Giant Bomb Video Game News

Uwe Boll and Paul W.S. Anderson better be sweating under their hacky collars right about now. Sure, they're currently the kings of game-to-film adaptations, but Jerry Bruckheimer's involvement in the upcoming Prince of Persia movie is raising both the visibility and the stakes--if not necessarily the quality--for the much-maligned sub-genre. And now a proper movie star is getting in on the action, as it was today announced that Brad Pitt's Plan B Entertainment has optioned the film rights for Dark Void.

If you're not already familiar with Dark Void--which wouldn't be too terribly odd, as the game hasn't actually come out yet--it's got a premise revolving around the Bermuda Triangle, alien abductions, an unlikely hero strapped with a jet pack, and Nikola Tesla that seems high-concept and bizarre enough to make for a decent popcorn companion. My sensationalist headline aside, this deal doesn't guarantee, or even necessarily suggest, Pitt's personal involvement in a Dark Void film project. I like Brad Pitt and the weirdo roles he chooses well enough, but I'm plenty intrigued by the fact that Plan B is producing, having previously had a hand in Martin Scorcese's undeniably excellent The Departed, as well as the promising-looking teen superhero comic adaptation Kick-Ass. Optioning rights is a long way from actually making a movie, but getting people who seem to know what the hell they're doing is a promising start.

Capcom also used this announcement to casually mention that Dark Void would be coming out on January 19th, 2010, which is a week later than the previously announced date of January 12th. Not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, and it does nothing to mitigate what is shaping up to be an intense first quarter for new games.

Man, it's Tuesday! I usually write this on Sunday morning, but my weekend was squarely focused on getting our New Super Mario Bros. Wii review finished and on the site. Now, it's onto my next two assignments, Buzz: Quiz World and Tony Hawk: RIDE, both of which require the use of peripherals that don't really work with many other games. Buzz, at least, is a series with other releases in it. Actually, Robomodo has gone on the record as saying that they've got another game in the works with Activision, so we'll probably see something else that takes advantage of the RIDE skateboard.

Achievementally speaking, this data covers the release week of Modern Warfare 2. Unsurprisingly, it's taken the top spot on the most popular achievements list, snatching the top spot away from the still-rolling Borderlands. 

Top Sets

1. Modern Warfare 2
2. Borderlands
3. Dragon Age: Origins
4. Football Manager 2010
5. Grand Theft Auto IV
6. Dark Void
7. Forza Motorsport 3
8. Assassin's Creed II
9. Brutal Legend
10. Halo 3: ODST

I hope the upcoming Borderlands DLC adds some more achievements. That's actually coming out really soon, which is nice, because I'm just about ready for some more Borderlands, even if I'm not the world's biggest zombie aficionado.

The new sets this week are all new releases, including the Steam version of Modern Warfare 2. 

New Sets

• LEGO Indiana Jones 2
• Modern Warfare 2 (Steam)
• NBA Unrivaled
• 0D Beat Drop
• 1 vs 100

Quick tip for you: don't buy NBA Unrivaled. It's $15 and it's terrible. As soon as I clear out some of the bigger stuff on my plate, I want to go back and review some of the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade releases we've had to skip this season. 0D Beat Drop is kind of neat and deserves a bit of attention.

OK, this brings us to the individual achievements. Modern Warfare 2 made some heavy inroads into our individual list, taking half of the spots away from Borderlands, which was running the show for the past couple of weeks. But Borderlands has held onto the top spot. It makes sense, really, that people would frequent the page of a secret achievement that isn't immediately obvious, rather than sink too deeply into the fairly plain achievements of Modern Warfare 2. 

