Can we all just come to terms on this? This is a war on the level of dumb only matched by dumb wars like Donald Trump vs Rosie O’ Donnell, Pokemon vs Digimon, Axel Rose vs his fans, Call of Duty vs the “cool kids,” and 360 vs PS3. In all cases, each had something to bring to the table and really the war was simply a tie up of preferences and poor choices with no real winner, but a bunch of losers. Donald Trump and Rosie are insane, Pokemon was kid friendly while Digimon tended to go in a darker direction, Axel Rose is… well, insane and the fans wanted him to not be, Xbox and PS3 are both gaming systems with their equal claims to success, and Call of Duty was being shoved down the general populaces throats by Activision and we were loving it like the whores we are. There may be a few detractors from the ranks who spam Meta Critic and every forum they can, clambering to speak out against the biggest giant in all of videogamedom. Yet with the release of MW3 and its record setting $775 million in sales during the first five days, the point of the few vocal has been beaten down by the wallets of the general market.

Activision’s biggest competitor in the world of gaming, EA, decided to be the voice for those vocal few with its ad campaign for Battlefield 3. Taking it right to the king with its slogan “Rise Above the Call,” that started a message board feud within the community that hasn’t seen this level of retardation since PSN went down and 360 fan boys stated the war was over (it is not, it is not even a war, it is dumb. Just stop it with the Playstation controller is for baby hands, or PSN is free, but PSN got hacked, or the Japanese don’t give a shit about Xbox, or my Momma use to beat me so screw Microsoft, or whatever. It’s dumb). The competitive ad campaign was an approach that I feel hurt Battlefield 3 by making a war that didn’t need to exist in the first place. Fan boys will protect what they are a fan of, and instead of bringing out a game that is different and fills the market with another option, it forced the stupid to make a choice between one great game and another great game with the only reason being because they were a fan or a hater.

The games, while both are first person shooters in a modern setting, couldn’t be any more different.

GamePlay:

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3– MW 3, much like its predecessors; and even more so than last year’s Black Ops, is all about fast action and arcade style controls. The weight of realism is sacrificed in favor of over-the-top set-pieces and thrill-a-minute intensity. While the other game makes impacting the ground in prone have a weight to it, in Modern Warfare 3 it is not implausible to dive from a second story after a full sprint like Superman onto your belly without even an exhale of air. Hell, jumping off of a building and getting a headshot while performing a full 360 spin like a ballerina action hero became a thing. Everyone in CoD is a John Woo character (John Woo is the retro Michael Bay, he was Michael Bay before Michael Bay was Michael Bay. Note: Michael Bay to Call of Duty reference quota has been fulfilled).

Movements in MW3 are brisk and the controls are precise, allowing for crazy twitch reactions that count heavily on an individual’s reflexes and tend to make a player feel a tad badass. It is very possible to hold down the trigger and keep an even spread as if recoil was hardly a concern at all. Even at vast distances it is not implausible to keep a bead on an enemy without having to resort to a burst shot method. While this doesn’t play into the hand of realism, it does play into the hand of ridiculous fun without a concern for strategy. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is all about pacing, and it is a pace that never slows down. From Single-Player to Multi-Player it is mindless stupid action.

Battlefield 3 – BF 3 is all about scope and is the closest thing to a realistic shooter out at the moment. There is a weight to the controls that makes actions slower but more deliberate. The action takes place on a broader spectrum and rewards co-operation and patience, recoil is a big deal here, and the spread can easily get out of hand even at short distances. Learning to control bursts is a must, and while a player can sprint for miles without a break, the size of the playing field can often mean there will be a lot of sprinting.

Hitting the ground in prone gives a split second of re-adjustment as the gun and the character have to find their place. The environment explodes and chips away, trees fall from impact, and cover fire blurs the screen making shots more difficult. Entire buildings can collapse with the right amount of work and vehicles just keep coming to make life more stressful. Yet, with all of this, MW3 still moves quicker and is far more chaotic. Battlefield 3 is all about focus and strategy, working around obstacles rather than running head-first into every bit of danger that comes along. Battlefield 3 is the Saving Private Ryan to Modern Warfare 3’s Rambo.

