Ben offers some advice that I can agree with: vote with your dollar, and don’t be a hypocrite. I also agree that piracy is not a valid way to protest. But it’s not enough for gamers alone to take a more effective stance against game makers, and joining an advocacy group won’t solve anything. To really spur change, the press needs to come around as well, as Ben has attempted to here.

I rather liked that Torchlight didn’t have skill trees. It made me a lot less stressed out about picking skills during the early levels.

Were it not for this news, I would have bought Resident Evil 5 during Impulse’s Thanksgiving sale. I’m thankful for Shacknews for saving me money.

Adding Tropico 3 only a month after its release is a quick turnaround for GameTap. More publishers should follow Kalypso’s lead.

It’s good that not everyone at Pandemic lost their job last week, and that their projects will continue at EALA. It’s also good to see that some of those who did lose their jobs have been able to find closure.

Good luck, guys. I mean it; I grew up using third-party memory cards in my consoles. They’re cheaper, they work just as well, and they come in wacky colors and capacities.

So cool:

I don’t understand how EA can shut down a studio mere weeks before they ship a game. The Saboteur looks interesting, but its release is irreparably tainted by this news.

Hooray for that.

Stardock estimates that Impulse has 10% marketshare against Steam’s 70%, while Direct 2 Drive, GamersGate, and other services split the remaining 20%. 10% for Impulse feels generous, but assuming it’s accurate, I wonder how their marketshare will be fairing now that the Steam-exclusive Modern Warfare 2 has shipped. With MW2, Counter-Strike, Left 4 Dead, Team Fortress, and Day of Defeat, Valve controls most of the PC’s multiplayer FPS market. Consider supporting the competition, people.

Speak of the devil…

…and his pal Judas.

Such as first-party dedicated servers?

I’ve spent over 50 hours playing Dragon Age, and frankly, I can’t wait to throw more money at more content.

This sounded really cool until I read that one of the cases from the DS version will be excluded. What gives?

I feel silly for discussing box art, but people have been pretty down on this new Mass Effect 2 cover. Although they still have a planet/moon in the background that seems inappropriately close, I prefer this new cover to the old one. It reminds me of the covers of cheesy Sci-Fi paperbacks — in a good way.

I’m not ashamed to say that I enjoyed Kane & Lynch. They’re on the right track with the movie by casting Bruce Willis as Kane, and I’m digging the style they’re establishing for Kane & Lynch 2 with these teasers.

Such news as this is never easy to hear. Rumors have emerged which suggest that the layoffs affect about a dozen projects at Pandemic, Black Box, Redwood Shores, Tiburon, Mythic, and Maxis.

Wait, didn’t you just–

Oh. Carry on, then. Jerks.

Now, go forth and recreate Diablo. Hellfire edition — the one with the monk. This shouldn’t take as long as Baldur’s Gate to recreate, so I’ll check back in 2013.

It’s cool, just call a votekick or have the server admin ban him.

People losing their jobs is the worst, but this Fox video about the scene in Modern Warfare 2 is a close second for “worst thing that happened this week.” It handily beats the thing about Bobby Kotick getting richer that I (almost) omitted from this post. It’s too bad that the /Gamer guy choked, but I’m not sure it would have made a difference had he not.

Modern Warfare 2 is out. I’ve shared my criticisms of the game and its creators in my news posts, but I have other thoughts and perspectives that I have yet to share.

The Price

Console games have been $60 for four years now, but that’s only because the platforms are controlled by two companies who agreed on standards. Although the PC platform has no such governing entities, most of this year’s major releases have adhered to the normal $50 price for standard editions (including Prototype, an Activision game), and some games have been even cheaper. Burnout Paradise, Bionic Commando, Street Fighter IV, and Red Faction Guerrilla launched at $40 on PC. With the market being stable and skewing toward cheaper games, $60 for the standard edition of a game is uncalled for, except by greed.

The Multiplayer

I admit that PC gaming could stand to be simpler and more accessible, but we shouldn’t let Activision’s PR blow the issue out of proportion: it isn’t that hard to find and join a server in a server browser. Regardless, there is no technical reason to choose one over the other, and this is a point that I think many people have failed to acknowledge: matchmaking and dedicated servers can co-exist. Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, Unreal Tournament 3, Left 4 Dead, and World in Conflict are examples of this. Infinity Ward and Activision’s motivator isn’t accessibility, it’s money. The closed ecosystem will not only enable them to sell maps to PC players, but it could also allow them to sell dedicated servers to players directly — such a move would be anti-competitive toward the third-party dedicated hosting services. They haven’t done this yet, of course, but it’s the next logical step in their mission to monetize multiplayer. It’s what their numerous decisions against PC culture have led me to fear.