Top Individual Achievements

1. Borderlands - You're on a boat!
2. Borderlands - 12 Days of Pandora
3. Modern Warfare 2 - Drive By
4. Borderlands - Made in New Haven
5. Borderlands - My Brother Is An Italian Plumber
6. Modern Warfare 2 - Ghost
7. Modern Warfare 2 - Danger Close
8. Modern Warfare 2 - Look Ma Two Hands
9. Modern Warfare 2 - Pit Boss
10. Borderlands - Speedy McSpeederton

So, before I close things out, I've got some exciting news. This weekly article is probably going to change pretty dramatically before next week, because we'll have a new homepage on the site by then. That homepage is going to have some new gadgets and information on it, including some more-useful achievement data. This stuff I'm showing is purely traffic-based. But those dudes upstairs have been building stuff based on, like, the most played game for a given day or the most-unlocked achievement. Dave actually just IM'ed me a few things based on a 100-day old version of the database he's using for development purposes...

100 days ago fallout 3 was the most popular game played

then halo 3

splosion man had the top achievement

...did you play Fallout 3 100 days ago? Odds are you did, I guess. Anyway, we'll have to see if my most popular lists are still useful after the new page goes up. If not, well, then I guess I'll have to find a different set of information to use as a jumping-off point for what's essentially become a weekly column. No sense in stopping it now.

This is it. It's the last weekend before Modern Warfare 2 is released. For some of you, it's a weekend filled with anticipation. For others, it's a weekend of complete indifference as you watch the Internet explode around you as every little bit of the game leaks. Leaks? Oh, right, for some of you, it's a weekend where you're playing Modern Warfare 2, because there are plenty of shops out there that'll break the street date for just about anything. Apparently GameStop stores in the North East part of the US have been given some kind of corporate go-ahead to just start selling the game, probably since plenty of independent game stores in those parts started selling the game last week. Makes me wish there were more stores like that around here. I can't even think of one non-chain game store in my immediate area. 

Regardless of how you feel about Modern Warfare 2 (and it really seems like no one is truly neutral about it, because even the ones who say they're indifferent want to go out of their way to TELL YOU THAT IN ALL CAPS), it's always exciting to see these big tent-pole moments, where huge games get released and people line up to get them. It's interesting to see publishers of other games sort of move their games out of a bigger game's path. That's why some stuff got pushed to 2010. Love it or hate it, Infinity Ward's latest is going to cast a long shadow over the rest of the year.

Anyway, on to the data. I've gotten out my interpreter hat and rolled up my not-actually-an-analyst sleeves, and by looking at the achievements page for Borderlands, I'm going to say that the people who play that game are playing the hell out of it. Its an interesting case, because it doesn't have any achievements that are especially difficult. You just need to put in the time to get them. And clearly, you guys are putting in the time. There are no more "rare" achievements for Borderlands, and only three of them still show as "uncommon." Two of those uncommon achievements are for hitting levels 40 and 50, so it's really just a matter of putting in the time.

Here's a quick, unsorted list of assorted releases and the number of people playing them as of Saturday morning. I think these numbers probably tell you more about the site's audience than any genuine sales trend, but I'm sure someone out there could cook up a formula that eventually tied these numbers to sales, if they wanted to.

• Band Hero - 79
• Jurassic: The Hunted - 4
• DJ Hero - 761
• Tekken 6 - 626
• Forza Motorsport 3 - 2,590
• Forza Motorsport 2 - 7,779
• Dragon Age: Origins - 1,536
• LEGO Rock Band - 234

I think I mostly wanted to show those numbers to note the following:

- LEGO Rock Band is outperforming Band Hero so far, but not by much.

- Jurassic: The Hunted was released with as little fanfare as possible and I think our Quick Look of the game is the only coverage anyone's done so far. After watching that video, I wouldn't buy Jurassic, either. Except I already bought it. Damn.

- If 1,500 people are playing the not-as-good-as-PC version of Dragon Age, how many people must be playing the PC version?

- My guess is that DJ Hero and Tekken 6 are moving some units based on their name recognition, but neither game really took off at launch.

OK, let's get into the traditional lists. It's not especially surprising that Borderlands has held onto the top spot. Also, predictably, Modern Warfare 2 has resurfaced as interest in actually playing the game begins to swell. And The Ballad of Gay Tony has reignited Grand Theft Auto IV's popularity quite nicely. The site's significant international readership is probably responsible for Football Manager 2010 making the list. 

