Since there is so much interest in Battlefield: Bad Company 2, we figured we'd inform you of a little tournament being put together by GameStop, MLG/Gamebattles and Xbox 360.  Maybe you’ve heard of it already; maybe you haven't.  Either way, the deadline for entry is 3/14 (that’s Sunday, people!) and if you haven't registered yet you should probably get on it.  The tournament is for teams of 4 and you can play from your house.  So you can essentially team-up with anyone from anywhere.  And since we have such a great community of like-minded gamers here, we figured we'd create a space for you all to meet and maybe team up to play together in this tournament.

Head on over to our forums at KontrolFreek.com now!  You can discuss BC2, recruit, form squads or just yell at each other.  Just hurry, the deadline is near.

For more info on the tournament visit: gamestop.com/battlefieldbadcompany2.

See you on the Battlefield!

It wasn’t too long ago that online shooters offered up far less intimidating experiences for first-timers.  There was little to no customization as far as what you could bring in to battle with you.  You just chose a basic loadout and shot at other people who were using the same basic loadout.  It was simple.  It worked well.  Everyone had a fighting chance—even the noobs.  The only real advantage veteran players had over beginners was more practice.  They knew the maps well.  They knew all the good spots and maybe a few glitches—but that was all.  They didn’t have increased health and armor, airstrikes or choppers, martyrdom or any other seemingly magical abilities.  Just guns and nades—it was the good ‘ol days.

But Call of Duty changed all that.  In 2007 Modern Warfare exploded on to the scene, bringing with it a leveling system ripe with Perks and rewards that would become the standard for online FPS’s.

Because of Modern Warfare’s popularity, more and more games are following its formula for character leveling.  In this new generation of online shooters, players are rewarded with better equipment as their skills improve.  This deadly mix of more practice and better equipment further increases the gap between ‘leveled’ players and players just starting out.  The result is an environment where natural ability can only get you so far.  What was once a pick up and play experience for casual gamers has become a case of the haves and the have-nots.

Now, this system is a great idea from the standpoint of developers who want you to play their game for countless hours.  It gives the player a reason to keep playing; and it gives you a sense of progression that some earlier games have always been missing.  It’s also a great system for competitive gamers who join clans and love playing against other clans with similar skills.  The problem is that it’s unfair punishment for the players who aren’t playing every night.  It locks out casual gamers who don’t necessarily want to put in the time and rank up enough to become competitive.  Frankly, the noobs are suffering.  Frustrated and mal-equipped, casual gamers are likely to crawl back to single-player and non-competitive game modes and leave the competitive modes for the rest of us.

So, what do you guys think?  What can the developers do to level the playing field?  MW2 addressed the problem a little bit with “Death Streaks” and Halo keeps it even by only letting you customize your armor’s appearance.  What’s the answer?  How can the developers give hardcore gamers and casual gamers an equally fun experience?  Is it even possible?

Let your noob-flag fly!  Join the discussion in our Modern Warfare 2 forums.  We want to hear from both sides.

You might not know this, but much like Punxsutawney Phil does for weather, John Madden does for football.  That’s right!  Earlier this week, Madden came out of his hole and saw his shadow, predicting a long overdue diet and a tough loss for the Indianapolis Colts.

Well, it’s actually Madden’s game that is used for the Super Bowl predicting—but the results are the same.

Every year for Super Bowl, EA cranks up the latest Madden NFL game and lets the computer figure out who’s going to win the big game.  The simulation is run each year in hopes to satisfy our curious minds and, more importantly for EA, sell a few more copies of the game before football is forgotten for 6-months.

 The computer simulation is usually pretty accurate too.  In five out of the past 6 years Madden has gotten the winner right.  The only recent championship game it failed to predict was Super Bowl XLII where the Giants beat the Pats—but who could have predicted that one?

This year the simulation predicted that the New Orleans Saints would be the victor by the very close margin of 35 - 31. Drew Brees turned out to be the MVP with 299 yards and three touchdowns; while Reggie Bush found the end zone twice with a rushing touchdown and a punt returned for a TD.  Peyton Manning had a solid performance with 322 yards and three touchdowns but came up just short of the championship ring.

Before you call your bookie, though, you should know that the Madden Simulation does not take into account certain intangibles like player hot-streaks, nerves and experience or Dwight Freeney's bad ankle.

Whatever the outcome is of the actual Super Bowl, the results of the simulation predict a good, high-scoring game that all of us should enjoy.  So, like my old tee ball coach used to say (he also used to hit on my mom and make sure I was wearing my jockstrap by “knocking”), “no matter who wins the game, we’re all winners!”

It’s no doubt that by now, if you own a PS3, you’ve downloaded the MAG open beta and run it through its paces a bit.  And by this point you’ve probably made the decision if you are going to buy it or not when it comes out on January 26^th.   And chances are, if you played the game for less than an hour-or-two, you’ve decided to not purchase the game and have gone back to playing MW2.

So if I’m right and that’s your story, I have written this mini-review on the beta just for you in hopes that you’ll give MAG a little more time—because if you haven’t put in a good bit of time getting to know the game, you haven’t really uncovered many of the things that make MAG so addictive.  Sure, once the full game comes out later this month my little review will probably mean squat, but it should at least give you an idea of what to expect with the full release.

