John Constantine over at MTV has written a piece today on alternative locations for WW2 games, which I am going to add to, as this is something that's been grinding my gears for some time now as well.

I mean, how many times do we need to storm the beaches of Normandy? Or scour the ruins of Berlin? It's no wonder people say they're sick of playing WW2 games when they play the same people fighting the same enemy in the same locations over and over and over.

The Second World War was fought across Eastern Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, North Atlantic, Indian sub-continent, South East Asia, the South Pacific, even Australasia, so it's time games started mixing things up and representing some of these theatres. Who knows, it may even breathe a little life into a "genre" the industry has finally decided has had its day.

John listed five (one of which, Egypt, has actually been well represented in both Call of Duty and strategy titles), so I'm going to list five more, involving theatres and nations that go a little beyond your standard Allies vs Nazis fare.

The Malayan Campaign - While Japan's attacks on Pearl Harbour have been well-covered, their initial attacks on the British Empire have not. The Malayan campaign saw the Japanese army completely overrun an ill-prepared force of British, Australian, Indian and local forces, and would end with the fall of Singapore, the single largest surrender in the history of the British armed forces.

East Africa - One of the forgotten theatres of the war, the East African campaign saw a motley collection of "British" troops - from Britain, South Africa, India, African colonies and even some Belgian and Palestinian forces - take on the Italians in what is now modern day Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya and the Sudan. Hardly the most epic confrontations of the war, but the terrain, locals and forces involved are more than unique enough to make up for it.

Korea - Another forgotten theatre, Korea saw action in the closing days of the war when the Soviet Union, free to focus on the Pacific theatre with the Germans defeated, declared war on Japan and invaded Mongolia and Korea. The weary Japanese forces were completely overrun, with the speed and brutality of the Soviet offensive doing much to contribute to Japan's surrender, a fact often overlooked by Western historians.

New Guinea - In 1942, the island of New Guinea - at the time governed by Australia - was invaded by the Japanese. Throughout the next year the Japanese and Australian armies would fight bitterly along the "Kokoda Track", a campaign now famous for the fact it for the first time blunted the Japanese land advance in the South Pacific.

Finland - Finland's participation in the Second World War is both fascinating and tragic, as the Scandinavian state actually fought three separate conflicts between 1939 and 1945. The first, the Winter War, was when the Soviet Union - as part of the same deal that saw the Soviets and Nazis divide Poland between them - invaded. Against the odds, the Finns defeated the Russians. The second conflict came when the Finns sided with the Nazis and invaded the USSR, hoping to reclaim some territory lost in the Winter War. By 1944, however, the Finns had turned on the Germans, and fought a series of battles in Lapland, driving them back into German-held Norway.

Those are just five to get us started. There are plenty more worth investigating - Japan's advance on India, the Chinese Communist Party's guerilla war and Operation Pastorius (German subs landing spies on the US mainland) - and that's just a few. Hopefully in the years to come some of these unheralded (yet extraordinary) tales can be brought to life in a game, showing that it's not necessarily the war that's grown stale, it's just certain parts of it.

"I'm not saying it's going to happen tomorrow, but in the way that Activision sort of alternates sequels of Modern Warfare and Call of Duty and owns the leadership position in FPS [first-person-shooter], between Medal of Honor and Battlefield, I want it back," EA boss John Riccitiello said in a morning interview in New York. "And we're going to get there with innovation and quality."

EA's Medal Of Honor used to be the leading brand in military first-person shooters. Activision's rival brand, Call of Duty surpassed it and has now spawned a Modern Warfare 2 that sold nearly five million copies in its first day of release.

It's no wonder Riccitiello wants to turn that around. He thinks his franchises can get there.

The EA CEO didn't detail the strategy for the Medal of Honor series, which moves to modern Afghanistan after a legacy of World War II releases, but he did enthuse about the prospects of Battlefield Bad Company 2, the March console and PC shooter also coming from EA and its development studio DICE. (Read Kotaku's recent preview of the game.)

"The first [Bad Company] did very well in its first outing," he said. "The next one is a heck of a lot better and it looks like a worthy competitor to Modern Warfare."

Not only can the game compete, said Riccitiello, but he expects it to do one better than publisher Activision and development studio Infinity Ward's latest Modern Warfare game.

