J4MES OX4D

Nick Pope done himself out of a place in the League Cup final yesterday and now Newcastle may have to resort to Karius in goal What was he thinking!?

It fits in around 4 years after the events of MGS4 but it's not narrative-driven like your typical Metal Gear title - more of a focus on combat and mechanics and the story takes somewhat of a backseat which is a nice change of pace. I think the best we're gonna get with Raiden's backstory is what we got in MGS2 sadly.

Tomorrow (Feb 19th) is Metal Gear Rising's 10 year anniversary and I've been revisiting it last couple of days. It still holds up as one of the most pulsating and entertaining games out there and has aged like fine wine. Also received a massive following which isn't bad considering this was just a spin-off by Platinum Games of Hideo Kojima's classic Metal Gear brand. The game still looks and plays remarkably and the soundtrack is sensational!

Warpips FREE on Epic until the 23rd https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/warpips-57e2c4

If the MP team keep this pace up, we should get at least 3 new maps for the rest of the year! This is groundbreaking considering they only have 450 employees at their disposal😎

These will probably cost £350 knowing Sony!

Ranked play was awesome in Black Ops 2 yet they've bollocksed it up ever since when they have attempted it. This looks a bit better but with such a competitive core casual playlist, I'm not sure if there will be many adopters outside of the sweatiest of the sweats especially with it being more watered-down and having a more strict ruleset. Competitive is something COD has always struggled with in terms of enticing players and viewership and with it coming so late, I'm not sure how much appeal there will be unless there are significant rewards. I just wish they built upon the foundation of what they created with BO2 and delivered with that through the decade rather than trying to integrate the competitive aspect into the core playlists and then attempting again now and then to see if it would fly as a standalone. They even tried to build BO4 around this entirely and then just gave up. Can't see many content creators going for it either because they will be exposed for how shit they are not being able to compete against bots in VPN lobbies.

The Day Before devs say a calendar app stole their trademark, YouTube is delisting their videos, and no doubt the dog's eyeing up their homework | PC Gamer WWW.PCGAMER.COM Fntastic says the copyright holder has been in touch, but the studio seems suspicious of his intentions.

Up to 96 on Meta!

Gears of War 2 finale Very much enjoyed revisiting this - a big step up from the brilliant original in terms of action and world detail. Still a linear game at heart with a couple of sections that are a bit underwhelming but most are great fun to play and look absolutely fantastic! Story is much more involved this time too. I don't think I actually got round to even finishing it back in 2008 due to a busy work and life schedule and much of it I don't even remember so it was almost like playing a brand new game!

Currently sitting at 94 on Meta and the original was 97! May give this a go again on Dolphin using Primehack as it would be nice to play the OG with a mouse and keyboard. The only bad I remember from the original were the weird controls which seemed quite archaic like Goldeneye yet this was in an era where we were getting used to slick games like Half Life, Counterstrike, Unreal Tournament and Quake 3 so going back to such a vastly different control scheme I really struggled to adjust with yet the game itself was amazing especially considering the lame power the Gamecube had.

If they are gunning to release the MW2 DLC Expansion as MW3 now, it makes you wonder what the rest of the support will be like for MW2 this year. They may very well hold any original content back, and half-ass it even more. If the leaks are true from the ever-reputable Tom Henderson then it will be a painfully desperate and almost embarrassing move for the franchise releasing back to back MW titles in these circumstances. It'll be one title failing of their own doing and then they want another £70 crack from users to try again. There is literally nothing majorly wrong with MW2 apart from the support so abandoning it for a knee-jerk sequel will definitely not sit well with the community.

Even more Gears of War 2

Didn’t even know this was a thing! An absolute classic on the GameCube 20-odd years ago and this remaster looks brilliant

Sort of but it all ties in and the source information and circumstances fit perfectly. Activision have been fairly indirect and vague about it but if you tie in each studio announcement and report, it becomes clearer. They loosely confirmed back in August that for the first time in 20 years, there would be no mainline COD game in 2023 and instead it would be of ‘premium DLC content’ origin after an initial Jason Schrierer report. In November, Sledgehammer confirmed their involvement as lead developers for this alleged ‘premium content’ and further confirmed in December it would be of an expansion package-type release. Activision will only confirm when it’s all set in stone but from the reports, sources and studio announcements under the table, it’s all pretty much credible and now being widely reported in the gaming media.