Top 10 Sets

1. Borderlands
2. Dragon Age: Origins
3. Grand Theft Auto IV
4. Modern Warfare 2
5. Forza Motorsport 3
6. Assassin's Creed II
7. Football Manager 2010
8. Brutal Legend
9. DJ Hero
10. Tekken 6

 
We've got a new pile of unreleased games in the achievements system this week, including some 2010 releases. So if you want to start planning out your January, be sure to look at the Dark Void achievements. 

New Sets

• Wallace & Gromit #2
• Wallace & Gromit #4
• Winning Eleven 2010 (I think this is the Japanese version?)
• Chaotic: Shadow Warriors
• Polar Panic
• Rogue Warrior
• Madden NFL Arcade
• Encleverment Experiment
• Dark Void
• NCAA Basketball 10
• The Tale of Despereaux
• Big Brain Wolf (Steam)

And, finally, the individual achievements list. Borderlands is still holding on tight, but it doesn't control all ten spots like it did last week. People are looking for specific help on how to freefall as much as possible in The Ballad of Gay Tony, and they're also trying to figure out how to score 100,000 points in a single Forza 3 drift lap. That Forza achievement is probably the only one in the game that qualifies as tough. The rest reward you for specific, easy behavior or for just putting in the hours and gaining all your levels. 

Top 10 Individual

1. Borderlands - You're on a boat!
2. Borderlands - My Brother Is An Italian Plumber
3. Borderlands - 12 Days of Pandora
4. Borderlands - Fully Loaded
5. Borderlands - Made in New Haven
6. Grand Theft Auto IV - TBoGT: Adrenaline Junkie
7. Borderlands - Speedy McSpeederton
8. Borderlands - Ding! Champion
9. Forza Motorsport 3 - Drift Lap
10. Borderlands - Can't We Get BEYOND Thunderdome?

OK, I'm going to go brace myself for the release of Modern Warfare 2. Actually, thanks to some retailers' inability to obey street dates and the notion of "overnight shipping," I'm just going to go play Modern Warfare 2. Review Tuesday.

I got to play some more Mass Effect 2 earlier this week. And guess which familiar face I discovered? That's right! Garrus mother-effing Vakarian! Everyone's favorite good-natured Turian will make at least a cameo appearance in this sequel, and it was good to hear his oddly soothing, gravelly tones as he picked off enemy mechs with a sniper rifle in a cutscene. Garrus is a smooth operator, you know.

BioWare has admitted several of your party members from the first Mass Effect will be back for part two, though some will have bigger roles than others. The only original character confirmed to be an active party member in Mass Effect 2 is Tali, the Darth Vader-masked engineer who for some reason I never, ever used. Hopefully other favorites like Garrus and (fingers crossed) Wrex will be able to join your space posse at some point.

The cutscene with Garrus afforded me a better look at the "dialogue interrupt" feature in Mass Effect 2's cinematics, which I've come to think of over the last few months as a violence option. It lets you hit the left trigger when an icon flashes onscreen that lets you speed up the proceedings, usually by pulling your weapon on someone or, say, throwing them out a window. In this case, Shepard trained his own sniper rifle on the mechs, and hitting the interrupt button made him pick one of these enemies off, meaning I had one fewer enemy to deal with once the combat actually started.

I get the impression that using the interrupt feature won't drastically change the outcome of a given situation, just tweak it a bit and bring it about a little faster. Some interrupts, however, will move your moral alignment one way or the other. Since you can't tell what your interrupt action will be and only have a few seconds to decide whether to use the option or not, BioWare says the final game will give you some kind of indication about whether the interrupt will generate Paragon or Renegade points. So if you're trying to do a full good-guy playthrough, for instance, you won't sully your record by unintentionally acting like a bad guy.

