Call of Duty and Gaming Links, 10 January 2010

He'll be back.

    I've been giving this CoD: VietNam thing some thought. A Call of Duty game for that conflict does make sense. After all, Call of Duty is a franchise that has traditionally dealt with conflicts where the end result is a known quantity. The only difference is that the end is one where we (meaning the "Good Guys") come out on the losing side. Weapon-wise, a VietNam era CoD is pure win. That conflict was fought with an amazing mix of weapons. There'll still be AKs; there'll be Dragunovs; there'll be M14s. The famed "White Feather", Carlos Hathcock, had his Winchester Model 70, so maybe we'll get that to play with. They can toss in the XM177 to take the spot of the M4A1. (And, in fact, my own M16 while in the Army, was an arsenal-refurbished XM177E. The lower receiver was Colt-stamped as one of the experimental full-auto carbines that eventually became the ubiquitous M4A1. And, yes, she jammed like a motherf*cker.) M203s will be in there, too, to placate the tubers. But there'll also be a cool mix of WWII era weapons which were used by both US and regional troops. Treyarch can mix and match WWII and modern era weapons to get the VietNam conflict armory fleshed out in no time. There were still Garands around during the early 60s; the "Ruff Puffs" had them instead of M16s. M1 carbines (including full auto variants) were used. I remember reading some first person accounts in Soldier of Fiction of guys hauling the Thompson around, too, as well as some arcane foreign SMGs like the Swedish K. The VietCong were copiously supplied with arms by the SovBloc like the PPSh-41 and Moisin-Nagant sniper rifles, too. It might be actually easy for Treyarch to cook up a VietNam title. They've got mappers who have already made a lot of jungle-type maps. They can probably reskin the Japanese models to make them resemble NVA soldiers. After all, the NVA wore those same spiffy Pith helments. Hey, maybe they can coach the same voice actors in Vietnamese!
    If nothing else, Call of Duty: VietNam will mean I'll finally get a full-auto M16 like the "Jammin' Jenny" that was so dear to my heart when I was a ground-pounder in the mid-80s. On to the links:

• From BASHandSlash, some Modern Warfare 2 humor: Bring out your inner douche.
  
• Ars Technica: Microsoft defends Xbox Live first dibs on Modern Warfare 2 DLC. What's to defend? Meh.
• The "Classic Comics" version of a Modern Warfare 2 review. It reads like something totally cribbed from other reviews. Best howler of the article: "The campaign is one of the best things about this game." GTFO. Best things about the game?

    More Gaming Links:

• Rumor mill: Battlefield: Bad Company 2 ditching player-run servers? I'm assuming rented servers are still in the picture.
• Left 4 Dead 2 getting free Xbox Live multiplayer weekend Jan. 15th.
  
• Co-Optimus: Co-op Games of 2010, part 1 and part 2.
  
• Metro 2033 trailer on Shacknews. (Joker's Link Wayback Machine: GameSpot first look; Voodoo Extreme; Joystiq; GamesRadar.)
  
• Bayonetta reviews: GiantBomb; Joystiq; Joystick Division; GameSpot.
  
• Bioshock 2 multiplayer hands on at CES 2010.
• Aliens vs. Predator demo confirmed.
  
• GamesIndustry.biz goes out on a limb predicting Halo: Reach as biggest seller of 2010.
  
• Escapist op-ed: To gaming companies, now that you're done firing everyone.
• GameStop shares plummet 15% due to weak sales.
• YouTube: Halo 3 NPC dialogue funny: Sgt Johnson said that flood called me FAT!
• Comic: Bayonetta's joke.
  

    Non-Gaming Links:

• If HDTV/DVD player combos are a bad idea, what about a 1080p projector and PC combo?
• Destructoid: ABC News covers the Consumer Electronics Show -- 1979.
  
• You military guys will like this: How to sight in your deer rifle the Carlos Hathcock way. Who's Carlos Hathcock? This is Carlos Hathcock.
  

PS.