Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Rumblings in the Call of Duty world. Or the World Of Call Of Duty, as seems inevitable at this point when so many teams appear to be invested in the franchise. You may have heard back in November that Activision had apparently added a third development team onto CoD making duty, alongside Treyarch and the main bods, Infinity Ward. It now seems, according to rumours reported by VG247, that those main bods may not be the people responsible for Modern Warfare 3. Which becomes an interesting story when you realise it frees the team up to potentially work on a new project.

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Following the news that there was going to be another Transformers game, this time a third-person shooter from High Moon Studios, we wondered whether it might not turn out to be rubbish this time. That’s still not entirely clear after this following teaser trailer, which is sadly not in-game footage. Still, it does give you a flavour of thing thing, what with it being set on Cybertron and all that. I guess it’s more of a teaser for the website countdown than anything else, which just has an email-notification sign up form and some spooky noises at present. Trailer below.
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As Jim brain-farted last week, something has to follow/replace the current zombie trend, as its time basking in the golden light of zeitgeist can’t last forever. Giant robots seem a pretty good bet: a nerd-loved science-fictional touchstone that’s lately found traction amongst the streamiest of mainstream. That is, of course, due in large part to Michael Bay’s Transformers movies. The problem is 1) those movies are pretty bad and 2) their associated games have been really bad. But what happens when there’s a giant, shape-changing robot game, starring Mr O. Prime and chums, that isn’t churned out in a matter of months to coincide with a beyond-mindless movie? In other words – would it be totally stupid to start hoping that the newly-announced Transformers: The War For Cybertron could do for big robots what Arkham Asylum did for superheroes? A superb* Transformers game is the right of all sentient beings, after all.
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Yeah, this is the definition of people spinning out a story from very little, but Massively report the LA Time doing an article the LA Times did on MW2’s launch. Fairly standard fluff. Except at the end a source close to the company say that they’re considering an MMO. Which is an interesting idea, especially tied to news that a third company are now working on Call of Duty franchise games. Of course, “considering” is a word which means little. You’ve got a franchise like Call of Duty? You at least consider it.

You know the scene in the Hobbit where they arrive at Beorn’s house? Rather than the whole mass of ‘em going in at once, they just send a couple in first, and then gradually reveal exactly how many dwarves are going to be scoffing his honeycakes. The idea being, that he’d tell them to sling their hook if they all marched in at once. Since the number of how many smelly, bearded bastards are going to be staying in his gaff creeps up on him, he rolls with it. I’m beginning to suspect Infinity Ward’s Modern Warfare PC PR tactic is inspired by that. I’m also beginning to hope that the PC Beorn turns into a bear and eats them. Yes, it’s been confirmed that the PC Multiplayer will be capped at 9v9. Perhaps predictable with the removal of dedicated servers, but yet more dwarves in our house. In brighter news, Zombiecow are trying to ease the wait for the faithful with a 50% discount off their Time, Gentlemen Please until it comes out. Go gets.

Oh – fancy seeing the launch trailer? Here you go:
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Game Informer were first in line with the responses from Infinity Ward, with this peculiarly unpleasant article by Adam Biessener. The Game Informer writer says of the general outcry about the news that MW2 would not support dedicated servers for online play: “Predictably, nerds across world took to the Internet with a wailing and a gnashing of teeth that would make the Left 4 Dead community proud.” Or perhaps we – nerds or otherwise – were justifiably upset about a change to a proven way of doing things, a change no-one seems confident will be to our advantage. The article goes on to quote Infinity Ward’s Jason West saying “”We’re just prioritizing the player experience above the modders and the tuners… we thought maybe it would be cool if the fans could play the game.”

There’s a more detailed breakdown of what IW are proposing over on Robert Bowling’s blog, which makes for a clearer response. I’m a little dubious about the anti-cheating claim, however, since dedicated server admins have gone a long way to self-policing the community, and I feel like IW’s claim that they’ll be able to deal with it might be a little bold.

The all-seeing vid-eye of GameTrailers has nabbed some more Modern Warfare 2 footage, with explanatory chatter from the devs. It focuses on Spec-Ops mode, which is the co-op mode which consists in a whole bunch of independent missions that boast a modicum of internal variation. Not sure I quite understand what this chap is saying about alternative difficulty setting, however. He says the difficult effects the AI most, and yet you can both select different difficulty levels in the same co-op game? Hrm.
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Come on everybody! Climb aboard! This is the Angrytank Express, headed direct to Stop Screwing Over The PC You Massive Bastards city. Like pretty much every fuggin’ thing that has a multi-platform release, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 on PC has, it now transpires, been delayed. Only by a fortnight, but still – for God’s sakes. Toot toot! The Angrytank Is Go!
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Hype machine spooling up! Last night’s Modern Warfare 2 trailer is pretty good, and you can watch it below. I’ve also posted some shaky cam footage of the first mission from some kind of game conference demo. The spoiler warning is this sentence.
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More online manshoot movie has emerged from the fertile innards of Infinity Ward, this time showing off some flag grabbing in Modern Warfare 2. I don’t know if it’s just me, but I find the idea of dudes running around with riot shields when there are rocket launchers and assault rifles on the field rather amusing. “My shield of reinforced plastic will save me!”

Modern Warfare 2 is scheduled for worldwide release on November 10th, and apparently has the most pre-orders of any game in Activision’s history.
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