But it's also attractive for the option of placing Santa hats on Nathan Drake, a timely nod I've been a sucker for since first coming across Christmas Nights for the Sega Saturn. So if you, like me, enjoy seeing characters who wouldn't normally wear bright red hats with fuzzy white poms and brims, you'll want to play some Uncharted 2 multiplayer this extended Christmas weekend.

Double cash deals run from 12/24 to 12/27, a time when I'll sadly be away from my own PlayStation 3. If you have your PS3 nearby, you may want to read up on the minute-specific details on this weekend's double cash deal.

Deck the Halls with Uncharted 2 Double Cash [PlayStation.blog]

GameInformer has the first comprehensive look at Clarke in his newer, sleeker, more jetpack-accessorized space suit, and at least one unfamiliar necromorph. Fight against the Silverlight and Photosynth-powered screenshot viewer a bit and you'll also get a peek at some of the environment from the sequel and what appears to be a flood of teenaged necromorphs bearing down on poor Mr. Clarke.

What do you think of Isaac's new duds?

Dead Space 2 In 3D [Game Informer]

That's according to the PS3 game's official site, which should explain just what Last Rebellion is, for those who don't remember it. It should also shed some light on heroes Nine the Blade and Aisha the Sealer and why the game's character switching mechanic is needed to slay all those undead Belzeds.

Other things to learn about this PlayStation 3 exclusive: who and what Lorvin, Arzelide, Junovald, Meiktilia, and Formival are. Your best pronunciations are welcome in the comments.

Last Rebellion [NIS America]

The first of four avatar packs, each featuring three or four LittleBigPlanet-themed icons that can represent you on the PlayStation 3 cross media bar and friends list, are going for $8.00 HK in Hong Kong, which translates to about $1.00 USD. In Europe, individual premium avatars are priced at £0.20/€0.25 each. Not a bad deal, should you have a dollar or two rotting in your Wallet.

On the other hand, it's a formerly free thing now monetized, something Sony seems more and more interested in doing lately. Good for business, bad for people who want things given to them gratis.

The God of War: Blood & Metal digital EP will feature exclusive, sometimes God of War inspired tracks from Killswitch Engage, Dream Theater, Trivium, Opeth and Taking Dawn. If you follow any or all of those bands, you're likely aware that they're Roadrunner Records acts, Sony's partner in giving God of War fans something heavier to rock to.

"This is the first time in 24 years that we've written and recorded a song for anything other than one of our own albums, so we're up for the challenge and excited to have been asked," said prog metal act Dream Theater's drummer Mike Portnoy.

I don't know about you guys, but I'm more than interested to hear just how God of War inspired any of these previously unreleased songs are.

Roadrunner Announces God of War EP [Roadrunner Records]

We've heard from tipsters here in the U.S. and in Europe—Switzerland, specifically—that the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game have already shipped to retail and are waiting to be snapped up. Kotaku reader Bryant just snagged a copy at a Wisconsin Toys 'R' Us. We've reached out to some of our local retailers, even the ones that generally sell to us early, but have come up short.

You may have better luck, though, and may be able to secure a surprising Christmas or Hannukah gift for a friend if you do.

Yes, both versions appear to be regional, not import copies. Two good gets for a game that's not supposed to be released for another two weeks or more.

Thanks to Ivan and Bryant for the heads up. And have fun.

The three winners of the PS3 part of the contest are:

Arex, posing as Jin Kazama

Bigbadpenguinmaster, also posing as Jin Kazama

OmegaSpartan08, posing as Ganryu

The two winners of the Xbox 360 part of the contest are:

TwoToedSocks, posing as Lili

Omega Corn, posing as Devil Jin

All winners must send me their full name, e-mail and North American mailing address by the end of Wednesday. Send that information to me via a private message to my Kotaku username, stephentotilo. (Just click this link to get there. Don't make the message public.)