Final Call – Modern Warfare 3 is all about how fast things can move and how big the explosions can be. While Battlefield 3 has environments that go boom, the booms in MW3 are just that much bigger. If you as a player feel like killing things without much thought, you pick up MW3. If you as a player feel like working with a team and developing strategies with friends to conquer a wide open map, you pick up BF3.

Winner!

Team Fortress 2: It is a strategy class based shooter that is about as arcadey as it can get. The design is simple and the animations are more recognizable than any other shooter on earth. Plus, it is free to play now. So… you should probably get on that.

Graphics:

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 – Modern Warfare 3 is Modern Warfare 2 with maybe a slight upgrade. It is the same engine, it looks damn near identical and this could be said about everything from general control, to sound, to of course the topic of discussion now. This is to say, the game looks fantastic. Better than mostly everything out there today. Activision is playing it safe and that’s just fine. The lighting is good and the camera work during the single-player campaign is top-notch. It gives the cinematics a larger than life appeal that seamlessly transition into gameplay. The graphics are Call of Duty, millions of people recognize it in all of its Call of Dutiness.

Battlefield 3 -Battlefield 3 is a new game built on a new engine. It is tender love and care from the ground up and on a powerful PC it is one of the best damn looking games around. This isn’t opinion, this is fact. Battlefield 3 is incredible looking. With the new re-tooled Frostbite 2 engine, there is a sense of realism that Call of Duty just can’t match. Yet, that isn’t what Call of Duty is about is it?

Even on massive battlegrounds buildings will topple in real time, parts of it will chip away as shots are fired upon it. Potted plants burst in your face, and pieces of large rubble blown away from the side of buildings can crush someone standing in its trajectory. The amount of work the engine takes on in every single moment of the game is absolutely stunning. Everything works to add that realism to a game that focuses a lot on realism. Which Call of Duty does not.

Final Call - In terms of graphics, it really isn’t a debate. MW3 is based on an old engine that looked great when it was released and still looks good now. BF3 is a whole new engine and one of the best looking games to date. Yet, all of its graphical achievements are based on making it feel more real, something that Call of Duty doesn’t care to achieve. Because it doesn’t have to, it is not what the game is about. (And yes, MW3 runs at 60fps while BF3 runs at 30fps. It will hardly be a bother while playing BF3, and MW3 needs all its 60fps so it can be so damn unrealistically fast.)

Winner!

Skyrim: Seriously, the new Elder Scrolls game looks fantastic, especially on a PC. There’s nothing else quite as damn pretty, and in terms of scope. No competition. There was many a time I stood atop a mountain as I stared across the horizon and caught myself saying the words “holy crap, this is purty.” While this maybe could happen in MW3 or BF3, I think I was too damn busy saying “Where the f*$% did I get killed from!?” or “That’s right! You can’t beat m-F*&#!”

Sound:

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 – In terms of voice acting, MW3 wins. This in thanks to the big time talent behind the voices of the game. Sure the characters ooze a level of machismo that can only be compared to the Chuck Norris invented by Chuck Norris jokes. The acting is impeccable and the amount of banter in the main storyline is fun to listen to. Plus hell, it has a rock soundtrack. That’s awesome right? It is like a movie!

Battlefield 3 – In terms of in game sound effects, BF3 wins. The sound of guns in enclosed spaces echoes appropriately to its surroundings, the weapons have the right amount of explosive power behind them to sound real. Not to mention the sound of bullets hitting the rock above your head or a sniper bullet whizzing by your ear is enough to frighten anyone with the right headset or sound system. Vehicles can be heard from miles away as they roll over debris, crunching rock and whatever else below them. Helicopters and jets drown out the sound of bullets and when jumping out of one the wind lashes the ears just like it should. The game sounds just as fantastic as it looks.

Final Call – MW3 and BF3 sound like shooters. They have guns and they shoot stuff. Battlefield 3 sounds better thanks to its incredible new engine, and there is seriously nothing more intimidating than a sniper bullet in that game. Yet, the voice acting in Modern Warfare 3 is head and shoulders above most in the industry.

Winner!

BioShock: In terms of voice acting and cinematic appeal, this game is still on top. Has anyone seen; or in this case, heard the previews for Infinite? Holy crap. While it has an artistic look, the sound is impeccable, and the soundtrack is everything it needs to be. From the first moment a player enters Rapture the sound design is there to get its creep on. It never lets up and the sound is just as much a part of the experience as the level design and the story itself.

