As with the written portion of the contest, there are only a few simple
rules:
1) Must be your original work
2) Must be related to gaming or technology industry
3) Must be G-rated for general audience consumption.
Video reviews offer an entirely new way to look at games and hardware and we ’re leaving it up to you do decide how you’d best like to tackle the challenge. Videos can be single person, talking heads, narrated, animated or any variety of these things. It’s up to you to decide what is going to be the most entertaining and attract the highest votes from the FiringSquad audience and editors who will judge your work. Your need to join the "FiringSquad Video Challenge" cluster to be eligible for this portion of the contest.
Preliminary 1 – February 12 through February 25
Preliminary 2 – March 5 through March 18
Both preliminaries last two weeks. During these two weeks you can submit as many videos as you like in one or both preliminaries. Public voting lasts through April 1st and on April 2nd the writer judges will announce the top production each from preliminary 1 and 2. Those two contestants will each receive the necessary hardware to prepare a review of the Intel® Core 2™Duo Extreme microprocessor. The finalists are allowed to submit as many video reviews as they like. The final video reviews are due by midnight April 22nd. Public voting for the videos will continue through April 29 and the winner will be announced on May 1st.
How Entries will be scored
Each entry is scored on a scale of 700 points.
100 points x4 = The Judge’s Panel is comprised of Alan Dang, John Callaham, Jakub Wojnarowicz, and Brandon Bell. Each judge will award each article up to 100 points. They’ll be taking the big picture into account and be looking at everything from writing style, technical sophistication and even spelling and grammar.
100 points x3 = Page views, number of votes, and average user rating. Each article will receive a weighted score from 0 to 100 based upon the number of page views, user votes, and average user rating.
General Points To Consider • We encourage every one who is competing to self-promote his or her entry. You can ask your friends, neighbors, co-workers or distant cousins to rate and vote for your work. They will have to register to vote, but registration is free and once they are registered they can vote during each round. That said, any use of forged votes/scripts or unsolicited spam will instantly disqualify you. We want you to be proud of your work, but we have to keep things fair.
• This competition is open to professional freelance or full-time writers to participate. We don’t care who you work for or what you do. We do not require an exclusive contract, and we’re simply looking for the best writers to rise to the top. We believe that the best writers have yet to be discovered, and that’s why we are running this competition.
• This competition is open to everyone all over the English-speaking world. The only requirement is that you are at least 18 years old. If you are under 18 you are invited to participate, just be warned that we cannot legally award you any of the prizes.
Gigabyte P55 Lynnfield-ready Motherboard Roundup
If you're in the market for a new P55 motherboard to go along with your new Lynnfield CPU you'll definitely want to check out today's article. Inside we've devoted over 7,000 words to four different Gigabyte motherboards. From high-end to low, it's all covered here!
Left 4 Dead 2 PC Review
Valve says Left 4 Dead 2 contains so much new content, it's worthy of a sequel rather than DLC. Is this true or false? Judge for yourself in today's review!
ATI Radeon 5970 Performance Preview
After a 10-month hiatus, ATI's once again got the world's fastest graphics card. The Radeon 5970 fuses two RV870 chips onto one board for max performance, and is built for OC'ing. See how this board fares in the latest games including Modern Warfare 2, Left 4 Dead 2, and DX11 titles like STALKER: Call of Pripyat in this article!
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 PC Review
With no dedicated servers, no lean, and 18-player cap for multi, does Modern Warfare 2 for PC live up to its predecessors? Most of the reviews online have praised Infinity Ward's latest shooter but those reviews were focused for console players -- how does the PC port fare? Find out in today's review!
Sapphire Radeon 5870 Vapor-X 1GB Review
With its custom vapor chamber cooling+heatpipes and factory OC'ing, Sapphire's 5870 Vapor-X is targeted towards gamers looking for a 5870 card with a little more oomph than the stock 5870 card can provide. Best part of all is that the card sells for just $10 more than the stock Radeon 5870. See how much cooler and quieter the Vapor-X card runs inside!
Phenom II Gets A New Revision: 125W AMD Phenom II X4 965 Performance Preview
Promising lower power consumption, lower temps, and most importantly for enthusiasts, more OC'ing, AMD is back with a new CPU revision for the Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition, which now boasts a 125W TDP. Is AMD able to deliver on their promises though? Find out in today's article!
Shattered Horizon Review
FutureMark, well known for their popular 3DMark benchmarks, is venturing into new territory with Shattered Horizon. This multiplayer shooter is perhaps best known for its system requirements -- the game supports DX10 only -- but there's more underneath the surface of this game than fancy visuals. Is it worth its $20 price tag though? Read Vandy's take inside!
Borderlands PC Review
Is it an RPG or is it an FPS? Borderlands blends the best elements of both in one entertaining package. Vandy has spent the past week playing the PC version of the game and came away rather impressed. Read his full thoughts on the game in today's review!
AMD Athlon II X3 435/Athlon II X2 240e Performance Preview
Today AMD is introducing 8 new Athlon II CPUs intended to service different segments of the budget CPU market. For HTPC users, new 45W dual, triple, and quad core offerings should deliver good performance along with low power, while performance junkies on a budget will want to look at AMD's new Athlon II X3 CPUs. See how the new chips stack up in terms of performance and OC'ing in this article!