If I had a million dollars....

So, I didn't really get around to seeing either the Longest Yard or Madagascar this weekend, but I'll probably catch them a little later in the week. In the meantime, I'd like to talk about the first Xbox game I've been really excited about in awhile-Advent Rising. Pretty much the easiest way to describe it is if you put Halo & The Matrix in a blender, this would be the most likely result (the lead character even bears an eerie resemblance to Keanu Reeves, if he says "whoa", or "I know Kung Fu" at any point in the game, the Wachowskis should sue). You play one of the few remaining humans in the universe, so long forgotten that most regard humanity itself as a myth. From the previews it's sort of unclear why or how, but you get imbued with special powers to take on a race of aliens known as The Seekers. But this promises to be more than a mishmash of two popular franchises, as the story is written by Orson Scott Card, who is probably most famous for writing the cult classic Ender's Game. And to sweeten the pot, the first 500,000 who buy the game (and have Xbox live) have a chance to win one million dollars by finding special easter eggs hidden throughout the game that are downloaded through Xbox live. Granted, I'm not really expecting to get the million, but it's way better odds than the lottery and a man can dream! I know most people would probably buy a bunch of stuff with it, but as I previously stated, I'm fairly frugal, so I'd probably just get a decent apartment in an inexpensive city where I could get a nice gaming setup and just hoard the rest like a little old miser. I might also change my name given all the bad stories I've read about people who win big money.

Coming back to reality, we finally have some not exactly earth-shattering confirmations by J. Allard (who, thanks to the guys at Penny Arcade, I will from now on refer to as Microsoft's offical pirate, cause they are right, he looks like one with that bald head and cheesy earring) about the Xbox 360. First up, he said it would deinfitely be in the "neighborhood" of $300. While this makes a 299 price point unlikely, it's probably going to be $330, but almost definitely won't be more than $350. Not a huge suprise, but it's nice to hear it definitely won't be something outrageous like $400. And he confirmed it will launch in mid-november, again not a huge surprise, but it's nice to have a good idea of when it will be out for sure. Now if we can just get confirmation that next gen games will definitely not be 59.99 as most sites have been listing, I can die a happy gamer (uh, not before the 360 comes out, though...)