The Scene

I haven’t seen the scene, and unless some of the things I discussed above change, I will probably never play it, but I have observed and considered the criticisms of others. I’m fine with this scene existing. It has a right to. Video games are products of collaboration, but they’re also products of creative expression; they are art. There’s good art, bad art, and art that we just don’t care for, but art deserves to exist and shouldn’t be stifled, and from this is where my issue with it stems. As I understand it, before the scene begins, players are asked if they want to skip it. I don’t know why this choice exists — whether it’s pressure from Activision, a compromise with the ESRB, or simply Infinity Ward being courteous — but this choice indicates uncertainty on someone’s part. If they’re including the scene, I would rather they commit.

Were I to play it, I’m sure I would enjoy Modern Warfare 2 , but I can’t endorse Infinity Ward and Activision’s decisions with my money. I wish I could be playing Modern Warfare 2 rather than writing this post, but, such as it is, here I am.

I commonly experience flashes of euphoria for which I have no account. What I’ve felt over the last several weeks, however, is something different. It’s a sustained state of contentment — something that I can account for. It’s a feeling of fullness, and it’s because of video games.

I am full because of Brutal Legend. This game was almost perfect, from its story, its humor, and Jack Black’s performance, to its RTS and driving systems, and even its side missions — but I did say almost. The rate at which new Solos unlocked disappointed me; I think it was poor design to have four at the beginning, four at the end, but none in the middle. Still, I loved this game. I bought it on release day, and I finished all the missions by the end of the next. I never do that.

I am full because of Defense Grid: The Awakening. Tower Defense is a genre that gets a lot of flack — and it’s true, there are a lot of bad games out there — but if there’s a game that the skeptics should play, it’s Defense Grid. Its difficulty curve is fair, and its challenge modes suit it for repeat play. It even has character, an uncharacteristic attribute for a Tower Defense game that isn’t based on a license.
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This is the most important piece of games journalism written all week. This, too, is good, and offers a different perspective on the issue.

I am glad at this; I only hope the chart will track more than just sales in the UK.

PseudoKnight: I hadn’t expected to be this thrilled by simple screenshots of NS2, a sequel to one of my most beloved multiplayer games, Natural Selection. The independent team has had a wild ride but are finally seeing the fruits in the form of $220,000 in pre-sales.

It’ll take a while to get used to the Windows key being useful after years of hating it and avoiding it at all costs (sometimes by removing it from my keyboard), but this list will help. A favorite of mine, and a boon for anyone with multiple displays, is Win + P.

The marketing for Dante’s Inferno is a work of art.

As I said last week, we’ve been playing a lot of League of Legends. This interview gives insights into Riot Games’ design process, ideas on game balance, plans for updates and making money on a free game, and their thoughts on the competition.

Although Shattered Horizon is a tragically generic name, the game itself looks and sounds like anything but generic. I might have pre-ordered it on an impulse if it weren’t launching the day after Dragon Age.

First the PC version of Modern Warfare 2 gets a console price tag ($60), and now it’s getting the console multiplayer experience. Without player-controlled dedicated servers, there are no mods, no custom maps, and the competitive scene diminishes. Matchmaking is impersonal and unpredictable; it discourages community. I’ve never made a new friend in a game that uses matchmaking — there’s no such thing as “regulars” in Halo — but this very website probably owes its existence to dedicated servers. If we who still play multiplayer FPS games on PC wanted a console experience in MW2, we would simply play the console version. No one asked for this.

Being lied to is a bummer.

On the very day of my transition to 64-bit Windows, GameTap released their first big batch of 64-bit compatible games, and they’re free for the weekend. Notable among them are Unreal Tournament 2004, Overlord, Tomb Raider: Legend, Sacred Gold, and Hitman: Blood Money. Unreal Tournament 3 was also added this week.

Yes. Perfect. As I played through Kane & Lynch, Willis is exactly who I thought should play Kane if a movie were ever made. This makes up for the oversight that was not getting Jason Statham to play Agent 47.

PseudoKnight, Noct, and myself have been playing League of Legends with friends over the last week. It is great fun, and seems to be a worthy successor to Defend of The Ancients. Giant Bomb has a Quick Look (featuring the old UI) to watch while you download: