No clue what this DLC actually is (but it’s probably maps, if previous games’ content is indicative), and it doesn’t look like we’ll get much of a hint at the moment.

As per usual, PC and PS3 players will likely have to wait a few weeks for the content.

Who says guys can’t have a softer side? Industry Vets, Christopher Cherubini and David Chiapperino have created Jupiter Moon Studios. Christopher is from Activision/Infinity Ward as a Lead Artist for Call of Duty and the Modern Warfare series. David comes from Disney having worked on Pirates of the Caribbean and Toontown. They plan on creating their own IP.

Jupiter Moon’s first title will be for the iOS. Bunny Popper will be released this December. Bunny Popper was created with accessibility in mind. Basically gameplay can be done with one finger. Don’t let the cute look fool you, these bunnies are evil!
The premise of Bunny Popper is, “evil inflatable bunnies from outer space are invading a carrot farm. The carrots need you to stop the hoards of hares from taking them away!”

Mom’s don’t have to worry about passing their iPad or iTouch device to their kids to play. Bunny Popper’s target audience is moms and their kids. No worries about influences from Call of Duty here. There are 16 levels plus 4 bonus levels in the game and you get a bonus achievement for popping every bunny in the level.

Jupiter Moon is located in Los Angeles and while not hiring yet, but they expect to grow in 2012, so watch their Bunny Popper. Jupiter Moon plans on expanding to developing titles for a variety of platforms including console.

Modern Warfare 3 not-so-subtly hints that it’s about a third World War, and…well, World War III sure does look like Call of Duty. I’m not a CoD connoisseur, so maybe it looks different to people who are, but…yeah. That’s the best descriptor I’ve got.

Watch the trailer below.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 releases November 8.

If you haven’t played any CoD titles, Activision has published a good place to start with their WWII-era compilation that includes Infinity Ward’s Call of Duty 2 and 3, as well as Treyarch’s World at War. The collection is only available for the XBOX 360 and retails at $59.99. CoD2 & 3 have an ESRB rating of “Teen”, whereas World at War is rated “Mature.”

If you’re more into the Zombie-killin’ thing, Activision has you covered there too; they’ve released the second version of the World at War Zombies for iPhone. The update is only $5 for those who bought the original, and $10 for the standalone app.

Touting seventeen tracks, the official soundtrack for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is finally on the market and can be downloaded on iTunes [Warning: opens iTunes] for $.99 a song or $9.99 for the whole album.

Written by Lorne Balf and produced by Oscar award-winning composer Hans Zimmer, who also scored the main theme, the music in CoD:MW2 creates a solid base from which the record-breaking game engulfs players into intense and emotional scenarios.

The simplest website design ever.

Jason West and Vince Zampella, recently-fired Infinity Ward Co-Founders and Creators of the Call of Duty series, have formed a new development studio, Respawn Entertainment.

In a move that surprises approximately no one, Electronic Arts, Activision’s main competitor, has been awarded worldwide publishing and distribution rights by the studio.

Because West and Zampella have been involved in FPS titles for so long, it’s almost certain (especially considering the startup’s name) that they’ll continue making games in the FPS genre. (Even though they apparently don’t have any specific games planned.)

Their deal with EA allows them to own any IP that gets published. So, that’s good for them personally, as it’ll ensure that they get more control over every game that leaves the studio.

EA is currently expecting blockbuster game franchises to come out of the duo, but will their lawsuit against Activision come back to bite them before they even get started? Well, we’ll only know that in time.

At the moment, their website doesn’t have much – the name of the company and an e-mail address for jobs (they’re looking for designers, artists and engineers – submit your resume to jobs@respawn.com). But a lot more’s going to come out of that website. Maybe even some stuff we’ll be fawning over in the future.

It took a couple of days to make sure everyone was contacted, but now I can announce the winners for the past three contests!

The winner of the Xbox 360 & Battlefield Bad Company 2 package provided by GameStop is @TheTriscuit! He was one of the several people who picked Charlie’s Angels as the winning team in the Celebrity Bracket Challenge and was randomly chosen by GameStop as the new owner a 360 system and BFBC2.

Our What’s Up With Activision contest, which gives some love to Neversoft & Infinity Ward following the insanity that’s been happening at both Activision branches, saw Risha Korrine win a copy of Modern Warfare 2 and Scott Snell win Guitar Hero 5 for leaving comments over on our Facebook group.

And finally, the winner of the God of War collection for the PS3 as well as a God of War 3 hoodie, is MSGROCKS1.

Congrats to all of our winners and make sure you stay tuned into GamingAngels for more chances to win!

First off, the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Stimulus Package (the first DLC for the title) drops on March 30. This brings new multiplayer maps to the title. Xbox LIVE is the first to get the update, but the price wasn’t announced (if there is one).

If you’re a Silver Xbox LIVE member, there’s going to be free multiplayer for you from March 12 to 15, just so you can try it out (and of course to entice you to switch to the Gold side of things).

But hey, you’ve got other reasons to switch to Gold besides Modern Warfare 2 – our Xbox LIVE Community Arcade Night, co-hosted with The Married Gamers! (If you want me, I’ll be in the Yahtzee room, natch.)

Activision may have thought they could end their problems with letting go the two heads of Infinity Ward, but Jason West and Vince Zampella released a press statement today stating that they are suing Activision.

West and Zampella served as the president/game director and CEO starting in 2003.

