fourzerotwo

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Get it out of my head! GET IT OUTTA MY HEAD!

AT-AT Day Afternoon. Awesome stop motion animation by Patrick Boivin

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Today was Coraline’s 1st Birthday Party! THROW YA HANDS UP!

A cool fan-made trailer for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 by YouTube user killat0n. 

New Playlists in Modern Warfare 2

Just uploaded two new playlists to Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer that allow you to play public matches with no Killstreaks in a variety of game modes. This update is currently available on Xbox Live, and will be coming to PC and Playstation 3 alongside the Resurgence Package DLC the week of July 6th. The exact details of each new playlist are below:

Barebones Pro:

Play Team Deathmatch and Free-for-All. All Killstreak rewards are disabled.

Players: 4-8

*Xbox LIVE Party Chat allowed

Objective Barebones Pro:

Play Domination, Demolition, HQ Pro, and Capture the Flag. All Killstreaks rewards are disabled.

Players: 8-12

*Xbox LIVE Party Chat allowed.

Jump online, check out the new modes, and let me know what you think, either by email or on Twitter (via @fourzerotwo)!

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Spending my first Father’s Day teaching Coraline how to be a proper gentleman of the west. She’s a natural. Now to mosey to an afternoon at the park. Happy Father’s Day!

"I need a controller that operates giant mechanical hands so that I can utilize Kinect for Xbox without ever actually moving."

— @fourzerotwo

E3 Day Two - Cube Hands Edition

Day 2 of E3 did not disappoint with two massive conferences from Nintendo and Sony; bringing with them a ton of announcements and reveals. All that is noteworthy and awesome (to me) has been summarized in a few quick bullet points below:

• Goldeneye 007 RETURNS!! Wii exclusive. Cube hands unite! The joy of shooting guys in the top of their dome with a PP7, while they’re on the crapper, from a vent you can never return to - is back and is better than ever!
• The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword - 1:1 Sword motion control!
• New Kid Icarus game launches with new Nintendo 3DS (now with more D’s)
• Killzone 3 + Mortal Kombat + many more = 3D on PS3 (3D FATALITIES!)
• The answer to any problem = @TheKevinButler (proof)
• Portal 2? on PS3! WITH STEAMWORKS?!
• Playstation Move dated, priced, and looks awesome for would-be Sorcerers.
• New Twisted Metal on PS3. Adds aerial combat. Use environment. Looks fun.
• PSN+ Premium service gives you access to early betas and full game demos.

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E3 Day One - Whisper Quiet Edition

E3 Day 1 is coming to a close, and rather than ranting on about all the awesome stuff announced that you’ve probably already heard about, I’m going to summarize all that I think was awesome and all that you should be in the know about in one concise bullet pointed list:

• New Xbox 360. Built in wifi. 250 GB. WHISPER QUIET!
• Kinect (add-on formerly known as Natal) = Awesome menu control.
• Medal of Honor - BETA JUNE 21st <- beta details
• Bad Company 2 does Vietnam expansion.
• Black Ops is still coming out November 9th
• Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit by Criterion Games (BURNOUT: Paradise DEVS!)
• Metal Gear: Rising lets you cut shit up in fantastically awesome ways.
• Ghost Recon: Future Soldier. That is all.
• Halo: Reach (Rouge Squadron-esque space battles!1!!)

Bring on Day 2 with the Sony and Nintendo press conferences.

In a previous post, I explained how the perk concept in multiplayer changed throughout the development of Modern Warfare 2. Moving away from the way it was in Call of Duty 4, to a more class-based system that had the player specialize in a perk which then altered the character’s visual appearance drastically to reflect the unique ability associated with it. Ultimately it evolved into its final version of having the player upgrade perks only once to a ‘Pro’ version.

Above is a stealth focused character concept for V4, the highest tier upgrade, of Dead Silence. A perk which silences your footsteps; this ability was later incorporated into the final version of Modern Warfare 2 as the extra ability you gained from upgrading Ninja to Ninja Pro.

My favorite aspect of the visualization of perks and classes was the mentality that you could easily identify the threat level of an enemy with a glance and know immediately the best counter to use. Which we did keep in a more authentic manner with the final character designs by ensuring equipment was actually visible on the character model (i.e. An RPG carrier has an RPG visible on their back).

Concept Character Design by: Brad Allen

I was going through old character concepts done by our artists for Modern Warfare 2 and came across this variant design for what became the Juggernaut in the Spec Ops mode. You might have seen this in the artbook that came with the collectors edition of MW2. What you may not know though, is at this stage in development, this design was intended as a playable multiplayer character. 

At one point in development, you could focus on a specific class - whether your thing was speed, strength, stealth - there was a perk class for you. This idea eventually evolved into what is now known as ‘Pro Perks’. Where any and all perks could be upgraded once to their pro version for an additional benefit. At this time, you had more than just standard and pro; You actually had four tiers for each perk. Each upgrade not only gave you a different ability but also changed your character model to visually reflect your new ability. The above is the concept for V4 Juggernaut, the fully upgraded version, essentially a walking tank.

This proved severely over-powered for MP, but with a few tweaks, ended up making an awesome addition to Spec Ops mode! Ultimately, Juggernaut was removed as a perk and morphed into Painkiller once the concept of ‘Deathstreaks’ were introduced.

A cool series of transitions through the many locations of Modern Warfare 2 - produced by @Telixion. The Tactical Insertion transition is my personal favorite.

Beef Chips

• Heather:  Give me some chips.
• Me:  Okay, but they're Chili Cheese flavored.
• Heather:  Ew, nevermind.
• Me:  Why not?
• Heather:  I don't eat meat.
• Me:  It's a chip.
• Heather:  A beef chip.
• Me:  What?!
• Heather:  I don't eat chili.
• Me:  It's A CHIP!
• Heather:  Are you tricking me?
• Me:  IT'S A CHIP!!!

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I’d say this is slightly more romantic (and lasting) than carving it in a tree. Only problem is, if @teanah and her boo ever break up, then we’ll have to patch the game. (as seen on Carnival in Modern Warfare 2)

"It’s not a game trailer. Actually was made for the director to sell WB on his vision for a reimagined MK film."

— @JeriLRyan