How much do you love gaming? Enough to read a semi-weekly column summarizing the news? Apparently. Enough to spend hundreds of dollars on a new console every few years? Obviously. Enough that you continually pay for extra character skins that don’t actually change the way you play a game? Probably. Enough to hijack a truck in France to steal 6,000 copies of Modern Warfare 3 the day before it releases in the US? I hope not. But clearly there are two people who needed the game that badly. Or the money, but it’s funnier if they were just after the game. Either way, two masked men rammed a truck in southern Paris, brandished knives and tear-gassed the driver and his partner, then hijacked the truck, making off with 6,000 copies of one of the most anticipated games of the season. The only thing that would make this story more interesting would be if they had stolen GTA V instead. But, it occurs to me, this could be a good use of the ten dollar online passes. Assuming each of those games are packed with online codes, and assuming the cases can be traced to a specific lot number of games, couldn’t Activision flag those online codes? Then, when the codes are activated on PSN or XBL, they can identify the users. Sure, 5,998 of them are probably people that just thought they were getting a good deal on eBay, but they can still be contacted to trace the seller. Only problem? I doubt anyone actually keeps track of what codes go into what lots.
So what will the players who reserved those 6,000 copies of the game be doing this weekend? Possibly playing Battlefield 3‘s Sweepstakes Weekend. EA and DICE want to say “thank you” to their fans who have been so passionate about the game. To that end, if you play BF3 online between 12:01 am (GMT) Friday and 11:59 pm (GMT) Sunday you’ll be entered into the sweepstakes. First prize is a trip for you and three friends to DICE’s studios in Stockholm, Sweden. Second prize is $5,000 (USD), and third is a new console with the full back catalog of Battlefield games. Obviously this event is only a thank you to the fans, and has nothing to do with Modern Warfare 3 releasing today.
With two of the top RPG franchises in this console generation (Mass Effect and Dragon Age) under their belt, you’ve got to wonder what Bioware has up their sleeve after March. They’ve promised to give us a clue next month at the VGAs (on Spike and MTV2, December 10th, 8:00 pm EST). That’s when they plan to show us their new IP. With a pedigree like Bioware’s, I expect good things. The teaser image they’ve released for Game Informer certainly doesn’t look like anything we’ve seen from them in the past. Although it definitely serves as a great reminder to always wear your seat belt.
If you play older Sports games online, it’s time to update again. FIFA 2010‘s servers are being shut down on December 6th, 2011. NBA 2K11‘s servers will be shut down later this month. This comes despite having a few different modes from its 2012 successor, and the continued online trouble with 2K12.
And that’s it for a very slow news week in gaming. Which is fine, seeing as it’s been a very slow week in gaming for me. I’m still slowly chipping away at L.A. Noire and I put in about two hours on inFAMOUS: Festival of Blood on Sunday. Have I mentioned how much I love this series? I haven’t heard anything from Sucker Punch, but having beat the second game both ways, I’m convinced there can’t be a third title. I really hope I’m wrong.