be-honed CoD4 skills.

I’d love to hear from others who participated in this promotion. Have you received your free copy of H3 yet? I will update as soon as 1) I get Halo 3 or 2) I call customer service again. Stay tuned.

Xbox 360 Breaks Down 5 Times In A Row, But Microsoft Refuses To Replace It

In a story found on The Consumerist, a reasonable sounding fellow named Greg wrote to the consumer rights website to tell a horror story that will make most sane people want to stick a hot poker their eye. Greg's Xbox has broken down 5 TIMES. He's asked Microsoft to either give him a new system or refund his money. This sounds like an extremely reasonable request considering violence seems like an appropriate choice. Click Here to see read the full story.

Top 6 Reasons 2008 Could be the Year of PS3

I have a Xbox 360. Previously I had an Xbox. I'm glad Sony payed the humiliating price of failure for arrogantly disrespecting their fans by charging an absurd amount of money for the PS3 upon it's launch. BUT - thing could seriously change in 2008. Sony has gotten it's act together and brought the price of the PS3 down to an incredibly reasonable $399.00 and has a slew of impressive high profile titles loaded in it's rocket launcher. Microsoft is still dealing with hardware issues and came into the new year with crippled online componant.
Read the top 6 reasons why I think 2008 could be the year of the PS3 on the always effervescent Mania.com

read more - digg story

SAVAGE RUMORS: Best Buy isn't ordering the XBOX 360 anymore?

What's up with Xbox and Best Buy? Have you tried to get one since the holidays? Unless you're looking for the "Arcade" model (and frankly, most of us aren't) you can't get the 360 at a Best Buy at ANY of the Los Angeles locations. That's not so odd with it being relatively close to christmas; here's where it gets weird: The Best Buy rep I spoke with said not only are they out but they aren't even on order! HUH?

Click here to see that you can't even order them online!

Seems odd. Could it be that there are big changes in store for Microsoft's game console?

We're still waiting for to find out what the heck is going on. Stay tuned!

SATINY REVIEWS: Mutant Storm Reloaded

Game: Mutant Storm Reloaded
Developer: PomPom
Format: Xbox Live Arcade
Release Date: 11/22/2005
Fuzzy Voltage Grade: A

I bought my Xbox 360 in late November of ’07 so I discovered Mutant Storm Reloaded quite a while after its original launch with the 360 in '05. It has since become my XBLA fetish and with the 360 doing so well over the holidays I thought there might be a number of new Xbox owners unfamiliar with MSR.

Gameplay:

MSR hones 25 year old game play to razor sharp perfection. The "kill everything on screen before it touches or shoots you" style previously found in games like Robotron, Geometry Wars, and Smash TV has been distilled to a pure elegance, a sublime fluidity, a haunting beauty if you will that has both a plastic and organic aesthetic.

MSR approaches impossible difficulty but manages, like any great game, to always seem within reach and achieves an addiction level that’s highly sought yet rarely found. I’ve only been able to reach the 50th level so far (there are 89 in all). The interesting thing is that it’s not that the levels necessarily get harder the higher up you go (though there are some very obstructive and interesting challenges that arise) but the whole game requires a kind of relaxed, intense focus in order to progress without being hit.

Graphics:

MSR's graphics are both ultra retro in inspiration and hyper modern in execution; super clean, precise, biological and mechanical; are we caught in some kind of 1970's microscopic, dystopian gene warfare zone? Each time I sit down to play I feel like I'm entering into a nightmarish Lucite dream world with enemies ranging from itty bitty cell structures to strange tailed nano-creatures. This game is a graphical masterpiece, yes masterpiece. I said it and I stand by it. This is Hi-Def grace and beauty for the new millennium.

Sound and Music:

The music is impeccably “Escape from New York” era John Carpenter. Frankly it’s one of my favorite soundtracks ever for a game. While game music usually tries to manipulate the user into feeling tension and urgency, the music here creates a soft sense of approaching menace that lets the game play itself be the force that stirs the anxiety soup. The music never draws attention to itself but like any truly great soundtrack it is an essential component to the atmosphere and piques the user’s imagination as to what kind of world the game environment resides in.

The sound design is anti-over-the-top; tastefully muted explosions that excellently capture the moment without ever clobbering you over the head. The sound-scape of MSR is one of the components that allows for its extremely addictive gameplay. You’re ears never get fatigued as a result of playing and you’re never annoyed by what you hear.

Tips:

A) Sometimes plowing through a throng of enemies with guns blazing is the only way to get out of a seemingly impossible situation.

B) Don’t forget to use your smart bombs! Probably my #1 reason for dying is forgetting to use the darn smart bomb.

C) Skirt along the perimeter staying against the wall while firing towards the center can often keep you in good shape.

Why I like it more than Geometry Wars:

The truth is that they both provide something different from each other. There’s more than enough room on any shooters fan’s hard drive for both but if I could only choose one…
Geometry Wars is a great game but its style is pure overkill, which is what makes it what it is.
There’s a subtler aspect to MSR while still providing all the twitch and tumble that make a great shooter