When I ran into Garrus, I was joined by the new playable Krogan party member Grunt (who ain't no Wrex, but gets the job done in combat) and Jacob, who was recently introduced in the Mass Effect Galaxy iPhone game. We were exploring Omega, a planet that's located outside of Citadel space and is thus outside the influence of the collective galactic government. BioWare says you'll be spending a good portion of Mass Effect 2 on these sorts of untamed border planets, which certainly opens up the potential for you to run into a lot of rough characters over the course of your mission.

Speaking of that mission, I was surprised to get more background on the core storyline in Mass Effect 2. The reapers of the original game are pretty much out of the picture this time around, as are the spindly, sentient robots the Geth (though there will be at least one important Geth character featured in the storyline). The big menace this time is the Collectors, an insectoid race that's trying to eradicate humanity colony by colony. You can see more about the Collectors in the new trailer BioWare just released. I was surprised that Mass Effect 2 seems to be more of a "further adventures of Commander Shepard" sort of story rather than a direct continuation of the events of the first game, though the total number of ways in which this sequel ties back into the original Mass Effect remains to be seen.

BioWare has been touting the technical improvements it's made in this sequel, and in this demo I finally started becoming convinced the developer will follow through on its promises. Inconsistent frame rates, popping textures, and intolerably long space elevator load times were the biggest offenders in the original game, and I was able to see the first two have been pretty much eliminated in the demo I played. The game ran perfectly smoothly as I fought off mercs and mechs, and saw complex environments like the seedy Afterlife Club (replete with Asari strippers and lots of neon lighting).

It was in this club that I ran into a Batarian bartender who poisoned Shepard when he served him a drink. Batarians have a longstanding grudge against humanity, see. The four-eyed Batarians were featured prominently in the first Mass Effect prequel novel, but then failed to make much of an appearance in the original game. For the nerdier Mass Effect fans among you, those guys will be showing up a lot more often in Mass Effect 2's border planets, since they tend to operate off the grid and outside the Citadel's influence.

Mass Effect 2 is looking like simply an improved, refined version of Mass Effect. Since I thought the first game was a great RPG with a few rough edges, a new version of the same game with those edges smoothed out is perfectly fine by me. The game is due at the rapidly approaching end of January, so keep an eye out for more on this sequel in the near future. 
 
On a not-entirely-unrelated note, we also spoke with BioWare's Dr. Greg Zeschuk about Dragon Age: Origins hitting stores and the speed with which Mass Effect 2 is coming to shelves. Watch!  
  

Oh man, it is so totally November right now. On top of that, daylight savings is over. While that's temporarily good--I got an extra hour of sleep last night--it's longterm bad, because it means I'll be driving home from work in total darkness for the next several months. That's no good.

Last week went by super fast for me, largely because I was out of the office and sort of detached from the regular goings-on. Sounds like a lot of Dragon Age was played while I was out. I'm looking forward to seeing Dave's review of that later this week.

On the achievements front, it's starting to look a bit stale at the game level. That's because of two things. First, the achievements for most of this year's huge big superalphaomega releases are already out there now that Assassin's Creed II achievements are on the site. Also, does it strike you as sort of strange that Modern Warfare 2 isn't on our top ten this week? I'm guessing that'll be the game to replace Borderlands at the top of the list come November 10.

Did you watch the leaked MW2 footage? Looks pretty crazy, right? Actually, I'd recommend that you stay away from all the footage of that game that's going to leak out over the next 10 days. Save the surprises for when you sit down and play it for yourself.

Dude, Borderlands. It just crossed the 5,000 player mark and it's a frickin' juggernaut. People want to know about Borderlands achievements. People need to know about Borderlands achievements. Speaking of which, this is a good time to make a note of our redesigned achievement pages. Here's the new Borderlands page, which sorts in order of rarity, by default. Now you can easily scroll down and, thanks to the way the game doles out points every ten levels, you can see how far into the game people have gotten. 40% of those 5,000 people have gotten to level 30, but only 17.69% went on to level 40. And the level cap? 7.58% of those five grand have lived to see the true endgame so far. And around 30% of players have seen the end of the game... well, the end of the first playthrough, anyway.

