Posted 10/06/09 at 10:56:25 PM by Nathan Grayson

Activision’s about to declare war on gamers’ wallets with Modern Warfare 2, and we imagine Bobby Kotick and co. couldn’t be happier. However, according to Call of Duty creator Infinity Ward, Activision wasn’t always so gung-ho about pulling the series out of World War II.

“With Call of Duty 2, we were dead set against it being World War 2," Infinity Ward boss Vince Zampella said, "but Activision really wanted it, the compromise sort of being that we'd get some dev kits for consoles in exchange for doing a World War 2 game.”

"And something I'll add to that, Activision also did not want Modern Warfare. They thought working on a modern game was risky and [thought], 'oh my god you can't do that, it's crazy!' They were doing market research to show us we were wrong the whole time," he explained.

As of last count, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare sold over 14 million copies.

Bobby, if we were in your shoes, we’d hire Infinity Ward not only as a consultant for Activision as a whole, but as our own personal life counselor. We’d also donate a few million dollars to Future’s Maximum PC publication, with the stipulation that 40% of it is to land in the pockets of a blogger named “Nathan Grayson.”

Just trust us on this one.   

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Posted 04/17/09 at 02:55:48 AM by Nathan Grayson

Nine of last month’s 20 best-selling PC games’ titles contain the word “war” in some way or another, including colonial chart-topper Empire: Total War. Special honors go to Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War II for having “war” in its title twice. Videogames encouraging violence? No way.
 
Here’s the entire, blood-soaked chart for your viewing pleasure:

1. Empire: Total War / Creative Assembly / $48
2. World Of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King / Blizzard / $38
3. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe / EA Maxis / $19
4. Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War II / Relic / $48
5. World Of Warcraft Battle Chest / Blizzard / $38
6. World Of Warcraft / Blizzard / $20
7. The Sims 2 Apartment Life Exp. Pack / EA Maxis / $19
8. Spore / EA Maxis / $49
9. World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Expansion Pack / Blizzard / $29
10. Mystery Case Files: Return to Ravenhearst / Big Fish Games / $20
11. Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 / EA LA / $28
12. StarCraft Battle Chest / Blizzard / $20
13. Fallout 3 / Bethesda / $49
14. Civilization IV / Firaxis / $21 (Average)
15. Empire: Total War - Special Forces Edition / Creative Assembly / $70
16. The Sims 2 Pets Exp. Pack / EA Maxis / $19
17. Warhammer Online: Age Of Reckoning / EA Mythic / $29
18. The Sims 2 University Exp. Pack / EA Maxis / $19
19. Call Of Duty: World At War / Treyarch / $50
20. Diablo Battle Chest / Blizzard / $36

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Posted 03/31/09 at 03:49:26 AM by Nathan Grayson

And you thought the majority of today’s first-person shooters were only easy on the eyes. As it turns out, playing a fast-moving, state-of-the-art action game might be less like a warm glass of milk for your poor peepers, and more like a monolithic can of Monster.

According to a study conducted by Daphne Bavelier of the University of Rochester in New York, a few rounds of games like Call of Duty or Unreal Tournament may be enough to improve your eyes’ contrast sensitivity. Translated into the hip vernacular you kids have grown so accustomed to: Capping fools, punks, or whatever these are could save you from dying in a fire.   

“People who used a video-game training program saw significant improvements in their ability to notice subtle differences in shades of gray, a finding that may help people who have trouble with night driving,” noted the study.
 
While undoubtedly cool, the study’s results were far from expected. Apparently, contrast sensitivity doesn’t typically undergo significant change without an alteration to the optics of the eye -- glasses or surgery, for example.

The games played by each group, for those interested, were Call of Duty 2 and Unreal Tournament 2004 for the “action” group, and The Sims 2 for the non-action group. The first group saw a 43 percent improvement in contrast sensitivity, while the second saw none – possibly due to blindness or some other malady that our cruel universe has chosen to afflict upon those who are not truly hardcore.

Don’t sit too close to the screen, huh? Oh how the tides have turned.

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Posted 03/20/09 at 05:02:32 PM by Andy Salisbury

This past Wednesday (the 18th) I had the unique opportunity to represent Maximum PC in The Two-Handed Sword’s debate about the Future of Call of Duty.

Paneling the debate was Destructoid’s Anthony Burch, MoBdeep’s Call of Duty 4 Team Leader Matthew Gomez, Team Pandemic’s Joseph Amorosa, PC Gamer’s very own Evan Lahti, the Cyberathlete Amateur League’s Operations Manager Sean Henderson and myself. And, the man in charge of moderating the whole rowdy lot of us was Dan “Shoe” Hsu (who you may remember from the late EGM).

