These auctions are getting stupid, first there was the mom who sold an entire collection that included a sealed copy of this title (sold for $13,105 when all was said and done), then there was the individual listing that went up about a week later (sold for $41,300), and now there's this one that hit $800,200. Actually, as I was typing this I realized that the item has been re-listed, likely because of the sheer volume of joke bids that there must be. Here's the re-listing, which at the time of writing of this article is at a measly $6,200.

Let me know if you bid and win.

Wow, the past 2 days have been pretty eventful! I missed when the story broke, so now I will be playing a little "catch up" for the night.

As it turns out, Activision has decided that they are upset with the two highest ranking executives at Infinity Ward has accused them of breach of contract and insubordination. It seems that both Jason West and Vince Zampella have been relieved of their duties, and the future of the 'Call of Duty" franchise has now been pre-planned by Activision with some very notable changes.

First, here is the verbiage from an SEC filing from Activision where a suit is being prepared against the two individuals at Infinity Ward.

The Company is concluding an internal human resources inquiry into breaches of contract and insubordination by two senior employees at Infinity Ward. This matter is expected to involve the departure of key personnel and litigation.

So that is that part.

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A source close to both Activision and Infinity Ward also reported to Kotaku that the 2009 contract between the two companies only allowed IW to make Call of Duty games set in the modern era. It was highly speculated that IW's next version of the Modern Warfare extension would be a futuristic shooter, which may very well break that agreement.

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The CoD that will be released in 2011 will no longer be helmed by IW as the past would indicate. It is currently unknown which development studio will handle the 2011 CoD release.

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That's about what I have right now, or all that I feel is really important enough to report on. Activision is really starting to seem a bit like the new old EA.

I am not following this up with pictures or extremely detailed information, but the news is important simply because Rocksteady Studios is the up-and-coming company who created Batman: Arkham Asylum last year. I'm sure much of the thinking behind this purchase is to make sure that Warner is receiving the majority of the revenue generated by the already announced sequel to Arkham Asylum that is expected to launch late 2010 or early 2011.

As long as Warner is just providing the money to make the game, and then some cash for an even larger marketing campaign - everything should be okay. If Warner decides that they need to oversee development, of if Rocksteady closes in a couple of months - start to worry.

There has never been much information available for Fallout: New Vegas. It was announced, and there is a brief overview on Bethesda's Fallout page plus a teaser trailer also hosted at the page. 

Today, however, USAToday printed a very tiny bit of information about how the game begins. Here's an excerpt from the article:

At the outset of the game, your character is shot and left in a shallow grave in the desert, lifted of the package you were entrusted with delivering. A robot digs you out and takes you to a local caregiver, Doc Mitchell, who nurses you back to health.

Read on for the rest of the details...

Click to read more ...

2K Games announced today that it will support Bioshock 2 with both multiplayer and single player downloadable content. The first downloadable pack Sinclair Solutions Test Pack will be available in March and will be 400MS Points or $5.00 on PSN.

Follow the break to read what the download will contain...

Click to read more ...

Right now it just redirects back to Sony's main site, but motorstorm3.com was registered late last month and depending on how you count the Motorstorm games that have been released, they could call the next one Motorstorm 3 if they really want to. I didn't have a PS3 in time to jump on the Motorstorm bandwagon from launch, but it's a pretty popular series, so making a sequel is a no-brainer.

via Kotaku

Ubisoft sent a release out just a little bit ago to announce that they are working on another Prince of Persia game, The Forgotten Sands. It sounds a bit like we will be going back to the style of the original Xbox title "The Sands of Time," and Ubisoft does note that we are returning to that storyline. Ubi is working to spread the title across handhelds and consoles for release in May 2010, and we should see a true reveal at the VGA's on Spike December 12th. We will keep you updated as more info is announced, but you can also check the website for the game as well.

You had better hope that you aren't playing your illegal copy of Modern Warfare 2 on your modded Xbox 360, because Microsoft just gave your console a perma-ban. MSNBC is reporting the anywhere between 600,000 and 1,000,000 consoles have been or will be banned this week. Please take this special note - if you DO NOT have an Xbox 360, or are thinking about picking a second one up, it would be best to stay away from USED consoles for the foreseeable future. We here are sure that many of these consoles will be traded in, and because most resellers don't check for this, you could get screwed. 

I wish modders were just smart enough to leave their box unhooked from the internet and just use it for playing their pirated games while not online. Then they could update their profiles with one of those memory units to show off achievements and such.