Thank you to all who entered. Congratulations to all who won! Your Tekken 6 bundles will be in the mail.

In newly released artwork for the PlayStation 3 game, the Fat Princess cast is now playing with a full hand, each class sporting five fingers instead of the previous four. While not officially blamed for the game's release, a four-fingered hand is often linked to referencing yakuza culture, the Burakamin Japanese social minority group and the the numeral four as an unlucky number.

The old Fat Princess artwork for Japan, for comparison sake, is below.

Pocchari Princess [PlayStation.jp via Andriasang / Hatchimaki]

Enterbrain puts Final Fantasy XIII sales at over 1.5 million over the course of the game's first four days on Japanese store shelves, selling through a major portion of the reported 1.8 million copies shipped. About 1.1 million of those are apparently from day one sales.

The boon to the PlayStation 3? Some 240,000 plus consoles sold in one week, including that fancy Lightning Edition PS3 released alongside the exclusive-in-Japan role-playing game. That's a considerable spike, as the previous week's figures, according to sales tracker Media Create, shows some 75,000 PlayStation 3s sold in Japan the week before FF13 hit.

ファイナルファンタジー13、発売初週で実売150万本　PS3本体も週間24万台販売＝PS3歴代1位 [Yahoo! JP]

Well, if you play Demon's Souls casually, oblivious or indifferent to the game world's "tendency," a Pure Black or Pure White setting has an effect on many things in the game. Enemy strength, availability of certain items and luck of the drop are all affected by tendency, a setting that can be manipulated by certain world events.

But Atlus is forcing a change to the world to Pure White for the next week—similar to the Pure Black World Tendency event that hit this Halloween—something that's not easy to do by oneself. The online game server goes white right about now, specifically at noon Pacific Time and ends next Monday, December 28, also at noon Pacific Time.

What does pure white world tendency get you? Lots of stuff, including non-player characters that wouldn't normally appear, access to certain portions of the map, all kinds of stuff! In fact, you can't get certain PlayStation Trophies without a Pure White World Tendency in effect. The unofficial Demon's Souls wiki has a handy explanation of what's different.

Lop the boss battle off of the original BioShock and the 2007 game would seem to be just about perfect. It was a novel dive into a failed Objectivist utopia called Rapture. It was a philosophical exploration of free will played as a first-person shooter designed to accommodate a player's tactical ingenuity. It introduced one of the great and weird new relationships in video games, the life-force/Adam-draining Little Sisters and their monstrously powerful protectors, the Big Daddys.

And aside from that final boss battle, BioShock ended well enough that nothing could improve it, not the addition of a 2 at the end of the title, not the tacking on of multiplayer and certainly not the opening title screen that credits twice as many studios for the sequel (four, none of which are the series' founding studio, 2K Boston).

I have, however, returned to Rapture, with the help of 2K Marin, 2K Australia, 2K China and Digital Extremes. I have played BioShock 2's single player campaign through its prologue and first full level, and I am both impressed and pleased. Dare I write this, but the new game has improved elements of the first.

BioShock 2, in its preview form, does not start with the elegance and magic of the first game. There is no scene-setting plane crash, swim through sinking, blazing wreckage nor an elevator ride down to an Art Deco paradise gone wrong on the sea floor. There is instead an abrupt awakening, a look into a reflecting pool that confirms, that, yes, I will be playing this game as a Big Daddy. And then, swiftly, there's combat. It is less artful, and it continued my worry, though that worry would soon end.

Jarring though the beginning of BioShock 2 may be, it is more with the gradual awakened clearing of the eyes that Rapture is revealed as a better-looking place this time. Outside the windows, the sea is now blue instead of green, its waters more clear and the sea-life around it more abundant and vivid. Graphical improvements are, I remembered as I began playing, a reasonable expectation even in the successor to something that was so good.