Let’s first start out by addressing the pink elephant in the room:  MAG’s graphics don’t look to be on par with a certain shooter that came out a few months ago.  Frankly, Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 makes MAG look like a PS2 game.  But once you consider the amount of action going on and the ridiculous number of players on the screen at once, you see that the subpar graphics are justified.  If MW2 had as many players as MAG does playing in one game at the same time, you could bet your noobtube you’d have complete network failure.

Zipper Interactive has really raised the bar in terms of player-count on consoles.  Gears Of War 2 maxes out at a mere 10 players.  Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 allows only 18.  Battlefield: Bad Company has room for 24.  Killzone 2 boasts 32 players.  MAG lets 256 (TWO-HUNDRED AND FIFTY-FRIGGIN-SIX) players shoot at each other at the same time and runs near-flawlessly while doing it.

Impressed?  You should be.

MAG’s not running perfectly quite yet, though—occasionally servers would go down and drop me from games (usually when I was doing really well, which was maddening).  And sometimes it took a while to get in to a game, but only a few times did I experience lag during play—and it was always very minor.  Of course, these things are to be expected with such an ambitious player-count; and that’s why the beta is public, after all.  By the time MAG hits shelves, most of these issues should be fixed.

Now lets look at the actual gameplay of MAG.  Playing with 256 players is as hectic as it sounds.  In the two game types available in the beta, Sabotage and Domination, your main goal is to either attack or defend control points across the game’s large maps.  Sabotage is like “Domination-Lite”—as you only have three structures to attack or defend and only 64 players playing at once.  Think of it as training for the enormous Domination, which Zipper probably figured was too big to jump right in to and start playing.  Domination, as stated before, is seriously huge.  It has the same basic premise as Sabotage but adds manned-turrets, bombing-runs, UAV’s, advanced squad-perks and a vehicle-or-two that you can control.

Some of the advanced features (like airstrikes and squad-perks) require you to be a Squad Leader, Platoon Leader or Officer in Charge.  Becoming one of these leader-types takes quite a bit of leveling up but gives you abilities that can change the tide-of-war in a second for you and your comrades.

The whole thing sort of plays like a mash-up of Battlefield: Bad Company, Modern Warfare and SOCOM.  And at this point MAG may not be as good as any of those—but it definitely deserves a good portion of your time.  Zipper has crafted a game that finally makes you feel like you’re a small piece in a really large war—which is probably how you would feel in an actual war.  Trust me, MAG will inspire developers to think bigger, and that’s good for all of us.  Can you imagine playing Call OF Duty: Modern Warfare 6 with 500 players?  I can, and it’s all thanks to MAG—the father of Massive Action Games.

Carefully designed to give gamers more leverage, the FPS Freek adapter adds movement precision without disturbing the natural game-playing feel. Team FeaR felt the advantage of using the FPS Freek first hand in recent MLG tournaments they’ve won, including the Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare National Championship this November.

“We’ve been using FPS Freek’s for months and wouldn’t dare play without them”, said Joey ‘Moho’ Morehouse, Captain of Team FeaR. “We’re competitive gamers and winning matters – using FPS Freek is now just part of our winning routine.”  “We’re extremely proud of Team FeaR and their recent top place finish in Anaheim,” said Ashish Mistry, CEO of KontrolFreek. “We can’t wait to see how our guys do at nationals in Orlando this January.”

The KontrolFreek products are approved for use in MLG tournaments and have been widely adopted across the first person shooter, fighter and sports gaming genres. In fact, gamers have been evolving the products original use across many gaming titles.

In addition to the FPS Freek, KontrolFreek also offers the SpeedFreek. Designed to gives gamers added control and comfort when playing racing and aviation games, the SpeedFreek's supporting slide walls enable sharper movements while adding control and precision.The FPS Freek and the SpeedFreek are $9.99 each and can be purchased at www.kontrolfreek.com or participating retailers.

About KontrolFreek
KontrolFreek designs and build products for serious gamers, giving them a competitive edge and helping them to improve performance and accuracy. KontrolFreek products are developed based on a careful study of ergonomics, ensuring each product also helps to reduce gamer fatigue, improving overall gaming comfort.

Well, it’s that time of year again.  Time to gather together your closest friends and co-workers, lay-out the spread, sip some champagne and witness the glitz and glamour of the entertainment business’ biggest night on television!  Well, maybe not.  But you could drink some beers and watch the VGA’s (Video Game Awards) on Spike TV.  At 8PM on December 12th, tune-in to see if Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 can take home the Game of the Year award over Assassin's Creed 2, Uncharted 2, Left 4 Dead 2 and the near-perfect Batman: Arkham Asylum.

You can head over to Spike’s official VGA page at http://www.spike.com/event/vga2009 to cast your vote for all of your favorite games in their respective categories, but for now, the nominees for this year’s game of the year are:

Do you agree with the nominations? What do you think should be 2009’s game of the year?

You have to admit, even if your favorite game isn’t up for the GOTY award, that 2009 has been really kind to us gamers—as all of these nominees are more-or-less fantastic titles.

Xbox Live had its busiest day ever last Tuesday.  And we’re pretty sure that Modern Warfare 2 coming out on the same day may have had something to do with the milestone.  Internal figures released by Activision indicate that MW2 has become the most successful launch in history across all forms of entertainment.  With an estimated 4.7 million copies sold on the first day in the U.S. and U.K. alone, it’s no surprise, really, that all of those people were anxious to get online and shoot at each other.  That bloodlust resulted in more than 2 million people playing on Xbox Live simultaneously—a landmark Microsoft’s pretty happy about.