We don't condone piracy or modding your consoles here or anything, but it seriously took me 35 seconds to come up with that idea and I con't see why it wouldn't work...

(via Robert Bowling's Twitter Page: @fourzerotwo)

Crackdown was a pretty fun game - and not because I got to play in the Halo 3 MP Beta because of it. I just had a good time climbing, driving and shooting. It was a bit over the top, and a little too easy,but it was mad fun. Well, the original developer RealTime Worlds had already moved on to their next project by the time Microsoft decided that they wouldn't mind having a sequel to the game, so Ruffian Games (which is located down the street and around the corner from RealTime Worlds in Scotland, BTW) was selected to take on Crackdown 2. Competition! Anyhow, it looks like Crackdown 2 will be showcased at NEoN Digital Arts Festival next weekend, so hopefully we'll have some additional Crackdown 2 information for you the following week. If you wanted to look at some things to hold you over, there are some screens below.

Gallery:

Update on Friday, November 6, 2009 at 4:23PM by Tim Adkins

For more information about NEoN go to: http://www.northeastofnorth.com or follow them on Twitter at http://twitter.com/weareneon

It appears we have the first major leak for Halo: Reach - these weapons are looking pretty interesting. There's not a whole lot else to say, and I know you want to see the screens.Tom Morello from MLG forums is a hack-job and didn't post these originally, they were actually posted originally at Bungie.net (then removed), then they were posted at halo.bungie.org (then removed), and now they are at NeoGAF. NeoGAF member Dani posted them there and credits Tashi0106 for the find. I have replaced all of the pictures with Tom Morello written on them except one - and it didn't have a duplicate without the awesome paint writing on it, so I left it up (so that we aren't missing any images. Why leave our site to see them though? You can click to expand the images below!

Gallery:

Update on Thursday, November 5, 2009 at 8:49PM by Tim Adkins

Updated with new information, removed images with that Tom Morello crap all over them, corrected mis-information, added one more image. I think that's it...

Some stuff from NeoGAF:

Gameplay Details:

Campaign
Elites - Better than monkeys!
Privacy - potential drop in, drop out co-op multiplayer

Weapons:
New Needler-based Heavy Weapon - Looks like a Covenant version of the Spartan Laser!
BR - It's back with a new look!
AR - Same old, MLG favourite!
Needler - Now with more pink!
Laser - Red eye again!

 

 

Originally Posted by HBO Forum Folks:

One of the screenshots showed the start menu during a campaign level. One of
: the options was privacy. Halo 3 didn't have that option in campaign, only
: during multiplayer games. Drop-in Co-op?

I found a thread that accompanied pictures, it says that is one of the features, along with perks.

: And the weapons looked very customizable. The BR had a clip of 12, looks like
: it's firing single shots just like it did in early Halo 2 builds.

Really? I think you might be reading too much into it (or I might be mis-understanding what you mean, customizable weapons to me means something like they are going to have in Army of Two: 2)

Kinda got myself to hyped up, on the picture with the Sp'lazer I thought they where in space (space combat!) but I think it is just the light. And one last question, does anyone else see a giant (missile launcher maybe?) thing on the back of the warthog? Other than that I am a little skeptical about how good some of these look, it is like they are farther then what I thought they would be by now, although they have been working on it longer than I have known, so...

If there's anything more we'll be reporting it...

Looks like the PS3 Netflix disc is on the way! Here's part of an email I received about ten minutes ago!

Lately it seems like we are being bombarded with Collector's Edition releases, so why not have one more, right? Well - you're wishes came true. Mass Effect 2 will have a Collector's Edition that won't really impress you after the God of War III and Splinter Cell: Conviction editions that we've seen announced over the past week and a half.

You will get:

• Special Armor & Weapons
• Issue 1 of the 'Mass Effect Redemption' Comic Book
• A hardcover 48-page 'Art of Mass Effect 2' book
• A making of DVD
• The game (obviously)
• Everything packaged in a tin case

Click the images of the armor or box to view larger:

It looks like, based on this BestBuy.com chat session, the multiplayer matches of Modern Warfare 2 will be limited to 9v9 matches across ALL platforms. Here's the quote that gave us this tidbit of information:

Mackey-IW: The max number of players on all platforms are 1v1 through 9v9. This is the number of players we focused on when we were balancing map size, perks, classes, challenges, etc.