I'll stay light on story spoilers, and instead reveal the mood. Rapture is still a wreck, still one with wrecked lives in it. The city feels changed. Sofia Lamb, a psychiatrist brought in by BioShock's Andrew Ryan, is now a worshipped leader and apparently our nemesis within radio contact. On the attack, she sends splicers and the well-publicized Big Sister, a stalking seemingly invincible foe that leaps and springs through levels, only to be beaten back temporarily as was so many times the dark Samus in the sequel to Metroid Prime. There are friends within radio contact, but most of the character that emerges in the new game appears to do so in the same successful manner as it did in the first: From, literally, the writing on the walls of Rapture, from discarded radio logs, from the posture of corpses that reveal failed dreams and failed struggles.

Rapture as a place of wonder and as a trigger of player curiosity is back, successfully.

In the early going, being a Big Daddy feels different only in armament. On our right arm is a drill, a better melee weapon than a wrench. Soon, we earn well-animated guns, like a rivet gun and a 50-cal. Machine gun. On the left hand we earn plasmids, some of the same early ones as in the first game: Electric shocks and fire. New is the ability to dual-wield, which leads to the discovery of the shock/stun-and-shoot left-right combo. Even more useful is a hacking tool which can even, with the help of a rare type of dart, hack from afar. I played many fights from a distance, shooting a hacking needle into a turret and then hacking it so it would kill the enemies for me. Hacking, by the way, is no longer a puzzle game of pipes but a reflex test of well-timed button presses, like a gaming golf swing.

What's so winning in BioShock 2 is that, as it refrains early on from re-writing the rules of the first game, it instead amplifies that original's best aspects. It doesn't just look better or explore more of Rapture's interesting world, but it recognizes what played best in the first and does more of it.

There were two things that had played so well in the first BioShock.

The first, was the original game's linear sequences, passageways through Rapture's sights and sounds that allowed the player to absorb the history of the place and its people. This is best executed early in the sequel in an area called Ryan's Amusements, which is a theme park and museum that reintroduces and elaborates on Rapture's history, Ryan's philosophy and, as much of the place is defaced, on the views of those who rebelled against Ryan shortly before the first game began. Walking through this place makes evident the genius and madness of Rapture.

The second gameplay achievement in the first game was the dynamism of its combat, the offering to the player of numerous direct and indirect ways to fight. This was a key element, utilized when attempting to take down a Big Daddy. Players could fill a room with explosive traps, plan to electrify water when a Big Daddy might rush through it, and then begin shooting. The new game makes these tactics all the more available, thanks to the ability to hack from afar and with projectile-based trap ammo. The game requires this kind of play when a player prepares to take down a Big Daddy. It also requires it of them when the alert sounds that Big Sister is coming in for an attack. And, in a twist, it forces this kind of planned combat when a player has taken their own Little Sister to a corpse full of Adam energy. Placing her next to the body is prelude to setting the room up to defend against Splicer attack. Give her the signal to begin and they swarm. You have to keep her safe until she drains the energy. Then you can decide whether she is rescued or harvested. These types of planned offensive and defensive combat work so well, the designers of the new game clearly relishing the opportunity to let the player strategize and orchestrate organized chaos.

Earlier demos and hype for BioShock 2 showed off the ability to walk outside on the sea floor, and much has been made of the game's placement 10 years later in the timeline from the first. I did indeed walk on the sea floor in the new game, and while it was a beautiful sight, the sequence lasted too briefly for me to recognize any significant gameplay change it introduces. The plot is mostly still a mystery to me now, as it is intentionally unclear just why and how the player's Big Daddy, one of the original line, has been revived nor how some of the supporting characters who appear really relate to each other.

I started playing BioShock 2 worried that the inspired execution of the first BioShock would consign a sequel to being a pale imitation. It seems, though, that I had underestimated the room for technical improvement and gameplay refinement. I see little sign of re-invention and a lot of signs of love and polish. That love could smother, that fealty to the past could still render this game as superfluous. But in the early going, I am happily immersed in Rapture again, joyfully mystified as to what its inhabitants are up to, pleased with the way it plays and wanting to play more.

