Rumor Killers: Army of Two 2, COD: MW 2 Details, and Champions Online PS3

Rumor Killers

EA prepping an Army of Two 2 announcement Soon?

Last week, Electronic Arts announced to the gaming world that they would be making a public announcement regarding a new game by the team that developed Army of Two, EA Montreal. This new game would be revealed on March 12. Ever since EA announced this, speculation has risen on what this game could possibly be. Well recent developments in this mystery points toward a possible sequel to EA Montreal’s Army of Two. Although it had its problems, Army of Two was a fun game to play through cooperatively and sold better than expected, so is Army of Two 2 that much of a surprise? Not really, but lets look at the evidence that points towards this sequel.

Kombo recently had a package dropped off at their desks from EA, and  within this package was a shirt with the Army of Two logo splattered all over it and a faint image of a man alongside it with the word "SUBMIT." This obviously has nothing to do with the original, otherwise that promotion’s a year late! Yesterday, another Army of Two teaser was released and this time in form of a teaser website with the word "SUBMIT" again splattered all over it. Putting these two together supports that Army of Two 2 is on the way, but it’s this third piece of evidence that confirms the existence of this game. Doing some extra investigation by looking at the site’s source code you will discover the name "Army of Two: TFD," and a description that reads, "Army to Two. The definitive third person co-op shooter is back." Lastly, the listed studio name "EAM" translates to EA Montreal. After putting all three together there is no denying that Army of Two 2/TFD is real.

You can expect the official announcement on March 12th and you can expect to here that announcement right here on TheGameReviews.com. So for the first time in a while we can finally give the rating of…

TGR Rating: Rumor Confirmed

Has a game tester for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 leaked new details across the internet?

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is one of the stand-out shooters in a crowded genre, it’s one of the best selling games and since its launch, it has claimed many awards, it has toppled Halo 3 from the top spot on Xbox Live’s most played games list, and it is still one of the most played games on Xbox Live and PSN. For a game to do that, you know it has to be special, so it comes as no surprise that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was announced by Activision for a November release this year on Xbox 360, PC, and PS3. Original developers Infinity Ward are developing this installment, which makes it even more exciting, but as of yet, few details have been released about the game.

As we all should know in this industry, you can’t keep everything secret for a long time, and the same goes for this game. According to a game tester who of course is apparently on the QA team for CoD: MW2 there are a number of new features, and features that have been dropped for the sequel. The full list is below:

*Vehicles will be in MW2
*M16 will return, using stopping power will only be OHK at head, neck, and torso (abdomen, limbs, and hands/feet will not)
*Ak47 and M4 will return, unknown if there are any changes
*M40 will return, ACOG damage boost will be fixed
*Scorpion, P90, M21, R700, G3, G360 will not return
*There are more unknown weapons that will not return
*New sniper rifle: SR25M (United states forces)
*New Assault rifle: Diemeco C8 (Canadian forces M4 equivelant)
*New Assault rifle: L85A2 (United Kingdom forces)
*Total weapons in multiplayer are said to be around 35
*Favourite Modern warfare 1 maps will return
*Helicopters, air strikes, UAV will return
*Red dot sightings will come in different shapes for multiplayer (circular, square, original)
*Snipers will have special grass camouflage (As seen in Modern warfare 1’s campaign)
*All perks will return from MW except eavesdrop and others will be altered
*All gametypes will return from MW and all will have hardcore versions
*New gametype: Secure (Call of duty version of capture the flag, however you capture the enemy’s Intel)
*New gametype unconfirmed name, similar to search and destroy, however instead of trying to plant a bomb, you try to kill a specified enemy
*Solider customization for each class (and each country)
*Sniper with silencers will NOT be in multiplayer
*There are NO bots in local multiplayer
*Similar version to Nazi Zombies, however details are unknown
*NO guest players online, 1 player per console
*Killcam save feature
*There is blood and gore
*Offline/Online Co-op
*Story takes place in the Middle East
*Role as US marines return
*Ken Lally voice work in campaign
*Release is set for sometime in November
*New army tags will be available to add different elements in campaign (similar to halo skulls)
*Campaign-only weapons

If you ask me not much has really changed if this list is to be true, the addition of vehicles would be a great idea but from looking at this list, its as you were really. Of course IW was quick to deny this leaked list. IW programmer Rayme Vinson posted on NeoGAF, explaining that the list is nothing but a fake:

"People. This list is fake, I mean; I can’t get into how-much-if-any is true, how much is false, etc (there’s a reason why companies "don’t comment on rumors"… it would NEVER F***ING END), but this list wasn’t put together by anyone with any insider information. There’s also some craziness that should red-flag this as "stuff I made up and wrote down" (like grass camo for snipers… that’s straight out of CoD4 MP)."

The guy has a point. I could have easily made this list, and lets be honest, we would expect a lot more than this in the final release in November. Lets just hope that the vehicle addition is actually in the game come November, but for now this rumor is…

TGR Rating: Rumor Killed

Champions Online coming to PS3?

Champions Online is the interesting superhero MMO for Xbox 360 and PC coming from Cryptic Studios. You remember Cryptic Studios right? Can you remember that Marvel MMO announced for the 360 all those years back? Yeah well this is the team that was behind that until Microsoft cancelled the project. Looking at screenshots and trailers you can see that Champions Online is basically what they had in mind with the Marvel MMO but without the license, so our expectations are high for this interesting MMO. The game, though, has only been confirmed for a summer PC release and for the Xbox 360 later on in the year. Lately, though, there have been whispers within the industry that the game could also be coming to the PS3. What whispers you ask? Well let’s have a look.

The first sign that this could also be on PS3 is when Cryptic described the game as coming to "consoles" notice S at the end? You don’t say that unless there is more than one and the only other console that could support this kind of game is the PS3. That isn’t the biggest piece of evidence, though, as that could have simply been a "mistake." The most intriguing bit of evidence is the fact that Cryptic Studios is now hiring for a "PS3 Engine Programmer." The description for the job follows:

"Are you interested in a challenge? We have developed a flexible, cutting edge MMO platform to power games like Champions and Star Trek Online. It runs on PC and XBOX 360 – now we want to support PS3 too. Are you an expert PS3 coder? Do you enjoy squeezing every last drop of performance and spare memory out of the system?"

Well it’s obvious that they are going to create an MMO for the PS3, but the question is, is it Champions Online? It looks more and more likely that it is. Will it be a simultaneous release, though, with development on the 360 already in full swing? Or will it take longer for the PS3 version to arrive? Expect an announcement pertaining to this at this year’s GDC.

TGR Rating: Highly Likely

Author: TGRStaff

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