More than a half a million unique contestants competed in the 15 week beta season of 1 vs 100, and Microsoft wants even more to show up for round two. The second season of the game show kicks off on November 19th at 5:00 pm Pacific Time, with 1 vs 100 Extended Play. Extended Play features new themed trivia every week night, giving players a chance to capitalize on their strengths, giving them a better chance at being chosen as one of The Mob or perhaps even The One himself.

Nearly 2 million Microsoft points were given away as prizes during the first season, so you might want to keep an eye on the schedule this time around. Even if you aren't a big fan of trivia, you could win enough points to buy a game you really want to play. No pain, no gain?

Among the list of goodies you can win is an Xbox 360 Arcade Entertainment System. The official site for McDonald's Monopoly says there are thousands of the systems to win instantly tucked away on large fry containers and Angus Burger wrappers.

This is the only time of the year that I let myself eat McDonald's, and I still have borderline high cholesterol, dammit.

McDonald's Monopoly

Five days, five missions. EA is posting special tasks for fans of Need for Speed: Shift (or fans of BMWs I suppose) over at the Need for Speed Twitter. Completing the missions enters players into a drawing for the 2010 BMW M3, along with various other NFS-related goodies.

It's really an interesting little contest. Take today's mission for instance. You have to use Google Maps Street to find a real-world BMW and tweet a screen capture to @NeedforSpeed, with 50 winners scoring a gift bag and 1 receiving concert tickets to a Need for Speed soundtrack artist. I'm not particularly fond of the prizes, but the getting there sure sounds like fun.

Head over to the official Need for Speed Twitter to learn more.

At least, that's what we think this is. Maybe it's a message? Way back in the 1980s I saw this episode of Philip Marlowe: Private Eye on HBO and it said that the mob sent pencils to victims of the next planned hit, because it meant their name had been crossed off a list. Maybe sending a bat means Major Nelson drafted you in a Rotisserie league.

Actually, it's one of two thousand second-place prizes in a sweepstakes nearly 10 months old, and either the winners of the lesser prizes weren't told or the email announcing got spamfiltered. Either way, 10 months is way overdue, even for free stuff.

The prize bat looks a little different from the swag bat McWhertor got back in June, which looked pinkish/bluish and had a bloodspatter rendered on it. This sucker's shiny al-u-min-ium as the Brits say, and ready to knock a double in your next beer league game. I'm sure someone will stick theirs on eBay.

Reader Nick S. sent us that picture above, proclaiming it'll go on the wall right next to his lightsaber.

Microsoft Sent Me a Bat [Negative Gamer. Thanks Nick]

To make your voice briefly heard and get a chance at winning Nokia phones, games, or magazine subscriptions (yay), head over to www.goldenjoystick.com before the 27th. Then watch the show live on the website on October 31st to see what difference if any your opinion made.

Last chance to vote in the 26th Annual Golden Joystick Awards

Have you say and make a difference in this record breaking year!

20/10/08 - Gamers now have less than a week to make a difference in gaming’s most prestigious awards, the 26th Annual Golden Joystick Awards – together with Virgin Media.

With voting closing at midday on Monday 27th October – the event has already broken its voting record, smashing last year’s total and almost breaking 800,000 nominations with a week to go. More gamers than ever before have voted in this year’s awards, which are for the first-time, a headline event at the London Games Festival (www.londongamesfestival.co.uk) - a week long cultural celebration of gaming, from Friday 24th October.

Organised by Future – the Golden Joystick Awards were first hosted back in 1982, and are the world’s longest-established gaming awards. Celebrating the last 12 months of the games industry, winning a prestigious Golden Joystick is considered by games developers as the ultimate accolade, having been voted for by gamers themselves.

Voting is still wide open in many of the 17 gamer voted categories, with the top spots changing regularly throughout the day as votes are cast. If there’s a game you feel deserves a Golden Joystick – get over to www.goldenjoystick.com and vote now!

26th Annual Golden Joystick Awards – together with Virgin Media
• Virgin Media Ultimate Game of the Year
• The Sun Family Game of the Year
• Nuts All Nighter Award
• BBC 1Xtra Soundtrack of the Year
• Bliss Handheld Game of the Year
• Play.com The One To Watch Award
• 4Talent Mobile Game of the Year
• Nintendo Game of the Year
• Online Game of the Year
• PC Game of the Year
• PlayStation Game of the Year
• Xbox Game of the Year
• Publisher of the Year
• Activision Blizzard Retailer of the Year
• UK Developer of the Year
• Edge Most Wanted Award
• E4 Grand Master Flash Award

All voters have a chance to scoop a fantastic prize, with organisers dishing out exclusive prizes like Nokia N96 mobile phones, games and magazine subscriptions for every 10,000th vote.

TV’s Frankie Boyle presents the Golden Joystick Awards live from 1.30pm GMT on Friday, 31st October and you can see the show online at www.goldenjoystick.com or www.virginmedia.com.

Playing through it while sticking to the more virtuous decisions netted me a three-piece chicken costume. Playing through again on evil got me a nasty expression book and a vial of pink dye. Hit the link and let us know what prizes you come up with. Together we'll collect the whole set!

Fable II Storybook Game [Xbox.com - Thanks Jose!]

Things are kicking off today from 3:00PM to 9:00PM Eastern with a whole slew of GTA IV devs online to play against fans of the game. Hit the jump for a list of Rockstar gamertags to add to your friends list.