The first of these episodic downloads is Heavy Rain: Chronicle One – The Taxidermist, a self-contained story featuring Heavy Rain ensemble star Madison Paige. You may have seen The Taxidermist before, as it was the subject of many Heavy Rain previews, like the one we had at the Leipzig Games Convention in 2008.

According to official word, these "unique, stand-alone, playable short stories" will "offer a unique journey and different outcomes based on the players' decisions and actions." The PlayStation.blog puts a theoretical $4.99 price tag on these things, which may or may not affect your decision to pre-order the game.

Hit up the PlayStation.blog for a list of participating retailers if you're interest is piqued.

Pre-order Heavy Rain and Get The Heavy Rain Chronicles [PlayStation.blog]

According to Dan Hill, Sony's European Home Business Manager, "PlayStation Home is fast becoming the meeting place of choice between users and developers."

For developers, Hill explains, Home helps to drive interest in games by offering an interactive, hands-on experience built around the game itself. "A game space in PlayStation Home ought to be a core element of every studio's marketing strategy for new titles."

While Sony clocks in ten million registered Home users, new game spaces for Ratchet and Clank: A Crack In Time and Uncharted 2 have opened up virtual spaces in Home.

Public beta testing for Home began in late 2008.

So sign up now, if you're interested. But only if you would like to beta test the PC version, as Square Enix says "Details regarding recruitment for the PlayStation 3 version will be released at a later date."

And please be at least 18 years old. And have a Square Enix ID account (or sign up for one). And only apply once. Thank you.

Final Fantasy XIV Online Beta Test Application Site [FFXIV.com - thanks, many tipsters!]

Granted, 2009 will be hard to top, let alone match, thanks to releases like Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, Killzone 2, Demon's Souls, Infamous, a solid PlayStation Network line up and some strong multiplatform contributions. 2009 was the year that the PlayStation 3 reached a more consumer palatable price point and got a whittled down redesign.

But PS3 owners are getting two Final Fantasy games next year alongside original efforts like MAG, White Knight Chronicles, Heavy Rain and—fortune willing—The Last Guardian. And PS3 owners are getting their own motion controller, the PlayStation Eye enabled magic wand that may be known as the PlayStation Gem, plus some games to go along with it.

Third parties appear to be on board more than ever before, with more PlayStation 3 games expected day and date with their Xbox 360 counterparts. (We're looking at you, sequels to former Xbox 360 "exclusives," Dead Rising 2, BioShock 2 and Lost Planet 2!)

Let's take a look at the PlayStation 3's announced and expected 2010 line up, minus a few titles—we're talking about you, Metal Gear Solid: Rising—that we just don't think will make it here before 2011. Let's begin.

Note: We'll be looking at every platform's currently announced and estimated 2010 slate over the course of the rest of the week-and much much more.

