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Episode 240: ThanksgamingEpisode 240: Thanksgaming

November 23, 2011| Jonah Falcon| 0 Comment| 10:47 pm

It’s the episode just before Thanksgiving, and both Jordan and Paul have new jobs, as the latter settles into his new Los Angeles home. This week’s Gaming Flashback is the Atari 2600 game Kaboom!

The guys also discuss the following news items:

EA targeted for class action suit over Battlefield 3 PS3 bait and switch
Modern Warfare 3 makes $775M in 5 days
Square-Enix officially opens Montreal studio
Blockbuster has “ramped up the rental” of games, getting an “awful lot of support”
Rockstar eager to return to Bully IP

The question of the week: “How do you buy games most often these days: retail, online retailer, or digital distributor?”

Call of Duty: World at War Beta – Coming SoonCall of Duty: World at War Beta – Coming Soon

October 13, 2008| schommer| 0 Comment| 11:47 am

I don’t know anyone that can’t pass up a good beta, Call of Duty: World at War is no exception to the rule, especially for those gamers that pre-ordered the title already. It’s a great opportunity when you’re able to buy a game ahead of time because you’re a fan and get into the beta early.

Santa Monica, CA – October 13, 2008 – The dogs of war are being unleashed today, as Activision Publishing, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI) and developer Treyarch announced the launch of the multiplayer beta for Call of Duty: World at War on the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft. Console players can guarantee themselves a token by pre-ordering the game at North American GameStop retail locations,* or online at http://www.gamestop.com/Catalog/ProductDetails.aspx?product_id=71812. Call of Duty fans that register to become members at www.callofduty.com are also eligible to receive a token, but these tokens are limited in supply, so register today. Windows PC fans can expect a multiplayer beta soon. For more information about either beta and the opportunity to secure a beta token or key, fans can also visit www.callofduty.com/beta.

The Call of Duty: World at War multiplayer betas will provide players with an opportunity to play as U.S. Marines, German Wehrmacht, Japanese Imperial Army and Russian Red Army factions in a variety of game types (Team Death Match, Free-For-All, Capture the Flag and War), across three different maps:

Castle: The Imperial Japanese Army faces off against the Marine Raiders in a daytime battle, located on the grounds of an ancient, Japanese castle.

Makin: The U.S. Marine Raiders square off against the Imperial Japanese Army in a nighttime fight, set in an outpost on the Makin Atoll in the Pacific.

Roundhouse: The Wehrmact will fight the Red Army to the bitter end in a daytime struggle that features tank and infantry combat, set in a desolate, war-torn European train depot.

The betas will last for a few weeks; however, the full battle will commence on November 11, 2008 when Call of Duty: World at War is released to retailers nationwide.

Call of Duty: World at War is in development for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, Games for Windows®, PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system, Nintendo® Wii™ and Nintendo DS. The title has been rated M for Mature for blood and violence by the ESRB. The Nintendo DS version has been rated T for Teen by the ESRB.

For more information and exclusive updates about Call of Duty: World at War, visit www.callofduty.com

About Activision Publishing, Inc.
Headquartered in Santa Monica, California, Activision, Publishing, Inc. is a leading worldwide developer, publisher and distributor of interactive entertainment and leisure products.

Activision maintains operations in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, Spain, the Netherlands, Australia, Japan and South Korea. More information about Activision Publishing and its products can be found on the company’s website, www.activision.com.

Call of Duty: World at War – October Open Beta!Call of Duty: World at War – October Open Beta!

September 4, 2008| schommer| 0 Comment| 12:49 pm

If you’ve got Microsoft Windows or an Xbox 360 you’ll be eligible for the public beta of Call of Duty: World at War by Activision. Although the game is set to deploy on the 11th of November, many of us will be able to get a taste of the multi-player action early by entering into the beta.

Activision has always been great about getting stable multiplayer beta’s for their Call of Duty series, hopefully this turns out to be as awesome. ” These betas will serve as an early chance for players to practice the tactics needed for survival in the intense chaos of Call of Duty: World at War’s Pacific and European theaters,” says their press release (below) and we’re ready to take on the challenge of “bug finding.”

Okay, in all honesty, most beta’s I’ve entered on my Xbox 360 have just been to get some free gaming in early and be able to feel cool about getting into the action before everyone else. In return, Activision gets some server stress testing and early feedback (if I’m so inclined to yell).

All-in-all, great news from the Activision crew.

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Call of Duty 5: World At War TrailerCall of Duty 5: World At War Trailer

June 23, 2008| schommer| 0 Comment| 9:18 am

One thing Activision does very well with the Call of Duty series is making you feel like you’re part of the war and not just a gamer. It may be the coloring, the life-like environments, explosions or movie-style filtering, whatever it is makes their series feel like a world at war.

Now, we’re heading back to WWII but from a brand new perspective, the Pacific Theatre. Why did it take so long to produce a game in this area of the world? Our guess, to gain the intensity and power of the battle we needed higher end console/pc processors to properly render the jungles, waters and terrains in a life-like manner.

Or, maybe nobody thought of it? In any case this is a must buy game for myself and probably many others, regardless to multi-player capabilities. World at War will be released for Wii, PS3, PS2, Xbox 360, and PC.

Community Expands: Team Fortress 2 Has a BlogCommunity Expands: Team Fortress 2 Has a Blog

June 21, 2008| schommer| 0 Comment| 11:52 pm

The Internet has given us a communication mechanism which allows developers to better understand their audience. You can use community sites to market your content and your brand but you can also use them to better understand your market and bring your strageties and progress to your fans.

Valve Software has taken their latest successful franchise title Team Fortress 2 and followed it up with a website or “blog” which can keep their fans “in the loop.” Teamfortress.com will, no doubt, be the launch pad for much hype, community offerings and up-to-date news about the TF2 game and any updates.

“Now that we’ve settled into regular releases of content, we’ve found ourselves wanting a better way to talk directly to the TF2 community about the state of the game and some of the reasoning behind the choices we’re making. Our hope is that this blog will accomplish that, and give everyone some better insight into our development process as well.” (teamfortress.com)

Now, there is a great chance Valve will use their new launch pad to talk about upcoming games and lead you to demo’s and downloads to the TF2 title; they already link to the valve store to purchase the game. But, blogs bring in users searching for fresh content about the game and give official word to kill any bad rumors.

Call it marketing, call it journalism or developers notes, there is nothing wrong with having one more resource which represents the voice of Valves TF2 development team. Congradulations guys!

Gaming Flashback: DOOMGaming Flashback: DOOM

June 20, 2008| schommer| 0 Comment| 1:24 pm

DOOM is a PC game titlat that wasn’t initially released in stores. It was uploaded to an FTP server in the University of Wisconsin-Madison and on the Software Creations BBS on the 10th of December; released as a shareware game, people were encouraged to download and spread the game around to all their friends.

In days before social networks and the wildfire of the Internet (or high speed networking) this game still managed to spread around to everyone in the gaming community. From1993 to 1995 the title had an estimated install base of 10 million computers. We were one of them.

Granted, ten million copies were installed but most were not registered and simply remained as shareware. However, over one million copies were sold for the registered version of DOOM and this brought momentum to their next non-shareware copy of the DOOM series. The Ultimate Doom (version 1.9, including episode IV) was released, making this the first time that Doom was sold commercially in stores.

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