Infinity Ward (the makers of the good Call of Duty games) has announced today that the brand new security patch for Modern Warfare 2 is finished and going through internal quality assurance.  This comes as great news especially for PS3 owners (the few that aren’t cheating, that is) who have fallen victim to cheating buttholes for way too long.

The update will address known security issues that have affected online play and will be released for all platforms, though, no release date has been announced yet.

In addition to the security updates, the patch will address “a small geo exploit on the map Fuel, which players exploited in order to get inside a rock on the outskirts of the map.”

Infinity Ward announced today that the second round of multiplayer maps is coming to your Xbox 360 on June 3rd (sorry PS3 and PC owners, you’ll have to wait a little longer... again).  Dubbed the “Resurgence Pack,” Xbox Live users will be able to download the pack-of-five-maps which will include a trio of brand new maps and two old favorites from the first Modern Warfare.  Returning faves include Vacant and Strike; and the three brand new maps, Fuel, Trailer Park and Carnival will supposedly offer something for everybody.  Trailer Park is a CQC playground, Fuel is a sniper’s paradise and Carnival has clowns and a Ferris wheel.

In celebration of the new Resurgence Pack, IW will also be hosting two Double XP weekends on Friday, May 28^th and again on Friday, June 4^th.

The Resurgence Pack will cost $15.  If you have also purchased the Stimulus Pack (and who hasn’t) you have now spent over $90 on Modern Warfare 2.  Congratulations!

Don’t anybody get too bent out of shape just yet, as no one really knows what this video means.  But it seems that a software hacker somehow hacked in to the PC version of Modern Warfare 2 and discovered some new, hidden game modes that aren’t available for us to play yet.  The “hidden” game modes are “VIP,” “One Flag CTF,” and “Global Thermonuclear War.”  Are they merely remnants from the cutting-room floor, or something else?

Infinity Ward haters obviously think it is [what will become] the first batch of DLC (downloadable content) coming in the near future that we’ll have to pay for to unlock.  Makes sense, as IW would probably make a bunch of loot releasing it as pay-to-download content.  But since it’s already on the $60 disk, maybe it’s just some fan-service that will unlock with a free code in a few weeks…

No, probably not.  But that would be nice.

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?