If this sounds like something you’d be interested in checking out, you can find the transcript here. And, be sure and check out other debates in the future over at Xfire! They did a great job setting up the event.

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Posted 02/11/09 at 10:00:00 PM by Norman Chan

The odds have always been stacked against Call of Duty: World at War. This sequel revisits an undeniably exhausted FPS setting—World War II—and wasn’t designed by series creator Infinity Ward, but Treyarch has delivered a sufficiently compelling shooter. World at War doesn’t bring any lasting innovations to the FPS genre, but it has enough unrelenting shootouts and dramatically scripted events to keep us immersed in the action.

Read on for the rest of the review!

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Posted 01/23/09 at 11:00:00 AM by The Maximum PC Staff

It’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it. We’ve spent a good deal of the last 12 months hunkered down at our PCs playing every game that’s come our way. The very best of them have pulled us into their imaginary, action-packed worlds and stolen hours of our valuable time—and we love ’em for it! Others, not so much. Here forth is our frank assessment of 2008’s most noteworthy games.

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Posted 10/06/08 at 10:27:19 PM by Nathan Grayson

Series originator Warren Spector may be out and about not making Deus Ex 3, but if we had a copy of UK mag PC Zone, and if we didn't know that Warren Spector wasn't slaving away on Deus Ex 3, we'd be hard-pressed to think that he wasn't. tl;dr: The game sounds pretty cool.

According to CVG's copy of PC Zone, Eidos Montreal is developing Deus Ex 3 as a prequel to the rest of the series. Set in 2027, the game follows "average joe" Adam Jensen, a security officer doling out his particular brand of uniformed justice at a lab specializing in biomechanical augmentations -- aka, nanotech's predecessor. Fortuitously, however, Jensen's life takes a turn for the interesting when a team of "black ops commandos" storms his company's base of operations, snatches a security plan penned by Jensen himself, and uses the plan to guard a fortress kill people.

 
From then on, the security officer with a penchant for doomsday plans embarks on an action-packed mission full of Deus Ex's trademark fusion of RPG and FPS gameplay conventions -- with a twist. In Deus Ex 3, your stats won't directly affect your gunplay. Instead, stats will manifest themselves through "a vast array of fully upgradeable and customisable weapons," as well as weapon upgrades and character augmentations. So yes, the game is still very much an RPG.

Fortunately, the game, even in its early state, has been given a big thumbs up from Warren Spector, with members of the original Deus Ex team in consultative roles on the project.   

And for lapsed fans, distraught by Deus Ex: The Invisible War's, well, everything, you'll be happy to hear that Eidos Montreal has scooped up multiple earfuls of fan complaints, sifted through them, and modified its game accordingly. For example, ammo types will return to Deus Ex's M&M style menagerie of flavors and colors, as opposed to The Invisible War's newcomer-friendly universal ammo.

Oh, the game also brings with it the controversial addition of an auto-regen health system -- ala Call of Duty -- and a cover system that takes a few pointers from Gears of War, but we'd probably post a separate news article if that wasn't the case.

Now let's just hope the game makes it out soon. Otherwise, it might end up looking a tad Jetsons by the time it hits shelves.

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Posted 09/17/08 at 09:37:40 PM by Nathan Grayson

As we've become painfully aware over the past couple of weeks, game publishers will do just about anything if it means pointing an over-sized foam middle-finger in piracy's direction. But, with EA's recent decision to plunge a grimy claw into an old wound that was finally beginning to scar over, another lesson has been hammered into our collective conscious: DRM doesn't work. It alienates legitimate customers and pushes budding pirates right over the edge.

However, there are other, much more viable methods of thwarting thieves, most of which are only now heaving themselves upward and making awkward, Bambi-esque strides into the limelight. Thus far, however, only one such anti-piracy tool has proven itself stupidly lucrative: the subscription fee.

During this week's Activision Analyst Day event, Activision Publishing CEO Mike Griffith mused about a possible Guitar Hero subscription service -- part of the publisher's plan to "monetize" the series. In addition, he noted that Call of Duty could fall under a similar, dollar-shaped banner.

Taken on its own, I see no problem with this pseudo-announcement. In both cases, a subscription service would have us lazing in a warm tub of new content with minimal hassle, and, as WoW has kindly pointed out, PC piracy of those games would slope off drastically.

But try ka-ching-ing a few more subscriptions onto your bank account's emaciated form and suddenly, this idea doesn't seem quite so dandy.

Continue reading to find out why subscription fees -- in their current form -- just can't muster the strength to heft the gaming industry above piracy's grasping mitts, as well as how they might be altered to succeed. 

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