"We think we've got an advantage over Modern Warfare 2 with our multiplayer," he said. "The guys at DICE do that really, really well."

What kind of advantage could EA have, given MW2's legacy of fans?

"Frankly, once you get past, sort of, four people on a map, I think our gameplay is better," Riccitiello answered. "That is a legacy of DICE and where they came from. The original Battlefield PC was a 16-on-16 product and they've optimized. The other thing is, I think things like vehicles and destructible environments are a fresh innovation." [Note from Kotaku: The original Battlefield on PC actually supported up to 64-player matches.]

Riccitiello continued: "I think the Infinity Ward guys are great. It's not about them being bad for us having to be great too. I'm a fan of a lot of our competitors' products. But if you've played Modern Warfare, and you've played the first one — and you've played the last Call of Duty — it's sort of starting to feel like they're making the same game again. And I personally think being able to control your vehicle as opposed to being able to ride on one [is good]. And I think there's something a little bit cool about taking a building out and getting the six guys in it. Personally, I get sort of a silly amount of pleasure out of it."

EA once had the war-game dominance. Whether they can wrest it back — in terms of quality, if not immediately in sales — will be seen next year.

European Xbox Community Manager Graeme "AceyBongos" Boyd says that the remake of the original Call of Duty will set Xbox 360 gamers back 1200 Microsoft Points. Interested gamers should first check to see if they purchased the Prestige Edition of Modern Warfare 2, as a download code should have been included in their copy of the deluxe package.

Keep an eye peeled for confirmation on non-European lands so that you too can enjoy a dozen Call of Duty Classic Achievements.

With Modern Warfare 2 pulling in $550 million in sales within the first five days of release, the $3 billion certainly makes sense. From the original Call of Duty right on up to one many of you are playing right now, more than 55 games have passed to gamers' hands, which might give Activision CEO Bobby Kotick's accompanying statement and speculation merit.

"Call Of Duty has become one of the greatest entertainment franchises of all time. If you consider the number of hours our audiences are engaged in playing Call of Duty games, it is likely to be one of the most viewed of all entertainment experiences in modern history."

While the news outlet doesn't name the studio responsible for providing gamers with even more of the Call of Duty that they clearly crave, having a third team dedicated to pumping out future iterations could mean any number of things.

One possibility could give current Call of Duty developers Treyarch and Infinity Ward more time to produce entries in the core series, offering them a three year development cycle instead of the two year turnaround time in place now. Another is semi-annual releases, which may be pushing it.

Or, this third team could be focused on a different Call of Duty model. Activision CEO Bobby Kotick has publicly expressed this thoughts on a massively-multiplayer online take on the series. Activision CFO Tom Tippl has also teased "additional online monetization models" for the Call of Duty brand.

Activision already has a handful of other developers working on Call of Duty content, including Nintendo DS developer n-Space, responsible for three portable entries, and multiplayer map specialists Certain Affinity, who helped Treyarch out with Call of Duty: World At War. The publisher owns plenty of other studios with first-person shooter experience, like Raven Software (Wolfenstein, Singularity) and High Moon Studios (Darkwatch), should it choose to tap one of its wholly-owned developers.

Or perhaps Activision has its newest studio, the recently announced Sledgehammer Games at work on a Call of Duty title. The ex-Dead Space developers could take the franchise in a more futuristic direction, if they dare.

We've reached out to Activision to see if they'd like to comment on the LA Times report, but have not yet heard back.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 video game gets Hollywood-scale launch [LA Times]

The "No Russian" scene in Modern Warfare 2 has players working undercover with a terrorist organization as they open fire on the crowd at a Russian airport. In most versions of the game this scene is skippable, but it doesn't appear at all in the Russian PC version of the game. Speaking to Eurogamer, an Activision representative explains why.

"Other countries have formal ratings boards that we regularly work with. However, Russia does not have a formal ratings entity. As a result, we chose to block the scene after seeking the advice of local counsel,"

Probably a wise move on Activision's part. In the same statement, the company also addressed rumors that the console versions of Modern Warfare 2 were being pulled from Russian shelves in order to remove the scene, explaining that no console versions of the game have been released in the country.

