Did you ever meet a bear? Although I am not living in a region where bears are running free, I had two close encounters with bears, and they both had a happy ending. Since I am here to write this, that should be obvious, anyway. I won't get deeper into those encounters, but all I can say is that I regret I had to deal with brown bears twice, and since it all happened in Europe, I had no chance of encountering the Kodiak Bear. Anyway, Alaska is one of the destinations I have to check in my list with places to visit, but until I get there, I think it's easier to grab a Wii and enjoy Mastiff's Major League Eating: The Game...

Major League Eating is now available via WiiWare, but I think the real thing is even more interesting, so here it is - the records belonging to Takeru Kobayashi, Joey Chestnut, Sonya Thomas and Patrick Bertoletti are now history: 66 Nathan's Famous hot dogs and buns in 12 minutes; 97 Krystal hamburgers in eight minutes; 65 hard boiled eggs in six minutes and 47 seconds; eight-plus pounds of rib meat in 12 minutes!

Now, to the Kodiak Bear facts in the game - if you manage to unlock each character in the game along the way, you'll get the ultimate unlockable in the end, The Alaskan Crusher. Here's what the official press release says...<-120x240 Vertical Banner - right->

"Hailing from Alaska's Kodiak Archipelago, The Alaskan Crusher is considered one of the world's largest terrestrial omnivores. He prefers the brain, flesh and eggs of the salmon, and the internal organs of deer, elk and cattle. He is also extremely fond of berries, grass and other plants.

In order to face The Alaskan Crusher, players must unlock each of the hidden characters in Major League Eating: The Game. Once each hidden character is available, The Alaskan Crusher will be unlocked. Hidden characters are unlocked by winning a match with a specific character as follows:

Win a game with "Crazy Legs" Conti to unlock Tim "Eater X" Janus
Win a game with Erik "the Red" Denmark to unlock Sonya "The Black Widow" Thomas
Win a game with "El Toro" Jimenez to unlock Richard "The Locust" LeFevre
Win a game with Juliet "The Lovely" Lee to unlock Patrick "Deep Dish" Bertoletti
Win a game with Patrick "Deep Dish" Bertoletti to unlock Joey "Jaws" Chestnut

Only one eater, competitive eating legend Takeru Kobayashi, has ever dared face a Kodiak bear in head-to-head gurgitory competition, and Kobayashi suffered a crushing defeat on that day five years ago. Will Kobayashi find his revenge? Only time will tell."

Pretty funny, don't you think? I am sure that one of the real Kodiak Bear facts is that such a monster won't ever compeat with a human in any contest, but...who can tell for sure?

Now that Flatout Ultimate Carnage has just arrived, maybe those that missed Flatout 2 will be interested in checking it out, so I thought it would be a good idea to give them some Flatout 2 cheats for Xbox. The interesting part is that, as far as my geek friend told me(you should remember him, the one with the GTA 4 cars...), these cheats and unlocks are also available for the PC version of the game, so you can take them as you wish - Flatout 2 cheats for Xbox, or for PC, they are the same.

Since this game is a full package of adrenaline and maximum fun, I don't have to give you any details about it, just this - if you avoided the Flatout franchise until now, you'll find out what you missed as soon as you grab one of the games released so far, believe me!

These being said, let's move on to the Flatout 2 cheats for Xbox (and PC, as I was just saying), shall we?

To apply the cheats below, just head to the Extras option in the main menu, and then insert them in the corresponding area:

ELPUEBLO - Unlocks the El Diablo
GIEVCARPLZ - Unlocks the School Bus
GIEVEPIX - Unlocks all cars (and 1,000,000 credits)
GIVEALL - Unlocks all tracks<-125x125 Button - right->
GIVECASH - 1,000,000 credits
RAIDERS - Unlocks the Big Rig
KALJAKOPPA - Unlocks the Rocket
RUTTO - Unlocks the Pimpster
WOTKINS - Unlocks the Flat Mobile

At last, here you have the three unlockable vehicles, and the requirements for each of them:

Bullet GT - Reach 97% in-game completion
Insetta - Win the Race Finals
Venom - Win the Derby Finals

These were today's Flatout 2 cheats for Xbox, and I hardly wait to see those for Flatout Ultimate Carnage coming up, but since patience is a virtue, I guess we'll have to wait for a while, and not be ashamed of it...