Modern Warfare 2 Stimulus Map Pack Comes To The PC

The biggest selling and most drama inducing game of all time, Modern Warfare 2, is getting some more maps. Although the Stimulus Package has been out on the Xbox 360 for some time now, Steam confirmed earlier this week that PC gamers (along with PS3 gamers) will also get to pay for over priced content.

Although it seems that Steam is being a little nicer to folks who are pre-ordering the map pack, as they will save all of $1.50.
My advice however, is to stay clear from this extremely over-priced piece of DLC...but that's just me...

Battlefield Bad Company 2's Take On Grenade Spam

You might recall a couple weeks before Modern Warfare 2 launched last year, Infinity Ward put out a video to promote their game. The video featured Philadelphia's MLB pitcher, Cole Hammel, giving a quick talk on grenade spam, and how it ruins games. The video was supposed to be on the humorous side, but it caught some negative attention for the last couple seconds of the video. "Brought to you by Fighting Against Grenade Spam" was the famous line that caused all the commotion. If you don't notice the acronym for that line turns out to be F.A.G.S. which didn't go over too nicely with most of the public. Here's the video in-case you missed it during its release.


But that's old news. The real story comes from EA's new first person shooter, Battlefield Bad Company 2. Bad Company 2 has a tendency to subtlety make fun of Modern Warfare 2 throughout its campaign, but their new promotional video isn't too subtle anymore.

I find the video pretty funny in both parody, and its actual contents. Although this does beg the question. When is directly making fun of your game's competition too much? Do you think this video crossed the line?

Modern Warfare 2 Map Pack Detailed And Over-Priced

Last week a pretty clever ad hit the web, which was advertising the first Modern Warfare 2 map pack DLC.
Details of which maps will be included came out today, so without further a-do, here's the list.

New maps: 

• "Salvage," a snowy junkyard fortified by stacked debris and crushed cars 
• "Storm," an open industrial park littered with heavy machinery
• "Bailout," a multi-level apartment complex
 

Modern Warfare(the first) maps: 

• "Overgrown," which features a massive dry creek bed
• "Crash," a war-torn urban environment 

The pack looks pretty decent, but here's the kicker, its going to cost you 1200 Microsoft Points which is $15. Now $15 might not seem like too much money when you're comparing it the $60 price point of Modern Warfare 2 itself, but for a simple map pack, that's a lot to ask.
Setting this type of price point sure isn't helping Activation's image of "The evil empire", but I'm starting to think they don't care too much.
This DLC is coming out on Xbox Live first, and it will be hitting PSN a month after that.

First Modern Warfare 2 Map Pack Coming March 30

Are you suffering from an illness, but you can't figure out what it might be. Well don't worry, because Infinity Ward, Activision, and Microsoft have teamed up to cure millions of folks of a new illness....Mapathy.

The picture above pretty much says it all... I have to say though, pretty clever marketing for something as common as a DLC map pack.

Massive Changes Coming To The Call Of Duty Franchise

Incase you missed last nights Infinity Ward and Activision situation, I'll re-cap everything real quick.
The two co-founders of Infinity Ward, Jason West and Vince Zampella, have left the popular game studio due to "creative disagreements" with their publish Activision. Later last night, Activision filled their 10-k where in they talked about investigating charges of "insubordination." Here's a direct quote from Activision's annual report put out last night:

"The Company is concluding an internal human resources inquiry into breaches of contract and insubordination by two senior employees at Infinity Ward. This matter is expected to involve the departure of key personnel and litigation. At present, the Company does not expect this matter to have a material impact on the Company."




 Now that everything has been cleared up, at least a little, Activision made a couple announcements regarding their popular Call of Duty franchise.


*Treyarch is developing a Call of Duty game for release this Fall
*Infinity Ward is currently working on the "first two" DLC map packs for Modern Warefare 2
*Sledgehammer games, the Activision-owned studio started by Glen A. Schofield and Michael Conrey--both formerly of EA's studio, Visceral Games--is working on a Call of Duty game scheduled for release in 2011. The game is going to "extend the franchise into the action-adventure genre".

Lastly Activision stated that they are forming a new business unit around the Call of Duty franchise to combine resources and bring to Call of Duty "the same focus seen in its Blizzard Entertainment business unit".
Its been pretty widly known for a couple of years that Activision specializes in making sequels for their franchies. This however, brings the Call of Duty franchise to a whole new level. I won't be surprised if Call of Duty starts to get the "Guitar Hero treatment" anytime soon.