Activision chose to censor Russian MW2 [Eurogamer]

Here's what Tom Tippl told the gathering:

It's definitely an aspiration that we see potential in, particularly as we look at different business models to monetize the online gameplay. There's good knowledge exchange happening between the Blizzard folks and our online guys.

We have great experience also on Call of Duty with the success we had on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network. A lot of that knowledge is getting actually built into the Battle.Net platform and the design of that. I think it's been mutually beneficial, and you should expect us to test and ultimately launch additional online monetization models of some of some of our biggest franchises like Call of Duty.

And now that you're red-faced and rushing to the comments to say no way in hell would you ever pay for this, Tippl reminds:

Our gamers are telling us there's lots of services and innovation they would like to see that they're not getting yet. From what we see so far, additional content, as well as all the services Blizzard is offering, is that there is demand from the core gamers to pay up for that.

So, got that? He says practically demanding to pay up. So pay up!

Activision Hints at Call of Duty Online Plans IGN via VG247 and just about every one else.]

so here we are. It's the next installment of Infinity Ward's s***. We could drone on and on about Modern Warfare 2's controversial terrorist level, or the fact that this could very well be the bestselling game of the year and possibly all-time. We could talk about robust multiplayer, the new cooperative missions, and the fact that Soap MacTavish is at least one of our writers' personal hero.

We won't do that, however. Instead, we give you the assembled game critics' responses to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

Eurogamer
Twice, Infinity Ward asks if you're absolutely sure you want to see it. The scene, the fourth you'll encounter in the most widely anticipated game of the year, could be "disturbing" or "offensive", repeats the warning. You smile and agree that, yes, you are sure you want to see it. This is a videogame. They give them 18 certificates, but only to appease people who don't really understand what's going on. Sure, the images of violence and bloodshed on Modern Warfare's battlefields can be disturbing to an onlooker, but death in a first-person shooter is a five-second setback, a micro-reincarnation designed to provide challenge and an impetus to improve, not distress.

Strategy Informer
Of course there will be a significant chunk of the audience that end up wondering what all the fuss was about; and for those of you of that persuasion, MW2's action beat and constant assault on the senses will prove the primary draw. It's here that Infinity Ward steps above and beyond criticism with superlative gunplay and a visual panache that – at times – borders on best-in-show. Enemies crumple realistically under fire, set-piece animation is integrated in an almost seamless fashion within the level design, and you'll be hard-pushed to spot a single respawning set of foes - which is about bloody time, even if early reports of nerfed veteran difficulty as a direct consequence are to be believed.

IGN
Thankfully many of the glaring issues from last time around have been fixed. You won't find unlimited enemy spawns in areas, there's always a waypoint icon on-screen showing you where to go or who to follow, and the amount of in-game chatter from your team is simply astounding. It isn't often in games that you'll hear your squad call out specific areas on the map and have it mean anything. When your friend shouts, "Two tangos behind the yellow station wagon!" you'll actually see two enemies behind a yellow station wagon. It's a pretty engaging experience. You'll still have random issues with friendly AI, specifically with blocking your movement or deciding to walk in front of you mid-firefight, but for the most part it's a better experience than the first Modern Warfare.

Game Informer
Modern Warfare 2's competitive multiplayer offering is the soul of iterative design. New ideas arise like third-person play and death streaks, but nothing substantially affects the core gameplay. On the other hand, the tweaks are almost uniformly great. Weapon-specific unlocks, cosmetic titles and callsigns, and upgraded "pro" perks contribute to a dramatic increase in the depth and breadth of persistent progression. The strategic variance of each map invites hours of study and experimentation. Included due to the mountain of feedback, the playlists (preset rotations of maps and modes for groups to play through) offer delightful bouquets of varied-yet-similar gametypes for all tastes.