God of War III
The third installment in Sony's epic God of War franchise makes the leap to the PS3, adding to the list of mega-blockbusters in Q1 2010. Word on the street is it's nifty.
Gran Turismo 5
Polyphony Digital's car sim is finally here. No more HD demos, no more Prologues. This is the real deal.
Heavy Rain
This story driven investigative mystery asks the question, "How far will you go to save someone you love?" And how far will the unique, graphically impressive Heavy Rain go in winning over PS3 owners?
The Last Guardian
Hate to say it, but The Last Guardian feels like something of a long shot for 2010. But we hope that Team ICO, creators of two of the PlayStation 2's finest adventures, can impress us with their first PS3 outing next year.
White Knight Chronicles
Level 5's traditional role-playing game finally makes it stateside.
Yakuza 3
Sega gives North American and European PlayStation owners one more chance to recognize the beat 'em up gangster greatness that is Toshihiro Nagoshi's Yakuza series. The Japanese action adventure game joins a crowded Q1, but offers something unique.
MAG
Zipper Interactive, famous for its SOCOM shooter franchise, goes that much more massive with MAG, the 200-plus person multiplayer shooter. Will SOCOM fans follow?
ModNation Racers
Play, create and share your own track levels, characters and vehicles in this adorable kart racer that may evoke thoughts of LittleBigPlanet.
EyePet
This fuzzy virtual pet, a cute monkey-dog thing, is already being enjoyed by PAL PlayStation 3 gamers, but North America gets EyePet next year. Hopefully, that means some extra time to tweak the PlayStation Eye sensitivity of the pet sim.
PlayStation Motion Controller
It may be called Gem, eventually, but we know for sure that Sony will be tackling a new motion controller in 2010, one that relies on the PlayStation Eye camera and some smart engineering to get things done. Software support is initially strong, but we look forward to future original efforts more than retrofitted support.
Final Fantasy XIII
Square Enix's long-promised, gorgeous role-playing game is finally here. Already out in Japan, the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 game is the first multi-console release in the series, the first for Sony's current gen console.
Final Fantasy XIV Online
The sequel of sorts to Square Enix's first Final Fantasy MMO, Final Fantasy XIV Online gives the PlayStation 3 double the fantasy.
Army of Two: The 40th Day
EA Montreal's co-op shooter leads a very long list of shooters coming in 2010. The 40th Day improves upon the first in many ways, including the toning down of some of the "bromance."
Battlefield: Bad Company 2
Another shooter bound for the PS3 is Battlefield: Bad Company 2, which will fight MAG for big, bombastic multiplayer FPS for the year.
Bayonetta
PlatinumGames witchy woman Bayonetta brings more Devil May Cry-like action to the platform, but with a much more attractive package. The PS3 version may get knocked for lagging behind that other version, but Bayonetta is worth playing on whatever platform you prefer.
BioShock 2
Be the Big Daddy in 2K Games' sequel to the mega hit BioShock. The prequel adds multiplayer, if you consider that a positive or negative.
Dark Void
Capcom's oft-delayed jetpack hero adventure may have a hard time standing out in a crowded early 2010, but the third person shooting, climbing, flying and UFO hijacking sounds like a good combination.
Dead Rising 2
Zombies require killing in Fortune City and you're just the right guy to do it. Kill 'em again with motorcycles, roulette wheels or moose antlers. Your choice.
Dead Space 2
Visceral Games follows up on the excellent Dead Space (and very good Dead Space Extraction) with a new Necromorph dismembering adventure for old Isaac Clarke. Rocket boots? Yes, please.
Dante's Inferno
If God of War III leaves you wanting more God of War, why not try Visceral Games very God of War-like descent into Hell, Dante's Inferno. It has decaying purple boobs...
Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands
Another Prince of Persia? Yes! And this one looks a lot like the Prince of Persia movie that will hit theaters around the same time. And it looks not too dissimilar from the Prince of Persia game the movie is based upon.
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II
Just recently revealed, we're mostly excited to see just how LucasArts fits this new Star Wars adventure into the timeline.
Lost Planet 2
Get up in them giant bug guts with the sequel to interplanetary adventure shooter Lost Planet. Everything's bigger!
Red Dead Redemption
Rockstar returns to the Red Dead realm, now with a more open-world environment, filled with random encounters, train robberies and all manner of varmint to shoot.
Super Street Fighter IV
New characters, new old characters and new online modes—plus a more budget minded price—make the quick addition of Super to Street Fighter IV that much easier to swallow. But when's Cody going to get some new clothes?
Castlevania Lords of Shadow
Hideo Kojima's game that will likely make a 2010 release could result in the best 3D Castlevania yet. Just try not to think too much about developer MercurySteam's other games.
Medal of Honor
EA reboots Medal of Honor, taking the series from World War II theaters and into the modern age. Could have more beards than any other first-person shooter released next year.
Mafia II
Shoot things '40s style with Mafia II, another game that should've been released in 2009, but will settle for a 2010 release nonetheless.
Max Payne 3
Max is back and far less attractive to women. The paunchier, less follicled Payne is drawn back into the dive and shoot at things world he tried to leave behind him. Expect this one late in 2010.
Blur
Bizarre Creations gets colorful with Blur, a frantic arcade racer with kart racing-style power ups, but none of them banana peels.
Resonance of Fate
Sega's futuristic RPG collaboration with developer tri-Ace follows a group of sharp dressed teens who have access to guns, but not clean air, in this forthcoming adventure.
Aliens Vs. Predator
Aliens and Predators settle their differences in this, the first Sega game that will actually take advantage of the Aliens license. Rebellion is at the helm again, which can only mean good things.
Fallout: New Vegas
Crap, they got Vegas too? We don't know too much about Bethesda's follow up to Fallout 3, only that gambling and mutant showgirls are likely to be involved.
EA Sports MMA
EA Sports challenges the UFC's dominance in the mixed martial arts space. Can EA compete? Or will Dana White put them into a headlock?
UFC Undisputed 2010
THQ sees more success for next year's UFC Undisputed, now with additional Kimbo Slice.
Alpha Protocol
The espionage RPG!
3D Dot Game Heroes
Dungeon crawling and role-playing go modern-retro in From Software's PS3 original. Atlus brings it stateside next year.
No More Heroes: Heroes Paradise
Travis Touchdown and crew get the high-resolution, waggle-free treatment in this remake of the Wii original from Grasshopper Manufacture
Brink
Splash Damage's squad based and class based tactical shooter is brighter and more promising than most, featuring a unique movement method dubbed SMART.
Singularity
Raven's time-traveling first-person shooter was moved out of Modern Warfare 2's way, but now lands directly in the middle of 2010's busy first half. Perhaps that time glove will find it a better spot to find an audience...
R.U.S.E.
Real-time strategy? On my video game console? From Ubisoft? Yes, at least based on our hands-on time with the game, which seems to work quite well.
Darksiders
Be the Apocalypse as one of four horsemen in this gritty action adventure game from THQ.
Joe Danger
Hello Games handsome stunt 'em up is already on our short list of PlayStation Network games to watch in 2010.
After Burner Climax
Still unofficially announced by Sega, but that won't stop us from rabidly anticipating the long awaited port of this intense arcade game.