Here's the list of Gamertags to add for today's festivities:

RSG0Josh

RSG1Neil

RSG2David

RSG3Ben

RSG4Brian

RSG5Robert

RSG6Chris

RSG7Steve

RSG8John

RSG9Justin

RSG10Mark

RSG11Bruce

RSG12Steve

RSG13Mike

RSG14Zach

RSG15Fred

RSG16Paul

RSG17Ethan

RSG18Hugh

RSG19David

RSG20Ben

RSG21Craig

RSG22Laura

RSG23Richard

RSG24Greg

RSG25PJ

Cause Chaos all Weekend Long [Xbox.com]

All that, plus a year's worth of pizza. I know. I too was pretty 'meh' until that last bit. There are also several consolation prizes involving GameFly memberships, but in the face of the massive Grand Prize these are laughable at best. Hit the jump for the full details on the prizes while I start clearing some kitchen space for pizza boxes.

Pizza Hut® Offers Gaming Enthusiasts Opportunity to Win Gamer Fantasy Package

DALLAS—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Pizza has long been the food of choice for video game fans and now Pizza Hut, America’s Favorite Pizza, is giving gamers an opportunity to play their favorites in style with the “Gamer Fantasy Package” from Pizza Hut and GameFly.com. Click on Gamer Fantasy Package for details.

Playing three different video-game systems on a big screen plasma TV while enjoying surround sound and free Pizza Hut pizza for a year might sound like a dream, but that prize package will become very real for one lucky winner. And, with the new promotion, everyone who orders online at pizzahut.com will get 30 days of free game rentals from GameFly.com.

“Gamers have always been big fans of Pizza Hut so this sweepstakes is a natural fit,” said Brian Niccol, Pizza Hut CMO. “Your next online order at pizzahut.com could be your ticket to a gaming package that will make you the envy of all your friends.”

Order Online for Your Chance to Win

From May 27 through July 26, customers ordering online at pizzahut.com can enter for their chance to win the “Gamer’s Fantasy Package.” One lucky winner will take home a prize package valued at over $10,000, including a 60” LG Plasma TV, an XBOX 360, Nintendo Wii, and PlayStation3 gaming systems, a Bose Home Theater System, a Berkline home theater seating set and a popcorn machine. GameFly.com will make sure you have plenty of games to play on your new systems with a free one-year subscription, while Pizza Hut will make sure you don’t go hungry with a year’s worth of free pizza. Five first prize winners will receive one-year trial memberships to GameFly.com, while 500 second-prize winners will receive 60 day trial memberships. Official rules and contest details are available at pizzahut.com.

Everyone’s a Winner with a Free Month of GameFly.com

Even if you don’t take home the Gamers Fantasy Package, you can still score big with a free month of GameFly.com when you order online at pizzahut.com. Beginning May 27th, customers placing an online order will receive a code good for 30 days of free game rentals from GameFly.com, a $22.95 value. GameFly.com is your ticket to thousands of your favorite video game titles delivered right to you door.

GameStop's Call of Duty 4 Event Page [GameStop via The Mercury News]

With all the Bully bruhaha behind us and the controversial game taking a backseat to newer titles, Rockstar has decided to eek out a bit more life out of it by holding a new contest. The Harrington House Fraternal Society Initiation Rites Sweepstakes (damn, that's a mouthful) is fairly simple to enter and if you are one of the five winners, you'll be the recipient of a huge package of Bully branded goodies. The prizes include:

• Cricket bat
• Six Buttons (or badges if you prefer)
• Skateboard deck
• Dodgeball
• Notebook
• Paperweight
• Pencils
• Bullworth Academy rugby jersey
• Slingshot
• Bumper stickers
• Bully T-shirt

That is some pretty sweet swag right there! I just wonder what the initiation rites are? Something tells me it probably involves secretly kissing boys and getting the crap beat out of you with that cricket bat.

You can check out pics of all the available prizes on the sweepstakes entry page. Flynn De Marco

The Harrington House Fraternal Society Initiation Rites Sweepstakes [Rockstar Games - thanks, packratshow]

For those coming to our Barcade dealio, heads up. Here are the straight-from-Japan prizes I picked up. Got a lucky 13 number of game-related stuff. I don't know how we're going to do it: If this will be a lot, individual prizes or what. I am sure turning you all on each other will be involved.

Rather than going to Den-Den Town, you should know that these were purchased at the 7-11 a short five-minute walk from my house. Not sure if that makes them more cool or less, but take it for what it's worth.

Oh, the misses was worried that nobody would want these goodies. That true? Brian Ashcraft

Prizes For You Kids [Kotaku]

In-game matchmaking software company Xfire is teaming up with Blizzard in a promotional contest for the best World of Warcraft machinima. Grand prize is $23k, which is approximately a 127-year WoW subscription.

The objective of the contest is to select the best fan-made movies using World of Warcraft characters and locations - an increasingly popular area of amateur film-making known as machinima.

Contestants are invited to submit entries in four categories - short film, comedy, drama/action and dance/music video - with the criterion being that they must all be cut together from footage recorded in World of Warcraft.

The deadline is September 15th, so get cracking. There are also a butt-ton of runner-up prizes, so even if your sweeping epic about the shocking sexual exploitation of the Orgrimmar Orphanage doesn't top the list in the Music Video category, you still have a whack at some nice plunder. Eliza Gauger