Telegraph
The game's new mode is Special Ops which can be played solo or in co-op, both local and online. It's unlocked by completing the campaign mode, and is essentially a series of mini-missions; their design is similar to the epilogue mission in COD4's campaign mode, "Mile High Club". They're divided into four groups – Alpha, Bravo, Charlie and Delta – and are based on sections within the campaign's levels. They include scenarios such as defending a raised platform in a snow-covered shipyard, racing snowmobiles across tundra and taking out guerrillas in a favela in Rio de Janeiro while avoiding civilian casualties. A couple of fan-favourites from COD4 are also included, such as the chilling Death From Above mission in AC-130 Spectre Gunship. Special Ops range from one to three stars in their level of difficulty, and players can use the stars they earn to unlock more challenges. There are 23 missions in all, and a lot of them are highly addictive; the temptation to better one's time in the snowmobile race is particularly compelling.

Kotaku
Modern Warfare 2 may not innovate or raise the bar as impressively as Call of Duty 4 did in order to grant it automatic game of the year consideration. The better praise it may deserve is that it's likely the game that many will be playing well into next year.

Anyone surprised?

Lens of Truth have copies of the game on both systems, and have posted an exhaustive selection of screenshots, statistics and rollover comparisons, allowing people who own both consoles to see exactly how the two versions stack up.

The short and skinny of the breakdown is that, aside from some bloom lighting and minuscule framerate differences, both versions are nigh-on identical, especially when it came to texture quality.

As you'd expect, what with the stellar job Infinity Ward did on Call of Duty 4, which remains one of the best examples of how to handle a multiplatform release on the PS3.

Which means, as is often the case with these things anyway, the decision on which version to buy will probably boil down to which version your friends are buying.

(For reference, in these shots, the PS3 is on the left, 360 on the right)

Head2Head – Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Analysis [Lens of Truth]

You can no doubt imagine the kind of shambling corpse that'll be trotted out as Guitar Hero 6 (or whatever it ends up being called), and that's not even bringing up the inevitable band-specific, re-release and handheld versions we can no doubt expect from the series.

Call of Duty, though, that's a little more interesting. With this month's Modern Warfare 2 developed by Infinity Ward, next year is a "Treyarch" year, with rumours suggesting the game has moved completely away from the Second World War and will be set in an era with not only more menacing Russians, but better music as well.

As for Spider Man, yeah, he's back, along with a Shrek game that'll no doubt be based on next year's Shrek movie.

Good ol' Activision. They're nothing if not dependable.

Speaking with USA Today, the chain's executive vice president for merchandising and marketing, Tony Bartel, has revealed "As of today, the number of pre-order reservations we've taken for the game is the highest for any title we've ever sold in our 6,200 store network."

As a result, he's on record predicting the game will be "the biggest entertainment launch of all time". It's OK, Halo 3. You had a good run.

'Modern Warfare 2' invades Game Hunters [USA Today]

The criteria: Amazon's cutoff are towns and cities with a population over 5,000 (according to the most current census data), and they have to order "enough copies for two squads (18 people) using Release-Date Delivery." The ranking is based on per capita orders, not whole numbers. Winning city gets a $5,000 Amazon gift card donated to a charitable organization serving that area.

Lots of college towns dot this board, no surprise there. As of its most recent update, the most noticeable military city I could spot is Twentynine Palms, Calif., although admittedly I don't know where every Army installation is. The city, home to a big Marine Corps base, is in 11th place.

My pick for the town most answering duty's call? Bedford, Va.

The Call of Duty-est Town in America [Amazon, thanks reader Blain D.]

The skippable scene of terrorist atrocities in Modern Warfare 2 first came to light via leaked footage on YouTube early yesterday. News travelled quickly, however, with an AP report dropping yesterday afternoon, distributing the news to just about every news organization on the planet. Word obviously reached Australia, prompting Australian Council on Children and the Media Jane Roberts to call on the Australian Classification Board to reconsider the MA15+ rating the game received, which is the highest rating given games in the country. Reconsideration would effectively ban the game from release. Roberts claims that even with the MA15+ rating, the game would still be readily available to children.

"The consequences of terrorism are just abhorrent in our community and yet here we are with a product that's meant to be passed off as a leisure time activity, actually promoting what most world leaders speak out publicly against."

Do not read on if you wish to avoid Modern Warfare 2 spoilers.

Here's the report regarding the offending scene filed by the Classification Board that accompanied the MA15+ rating decision.

"Several civilians are shot with blood burst bullet wounds; civilian corpses are strewn across the airport floor, often in stylised pools of blood; injured civilians crawl away with lengthy blood trails behind them."