Koller tells GamePro that Sony will add "a number of very critically demanded features" to the PlayStation Network, hopefully in the form of cross-game voice chat support—long rumored in PS3 firmware updates—and not so much in the form of monthly subscription fees.

Sony's motion controller that may be and probably is known as the PlayStation Gem will be dependent upon "family games, as well as shooters and sports games" for its success. Koller also contends that the PlayStation stab at motion controls may achieve the "Holy Grail of gaming," which he qualifies as "placing you as a consumer into the game physically."

Koller doesn't touch on the company's third pillar, 3D gaming, all that much. But he has so much more to say on other topics, ranging from PS2 backward compatibility to God of War III to the PSPgo.

Sony Talks 2010: "Project Natal and Wii are going to have trouble" [GamePro]

Enough to use it in one of our many previews of Army of Two: The 40th Day; enough to bother EA producers about it at press events. "You should make an alternate cover! Total Fistbump Destruction!" I'd say. And they were polite about it.

But, apparently, someone else at Electronic Arts liked it, as one of the game's Xbox Live Achievements—and presumably one PlayStation Trophy—has been named, yes, "Total FistBump Destruction," netting the player 10 Gamerscore for finishing the game "as best friends." Nice.

There's also a "Total FistBump Deflation" achievement, scored by finishing the game with "a fractured friendship." You can check out the full list at Xbox360Achievements.org or—if you find yourself muttering under your breath "How is this news?"—read our newest Army of Two hands-on preview right here.