Single-Player:

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 – If there was ever a time to go ahead and hand a winner medal to one of these two games in a category it is in this department (and sound). Modern Warfare 3’s story may be over the top, and it may feel a bit on the rails in terms of how it pushes the player to one exploding set-piece to another, but it is essentially everything anyone can expect from a game in this series. That is to say it is badass. It may be full of more plot holes than… something full of holes (a well irrigated garden or swiss cheese perhaps? I don’t know. Not incredible with analogies) but beyond anything it is fun. Sure there is a violent murdering of a dog that is glossed over like nothing happened, and there is nothing quite as WTF! as the airport terrorist sequence from MW2. In the end however, MW3 is a great short single player campaign that makes using it as training for the real game (multiplayer) a good time.

Battlefield 3 – For all of its posturing and “above the call” crap, Dice appeared to forget that a large number of CoD fans buy the game for its campaign. I know that sounds dumb, but it is true, some people want to play a shooter, but couldn’t give a damn about having a 10 year old shout in his ear about how much of a faggot they are. I know one of these people, they exist, I’ve witnessed it. (The person who didn’t like multiplayer, not a 10 year old shouting faggot into someone’s ear.)

BF3’s campaign wants to be Modern Warfare so bad that it is actually a little sad. They even dedicated a majority of its ad campaign to showing off the campaign. So, it isn’t like they weren’t aware that some people cared about the single player. The story is full of big set-pieces and it takes place in a world that feels more real (read: boring) but in the end it is just not that exciting. Levels are designed like linear corridors even when outdoors and the entire affair feels a whole lot more confined than Modern Warfare 3. The characters are even more forgettable than their MW3 counter-parts and I found myself wanting the Bad Company crew back. This is not to say that the BF3 campaign sucks, it’s okay, but as a training tool for the real game, it doesn’t even let you use the vehicles much. So, yeah… I guess it kinda sucks.

Final Call – In the single player category there is a clear winner, and that isn’t a single person’s opinion. This is a majority opinion in not only the community, but in the “professional” news world as well.

Winner!

Half Life 2: HA! GOTCHA! In terms of big time single player campaigns in a large shooter franchise, nothing tops HL2. Valve took its time making everyone care for its side characters and establishing the silent hero Gordon Freeman as the lab geek turned hero of the world who is also awesome. We love that nerd with a gun, we really do. Hell, it has been over 4 years since episode 2 concluded on a cliff hanger, and fans are still clamoring for an end to a story started in 2004. That’s a level of dedication that can only be compared to that of a Tool fan. Seriously, Maynard… I need a new album.

Multi-Player:

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 – It’s crazy, it’s chaotic, it’s all about the kills, it’s Modern Warfare 3 baby! There isn’t much different within the core mechanics here, and that’s fine. While some things have been changed in the sake of balance and to favor some co-operative play, in the end, it is all about the K/D and playing to that sort of frantic kill, kill, die, respawn, kill, kill style of gameplay that the series has perfected over the years.

While new kill streaks called strike packages have been introduced and modes like Kill Confirmed works to try and get people to play together like a team. The game does not hurt anyone for being a lone gunman in their own one man army. Actually many still play that way and are perfectly fine for it if their scores have anything to say about it. Team work may make a group unstoppable if done correctly, but it is doubtful that the majority of the hivemind will give a damn.

MW3 has so many game modes that there will be something to do and people to shoot in so many variations that it can become difficult to become bored. While it isn’t quite Halo big in term of game modes, it is impressive. Also they brought back Spec-Ops which is as always, a great co-op experience. If you are into that sort of stuff.

Battlefield 3 – BF3 may not have as many game modes as MW3 but what it does have is incredibly well designed. Rush and Conquest modes take place on many maps that have multiple entry points to an objective and often span large distances that can be compared to playing on all the MW3 maps at once. The scope of the field of battle (see what I did there?) is ridicuhuge (new word) and the balance between vehicles, player classes, and weaponry only continues to force people to play together or be slaughtered by those who do.

