Judging from the site stats, plenty of you hunted for the birthday cake in Plastic Axe’s one-year-anniversary contest. But the number of entrants who correctly located and identified it was just a fraction of those who looked: nine! That’s right, nine! Which meant that each contestant had a one-in-nine chance of winning the Omega GM-1.

I headed to Random.org this morning to get a truly random number from one to nine, and the result was eight. And the eighth person to correctly respond was…

Ryan Allen, of Dryden, Michigan.

Congrats, Ryan! You’ll be receiving your GM-1 very soon. And thanks to all who entered. I may run more scavenger hunts like this in the future…though I think next time I’ll drop a hint or two so we get a bigger pool of potential winners.

Oh, and if you’re wondering? The birthday cake is here.  Thanks for playing!

Has it been a year already? Good heavens, it has. On August 25, 2009, I officially launched Plastic Axe; I had populated it with some content before then, but it was one year ago today that I officially flipped the switch and spread the word. It’s been an interesting time, I’ll tell you.

But I don’t want to get all maudlin and reflective; I want to celebrate! So let’s have us a little giveaway.

Well, perhaps not quite so little: I’ve decided to give away the Omega GM-1 that I reviewed back in March. If you’re not familiar with the product, it’s a set of sensors that allow you to connect a real, actual drum set to a Guitar Hero kit — or a MadCatz portable Rock Band kit with an optional adapter, not included — so that you can play real drums in your music game of choice.

Now, this unit retails for $250, so I’m not going to make it terribly easy to win this. You’ll have to invest a bit of time and have a bit of luck. You’ll also, I’m afraid, have to live in the U.S., or have an address in the U.S. that I can send this to; I’m not going to be able to deal with international shipping for this one. Aside from that one caveat, though, anyone can win. You’ll find all the details after the break. Continue reading →

Hey, remember that podcast I mentioned a couple weeks ago? It’s now up, live and in charge, for your listening pleasure, and runs an astonishing two-plus hours! Head over to the official site to grab yourself some sweet, sweet music-game chat.

The fellows over at Starpower, the Official ScoreHero Podcast, have put together a cast of miscreants and rogues for their latest effort, including Dan at Activision’s One of Swords blog, Tommy at RockBandAide, and me. Of here.

We’ll be recording starting at 8:00 pm Eastern (that’s 5:00 Pacific), and get this: You can tune in live to hear us “umm” and “uhh” without a net, by hitting the Starpower Live Ustream feed. I promise not to embarrass you.

If you’ve been dilly-dallying with picking up those deeply discounted Guitar Hero and Rock Band tracks in the Xbox Live Marketplace, get your butt in gear. Today is the last day of LIVEapalooza, and once these deals are gone, they’re gone forever!

Well, probably not forever. But at least until the next big sale, which doesn’t happen all that often, lemme tell you.

Check out the complete lists of Rock Band and Guitar Hero tracks and packs on sale to grab some last-minute deals.

Xbox 360 owners, charge up those MS Points. Microsoft has kicked off their music-game mega-sale, featuring downloadable singles and track packs at as little as half the normal price.

Here’s the whole rundown of what’s on sale for Guitar Hero, and here’s what’s being offered for Rock Band. And should you also wish to grab some tracks for the Lips series, you can see what’s available at the LIVEapalooza page.

Seriously, there are some crazy deals in there. And should you want to save even more — and if you can act fast — you can pick up 1600- or 4000-point cards through Amazon for $3.45 off the regular price. They’ll have to be physically shipped, but if you order today (or you already subscribe to Amazon Prime and get the free two-day shipping), you ought to be able to get your order before the sale expires on Monday the 12th.