We'll try to get  more information on this within the next hour or so, but in the meantime read the transcript and form your own opinion - then comment...

via: Brave New Gamer

Update on Thursday, November 5, 2009 at 9:33AM by Tim Adkins

Alright, because I know no one likes to read an entire transcript, I have done that part for you and all of the most important information from the chat is below. There weren't any ground-breaking revelations, but here are the good bits:

• Headquarters Pro in MW2 has a timer that starts before the HQ is online, so there will be the opportunity to set up a capture strategy.
• Yes, the 25 killstreak rewards the player with a tactical nuke. Once it is used the team with the player or player who uses the nuke wins the match.
• The only classic Call of Duty map in MW2 is 'Wasteland' which is based on the CoD1 map 'Brecourt'.
• Matches are 1v1 - 9v9 depending on playlist type - this carries over across all platforms. 
• There is no character customization.
• Third Person View (TPV) is restricted to MP game types and the view looks similar to the 'Spectator Mode' - some perks will be useless in TPV.
• Lean does not return to the series here...
• Xbox 360 System Link will have Create a Class functionality now.
• There are customizable killstreaks in MW2. Based on the Killstreak List that leaked previously, it looks like you will have a choice on the killstreaks of: 4, 5, 7, 9, and 11.
• Akimbo will allow dual wield for pistols, SMG's and possibly...shotguns.
• There is no record feature/functionality.
• In MP, snipers can be customized to have silencers.
• You can get all 69 stars in SpecOps alone except 2 - one of those 2 will be for the AC130 mission.

That's all of the important stuff that I found. If anyone reads anything in that transcript and thinks it needs posted, please add it to the comments. 

I found it only appropriate to actually make this entire post from my iPhone, so here it goes...

I have only been a user of Squarespace since August 31st, and my site has only been live since September 25th, but this app was something that I have been waiting for since I signed up for the site and started building Gamerlesque. Needless to say, I'm pretty excited about the ability to post if I am away from my home laptop, work computer, my new Aspire One, or any other various location that I go to with computers on site.

The only issues that I have found so far are:

1) that the stats seem to load pretty slowly. It takes much longer to load the stats through the app (so far) than it takes me to open up Safari and hit Reload AND Login - where I always have an open SS traffic window (I'm vain, I know).

and:

2) I haven't seen that there is an easy way for me to post video or add code yet, which suddenly became very important to me.

Other than that, I'm really liking the app, it really does beat not being able to do anything from my phone - that's always a bummer...

Some pics - just to test!

Update on Tuesday, November 3, 2009 at 11:20PM by Tim Adkins

So posting the pictures from my iPhone didn't really work very well, it just adds the photos to the BEGINNING of the post, this would work if I could change the image sizes, or write a code block, but I can't - so that part really doesn't work for me at all.

Here's all of the stuff that the app does though:

• View your site statistics - Stay on top of your site's traffic by viewing your unique visitors, page views, popular search terms, RSS subscribers, top referrers and more.

• Manage your content - Approve posts, edit drafts, delete content and publish to multiple Squarespace sites. All your content will be manageable on-the-go.

• Preview your site online - With a full-featured, live preview mode, you can ensure everything on your site looks perfect before you click "publish."

• Post to your site - Snap a picture on your iPhone, and post it right to your Squarespace site. Or easily compose blog entries, and publish them directly from your "Post" tab.

• Manage multiple accounts - Quickly jump back and forth between multiple Squarespace accounts. Post a blog entry on one site, finish a draft on another, and check stats for a third...all from within the app.

• Edit your posts - Draft a blog post on your iPhone, and schedule it for publication later in the week--you can edit it at anytime. Your categories and tags will all be at your fingertips.

• Upload Multiple Images - Squarespace's iPhone application lets you upload, order, and manage multiple images attached to a single post.

• Online/Offline Editing - If you're in an area with low reception, our iPhone app allows you to compose and save messages directly on to your phone. When you get signal again, just click "Sync" to push posts to your live site.

And yet with all of this stuff, I am still underwelmed...

If there was any exciting news that could break up the Modern Warfare 2 leaks that have been coming out lately, there's nothing better to break that monotony than American McGee's Alice - and it looks like we will all get her again. This game is one of those games that a lot of people played, but a lot of people didn't as well. The game is awesome, I recall playing it twice, once on PC and once on Mac. You can bet I'll be playing it again in all of its HD glory when the re-release takes place in 2011. Watch the teaser trailer by clicking below.