Every class has been re-done to offer support to the team from reviving, to repairing vehicles, to re-supplying ammo. The co-op bases are covered. It is amazing what a strategically placed revive can do to turn the tide of battle at the last moment. Also when you throw in destructible landscape, that sniper in the second story window isn’t much of a problem anymore. Having trouble with the one point of entry to an objective? Whip out some C4 or rocket launcher and make a new one!

Battlefield 3 matches can take some work and often leave an exhausted feeling in players. It isn’t as quick and there is plenty of times that a badly timed spawn can mean having to run for what feels like –forever- back to battle, since all the vehicles are gone. The pacing of BF3 is slower and more deliberate, and the multiplayer rewards teamwork like no other shooter out there. It’s a different type of game, and that is what makes it special.

Final Call – The point here is as it has been from the get go in this article. Comparing these two games is just unfair; there is no need for a war when in essence MW3 and BF3 fulfill a different purpose. It is completely alright and actually worth it to go ahead and buy both if you can afford it. They both offer something the other doesn’t. BF3 may have more of that new game smell compared to the yearly recycle that is the CoD franchise, yet no one does arcade kill-fests quite like the call, and in the end BF3 doesn’t look to try to compete if the final product has anything to say about it.

Winner!

World of Warcraft: Beause… screw you. That’s why!

I have a theme going here if you haven’t noticed, and WoW is the biggest multiplayer game in the history of ever and has been the reason Blizzard is one of the most successful developers around, even though they’ve only released around two games in the time that CoD has been a franchise. I could have just said Halo and really pissed in them fanboy Cheerios.

Final Final Word!

It’s plain that my objective here has been to not pick a real winner between the two, but instead to poke fun at the whole fact that we even have to compare them. BF3 is a team class based semi-realistic modern day FPS with an emphasis on team-work, strategy, vehicles, and large open playing fields while MW3 is an action packed fast paced modern day FPS with an emphasis on quick chaotic matches and small confined maps to help keep the action centralized. With such a large sales gap between the two games, it is obvious that CoD isn’t going anywhere. BF3 did really well, but it is far from competing on that level, even Halo got swallowed by the Modern Warfare beast.

So what if in MW3 I entered my first match and had my first death ever be at the hands of a player named Cuminmyanus (which I believe Live confused for Cumin-Myan-us which doesn’t make a damned bit of a sense and is honestly retarded). That is just the general market! It is full of Dr Creamhorn’s and other dick or bodily excrement references. That is what all the BF3 fans can look forward to if the series ever reaches that level of success.

The Real Winner!

YOU!:That’s right. I know it may sound all after school special, but seriously. There are two awesome FPS games out there with a ton to offer, and they both do what the other doesn’t. So, do everyone a favor and get off the pedestal and go back to just enjoying the games you like and stop pissing on everyone’s parade.

Dice is not playing around with its first DLC for its big hit Battlefield 3. The promised free expansion that was given to consumers who bought the Special Edition of the game is more than just a map pack. It will give fans of the game 4 new maps, three new vehicles, ten new weapons, five new dog tags, five new achievements/trophies, and lastly a whole new game mode. The game mode while not exactly new, is the return of Conquest Assault which for those not familiar is a hectic version of Conquest. Conquest Assault starts with one team fully in control of every spot immediately putting one team on offensive and the other tasked to defend their territory.

The four “new” maps included in the DLC are re-worked versions of the most popular classic Battlefield maps: Strike at Karkand, Gulf of Oman, Sharqui Peninsula, and Wake Island. Each map is re-designed with the new Frostbite 2.0 engine which will leave more buildings to be destroyed and a change up for even those familiar with these maps. Dice has gone back through each of the maps and re-made them to show the wear and tear of all the battles that had played out on them previously. These are war torn places and fans will be surprised to see how much has changed on their favorite battlefields.

“The launch of Battlefield 3 was only the beginning as we vow to keep the game alive with additional content and gameplay improvements in the months ahead. We’re excited to recreate and share some new Battlefield moments on these beloved maps that only Battlefield games can provide,” Says Executive Vice President of the EA Games Label, Patrick Soderlund, adding, “Back to Karkand is another way for us to say thanks to our fans and show our continued support for the game.”

As a fan of the game, Mr. Soderlund, I say “you’re welcome and thank you.” This is big news for anyone who got their hands on the Special Edition of Battlefield 3 and even for those who didn’t. If you aren’t one of the lucky ones, the DLC will only be $14.99 and for all the content provided, the price tag is worth it.

