CoD:WaW patch 1.5

If you haven't had enough of killing guys that are already dead, you can download the patch from ModsOnline (it also includes a couple of new multiplayer maps). For some reason, the new zombies map is not available in Germany.

GT's review of Battlefield 1943

The game won't be available for the PC until September, but for $15, it's worth a look.

Video Games | Battlefield 1943 | Review HD

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

FireFix

Firefox has been updated to version 3.5.1, which fixes the security vulnerability discussed in this post.

If you disabled javascript.options.jit.content, you'll have to reset the value to "true" through the about:config dialog (type jit in the search filter once you're there).

L4D updated

From Steam News:

Left 4 Dead has been updated to include a lobby browser. The lobby browser (under Play Online) will show you a list of optimal games available for you to join. The browser pares down the thousands of lobbies and games currently being played to show you the best list of games available to you. This list includes official and add-on campaigns, including add-on campaigns you have not yet installed, making it a great way to discover them. You can filter by difficulty, official and/or add-on campaigns and by lobbies and/or games in progress. The specific changes include:

Left 4 Dead

• The Play on Steam Group Server screen now displays which Steam group it's searching while updating the list
  
• After calling a vote to change difficulty in game it is now correctly updated in matchmaking
  

Add-on Campaigns

• When downloading a new version of an add-on and installing it (by double clicking the .VPK file), it will now correctly overwrite the previous version, even while Left 4 Dead is currently running
  
• Addressed a crash when two mission files with the same name are installed
  
• Steam Group Servers now will now correctly offer download links when running add-on campaigns
  

Server

• The server will now warn if the public or private tags exceed their limits. Public tags are limited to 63 characters. Private tags used for matchmaking are now limited to 1024 characters. Note that the private tags include the name of each add-on campaign installed on the server, so an excessive number of add-on campaigns can hit this limit
  

SDK

• The VPK tool should be able to handle campaigns larger than 500MB now
  
• You can now drag and drop or pass a VPK file to the vpk.exe tool to have it extract the contents of the add-on to a folder. This mirrors the functionality of passing a folder and having it create a VPK file
  
• Detail.vbsp and lights.rad have been added to the distribution

Required reading

Chris Livingston (First Person Shouter) on the "Kill Switch" - the moment when you uninstall, forever.

Jim Rossignol (Rock, Paper, Shotgun) on "open world" games - why they work, and why they often don't.

Make sure you read the comments, too.

ArmA II review

After playing the demo, I can't understand why anyone would want to invest the weeks it would take to get to become minimally proficient with this game's UI, just to have the damned thing bug out every couple of minutes.

Video Games | ArmA II | Review HD

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Critical vulnerability in FIrefox 3.5

From the Mozilla Security Blog:

Issue

A bug discovered last week in Firefox 3.5’s Just-in-time (JIT) JavaScript compiler was disclosed publicly yesterday. It is a critical vulnerability that can be used to execute malicious code.

Impact

The vulnerability can be exploited by an attacker who tricks a victim into viewing a malicious Web page containing the exploit code. The vulnerability can be mitigated by disabling the JIT in the JavaScript engine. To do so:

1. Enter about:config in the browser’s location bar.
2. Type jit in the Filter box at the top of the config editor.
3. Double-click the line containing javascript.options.jit.content setting the value to false.

Note that disabling the JIT will result in decreased JavaScript performance and is only recommended as a temporary security measure. Once users have been received the security update containing the fix for this issue, they should restore the JIT setting to true by:

1. Enter about:config in the browser’s location bar.
2. Type jit in the Filter box at the top of the config editor.
3. Double-click the line containing javascript.options.jit.content setting the value to true.

Alternatively, users can disable the JIT by running Firefox in Safe Mode. Windows users can do so by selecting Mozilla Firefox (Safe Mode) from the Mozilla Firefox folder.

Status

Mozilla developers are working on a fix for this issue and a Firefox security update will be sent out as soon as the fix is completed and tested.

Credit

Zbyte reported this issue to Mozilla and Lucas Kruijswijk helped reduce the exploit test case.

I thought I was getting good at this

Nope.

One that matters

Darrell "Shifty" Powers, a soldier in the 101st Airborne's Easy Company during WWII, died on June 17, 2009 at the age of 86. The members of Easy were the subjects of the HBO miniseries "Band of Brothers," which followed the company from its formation in Camp Toccoa, GA through the end of the war.

"He was like most of the other [Easy Company] soldiers we met for the series. They were good guys who were kind of shocked that, 50 years later, people were making a big deal over them for just doing their duty."

More stuff you just can't make up

From GamePolitics:

The Chinese government has ordered a controversial video game addiction clinic to stop subjecting alleged teenage game addicts to electric shock treatments.

China Daily reports that the Ministry of Health issued the directive yesterday to the clinic in Linyi, Shandong province:

More than 3,000 young people were tricked or forced into in to the four-month long course. To enroll their children, parents or guardians had to sign a contract acknowledging that they would be given electric shocks of up to 200 milliamperes. The treatment cost 6,000 yuan ($878) per month...

Shocks were given if patients broke any of the center’s 86 rules, which included prohibitions on eating chocolate, locking the bathroom door, taking pills before a meal, and sitting in Dr. Yang's chair without permission.

Details of the treatment first became public when former patients wrote about their experiences online...

Kong Lingzhong, who edits a Chinese Internet addiction-themed portal commented on the clinic's methods:

We have no clue whether this freaky treatment has side-effects.

Instant gratification

I had to wait all of a day for the first confirmation of my theory (see the post immediately after this). One of those "blogs with more credibility" - that is Rock, Paper, Shotgun - came up with the same idea, and added a few games to the "delayed" list:

It’s going to be a quieter Christmas than we were expecting. A bundle of big-name games have announced in the last few days that they’ll no longer be bulging Santa’s sack, but instead offering themselves in the colder months of 2010. This year your Christmas tree will not be towering over 2K games BioShock 2, Mafia II, nor Max Payne 3. Indeed they’re not alone. A smattering of console-only titles have also slipped, as well as Activision’s Singularity. What’s a jolly-bellied man to do this holiday season? Deliver Modern Warfare 2 an awful lot, it seems.

Although RPS reports that 2K's move to push BioShock 2, et al., into 2010 is purportedly due to development problems, that doesn't mean Modern Warfare 2 wasn't a factor in the decision. Either way, the aforementioned loop just got some heavy-duty feedback.

And BTW: Activision is apparently releasing a "Prestige Edition" (priced at $149.99) of MW2 that includes functional night vision goggles. I'm not making that up.

UPDATE: more confirmation, in the "mainstream gaming site" category.

The number (and letters) of the beast: MW2

At least three games - Singularity, Heavy Rain, and Bioshock 2 - have had their original holiday season release dates pushed into 2010, and there's a good chance the same fate may befall Starcraft 2. That, dear friends, is what we call a trend, and it's interesting because the apparent common thread between the delays has little or nothing to do with whether the games will be ready on-time. Rather, the various publishers are holding back because they don't want to compete with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

Singularity and Starcraft are also Activision/Blizzard titles, so the delays there are nothing more than the publisher getting out of its own way. It seems, however, that Sony (Heavy Rain) and 2K (BioShock2) are buying into the hype over MW2, and they've opted for a tactical retreat. None of the five properties should be direct competitors to one another in terms of player preferences, but gaming dollars are finite nonetheless.

So, we're looking at a more limited stable of titles this Christmas, compared to last year's massive roll-out of high-profile properties (check out these October and November 2008 game release lists if you've forgotten). The irony of the whole thing is that the absence of so many strong competitors - two of which are highly anticipated sequels with established fan-bases - makes it more likely that the sales projections for MW2 will be met or exceeded.

For the other games due to be released in October and November this year, a less diluted market might give them a boost. I'm wondering, though, whether this feedback loop MW2 is generating is just going to blow everyone's face off, particularly in the case of Left 4 Dead 2. That game has already suffered the slings and arrows of disgruntled fans, and if the boycott holds, L4D2 could be something of a disaster for Valve.

Other people will undoubtedly notice all this. Some of those people will write about it, on blogs with more credibility and mainstream gaming sites, and every gamer on Earth will read what gets written. That could, in turn, create a self-fulfilling prophesy - about how MW2 is going to dominate holiday sales - where "everybody" is going to want the game because they expect that "everybody else" is going to get it.

If that happens, and if you'd prefer your new game to be something other than Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, the first quarter of 2010 may very well suck some serious ass.