Photos courtesy of Dorkly.com

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!

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.

I love co-op as much as the next guy.   Well, maybe a little more than the next guy.  Okay, so I'm a junkie for co-op, whatever.  And I have been to some pretty shady places to get my next fix--like Army of Two, and yes, even 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand.  Sometimes I just need a break from playing competitive multiplayer with a-holes and a nice, casual game of co-op is just what the doctor ordered.

So that's why I'm always disappointed when a top-tier game comes out and there's no cooperative campaign to be had.  I have seen a trend building by which more games are including, at the least, an independent co-op mode.  But this rarely cools my importunate co-op fever.   Let’s focus the stank-eye on Ghostbusters: The Video Game for a moment.  I loved the campaign—and the included cooperative multiplayer was fun.  But in a game so naturally fit for cooperative play, the lack of a true co-op campaign seemed like a serious missed opportunity.

Now, here comes Modern Warfare 2, ready to set the world on fire with its Michael Bay-esque campaign and top-notch multiplayer modes—the perfect recipe for an unforgettable co-op romp!  But to my dismay, the game will only include an independent co-op mode.  I'm sure it will probably be fun for a few minutes at least, but why do game developers continue to shatter my dreams?

Well, Infinity Ward's reasoning for not including a full co-op campaign is sound: they don't want their vision of the campaign experience to change by adding another person to the mix that could break the immersion.  I know that they are just protecting their game from cut-scene-chatterboxes and run-ahead-and-steal-all-the-kills-guy, but I just wish that I could have made that decision for myself.  Many times I like to play a game through the first time by myself and then invite a friend (not an obnoxious stranger) to play along with me.  This assures me the optimal gaming experience and adds replayability to a single-player campaign that I would otherwise never play again.

What do you guys think?  Are your cooperative fixes met by these independent co-op modes, or do you think full co-op campaigns need to become the standard?

I used to be good at Halo.  So when ODST came out I decided to plug in the Halo 3 Multiplayer disk and relive some of my former glory.  Sure, I figured that I’d be bit rusty from not playing for a while, but I never thought that I would still be getting straight-pwned after multiple hours.  Ouch!  This concerned me.  So after a lot of frustration—and maybe even a few tears—I decided to get to the root of the problem.

My first thought was the obvious: I suck.  Then, right before hanging myself, I decided that I wasn’t really as bad as my stats were demonstrating.  I mean, I’m not god’s gift to gaming or anything, but I do have nearly a 2.0 kill/death ratio in Modern Warfare.  My conclusion: everyone must be cheating (well, maybe not everyone--but you can see what I'm getting at).  I have certainly fallen victim to cheaters in the past but it was usually something relatively obvious.  When you are constantly getting shot from outside the map in Call Of Duty, Ghost Recon, Halo, Gears of War, and every other popular game in the history of multiplayer gaming, you know when the C is O (“cheat is on…” stay with me).  But this was different; I was being outgunned—by the same guns that I was using!  I decided that I was being beaten by hardware mods (rapid fire controllers, specifically).  Had this exception to the rule become an epidemic?

Now, I’m all about obtaining advantages (that’s why I use FPSFreeks, after all) but when does this lust for the upper-hand become cheating?   Where do you stand on the issue?  Where do you draw the line in your quest for that tangible edge?