We received the most entries so far this week for yesterday’s NASCAR 09 giveaway, which, I suppose, was proof positive that stock car racing is the second-most popular sport in America behind football. I was amazed to find that, through over 20 entries, only two palindromes were repeated: I saw “deleveled” three times, and a variation of a sentence involving a “fast Toyota” twice. I was also surprised to see that no one submitted my favorite example of a palindrome: “Rise to vote, sir,” which I’ll never forget, thanks to the episode of The Simpsons in which Lisa is accepted into Springfield’s Mensa chapter.
Anyway, the winner — as determined by a random number generator — is Agent Raz! Send your info to samit[at]destructoid[dot]com, and we’ll get you your copy of NASCAR 09 soon! The palindrome he submitted was “Egad, a base tone denotes a bad age!” As for today’s contest, in which you can win a copy of FIFA Soccer 09 for the Xbox 360, well, we’ve got a crazy new format — courtesy of our beloved Founder-in-Helmet! We figure we’ll give it a shot because socc–um, I mean, football–is the most popular sport in the world!
Here’s how it works: it’s a comments game. I need you to post the following three things in a comment: a soccer videogame, a Street Fighter character, and a videogame villain who needs a shave. Here’s the catch: Your answers cannot match any segment of a prior answer — e.g., if someone mentions Ryu in comment #2, no one else can do so from that point forward. The 15th correct submission (not necessarily the 15th comment) will be the winner! The contest is open to anyone, anywhere, so get cracking!
For more information on the EA Sports/Gillette contest itself, head to the jump.
[Update: According to my criteria, power-glove is the winner! The winning entry (i.e., the 15th correct one) included the following: Sensible World of Soccer, Sodom (Alpha games), and Dracula (Castlevania games). Send your info to samit[at]destructoid[dot]com, power-glove, and you’ll have your copy of FIFA 09 soon! Thanks for playing, everybody!]
The full details can be found here, but in a nutshell, you compete in an Xbox Live tournament with any of five different EA Sports titles (Madden NFL 09, NBA Live 09, NASCAR 09, FIFA Soccer 09, and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09) for bragging rights, as well as prizes to certify your sports gaming prowess. There are nine weekly Qualifying Rounds, running from October 31-December 28, a week of leaderboard qualifying in a Knock Out Round from January 4-11, 2009, and a Global Competition around February 3, 2009, held in Orlando, Florida.
There are tournaments in North America, Asia, and Europe — the Global Competition will feature one winner per game from each of the three regions. Those fifteen winners will be flown to Orlando to compete against each other, and the winners will have a chance to play against the Gillette Champions: Tiger Woods, Derek Jeter, Thierry Henry, Denny Hamlin, and Roger Federer! Pretty cool, eh? Weekly winners get a Gillette razor and a 3-month Xbox Live Gold subscription; weekly first prize winners receive a Gillette shave kit, a copy of EA’s FaceBreaker, a 12-month Gold subscription, and 1,600 MS Points. Oh, and in addition to being flown to Orlando, the finalists will get a shave kit, 3 EA Sports games, a 12-month Gold subscription, and 4,000 MS Points.
