BASH

Though it should have been a runaway romp, the marketing of Modern Warfare 2, the sequel to the iconic CoD4, has been a muddy slog.

Activision, the game’s publisher and Infinity Ward, its developer have seen the game’s release troubled by an ever growing list of issues, many of their own making.

MW2’s ball-handlers have dropped their fair share of pig-skin in the last few months. Here are just the lowlights:

- Activision brass increase the price of MW2 during the deepest recession since the Great One, just because they can. This causes great resentment even amongst the game’s fanboys.

- The PC community forges a 170,000+ petition demanding the restitution of dedicated servers after it pieces together the dev’s plot to have their online experience replaced by a peer-to-peer system.

- PC pre-orders of the game drop, as does Activision stock, soon after the news of the lack of dedi servers hits the internet.

- IW devs single out hardcore CoD PC gamers as bad influences. They are effectively fired. Modders, competitive gamers and tuners go into anaphylactic shock.

- PC Modders revolt after they see that their creativity is harvested and used blatantly in some of MW2’s more appealing features, without so much as any recognition (never mind any monetary compensation).

- Console gamers get a hold of MW2 DVD’s and begin live-streaming SP missions over the internet. Hundred’s of spoiler alerts go unheeded as the game’s closely guarded secrets get spilled.

- Pirated MW2 console torrents are being seeded across the world, two weeks before the game is officially released. This finally dispels the myth that illegal PC downloads were the real problem.

- CNN ireporters call in to say that MW2 lets kids play terrorist characters. The alleged opening scenes of MW2 see the wholesale slaughter of civilians. Acid-tongued CNN readers suggest that the only terrorism is the cancellation of dedicated servers.

To discuss these and many other topics are:

Rudedog from fpsadmin.com

Garetjax from codtv.tv

Bleed from omnilinkit.com

and our guests:

Josh from planetmedalofhonor.com and planetcallofduty.com

console expert Mattks from weplaycod.blogspot.com

competitive player, Andy “The Impaler” Coons from Loaded (goloaded.com)

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She’s an accomplished artist, a loving wife and mother, and handles a sniper rifle like Simo Häyhä…here to talk to us about what it’s like to be a woman playing online FPS games is eXtremegamerz‘ {eXg} Black Widow.

Black Widow and I discuss the state of FPS gaming from a woman’s perspective. What is it like to mix it up with the guys online? Are men really better than women in CoD? Why are their very few female avatars in military FPS’s? Why are all men pigs? (…sorry, that’s my wife’s question….how’d she get on here?). The interview gives a fascinating perspective that is seldom heard by the average male gamer.

Big thanks to Black Widow for the awesome graphic!

And of course, as usual, thanks to DJ Skeebo for the great intro.

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