Achievements: Army of Two: The 40th Day [X360A - thanks, Ryan!]

The new waterlogged Pirates of the Caribbean level pack will hit PlayStation 3s on December 22, priced at £4.79 or €5.99 or US $5.99 or AUS $ 9.95 or NZD $11.50, depending on what you've got in your wallet. And the pack comes with... deep breath... 5 new levels, 1 new costume, 4 new music tracks, 1 new level background, 8 materials, 14 decorations, 27 objects, 133 stickers and 11 new PlayStation Trophies.

That's 204 things! Less than $0.03 USD per thing!

There's a trailer down below, with a handy link to the official LittleBigPlanet web site that should answer most of your questions about how the addition of water affects your Sackboy. There are also new screenshots, artwork and a general feeling of warmth. Soak it in!

Pirates of the Caribbean Premium Level Kit [LittleBigPlanet.com]

The Rocksteady Studios title is going for a mere $34.98 USD for the standard edition on either Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3. The more deluxe, batarang-filled edition now goes for the asking price of $59.98. I mean, you were going to buy it anyway, just so you can be caught up for the sequel, right?

Bargain hunters would also be advised to pay attention to what Amazon's offering up for the PlayStation 3 owner this Tuesday. The online retailer is promising a day full of "Gold Box" deals on Sony's current generation console, typically the stuff of respectable mark downs.

Amazon.com's Video Game Deal of the Day [Amazon]

Modern Warfare 2 is a sexist game. On this fact, I think most people agree because it's a war game, a typical male fantasy. Beyond that, though, the game omits women from its experience almost entirely. If you skip the infamous No Russian level, the only female contact you have is an automated voice telling you all phone lines in America are down. There are no women in the bunkers, no women in the chain of command, and I'm 90% sure that that poor astronaut also isn't a woman.

To be fair, the lack of women in Modern Warfare 2 doesn't seem as blatantly sexist as other video games where big-breasted bimbo women are shoehorned into the story for the main character to drool over. However, excluding women — who make up more than half of the world's population — from the entire cast of characters is still sexist. Like branding every copy of the game with a No Girls Allowed stamp.

Sexist or not, though, Modern Warfare 2 captured the hearts and minds of at least three feminists simply by being a good game. There may have been moments when my friends and I as women felt uncomfortable — like riding in the Humvee in the mounted gun position; there was something a little too butch about that. Overall, though, I had to conclude that we weren't shut out from enjoying this male fantasy. We just have to ask if there will ever be room for us to exist within it.

Originally my two friends and I weren't planning to spend our entire night in playing Modern Warfare 2. It was just an item of curiosity, like stealing my big brother's Playboy magazine to show off at a slumber party. The game had been out for about a week and everybody was talking about it, particularly the No Russian level. So after a gracing the first level with our presence, we decided to keep playing and see what all the fuss was about.

Two days later I still hadn't left my friends' house. Empty takeout containers littered their living room and the fashion magazines and nail polish had been abandoned in the kitchen. We were at the final level and we were screaming our heads off with all the high-octave fervor of preteen girls at a Jonas Brothers concert.

SPOILER WARNING: MODERN WARFARE 2

That moment went something like this:

"Ohmigod, you have to catch him! Don't let him get away!" This was from Felicity,* a girl in her early 20s who works in local government.

"Ooohhh... He killed Ghost!" This came from Tiffany*, a classmate of mine at Mills College — bastion of feminist principle in the West — and the owner of the PS3. She insists she bought it for the Blu-Ray player but we've all seen the stack of PlayStation One games on her bookshelf.

"We know he killed Ghost, we were there! Oh! Oh! Quicktime event!" That was me, the games journalist who couldn't name a single feminist movement leader.

