Tuesday, February 13, 2007

GamerSCORE! and Halo 3 beta testers wanted, $60 please.

Well Tuesday kicked off the Old Spice Experience Challenge for Xbox 360, the contest assigns you a level (1,2 or 3) based on your current gamerscore 0-4,999 (lvl 1) 5,000-9,999 (lvl 2), and 10,000+ (lvl 3). Then based on your level when you start you can get prizes if your the first of xx,xxx to get 1,500 points between Feb. 12-April 12 (which has now been extended to April 15). Now what on earth made MS think it would take 2 freakin' months for people to add 1,500 points to their achievements!?

First off lets cover the prizes...

  • Level 1- you get a Old Spice Level 1 gamerpic, a Level upgrade, and Live Arcade Contra.
  • Level 2- Old Spice level 2 gamerpic, a level upgrade, Live Arcade Contra, and 100 MS points.
  • Level 3- Old Spice level 3 gamerpic, Live Arcade Contra, 200 MS points, T-Shirt, and a copy of Fuzion Frenzy 2

It's important to note there are supposedly only 2,500 T-shirts/Games available, and 70,000 other prizes (I'm guessing codes for Contra, and the MS points combined).

Well the contest didn't start off well, judging from the amount of complaints on various forums. The rewards site went live around 6pm (when it was supposed to launch at midnight EST), but trying to sign in just get it to hang on a blank page. By the time I got home after work last night there were all kinds of work around posted on various forums, and some indications that 35-40 people had already completed the level 3 challenge (in 3 1/2 hours). I finally got registered and thinking I was ready to SCORE I proceeded to play 2 1/2 hours of Madden 06 and rack up 500 points deciding that was a good place to call it a night I saved my progress. This morning I decided to check in to see if the website was working better (it wasn't), and in the process found that signing up for the Xbox Rewards was only the first step. You also have to join the challenge from the main Old Spice page before you get started, yep you guessed it my 1/3 of the mountain was erased and I was all the way at the bottom again. :(

I had posted about this Gamespot How to score 6,000 points (without really trying) article quite a while ago, and had referenced it along with this blog post thinking Madden 06, and King Kong or half of it would be my 1,500 since I had never played them. By all accounts Madden should take 6 hours to get all 1,000 points (my time was right at that, but I never got the 4 sacks during a game achievement) so I ended up with 900 (only 400 of which counted towards the contest...). I knew that Kong was roughly 6-8 hours so I thought I better look for another padding game, after going back to the Gamespot article I decided it would be NBA 2K6. It took 1 game not quite an hour to get all 1,000 points, the easiest points ever and I didn't even understand the controls 100%. I popped in Kong and about 30 minutes in hit the first achievement for 100 points paused the game, and (tried, and tried, and tried) to 'complete' the challenge on the website. I finally got through and it congratulated me on finishing the challenge, I still never got to the prize page but since I was level one I know what I'm getting anyway.

It's funny to note that it took a lame challenge and 24 hours to more than double my gamerscore (I was at 1945, and in the last 24 hours gained 2000 points), not including if I go finish Kong which seems pretty easy for another 900 points. Those guys at Mygamercard.net put up an unofficial tracker that gives you a rough update on how many have completed the challenge, and if you search for your name (in the Gamertag box) where you stand. It's been pointed out though on a couple forums that people have completed the challenge but the tracker not showing them with all their points (including right now it shows me at +900) so it seems to be taking a while to update so take the numbers there as guesstimates.


Xbox360fanboy had posted a blurb about the upcoming Halo 3 beta in conjunction with Crackdown. Those of you who thought about just snagging a copy of Crackdown downloading the beta then selling it off (or returning it, you devils) looks like the jokes on you. The picture below of insert that comes with Crackdown clearly states that to download the beta (whenever it's actually available), and to play the beta will involve you having the actual Crackdown DVD. Once downloaded it won't show up in the "demo" menu on your dashboard, it will only show up under the Xbox Live menu of the Crackdown game.


So are you willing to pay $60 bucks to beta test a game?

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