Back to Karkand will be available Tuesday December 6th for PS3 owners. Xbox and PC owners will have to wait a whole extra week when the DLC drops for them on December 13th.

Can't Wait

Facebook announced today that they have inked a 5-year deal with Electronic Arts to make Facebook Credits the exclusive method of payment for EA’s games on the popular social networking site. This news comes as a boon for both companies, as EA will rake in 70% of the revenue to Facebook’s 30%.

As you may know, players purchase games or virtual items within the games (such as crops in FarmVille), and to do so, they need to use real money. Until now, gaming companies have been at odds with Facebook over the division of revenue. With this deal, EA, a constant leader in game usage on the site, became the fifth of the top five gaming companies to partner with Facebook. This news comes on the heels of similar agreements between Facebook and other game developers Zynga, Playdom, RockYou and Crowdstar.

With the top five game developers in their pocket, and with over half of the games and apps requiring money for virtual goods, Facebook only stands to grow in power, like a demon that swallows souls (I can’t really think of a simile that isn’t so malevolent). I think this deal is especially beneficial for Electronic Arts. A lot of Facebook users don’t know anything about them and their titles, but this deal ties the two together, meaning a lot of exposure for EA. But this is also just another stepping stone for Facebook to climb to the top of the virtual goods market and own our pocketbooks, along with nearly every minute of our free time. As I type this, I am chatting with 2 friends on FB chat. How I hang my head in shame, yet I cannot stop.

Today, EA announced that their newest expansion pack for the insanely popular Sims franchise, “The Sims 3 Late Night“, is now available for purchase in Europe and North America for PC/Mac. In this game, players will be able to take their Sims out on the town for a boatload of nocturnal adventures (and yes, they can do those nocturnal adventures as well), such as hitting up nightclubs, playing in a rock band, and even transforming into vampires. A few new career opportunities are now available, like celebrity, in which you can go the rock star or actor route, and master mixologist (seriously, who would pick this?). As a celebrity, your Sim is hounded by paparazzi, lives in the best part of town, and is practically drowning in simoleans. No word yet on whether an upscale drug dealer is included.

To become a vampire, players will simply befriend a vampire (as every sane-minded person is wont to do in this situation) and then ask them to transform you into a blood-sucker as well. Once this happens, your Sim will develop psychic abilities, run faster, sleep during the day, and their hunger will be replaced by thirst. No word yet on any sparkling skin.

A whole slew of new clothing is available as well, and you can be sure they look like rejects from a Jersey Shore photo shoot. There are plenty of super-low V-neck tees, thumb rings, and Bono sunglasses for the douche in all of us.

I typically avoid getting expansion packs for The Sims, as they are mostly useless furniture or clothing packs, but Late Night actually sounds like one worth getting. Even if I find it a logistical nightmare to do anything at night, seeing as how my Sim has been working all day and is exhausted by 8:30, I think it would be fun to become a celebrity. It’s about time they started coming up with some applicable careers in the game. Usually the jobs they offer leave most of the fun to your imagination, such as becoming an astronaut or the President. As a celebrity, players could see their hard work of climbing up the career ladder actually paying off.

I think this pack would be perfect for breaking up the monotony of taking your Sim back and forth to work, tirelessly building up life skills, and boring things like eating, sleeping, and bathing. So go out, get The Sims 3 Late Night, life fast, die young, and leave a good-looking corpse (virtually).

So it was  announced this week that Mass Effect 2 will finally be coming to the PS3 in January 2011.  EA also clarified that they have no plans to bring the original Mass Effect to the PS3.  It is great that PS3 owners will finally get to play Mass Effect, but EA is making a huge mistake by not releasing the first title in the series.

EA has the opportunity to deliver the entire Mass Effect experience to PS3 owners, but they are squandering it by skipping the entire opening chapter.  Mass Effect 2 is a great game on its own, but the first game adds much more depth to the characters and overall story.  Skipping straight to Mass Effect 2 would be like watching The Empire Strikes Back without having seen A New Hope.

Aside from giving PS3 owners the great story of the first title, they could have also used this as an opportunity to update the original game.  Mass Effect 1 is great, but it definitely isn’t without its faults.  The most obvious updates would be with the visuals.  By brining the original up to date, they can have the game look better than ever, have faster loading times, solid frame rate, and no texture loading issues.

