I just hate contests! Yes, I know we’re running a whopper of one right now on this very site, but it completely sucks when you can’t really win anything for yourself. And if you thought my luck held out when it came to other contests, boy are you mistaken. In any case, the guys over at Tech2, in association with Milestone Interactive, have managed to snag a 40 GB PlayStation 3 and a copy of Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune to give away to one lucky…. fellow. (See how I didn’t use extreme profanity there? I would also like to take this opportunity to thank my anger management therapist for trying to cure me of my addiction to rageahol.)

All you need to do to win the shiny, sexy black beast with the Spiderman font and the best damn game for the platform is simply head over to the contest page here, read through the three articles that contain the code, crack it and then sit back and relax and pray like hell you win. Hurry, you don’t have a lot of time left. A small tip if you want to win: hire a harem of supermodels and send them to the Tech2 Editor’s house to, erm, fortify your standing in the prize line. But whoever wins, listen up, the second I come to know you’re not a fan or you’re going to eBay it ASAP, you will get hunted down like the dog you are and blown up like a midget in a microwave. Consider yourself warned… Or you could just choose to give me the goodies and die a relatively painless death. Your call.

(Image : Copyright Unknown)

2008 couldn’t have started out on a worse note for the struggling Indian gaming community. Already reeling under problems such as delayed releases of titles (and the complete absence of others, like UbiSoft ones), game price stickers tugging heavily at our monthly incomes and less-than-average broadband connectivity, Indian gamers will now have to bear the additional burden of trying to get their game past the eagle eyes at the Indian censorship board.

Confirming the decision by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, the Censor Board chief, Sharmila Tagore has said that they will now actively censor computer game software as well, in an attempt to keep objectionable content out of the hands of children who shouldn’t be playing them in the first place. According to DNA India, Sharmila Tagore says:

This is true that there is a proposal that the Censor Board should start censoring all video games - and I agree with proposal totally. We have already submitted our proposal to the ministry and the draft is being considered by them.

Apparently, it looks like this issue began with a number of parents voicing their concerns that their little ones were playing games that are entirely unsuitable for them. According to the proposal, the Censor Board will identify games with aforesaid “unsuitable” content and will advise age limits for children to access the videogame content. But chillingly, in a move that we are used to hearing coming out of Germany’s radical game ratings board, Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle (USK), the Censor Board will also reserve the right to ban a videogame if it deems it unsuitable for an Indian audience.

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If you are a gamer in India, chances are that more often that not, you have come across phillistines who go, “You still play games?!” or the done-to-death quip about videogames existing for the sole enjoyment of the little ones who rush through life at the speed of six thoughts a minute. Arguably, ignorance and apathy (why, hello, Ubisoft!) are the biggest banes as far as Indian gaming is concerned, and the Counter-Strike crazed, Need For Speed laptime whoring pimply tweens aren’t really helping the cause. The world has, till now, pardon me for using a Bush-ism (or for all you Orange Box fans, a Griggs-ism), “misunderestimated” the Indian gaming scene. Whenever our articles get Dugg or make it to the front page on N4G, it doesn’t take long before comments about we not having enough money to buy Xboxes and PlayStations, being a third-world country and a whole bunch of other awesomely turdish comments start popping up, making us run for the mop. It is absolutely saddening to see gaming in India in such a sorry state, especially when you are given a nice talking-to by a squeaky-voiced teen in the Halo 3 matchmaking lobby who’s probably never known the joys of Contra and Grim Fandango.

That’s not to say that no one is trying to do anything to change this. The best example of people seriously promoting the Indian gaming scene has to be the good folks up at GamingIndians, who completed one year quite recently. (What, no cake, fellas?)

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Someone needs to put Santa Claus on the naughty list - the fat, red clown has a nasty habit of giving you a gift, but then giving a much better one to the neighbor you always hated. And it looks like Microsoft India seems bent on following in jolly ol’ Sant Nick’s fur boots as far as the Xbox 360’s pricing is concerned.

Announcing a Christmas-slash-New Year price cut for the holidays, Microsoft has said that the Xbox 360 Core console will retail for INR 14,990 along with Forza Motorsport 2 and Viva Piñata, whereas the Pro console will retail for INR 23,990 along with Forza Motorsport2, Viva Piñata, PGR3 and Yuvraj Singh International Cricket 2007 - a net savings of almost 10,000 bucks on the Core version and over 12,000 big ones on the Pro version. Obviously, now, I’ve got to swallow a whole bottle of antacids and get a squeaky de-stressing toy while people who bought the console a week or so back will probably be out buying guns to shoot themselves dead on Christmas.