After negotiating who would perform the quicktime event (me, because Tiffany pointed out I play games for a living), we sat back and soaked up the final moments of Modern Warfare 2 almost in revered silence. After the credits sequence ended, my friends and I stayed up late into the night, gossiping, mooning and moaning over every little detail in the game. Sort of the same way we do for movies we like starring people we'd like to sleep with.

"I heart Ghost," I declared. "He can carry me on his back to a helicopter any day."

"Oh come on," Tiffany replied. "You can't even see his face. MacTavish, now he's dreamy."

"The mohawk's not doing it for me," Felicity contributed. "He'd have to wear his snow cap and goggles to bed."

It struck me then to wonder about our behavior. First of all, I thought it was weird that we were lusting after Ghost and Soap as if they were Brad Pitt and Jason Statham. Second, I noticed we had moments of masculinity when our typical female language ("Omigod! Eee!") was replaced by more aggressive language ("Kill that guy! Run and knife! Go loud, go loud!"). Finally, I thought maybe we failed at being feminists. Modern Warfare 2 is sexist but we played it — and not just played it, loved it.

That last point is important because it's part of a catch-22 in the video games industry: Developers don't make games for girls because they assume girls don't play games, and because developers don't make games for girls, girls don't play video games. In other words, if I accept Modern Warfare 2 as awesome despite being not having a single female character for me to identify with in it, will Modern Warfare 3 also lack female characters?

I brought the drama up with Tiffany first. "It is possible to enjoy something despite it being sexist, not because it's sexist," she said. "I think there needs to be a move away from the language that makes some things for boys and some things for girls so we can enjoy things without using gender language."

To me, that's typical "Millsbian" language — it sounds nice, but it doesn't offer any solutions. So I asked Tiffany if she thought the game would be better with a playable female character in it.

Tiffany said no, she didn't want to play as a woman, she just wanted to see women. The non-playable character women in No Russian don't count because they offended her (and me). Here's why: they all seemed to be wearing the exact same purple shirt whereas the male NPCs had a variety of outfits. It's like the developers had no idea what women wear and copy-pasted one character model into the level to save time.

Above: Spot the women. Now spot the women without purple shirts.

Felicity mentioned the purple shirt ladies as "not real women" too, but she didn't seem nearly as offended by them as Tiffany and I were. She's inclined to forgive Modern Warfare for not really having women in the cast because she prefers that to Japanese role-playing games where all the girls are cutesy, skinny and have huge tits.

"I would have been OK with some of your radio commands coming from women, though," she said. "But I'd be more worried about having a playable female character because it might seem more like they shoehorned a woman into the game."

That made me think of the first Modern Warfare. In that game, there is a female helicopter pilot in a combat situation. For the majority of the level, she's helping your male character out — then at the end, just as you're about to escape a nuclear blast, she gets shot down and your character goes back for her and dies trying to save her.

This triggers my feminist rage in two ways. First, it's inadvertently suggesting that men wouldn't go back for other men on the battlefield — only for women (and from there, it's not much of a stretch to conclude that women shouldn't be on the battlefield). Second, it's implying that women can't drive. Seriously, why couldn't some of the male pilots get shot down?

I give Modern Warfare 2 credit for not repeating the female pilot nonsense. But at the same time, I feel like they wasted an excellent opportunity to give me, Tiffany and Felicity a female character we could easily relate to without feeling like she'd been shoehorned in: the D.C. Invasion levels. You really think the U.S. Army would care about the no-women-in-combat-zones rule when the enemy is in the White House? You would see every able-bodied adult on the battlefield at that point.

That's ultimately what I'm asking for from Modern Warfare 3: room to exist within the male fantasy. I don't just want to lust after Ghost and Soap — I want to imagine myself there with them. I don't just want to know that women are in the Army by hearing their voices on a radio — I want to see them fighting for their country the way I would if the enemy were at the gates and my country needed me. I want developers to know that I play video games too, so they should pander to me as well as men.

*Names have been changed.