“Activision has refused to honor the terms of its agreements and is intentionally flouting the fundamental public policy of this State (California) that employers must pay their employees what they have rightfully earned,” said their attorney Robert Schwartz. “Instead of thanking, lauding, or just plain paying Jason and Vince for giving Activision the most successful entertainment product ever offered to the public, last month Activision hired lawyers to conduct a pretextual ‘investigation’ into unstated and unsubstantiated charges of ‘insubordination’ and ‘breach of fiduciary duty,’ which then became the grounds for their termination on Monday, March 1st.”

“We were shocked by Activision’s decision to terminate our contract,” said West. “We poured our heart and soul into that company, building not only a world class development studio, but assembling a team we’ve been proud to work with for nearly a decade. We think the work we’ve done speaks for itself.”

But it looks like what Jason and Vince are looking for is very simple…a paycheck.

Zampella added, “After all we have given to Activision, we shouldn’t have to sue to get paid.”

Rating: M for Mature
Genre: FPS (First Person Shooter)
Publisher: Activision/Infinity Ward
Release Date: November, 2009

BUY

*Review does contain some spoilers*

Infinity Ward is a class act and because of that it’s no surprise that gamers have high expectations when the studio releases a title. Moving away from their World War II focus, Infinity Ward choose to bring the battle home in Modern Warfare 2. It has sold incredibly well, but the game is definitely not perfect. Is this an example of hype or does Modern Warfare 2 really live up to the praise?

In Modern Warfare 2, the player controls a few different characters. Gamers will play as Sergeant Gary “Roach” Sanderson, for most of the title. Modern Warfare 2 is set five years after the events in Call of Duty 4. Vladimir Makarov, a Russian Terrorist, begins a campaign against Europe and creates a situation where the Russian government believe that American Terrorists are to blame. Making a situation where Russia attacks America on their soil. Throughout the title, you switch between fighting on American soil and hunting down Makarov.

Modern Warfare 2 is made up of three different modes: a single player campaign, multiplayer and spec-ops. From what I can tell, most gamers feel so strongly about one of these three areas to excuse the other areas for being weak. Many gamers have jumped right into multiplayer and have not touched the single player campaign. The Single Player campaign is shorter than most. Multiplayer uses the unlockable reward system and builds on experience points. Spec-Ops is a co-op mode that consists of independent missions that take place in similar locations to the single player story but are completely new missions.

For this review you have to learn a little bit about me. I am not the strongest shooter gamer in general. But I have always had a fondness for Call of Duty titles. I play them even though I may struggle.  I believe that if you are a hard core multiplayer FPS gamer, then you are going to purchase MW2 and love it. There are some glitches in multiplayer, but FourZeroTwo states that they are working on them. This is a review may be more for people that may not be completely into mutliplayer and want to know if this is a title they should look into.

The first thing I did with MW2 was to jump right into multiplayer. It could be the time of day I was playing, but the matchmaking was way off. I was proud of my few kills, but I definitely got my booty handed to me. There was a huge learning curve for me and not being able to play with other new players was a huge disadvantage and ultimately a turn-off to multiplayer. Even though I am not the best, I do enjoy playing multiplayer. But practicing in order to get better is almost impossible when put with people that are higher ranked than you. I am curious to know what you think of the reward system. It seems that once a player gets a reward for an air-strike (for example) it is easier for that person to stay at the top and continue to earn rewards. Which provides another discouraging slant to multiplayer.

From there, I started playing the single player story. Here’s what I didn’t like about the single player story: I didn’t really understand that the story was following a path until halfway through. Then the story seems to really be about a focal plot point. The weird thing is, when I look back, I realize that the story is carried throughout the game, but in the first half of the title, I was extremely confused. Infinity Ward is known for it’s strong story with strong gameplay, but I felt disappointed that the single player seemed to be so fragmented. Maybe it’s the constant switching from a main player to the point of view of other characters. That’s a novelty the first or second time, after that it seems to create confusion. I do have to say that I LOVED the last half of the story.

The last thing I didn’t like was the airport scene or “No Russian” mission. Maybe it’s all the hype built around it, but I expected to have an emotional reaction to this mission. Everyone on my Twitter seemed to be affected by this mission. Was I emotionally cold? Did I loose my heart somewhere in gaming? While many discussed a choice in participating or not, there really is no choice. You can choose when starting the title to skip that content. But if you go through the content you can either shoot or walk and watch. I tried attacking the Russians and died very quickly. Moral choices in games is something many developers discuss, but to me this mission had no moral choice. I chose not to shoot at the airport visitors, but I couldn’t keep them from getting shot. It just felt very removed for me. Would I have a different reaction if the level was more of a secret? Maybe.

What did I love about MW2?
I loved the second half of the single player story. It really was quite amazing to play a shooter that takes place in a destroyed White House. At one point the shooting takes place in front of a fast food joint. It’s just amazing to think of what a war would be like on our land.

I loved Spec-Ops. Being in a gamer relationship, the more co-op we can play, the more a title will be played. We loved playing the Spec-Ops together and got very competitive. Gamers can pick level of difficulty and earn up to three stars based on how they complete the mission. Once enough stars are earned more missions will unlock. In total there are 23 missions, and 69 stars available for unlock. Spec-ops is something you can play alone, but the fun is definitely in the co-op.

The single player is shorter and doesn’t seem as strong as what I expect from Infinity Ward but it is an enjoyable experience. I believe there is something for all types of gamers in Modern Warfare 2. The amount of replay may vary based on what type of gamer you are, but this is one 2009 title that you can’t miss out on.

**Review copy provided by Activision and does not effect the outcome of this review.**