I'm not sure why journalists bother coming up with titles for any story regarding Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. They might as well say "MW3 gets free publicity, seals future as best-selling game ever."
News Blips:
British tabloid Daily Mail describes the "fury" over the depiction of a London terrorist attack in MW3's reveal trailer. The report states that those affected by the real-life July 2005 bombings of the city's Underground rail service called for a ban on the game's "ultra-violent" content. Vivienne Pattison, spokesperson for pressure group Mediawatch UK, said, "I have concerns as these games are hyper-real and take place in a landscape we are familiar with. In light of the fact we have just had the 7/7 inquests, it is in incredibly poor taste." Activision's rebuttal kindly reminded everyone that MW3 is a work of fiction and not intended to recreate any actual events. Wait, you can't stop a gargantuan train barreling at full speed down a tunnel by using a truck? Way to steal my realism, Activision!
Ubisoft wants to see the next generation of consoles, pronto. Rob Cooper, head of Ubisoft's Northern Europe division, told MCV that "tons of technological advances" occurred since the current generation's launch, and "the sooner we have the next generation of consoles to build on, the sooner we can leverage those advances to create the next generation of video games." He also acknowledged the advent of peripherals and updates for each console but kept his sights on the bigger picture, saying, "It's typically new consoles that really spark innovation from publishers and the demand from customers." Evidently, current near-photorealistic graphics isn't enough for this man. Quick, someone pour funds into hardware development. We need even more visually advanced shooters to tickle our eyeballs with the subtlety of a garden rake.
A new study declares Dead Space 2 the scariest game for the Xbox 360. U.K.-based "user-experience studio" Vertical Slice gauged the frustration and fear levels of six gamers across four fright-filled titles: Alan Wake, Dead Space 2, Condemned: Criminal Origins, and Resident Evil 5. Each participant described his thoughts out loud while playing in addition to supplying measurements for heart rate, skin surface temperature, respiration, and Galvanic Skin Response (a tally for exerted excitement or frustration). The results revealed that Dead Space 2's fear factor spiked from false-alarm "boo!" moments and being grabbed by a Necromorph, and that small numbers of enemies are scarier than swarming groups. No love for Alan Wake? Man, I almost ran out of the room after dodging an axe blow from a psychopath yelling, "I once caught a fish this big!"
Irrational Games Creative Director Ken Levine isn't fully ruling out the possibility of a BioShock film. "There's a version of BioShock that makes a great game," he told IndustryGamers, "and there's probably a version of BioShock that makes a great movie." Levine went on to say that a film adaptation of the dystopian first-person shooter hit needs all the right pieces to work, since "if you don't start with the right pieces, you don't have a prayer."
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