We'll probably have more stat-type stuff along these lines for you to play with in the near future. For now, though, here's the top ten most popular achievement set pages on Giant Bomb for last week.

Top Sets

1. Borderlands
2. Assassin's Creed II
3. Forza Motorsport 3
4. Brutal Legend
5. DJ Hero
6. Batman: Arkham Asylum
7. Left 4 Dead 2
8. Grand Theft Auto IV
9. The Beatles: Rock Band
10. Killing Floor (Steam)

I'm guessing Killing Floor makes the list this week because they did a free weekend for it on Steam not too long ago. Oh, and keep in mind that the entry for GTA IV also includes the recently released Episodes From Liberty City pack that came out last week. Here's what's new this week. 

New Sets

• Saw (Steam)
• Nation Red
• Inferno Pool
• Rainbow Islands: Towering Adventure
• Football Manager 2010 (Steam)
• Halo Waypoint

Man, I really don't know why Halo Waypoint shows up on profiles like it was a game. Actually, I think I know exactly why it does. Halo Waypoint totals up all of your achievements across all Halo games and gives you Xbox 360 avatar rewards based on your progress. For something to dole out avatar rewards, it probably has to appear on your profile like it was a game. That's my guess, anyway. I haven't matched it to our Halo Waypoint page because A) it doesn't have any achievements and B) our Halo Waypoint page is a concept page. So if you click on HW in your profile, it'll take you to a pretty janky page. I guess I could convert the concept page into a game page, but I'm not sure if we want to do that or not. I'll think about it for a bit.

Not much else out there in terms of new stuff. It's good to see more PC games supporting Steam achievements, though.

OK, as far as the individual achievements go, we've got a clean sweep. It's all Borderlands, all day, all night. I don't think Halo 3: ODST pulled that off during its hot weeks. Very impressive. 

Top Ten Individual

1. Borderlands - You're on a boat!
2. Borderlands - My Brother Is An Italian Plumber
3. Borderlands - 12 Days of Pandora
4. Borderlands - Fully Loaded
5. Borderlands - Speedy McSpeederton
6. Borderlands - Made in New Haven
7. Borderlands - Can't We Get BEYOND Thunderdome?
8. Borderlands - Ding! Champion
9. Borderlands - And They'll Tell Two Friends
10. Borderlands - Destroyed The Destroyer

 
Here's a little Borderlands-specific chart for you. The zigging and the zagging didn't make much sense to me at first until I realized that 10/24 (its biggest day) was the Saturday after the game's release. I guess a lot of you made it a Borderlands weekend. 
 


   Think it'll hang on for another week at the top spot?

Any notions I had that BioShock 2 was going to diverge in a significant way from its inventive, esteemed predecessor went right out the window when I got to sit down and play this sequel from 2K Marin for myself a few weeks ago. The crumbling, art deco utopia under the sea; the crazed splicers; the genetic weapon modifications known as plasmids. All that stuff is back in force. Rapture may have become a nastier place over the decade separating the two games, but it's still familiar territory for anyone who went to the lengths necessary to put Frank Fontaine in his place during their first visit. I would have liked to see a BioShock sequel with a new setting and new themes, perhaps with subtler ties to the original. Then again, I'm not the guy tasked with following up such an ambitious and unique game in the space of only two years, and I can't really fault the new team at 2K Marin for picking up that specific torch and running with it.

If the team hasn't exactly changed what BioShock is, they've at least crammed a lot more BioShock into this sequel. You're going to see more of everything that made the world of Rapture as perilous and exotic as it was the first time around. There's the new hulking, imposing "Rumbler" version of the Big Daddy protecting the Little Sisters this time around. The Splicers have also gotten more spliced in the 10 years since the first game; I saw a burly, ape-like guy known as the Brute that will charge straight at you like a linebacker. Of course, there are more and heavier weapons that are in the spirit of the first game's arsenal but also seem tailored for use by your own bigger, badder Big Daddy protagonist. I especially liked a spear gun that would pin Splicers to the wall with a single shot, leaving them dangling wildly through the game's ragdoll system.