One wonders whether the offer, valid until the end of the year or until stocks last, is some sort of stock clearing scheme before the newer Arcade and Pro stocks come in. Bah, who cares! You’re not going to get these babies cheaper, so if you were still mulling your purchase over, stop thinking and get your ass to the nearest game store and satisfy that burning itch with an Xbox 360 and Mass Effect.

With Crysis, every day is a cold day in Hell. And what better way to celebrate a Snow Day (or rather, Flash Freeze Day) than by sending North Koreans and distant cousins of the xenomorphs to meet their respective makers? One lucky bastard, however, will get so much more, if Tech2 Gaming have their way with the “Experience Crysis” contest. Specifically, playing it for two days straight South Park style on “the best hardware money can buy”, getting to review it on CNBC / CNN-IBN, and a goodie bag that includes a limited edition copy of the game, a six-foot (Sweet Zombie Jesus!) tall exclusive Crysis poster and an NVIDIA 8800 GTS 320 MB video card.

All you gotta do to try and be The One is to head over to Tech2’s Crysis review, spot the “hidden code” (come on, guys, you can do better than that!), send an email to Tech2 and wait and pray the rest of the competition drops dead so you’ll be picked. Or, if you’re clever (like us), you can just wait outside the Tech2 offices and wait for The One to come out, stick a BB shotgun in his face and make off with the goodie bag while he’s watering the lawn. Maybe even finish him off Condemned: Criminal Origins style for good measure. After that, maybe we’ll all use the Universal Machine Language Time Code and go back in time for some frozen pizza. Yum!

When the Xbox 360 Fall 2007 update was revealed, the feature that caught everyone’s eye was the support for DivX. This feature had been on everyone’s wishlist for quite a while now, including ours, just so we could turn the console into a media hub and not have to resort to transcoding and streaming via the Media Center. Naturally, we were pretty excited about the update and were prompt in updating the console as soon as the update was rolled out.

However, all of us updating through our Indian gamertags were a bit perplexed when we came across this strange bug that would not let us get the Optional Media Update which will actually enable us to play our DivX files on the Xbox 360. After having installed the main update successfully, when we tried to pop in a DVD, it would prompt us to go for the Optional Media Update. However, there was no download option to be seen anywhere except for a “More Information” link. A quick workaround was to use a spoofed US gamertag to get the update. Still, it seemed pretty odd that Indian Xbox LIVE users had to suffer this hassle.

Finally, there is some light at the end of the tunnel. While browsing through the Dashboard last night, we stumbled upon the Optional Media Update buried deep inside Game Add Ons. A quick install and it confirmed the fact that we had hit pay dirt. Here is a quick look at where you have to navigate to once you login using your Indian gamertag:

Marketplace >> Game Store >> More >> Game Add On >> All Game Add On >> Optional Media Update ( At #33 )

Now that we have a way of getting the update through our Indian gamertags, the process has become much more simpler, atleast when compared to the earlier process of getting it by signing up for a spoofed US gamertag. So much for running the extra mile just to be able to watch our 50 TB of porn on the XXXbox 360.

So much for a Day 1 release! Ages after everyone has finished playing Gears of War and Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties, we’re finally getting to see the retail copies roll out into shelves here. In an official press release sent out today, Microsoft India announced that copies of Zoo Tycoon 2: Extinct Animals Expansion, Flight Simulator X Expansion Pack, Viva Piñata (PC), Age of Empires III Gold (including AoE3 and The WarChiefs expansion), Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties and Gears of War for Windows will now be (finally!) available starting tomorrow.

Pity a lot of the people in India gave up waiting and bought their copies elsewhere.

The official pricelist:

Zoo Tycoon 2: Extinct Animals Expansion Pack - INR 1149
Flight Simulator X Acceleration Expansion Pack - INR 1649
Viva Piñata - INR 1649
Age of Empires III Gold - INR 1649
Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties - INR 1149
Gears of War (PC) - INR 1649

Enjoy. That is, if you haven’t already!

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