On top of that, they could tweak the game itself to make a better overall experience.  The shooting mechanics of the first game were less than great, so those would need to be updated to match the precise controls of Mass Effect 2.  I think they could also streamline some of the early parts of the game during the first trip in the Citadel by making it more obvious what needs to be done, and require less running back and forth everywhere.  I know a handful of people that want to play Mass Effect but don’t want to spend 2 hours wandering around the Citadel just to become a Specter and start exploring the Galaxy.

Ray Muzyka did say that they are “making sure there’s a nice introduction experience, that provides the back-story and the things that have happened up to that point in the universe.”  They haven’t announced anything specific yet, so we will have to wait for details.  Even if the introduction is interactive in some way, it can’t match what the full game offers.  The character and story have to be developed over time.  The player has to be allowed to shape the universe with their own decisions to get the full effect of Mass Effect 2.  Spoiler Alert: the reveal of Archangel as Garrus is basically meaningless without having played the first.  There are plenty of other examples, but I won’t go into them.

By releasing Mass Effect on the PS3, they would be able to build the franchise to even greater heights.  Mass Effect could release in January 2011, Mass Effect 2 could see a possible summer release in August 2011, and I imagine Mass Effect 3 would see a simultaneous release on all platforms sometime in 2012.  By having a release schedule similar to this, EA would have the most momentum possible leading up to the release of Mass Effect 3.

I am a gigantic fan of the Mass Effect series and I am glad that PS3 owners will finally get the chance to join in.  I just think it is a shame that they won’t have the chance to play the series as it was meant to be played from start to finish.

UPDATE: Two more people have announced their departure from Infinity Ward today.  They have both been added to the list below.  Messerly is actually somebody who have been with IW since day 1.  I should also note that Grisby was the inspiration and voice actor for the CoD 4 character, Staff Sergeant Griggs.  This brings the body count to 13 as of today.  I think it is fair to see we will see more over the few months.

Ever since the Infinity Ward fiasco where two studio heads, Vince Zampella and Jaxon West, were fired by Activision, people have been talking.  Most of that talk has revolved around what the two of them would be doing next and about the suing and counter-suing between the duo and Activision.  That conversation has changed over the past week and some of the speculation has been answered.  Word has spread that several employees of Infinity Ward are resigning from their current positions.  On top of that, West and Zampella announced the formation of their new company, Respawn Entertainment.

It is important to note that the people leaving Infinity Ward aren’t just a handful of their talented staff, but most of them are company leads and have worked there for many years.  With Zampella and West included, it is confirmed that Infinity Ward is now 11 employees fewer than they were just a couple months ago.  Let us take a look at the full list, along with their roles at Infinity Ward:

• Vince Zampella – Studio Head/CEO
• Jason West – President/Game Director/CCO/CTO
• Steve Fukada – Lead Designer
• Zied Reike – Lead Designer
• Mackey McCandlish – Lead Designer
• Jon Shiring – Programmer
• Rayme Vinson – Programmer
• Chris Cherubini – Lead Artist
• Todd Alderman – Lead Online Designer
• Francesco Gigliotti – Lead Software Engineer
• Bruce Ferriz – Senior Animator
• Mark Grigsby – Lead Animator
• Paul Messerly – Lead Character Animator

As you can see, these guys were pretty much all at the top of the company.  With all of these people gone, Infinity Ward is practically walking around without its head, and maybe even a missing arm.  Almost all of these people have been working at Infinity Ward for 6+ years.  That means that most of these people were at the company back from Call of Duty 2, and a few of them were there from the beginning with the first Call of Duty title.  A lot of experience and talent has been lost at IW.

As of right now there isn’t any word as to whether any of these people will be moving to the newly created Respawn Entertainment.  Considering the company only has two employees at the moment (West and Zampella) ,they are currently accepting applications and are hiring.  I think it is safe to assume that we will see at least a few of these guys on the new team, though it might be a while with the lawsuits going on.  Part of what Activision is accusing West and Zampella of is trying to steal the team from Activision, so that could complicate things.