Then there's Sophia Lamb, the real villain, BioShock 2's brand new antagonist. She's the Andrew Ryan of BioShock 2. But where Ryan's objectivist philosophies excluded and ignored the less capable members of society, Lamb's a collectivist who wants to gather all of Rapture's remaining poor huddled masses to her and restore the failed society to its former splendor. But she's stepping on a lot of toes to do it. Just like Ryan, Lamb is the one who will be piping in over the radio from time to time, taunting you as you make your way to her. She's got minions, like the religious fanatic Father Simon Wales, establishing her empire inside Rapture. He acted as a boss encounter in the hands-off portion of the demo I saw.

The presence of Lamb was the biggest revelation about what I saw of BioShock 2, and it exemplifies the sort of feature-for-feature approach 2K Marin seems to be taking with this sequel, checking off every item on the list of what you need to make a BioShock game. New Big Daddy, new Splicers, new villainous ideologue. There are even some helpful new people, like a fancy Southern gentleman, yapping at you with funny accents over the radio. It even turns out that the Big Sister you've heard so much about, the one that you may have previously thought was the big baddie in this game--well, she's not alone. She's got other sisters. The Big Sisters are Sophia Lamb's enforcers, the telekinetic heavy lifters when things need to get done. But they aren't as tough as you might have thought. I took one of them down at the end of my hands-on time, which was a grueling but not impossible fight. You've got the tools to counteract most everything the Sisters throw at you, if you use them right.

Speaking of which: getting your hands on a controller, this game feels like BioShock, top to bottom. The feel of the aiming and shooting, the use of health kits and Eve hypos, the Circus of Values vending machines; it's all just like you left it two years ago. By far my favorite improvement to the action is the dual-wielding between handheld weapons and plasmids. You can now fire off your spear gun with the right trigger and then pop off an Incinerate without having to swap between the two. While it still doesn't make much sense to me in the context of playing as a Big Daddy, in gameplay terms this makes the action a lot faster paced. Believable or not, it's something the game probably needed. The hacking minigame has also been simplified so that you're just timing a button press to a moving marker. This doesn't take you out of the action the way the first game's Pipe Dreams-esque minigame did, and helps to streamline the gameplay a little more.

I will give credit to some imaginative level design in BioShock 2, especially the "Journey to the Surface" level that I got to play most of the way through. It was designed as a theme park for the youngsters born inside Rapture that would indoctrinate them against the evils of the surface world. You get to run around a series of big animatronic dioramas, punching little "play" buttons that start an Andrew Ryan voiceover and depict the oppression of some scientist, entrepreneur, or other captain of industry by the evil giant hand of Big Government. Rapture became sort of a character unto itself over the course of the original game, so if 2K Marin is going to go back to that well for the sequel, I'm glad to see they're at least fleshing out that character further.

Then, of course, BioShock 2 has multiplayer. The game has free-for-all and team deathmatch modes, and a "Capture the Sister" mode that works more or less like it would with a flag, but looks kind of creepy as you run around carrying a thrashing little girl with you. The game's got the de rigeuer multiplayer bases covered, with persistent character progression between rounds that uses the Adam (or experience points) you've racked up to improve your chosen character, who takes the role of one of several Splicers with a short backstory included. The multiplayer exploits the BioShock trappings in a couple of other interesting ways; you can hack turrets to attack opposing players, and you can research each player's corpse individually with your camera to gain a damage bonus against that particular player for the rest of the match. But then, I never felt like BioShock's first-person shooting was as accomplished as many other games in this category, so the multiplayer didn't completely grab my attention here.

What does have my attention is where this story goes. BioShock 2 may trade heavily on the reputation of its name, and looking at this sequel on paper, you could be forgiven for thinking of it as falling into a predictable pattern that was established two years ago by its predecessor. But sometimes being forced to stay within the lines breeds creativity and ingenuity of its own. Getting to see exactly what it is that 2K Marin does with this tale, trapped within the dank confines of Rapture and situated squarely in the shadow of BioShock's legacy, may prove to be interesting indeed. 
 