This should comfortably pass the 1,000,000 mark tonight on Steam - already 500k on just 40 minutes into its official launch. Gr8 boycott😎

As expected, it's not gone down too well in the community Modern Warfare 2 players left fuming after shock CoD 2023 report WWW.CHARLIEINTEL.COM According to leaks, CoD 2023 is set to be a brand-new title and players who were expecting another year of MW2 are furious.

We're talking about the leak and the content of COD's premium offering this year, not the generic context spiel of some financial report which states there will be a premium release this year. We already know this and have done since November last year. What you seem to be missing is that it may be MW3 as a standalone game rather than MW2 DLC as originally planned and nowhere in the irrelevant financial report does it mention this.

Recipe For Disaster FREE on Epic until the 16th https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/recipe-for-disaster-83726f

Xenia Canary *cough cough🤣 I have all 3 on the 360 and the Ultimate Edition on Windows but it runs like absolute ass. If they are available on Game Pass, I'd recommend giving them a shot although only the first can be played on PC along with 4 and 5.

That's just corporate waffle. The leak surrounds them potentially doing a u-turn on the planned Year 2 MW2 DLC and instead releasing it as MW3. That's a huge difference if so.

More Gears of War 2

Sledgehammer created 20 original maps in 14 months of development with 10% of the staff IW had at the time. IW created several decent original maps and other real-world ones for MW2 that were met with legalities but soared in detail so they are perfectly capable but something is clearly butchered with the post-launch support. It's possible that most of the team have been moved onto the next project and all that's left is a skeleton crew of asset designers. Black Ops 3 already had an open SDK of this and custom maps have been a thing since COD 4. People have even created custom zombie maps and even full campaigns. I've probably played on about 70 custom maps through Plutonium and other clients using a mix of the old Q3 engine up to the ID tech used in BO3 and some of the originality and imagination that goes into these maps is amazing and that's because it's made by passionate long-term fans. Some have even built high-end asset libraries for more complex and detailed environments. Sadly this material will never make it into the core and it would be seen as the developer's passing the buck, but it's entirely possible to concoct quality maps from scratch without having to recycle anything. A new mainstream open tool would be beneficial for the more ambitious creators but I don't think it would integrate well in the game itself. Even Halo Infinite Forge has really struggled and that's supposed to offer a decade of material.

I don't mind withheld content as long as we receive 100% of the base game to start with. MW2 is probably 40% complete on launch and by the time 12 months is up, then maybe we'll get 100% of a game - something 10 years ago we would get on day one. As the year wore on, we'd then get another 50% of a game to enjoy through paid content. Vanguard last year released with more content than any other COD game and that should be the expectation for every release going forward - MW2 launched with 66% LESS 6v6 content than Vanguard which is insane. There needs to be a minimum entry threshold and something like 16 original maps with then 4 new ones per season guaranteed. The only maps they are probably holding back right now is ones they can pluck from the Warzone 2 one and I think they are winging it in every other respect. I also don't buy into the logic that because they are supporting other MP playlists within, that means content quantity should be spread - I don't want to lose the prospect of 3 6v6 maps in return for an extra Ground War map for example. There's no reason why we can't have 16 6v6 maps, 6 Ground War and then 2 Battle Royal ones right out the gate and why they can't produce 3 new maps and a GW map on top. There are more developers than ever working on these titles backed by insane budgets compared to what the franchise had a decade ago so having less content and it being spread more thinly just doesn't suffice for me and it's absolutely killing the game right now so much so, it's going to be very hard to bring people back. The post-launch support just isn't up to par - season delays, unclear roadmap and a lack of content and this is on top of a sparse launch. The likes of Epic already have Fortnite's 2024 roadmap completed yet Activision now seem to be toying with whether to launch COD 2023 as DLC or a brand new game. This is just no way to run a franchise or live service and what's tragic is this is actually a good game underneath - it's just let down by an awful seemingly non-existent forwarding strategy which should not be expected by such a longstanding and experienced series.

Skull and Bones Still Struggles to Resonate With Playtesters - But It Should Release Anyway - Insider Gaming INSIDER-GAMING.COM Speaking with 10+ playtesters, Skull and Bones is still struggling to resonate with its players - But it should just release...