Posted by Kevin Huffman
Tech
Sunday, March 28th, 2010
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Man alive, how great would it be to be rich? You could afford crazy things like, I don’t know, new shoes, healthy food, and six 20-inch monitors to play Modern Warfare 2 with. That’s the dream. So as you can see, the game scales quite well across all six screens—the only “glitch” occurs when text gets cut off at the bezel of the TV. ATI’s Eyefinity technology makes this magic possible. The 5800 series of cards (and up, presumably) allow you to span compatible games across several screens. It’s not something you’re going to find at a Best Buy demo area or whatever, so people were freaking out while they passed by. Pretty neat, I thought.
Posted by Kevin Huffman
Tech
Thursday, March 25th, 2010
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To say we were a tad flabbergasted that Modern Warfare 2 ’s 5 map pack DLC costs $15 is about right. We weren’t exactly outraged. It’s just a video game after all and really doesn’t matter that much. But $15 is a bit much for five maps with two of the recycled from previous Call of Duty games. Infinity Ward’s Creative Strategist Rob Bowling disagrees. He calls it an investment. Well, Creative Strategist is just code for Public Relations so he kind of has to say that. NowGamer A lot of people think they should be getting the old maps for free. Don’t you think 1200 MSP is a little bit expensive for what is essentially three new maps? Rob, I have no doubt that anyone who downloads this map pack is going to get their money’s worth. They’re going to feel their investment is worthwhile. Because if you’re playing Modern Warfare 2 like myself or many other people do every night, that’s actually going to give you a bunch of new mileage and a bunch of extra gameplay – to really explore and discover them and to really, you know, come up with new tactics and experience them in a whole new way. Regardless of what the price is you’re going to feel your money’s well-spent.
Posted by Kevin Huffman
Tech
Wednesday, March 24th, 2010
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You know all those drones you kids use to rain grim death upon your unfortunate friends in Modern Warfare 2 ? Well, according to an American University law professor’s Congressional testimony, they may be illegal under international law. Of course, they could be totally fine, too, it’s just that nobody really knows for sure. That’s probably not what the U.S. military wants to hear, given how much it has spent, and will spend, on drones. The deal is that the U.S. government has never actually justified, on a legal basis, its use of drones. It has never written a memo, went in front of a Congressional committee, tweeted a quick thought—nothing. The question becomes, OK, at some point you’re going to have to explain the legality of these things, so what’s the hold up? Or, in the words of the professor, one Kenneth Anderson: [Lawyers] have not settled on what the rationales are, and I believe that at some point that ill serves an administration which is embracing this. Now, maybe the answer is: This is really terrible and illegal and anybody that does it should go off to the Hague. But if that’s the case, then we should not be having the president saying that this is the greatest thing since whatever. That seems like a bad idea. Hmm, you’d think the government would have cleared that up before deploying all of those drones… It gets better! It’s cool and all when the U.S. military has a monopoly on drone technology, but what happens when a proper rival gets a hold of them? Do we, as Americans, want to straddle this line of legality ad infinitum, then find out that Rival Country now has ‘em, too? We occasionally write about drones because they’re quite neat: the amount of engineering and research and development that goes into drones is well worth any tech fan’s attention, if only for a moment. Maybe by the time Modern Warfare 13: Still Fighting comes out, the legal status of drones would have been cleared up.
Posted by Kevin Huffman
Tech
Wednesday, March 24th, 2010
There’s no doubting it anymore: British TV is miles ahead of American TV. A show over there called, quite descriptively, “ The Gadget Show ,” pit a proper solider against the Xbox 360 controller-wielding host in a little Modern Warfare 2 showdown. I insist that you watch it .
Posted by Kevin Huffman
Tech
Tuesday, March 9th, 2010
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Is it too early in the morning for senseless violence? If you’re American, it’s never too early for violence, senseless or otherwise! Anyhow, some dude, presumably named Michael Barnes, put together a legitimately good machinima of No Russian, that stupid level from Modern Warfare 2 I can’t embed it, so you’ll have to actually go to YouTube to see it. Ah, this brings back memories of last fall, when everyone was freaking out over the level. I eventually concluded that it was barbaric and plain ol’ not fun, but feel free to disagree. Fair warning: the video is quite violent, as you might expect.
Posted by Kevin Huffman
Tech
Friday, March 5th, 2010
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There’s a new Modern Warfare 2 map pack coming this Spring, kids. The map pack , possible dubbed Stimulus Package, comes with five maps, with two of them being classic COD4 maps. Curious what they’re going to look like? You better hurry up and click through for the video preview hosted be Vimeo. Activision already pulled the YouTube version.