Until then, here's an interview we hustled at the hands-on event to fill in a little more detail about BioShock 2. 
 
 

My name is Jeff Gerstmann and I am addicted to data. There's something about charts and graphs that excites me. And that's why I take a look at the traffic for our achievement stuff every week and share these details with you. That's also why I'm hoping that we'll have some automated charts and graphs to share in the weeks and months ahead.

This week, it's obvious that Borderlands has become quite popular, achievementally speaking. That, combined with the talk that it was selling out in some locations, makes me think that it's going to go on to sell well, which is something that some analysts thought impossible. I guess the real test is if it can maintain its popularity once Modern Warfare 2 is released. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. 3,390 of you have synched Xbox 360 Borderlands achievements to the site. For a game that's less than a week old, that's a big start. That puts it just ahead of Brutal Legend (3,336) and means it's already bigger than Gearbox's last 360 game, Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway (2,347).

So with that in mind, it shouldn't surprise you that Borderlands is leading the popularity list this week. But there's more to it than just raw numbers. The achievements in Borderlands are pretty well-designed, with a good mix of things you'll get over the course of normally playing the game and a few things that you'll have to go out of your way to earn. They're good stuff. I'm guessing they were something of a focus, as the company's president, Randy Pitchford, obviously cares about points to some extent. He's got over 81,000 of them, enough to slot him in at #13 on MyGamerCard's celebrity/industry leaderboard. 

Top Ten Sets

1. Borderlands
2. Brutal Legend
3. Left 4 Dead 2
4. Batman: Arkham Asylum
5. Halo 3: ODST
6. Forza Motorsport 3
7. WWE SmackDown! vs. RAW 2010
8. Risen
9. CSI: Deadly Intent
10. Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising

Now that Forza Motorsport 3 is actually out, the achievements are now publicly viewable. Expect Tekken 6 to become viewable sometime soon, since it's due out this week. OK, new stuff. We've got Assassin's Creed II achievements on the site now. Beyond that, nothing too mind-blowing here this week, unless you're a big fan of the Crash Time series.

Please tell me you're not a huge fan of the Crash Time series. 

New Sets

• Assassin's Creed II
• Tayutama: Kiss on My Deity
• Fairytale Fights
• Top Spin 2 (not sure which version this is)
• Tower Bloxx Deluxe
• Everyday Genius: SquareLogic (Steam)
• AI War: Fleet Command (Steam)
• Autobahn Polizei (this is a version of Crash Time II)
• Tropico 3
• Crash Time III

"Kiss on My Deity" is the dirtiest phrase I've ever heard, by the way. Running just behind it at a close second is, of course, "Fleet Command." The individual achievements this week are once again tainted by me posting about the "Ask Him Ref!" achievement on Twitter, but Borderlands is the clear victor here. Also, since we can now properly rename secret achievements, the secret "You're On A Boat" achievement is our #1 this week. 

Top Ten Individual

1. Borderlands - You're On A Boat (Secret)
2. Borderlands - My Brother Is An Italian Plumber
3. WWE SmackDown! vs. RAW 2010 - Ask Him Ref!
4. Brutal Legend - Beast Master
5. Borderlands - And They'll Tell Two Friends
6. Borderlands - 12 Days of Pandora
7. Borderlands - Fully Loaded
8. Batman: Arkham Asylum - World's Greatest Detective
9. Garry's Mod - Secret Phrase
10. Brutal Legend - Boar Bather

Our upstairs gentlemen are working on some site redesign stuff that will manifest in new, cleaner designs for the achievement pages, among other things. It should be easier for you to keep track of alternate versions of a game once they're done. And we're still looking at building some method to manually add PlayStation 3 trophies to the system, since it'd be great to have stuff like Uncharted 2 in there, even if we can't track your progress.    

It's Friday, and here we are, revisiting this week's hot-button game: Modern Warfare 2. Wait, calm yourself! This time it's all business. 
 
