I have to say whoever programmed this should be commended. I was impressed with how many ways he can kill you. Two more after the jump.

 

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Twas the night before Christmas

Ann all through the house, just one creature was stirring, me and my mouse

 

The sentry guns were arrayed in the basement with care

In hopes that enemy scouts  soon would be there;

 

The demomen were nestled all snug in their beds,

While visions of explosions danced in their heads

 

And a medic and me as a heavy

Had just started out across the levy

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It's been a long time but Dave Gamble finally paid up after I destroyed his Asteroids high score. Below is the fruits of my labor from many years ago. Pretty sweet!

 

Silly me I forgot to change the ID of the Gaming Nexus Blog podcast so now you can click on the Listen link and hear our blog posts. You can also subscribe to them as well which I think is pretty slick. If you want an RSS feed to our audio, you can subscribe to this here.

Yes, the blog looks different. I've gone and used new blog software called BlogEngine. So far I really like what it offers and it's pretty easy to customize. Hope everyone likes it and let me know if you run into any problems!

In an interesting twist, the Official Xbox Magazine (OXM) was denied a request by Sony Public Relations for a review unit of one of Sony's popular Bravia line HDTV's. OXM was flat out told no, and the reason given by the Sony rep was that "I have to support our friends over at our sister company" and that "Sony is going to pass on the opportunity." It should be noted that while OXM is a Microsoft focused outfit, they are not owned by Microsoft and try to review one HDTV each issue.

I have a Journalism degree in Public Relation and in my opinion; this is just an irresponsible position for Sony's PR firm to take. While Sony PR for televisions may have felt they were watching the back of Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA), they have accomplished nothing more than inadvertently fueling the console war and the fanboy furor that permeates within the gaming communities. If we have learned one thing in the digital age, news (and rumors) spread incredibly fast and the court of public opinion will be quick and harsh. In fact, I am contributing to it right now by bringing it to the front page of GamingNexus.

Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with Sony PR, the bottom line is that neither the Xbox 360 nor Sony Bravia needs each other to sell their products. They are very capable of moving units on their own, and are also very compatible when hooked up to each other. The request by OXM appears to be innocent enough, as they could have easily contacted Toshiba, LG or Samsung among others. Instead OXM went after what they perceived (and experienced) to be one of the best TVs on the market and were denied.

We have reviewed TVs previously at GamingNexus, and plan to continue that in the New Year. Our goal is, and always will be to provide the best information possible to our readers so you can make an informed decision when it comes time to add a TV to your gaming rig. While we aren’t focused on one particular platform, I would hope review unit availability would never come down to what we said or who we cover. Check out the entire story by OXM's Dan Amrich on the OXM site.

Ok this is a little bit out of hand but Sony refused to send the folks at OXM a review unit of one of their Bravia TVs. It might just be me but I think it's a little silly. Look, I know Sony's in a fight with Microsoft for the console business but I would think you'd want more word out on your products even if it appears in a publication that's not geared towards PlayStation owners. So it's bad that a 360 owner purchased a Sony television to play games and watch movies with?

This is for you...

Kinda sad really to see Activision acting like this. They want money to enable Guitar Hero 3 controllers to work with Rock Band on the PS3. Yes, they come out and say they want to be compensated for it. I don't really see this as a good move especially with the backlash you can get from the community as this makes you look like greedy corporate overlords.

Thanks Kotaku.

Today I finally reached the "official" 1,000 News post of my Gaming Nexus career (not including those pulled for source retraction and being just plain stupid). I would put this on the front page (like Chuck did when he hit 1,000), but I figure it would get kicked back by the content cop (Little Asian dude, he is one mean m*therf*cker if you cross him from what I hear). I figure I would get an award, or maybe even a cookie, but alas nothing of the sort is in the works. :-(