On a brighter note, Respawn Entertainment has apparently signed an exclusive publishing deal with EA Partners that sounds like a match made in heaven.  EA Partners has agreed to allow the studio more freedom in the development process as well as ownership of all IPs that they create, something that Activision did not allow Infinity Ward to do.

I also want to quickly point out an article that I wrote back in November where I predicted that Infinity Ward would break away from Activision.  Obviously things didn’t turn out quite as I predicted.  I would have never guessed that Activision would have outright fired the two studio heads.

I can only assume that Bobby Kotick is shooting himself in the head over all of this.

[more at Shacknews]

Last week on the podcast Josh brought up some news about Dana White and his position towards EA during our podcast. Basically, White had stated that anybody who appears in EA’s MMA game will be banned from fighting in the UFC. This seemed a little extreme and the best reason that I could think of was that it might conflict with some sort of contract that the UFC had with THQ. As it turns out, Dana White just hates EA.

One thing I love about White is that he never shies away from controversy. When talking about EA he says that he is “not tap-dancing around this things or whatever, I’m telling you straight-up I’m at ware with them right now. That’s how I look at it.” He also adds that “its easy to sit on the other side of the table and judge me on how I react to stuff like this, but let me tell you what – I’ve been in the trenches for almost 10 years, and I’ve been dealing with all these businesses, and EA was one of them.”

White also mentions EA’s overall negative attitude towards MMA overall. White claims that when they first approached EA they wouldn’t even meet with him and told him that they didn’t think MMA was a real sport and wanted nothing to do with it.

[via MMA Junkie]

You should know by now that I am going to post pretty much any and all Dragon Age Origins screenshots and videos. We got three new videos and 15 new screenshots today so take a gander. Not a whole lot to say about them, the screenshots look pretty and shows some crazy giant creature. The three videos drag on a bit but they are just showing some action fighting some crazy shape-shifting beast.

In case you haven’t heard, the XBLA version of Battlefield 1943 is a bit wonky. The word wonky can be a bit general, so let me specify: THE GAME DOESN’T FUCKING WORK. Yes that’s right dear readers, you will pay $15 dollars only for having the pleasure of owning another EA title, rather than being able to play it. Internet peoples have been reporting that they either cannot connect to servers, or get extreme lag when they do. So why are these mouthbreathers complaining then, can’t they play single player? No you fucking cunt, the game is online only. But then again you take these sort of chances when purchasing an EA game, or should we say, interactive-titlescreen-demos.

The only reason I post this is because I read a recent tumblr blog post from Mr. Ron Workman himself which is titled “Dear EA Games: Fuck Your Shit!”

Microsoft allowing EA to do this bullshit is too far. This is the 3rd EA XBLA title that has not worked at all for me (as well as many many others). Other dev’s have to fight to get games up on XBLA and EA can swoop in and throw a non-working broken pile of shit on there. This has to stop.

Allowing EA to use its own servers as well as its own logins on Xbox Live is bullshit as well. Someone (An actual journalist) needs to really lay this one out. Out of all of the problems people deal with, this one is serious and allowing EA to bend to rules this far and also fuck it up is really over the top.

I just realized most of you have no idea what I am talking about. Battlefield 1943 on XBLA as well as any of the old Draft/Fantasy sports games published by EA just dont work. This one is a new major release, online gameplay only (the others also), and you can’t play it. 15 bucks and you can only attempt to connect. It will not play. It sucks when smaller dev’s fight for a year or more to get a game through certification and EA is allowed to come in and do this.

These games all cost me real money and to date I have not been able to play them. Contacting EA in the past did little to nothing. It shouldn’t have anything to do with them. I don’t call ESPN when my cable goes out, so why should I contact EA when something won’t work on Xbox Live?

-Ron Workman

Look how he speaks the truth. He’s like a modern day preacher, in fact he’s a lot more relevant than Reverend Al Sharpton. But I digress, I agree with what Ron has to say. Independent/Smaller Developers work their asses off to make a game meets all the rules that MS requires, while EA can take a giant dump, somehow digitize it, and then upload to XBL. First off, no company should be able to host their own servers, that’s the whole reason that XBL exists! You pay 50 bucks for a reason, and it’s not to play on EA’s shitty servers (probably powered by third world children running in hamster wheels or some evil shit). EA basically undermines the entire system by running their own servers, and then failing to support them and their own game.

Seriously EA, get your shit together.