This time, it's the finalized hardware requirements for the PC version, which Activision has just released to allay any confusion. And here they are. 
 

• OS:  Microsoft Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 (Windows 95/98/ME/2000 are unsupported) 
• Processor:  Intel Pentium 4 3.2 GHz or AMD Athlon 64 3200+ processor or better supported 
• Memory:  1 GB RAM
• Graphics:  256 MB NVIDIA GeForce 6600GT or better or ATI Radeon 1600XT or better
• DirectX®:  Microsoft DirectX(R) 9.0c
• Hard Drive:  12GB of free hard drive space
• Sound:  100% DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card
• Internet:  Broadband connection required for Multiplayer Connectivity. Internet Connection required for activation 

 
Excitable readers' attention may be drawn to the last item, which seems to imply that you'll have to go online and validate your ownership to play the game. Whether that includes the single-player campaign remains to be seen, and will depend on the particulars of the IWNet service. 
 
So hey, uh, how about that service? After a few days to digest the news about the new multiplayer setup, are you feeling any better about that stuff?

Look, I'm not even going to get involved in this debate about Infinity Ward's big changes to Modern Warfare 2's multiplayer infrastructure on the PC. If you haven't been keeping up, those are the ones that eliminate dedicated servers and custom game mods in favor of console-style matchmaking and tighter controls over the ways users interact with pretty much every element of the online experience. This new infrastructure will take the form of IWNet, a custom service that sounds a little like Blizzard's forthcoming revamp to Battle.net.
 
The official line is that this will vastly improve online play for the majority of players who don't want to scan server browsers and memorize IPs, and IW's Robert "fourzerotwo" Bowling has provided a defensive breakdown of what these changes really mean to you, the player. 

Of course the PC community has gotten accustomed to its flexibility over the years, and this isn't going over so well. From people cancelling their PC preorders to a petition with over 110,000 signatures as of this writing, PC players are in a furious uproar. 

Not me. Considering I

• Personally have played less and less PC multiplayer over the last few years
• Intend to play MW2 on a console anyway, and
• Have no idea what percentage of Infinity Ward's total audience the PC actually represents (probably a small one)

I'll refrain from rendering my own opinion about this. Instead, I'll use this post to convey to you exactly how dire this has gotten.
 

    

That's right. Bumper stickers. The "I Won't" one is pretty clever. Perhaps these are suitable for printing at your local print shop.
 
Really, I'm looking for the opinion of you, the Giant Bomb reader. If you were planning to play MW2 on the PC, does this really get under your skin all that much? Will it stop you from getting that version? Any version? Do these changes simply represent the way things are going for multiplayer design, or are they Activision's efforts to clamp down on the free-wheelin' nature of online PC play? Sound off!

OK, this is waaaay sooner than I was expecting it, but that's by no means a bad thing. It just means that we'll be playing Mass Effect 2 relatively soonish, because BioWare and EA have announced a January 26 release date for the game on Xbox 360 and PC. That's for North America. Europe will see the game on shelves a few days later, on January 29.

I guess that's it, so... oh hey, they also mention a couple of pre-order incentives. What, you thought 2010 was going to be different? If you slap down your money at GameStop, you'll get download codes for the "Terminus Gear," which includes a weapon and some armor. Here's the company line on those:

• The Terminus Armor is designed for use in extreme planetary conditions, increasing run speed and personal shields, and augmenting weapons with an additional magazine of reserve ammo.
• The M-90 Blackstorm Heavy Weapon generates a high-powered localized gravity well, accelerating particles to near-infinite mass,  and ultimately expanding the selection of heavy weapons available to players when they gear up for combat missions in Mass Effect 2.

If you pre-order from some other participating North American retailer, you'll end up with "Inferno Armor," which offers a negotiation bonus, increased run speed, and a damage bonus for your combat powers.

If you don't pre-order, you'll get some kind of plastic "box" that has a disc or disc-like device inside that says "Mass Effect 2" on it. If this Mass Effect 2 thing is as cool as the last one, that'll probably still be a pretty good deal.