I wish any USB camera would work.

I don't really remember since its been a while since I've tried but if I had to guess I would say easy.

I had a hard enough time trying to beat RAAM on the regular difficulty. I cannot imagine trying to do so on expert. Seems like it would be masochistic.

Me too.

RAAM was easy....shoot the crap out of him until he is almost on top of you, then run across the stage...repeat...dead.

The birds would cut me to shreds

Is anyone apart of the Microsoft retail expert zone? For some reason I received a copy of Call of Duty 4 yesterday for the xbox 360. I have no idea why they sent me it. I'll probably call them later and see.

I am. You probably won a drawing they had. Often they have drawings for folks who completed a specific course during a specific time. They don't usually notify you except to send you the prize. I got notified when I won the 7ft tall Master Chief statue as they wanted to make sure I actually wanted it before they shipped it, but otherwise they just send the prize, I believe.

I've been waiting for some new rewards to show up. Its been a bit slow lately.

What is it and where can I sign up?

So did you get the 7 foot statue?

It really depends. I beat him twice, once on Normal and again on Hard or whatever the mid-level difficulty is. The first time I simply got lucky because he never approached me so I was able to stay on the far end and kill him alone. However, the 2nd time around I could not for the life of me kill him; and after many tries I finally had to enlist the help of a stranger in Co-op and together we took him down. My point being it's a crap shoot with Raam.

ah ok thanks
I would have thought they'd email you if you won a contest. I guess this way people can't complain about not receiving their prize since they won't know they won anything!


It's for retail employees who work in the video game department. Just google microsoft retail expert zone.

yep and a copy of Halo 2 for PC. I gave the Halo 2 for PC to a friend since I don't game on my PC. The statue is in my basement.

Well, you'd think so, but I don't think I've ever received an email from them on a prize, and I won a copy a 12 month subscription to live and a one of the football games for the original xbox when the reward zone first started up and didn't get an email then either.

How about a photo?

wow, one lucky dude! i don't mind having a 7 feet statue of MC in my basement ;)

pics, please.

Is it made of plastic? stone? or what material? a 7 foot statue should be really heavy I guess.

My wife wants to get Dance Dance Revolution. Anyone know:

1) Is the pad wireless?

2) If not, how long is the cord?

3) Do I need to have the pad on bare floor, or would it work if I have it on an area rug?

No, not wireless.

I would estimate 6-8 ft, but not positive

I think it would actually work better on a bare floor. The carpet makes is cushiony, which isn't ideal.

It is a resin, but mostly hollow. I think it was about 150 lbs shipped, but that probably included packing material, etc. I wasn't home when it was delivered, but it came in a large box, on a pallet, shipped via a freight carrier.

Just signed up for photobucket to host this, so hopefully I do this right. I had some better pics, but they had the kids in them. Excuse the mess in the basement, when I took this. So, this is the one I have...

http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/j...r/img_1075.jpg

When they called me to let me know it was being shipped, etc I was hoping it was going to be this one, but unfortunately it was not:

http://technabob.com/blog/wp-content...f_lifesize.jpg

But when someone says they are going to ship you a near lifesize Master Chief statue for free, its not a time to be picky :D

I'm downloading the Kane & Lynch demo I expect to be unimpressed. I really don't understand the point of releasing demos to games that are already released.

thanks for the pics. It looks amazing!

Awesome statue sniper.

Because not everyone buys a game on release day. I love the demos, they have helped me make many decisions on whether to buy or not.

Exactly. I am happy that they have demos for released game available. Not everyone rents games or has the money to buy whatever they want to try.

Since I was a late comer to the 360, I was very happy to see so many demos available of released games. I downloaded like a madman my first few weeks feeling out different games so I could know what was my cup of tea and buy some games that I had heard about but not necessarily like. I would have never bought GHIII, GHII & Rock Band had it not been for the GHIII demo I played after the game was released. I played the demo and was hooked.

I personally wish they would include a demo for every game ever released and keep them there.

Speaking of demos, I downloaded the Burnout Paradise demo and played it last night. My impressions were like most of the ones already posted here: it was plain out terrible. The graphics looked great and the handling was good but that is where the compliments end.

The map is confusing. The races are confusing. Trying to get a race on Live was confusing. If their point was to befuddle their fans they have succeeded. I have owned every version of Burnout since the first one so I am a longtime fan. Unless some quick changes are made I see this being the first Burnout I skip completely.

I will be very interested to see not only what the reviews will be on this one but what the sales figures will be as well.

In a weird way demo's have done more to keep me away from games than actually attracting me to them. A lot of times I might play a demo 2 or 3 times and figure "that's enough of that". Perfect example, Conan.

But then the games I'm really interested in, demo's usually confirm that I want to play them all the way through.

Success through Demo: Dead Rising
Death Through Demo: Full Auto

good times :)

Full Auto turned out better than the demo. I picked it up for $20 from Gamefly. It's a fun Live title.

I don't disagree with your statement. The demos have definitely changed my mind on buying certain games.

Better than the demo, yes. It was nothing more than filler until Burnout Revenge came out though. :D

For me, I rarely blind buy games unless they're getting ridiculously good reviews, like Mass Effect, (or have some element I like, like Star Trek games... ugh). I think the demo feature has caused me to buy more games than normal. Especially XBLA games.

I still can't download the Dead Rising demo, is anyone else having that problem?

So DVD playback on my 360 really sucks now, I'm not sure if it's due to an update or if my 360 is dying or what.

Playing a regular DVD through either the HD-DVD add on or the console itself results in a lot of blurring when there's any motion on the screen... in addition, you can clearly see the horizontal scan lines. It's like the upconversion is not working right (I'm outputting 1080p through VGA). At first I thought it was my HD-DVD player or the usb cable, but it's the same thing going straight to the console.

The DVDs are rentals, but play fine on my PS3. Games and HD-DVDs look fine. I can't seem to find any tuning options for DVD playback, only general display options. Anyone else experience this?

Really? I hadn't noticed anything on my unit, I'll check tonight. I only have 720p, but do use the VGA.

Quick question on 360 - with the elite, you can you output HD over HDMI and SD over composite simultaneously?

I don't believe so. Because there is one setting for the 360 display options at one time. What would be the purpose anyway?

Asking on behalf of a friend. I am not entirely sure TBH.

I'm surprised everyone is so down on the Burnout demo, it sounds like everyone wanted more of the same. I think there would have been a lot of complaints if they had released another traditional Burnout with high res graphics and a few extra modes. I like that they took the series in a different direction, by making it more open, but keeping the same core Burnout gameplay. The demo is somewhat limited, but I think the potential is there once they open up the entire city. I had a blast just driving around and exploring the city and the different jumps/shortcuts.

I didn't like that there wasn't a restart button for races, but that may not be such a big deal when every intersection has an open race.

I was listening to the CrashFM Criterion podcast, it sounds like traffic checking will be back, but it depends on the type of car now. The car you have in the demo is a stunt car.

I am all for going another route with a Burnout game but this demo just feels broken. The set-up is just horrible. Maybe that will chage with the coming release but I doubt it since it is so close to its release date. I wouldn't have liked this demo even if it didn't have Burnout name on it.

It just makes it all the more disappointing that it does have the Burnout name after so many previous quality releases.

I didn't like the Burnout demo either.