The report goes on to mention that you cannot inflict post mortem damage on the civilians, and that all other missions of the game will result in failure if a civilian is shot.

Activision released a statement to Kotaku yesterday regarding the scene, explaining that it was "meant to evoke the atrocities of terrorism."

Back in Australia the debate rages on, with Nicholas Suzor, spokesman for the lobby group Electronic Frontiers Australia, using the situation to call for a R18+ rating for games released in the country, while rejecting the idea that a video game could foster terrorism.

"Films often show the villain's perspective and, by doing that, they get across the character's story and the heinous nature of people who carry out atrocities. Games, too, are becoming more expressive, and are telling more involved stories. We may make an argument that these sorts of topics are not suitable for children, but I don't at all accept that it is unsuitable for adults."

The Classification Board cannot review its own decisions, so anyone interested in getting the rating reviewed will have to apply directly to the board.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is slated for Australian release on November 10th.

Outrage as terrorist game lets players massacre civilians [The Sydeny Morning Herald - Thanks Ted!]

Someone snagged an early copy of Modern Warfare 2 in France on the PS3 and streamed it on the internet. If it's real, the game appears to feature third person mode. If it's not real, then it won't. Easy as that.

Check out the crummy quality clip below and judge for yourself. We are contacting the developer and will update if we get a comment on this issue.

News: Rumor: Modern Warfare 2's Huge Secret is Third Person View? (Update: Seems to be True) [Kombo Thanks, Jonathan!]

The achievement stuff is just delicious candy, really, but the Steam Cloud support is nice. That server side storage of your multiplayer game progress is the kind of convenience that I adore—even if I never personally use it.

Gabe Newell, Valve bigwig, sure sounds pleased about the adoption of Steamworks by Infinity Ward. "Having a game as significant as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 using the suite of back-end services in Steamworks is a signal to us that we're making the right kinds of choices for triple-A developers like Infinity Ward," he says, dollar signs in his eyes.

Especially when the petition registers 20,000 in just a little more than a day since the news hit. The petition's short and sweet: "Get Infinity Ward to review their decision not to allow fully dedicated servers for their forthcoming game release CoD:MW2. Remember that this Call of Duty was made popular by PC Gamers who have supported the series throughout."

And that's it. No list of high crimes and misdemeanors, just "think about what you're doing here."

The signatures can't be taken to mean anything deeper than "I agree," of course, for whatever reasons. For a deeper insight into why this matters to the PC Call of Duty community I do recommend you visit a site like BASHandSlash, whose webcast yesterday broke the news. It's not just about concepts like lag-free playing and modding; it's really upending how a significant and very vocal user base has enjoyed this series for a long time.

And whether it's a petition or something else that forces a reaction, I can't imagine Infinity Ward won't have more to say about this.

Dedicated Servers for CoD:MW2 Petition [PetitionOnline.com, thanks Rob S.]

"Dedicated servers FTW. What ever secures a better online experience is a given for us," Tweeted DICE's K.M. Troedsson.

KM Troedsson (L_Twin) on Twitter [thanks Cirap]

Furthermore: "You'll also have Prestige Mode in PC as well as lots of Steam support," Bowling writes. No word yet on minimum PC specifications, but "hopefully" they will come soon, he adds.

fourzerotwo [Twitter, thanks Jon]

The achievements are worth 200 points in total and not one of them is offered for multiplayer performance. Here's the list:

• First Termer (10): Complete Training.

• Old Glory (20): Complete the American missions.

• Union Jack (20): Complete the British missions.

• Victory Banner (20): Complete the Russian missions.

• Tank Breaker (15): Finish Hurtgen.

• Rocket's Red Glare (15): Finish Rocket.

• Flag over the Reichstag (15): Finish Berlin.

• War Hero (30): Complete the game on the hardest difficulty.

• Gunslinger (10): Get kills using a pistol, rifle, submachine gun, and grenade in a mission without dying.

• Pea Shooter (20): Complete a mission using only a pistol and no melee attacks.

• Survivor (15): Complete a mission without dying or loading a checkpoint.

• Won The War (10): Complete the game.

Call of Duty Achievement List [Xbox 360 Achievements.org via Joystiq]