Customers at the Best Buy in Scranton, PA, will have a chance to throw down with real soldiers from the Pennsylvania National Guard when they swing by to pick up their copies of Modern Warfare 2.
The idea of warming up for digital soldiers by tangling with a bunch of real ones doesn't strike me as a particularly wise idea but then I've always felt that one of the great things about videogames is that I can shoot as many people as I want and nobody ever actually shoots back. The same is true for this Best Buy premiere, of course; they're not going to hand out M16s to gamers or set up hand-to-hand exhibitions in the home theater section. Instead, you'll have a chance to take on members of the Pennsylvania National Guard in the time-honored martial art of Laser Tag.
The Scranton Warfare Premiere will take place outside the store, said David Partenio of Best Buy, while a Modern Warfare 2 LAN party will rage on inside. The store will also be offering a "pre-order price match" program, in which anyone who brings in a receipt showing a $5 pre-order placed at GameStop, Walmart or Toys R Us will be given $5 off the price of the game at Best Buy. Kotaku said Best Buy was "testing" the program, indicating that we might see more of this sort of thing in the future.
This won't be the first time Best Buy has gone all-out for a videogame launch: In March the store in Stroudsburg, PA, held a "Blood Red Carpet Event" for Resident Evil 5, featuring a haunted house, contests, a horde of zombies and another appearance by the National Guard, this time struggling to stem the tide of the undead.
The presence of the Army at a videogame-themed event certainly won't go over well with everyone but it sounds like fun to me. More information about Best Buy's Modern Warfare 2 premiere in Scranton will be revealed soon; in the meantime, if you're going to be in the neighborhood on November 10 anyway, why not swing by and check it out?
Real soldiers? We're talking the NATIONAL GUARD here, people! If they're real soldiers I'm a fairy princess. At least they're doing something worthy of their "training" and playing laser tag. I dealt with a lot of these American weekend warriors when I was in the Canadian military, and the word "unimpressed" almost describes my feelings. Untrained, unprofessional, and too much attitude. Our reservists would destroy them without even trying (and proved it time and time again in war games.)
Sorry to shit all over this, but it irritates me when the National Guard gets glorified in any way, they're mostly fucking lawyers and dentists who like to play bang-bang on the weekends, then hit the golf course. Put them in a real combat situation and they'll freeze. This happened over and over again in Afghanistan and Iraq, but you won't hear about it on the news. I heard about it from the source, Canadian soldiers risking their lives to save some half-assed wannabes.
Other than that, it sounds like a pretty cool way to promote a video game; have some regular joes go up against some Guardsmen. Sounds like a fair fight, neither of them have any training.
I thought gamers would be playing against soldiers in the actual game, not in real life. Laser tag is significantly more awesome. I feel like some hardcore COD'ers will be surprised when their 'uber realist' skills doesn't transfer into the real world against trained soldiers, though. I'd pay to see than :)
scotth266: Of course this happens when I'm out of state. Just like the launch of Resi 5.
I have no luck.
Amnestic: America gets to mess around with their national guard. The UK gets a price hike.
/Bitch //Whine ///Have fun guys :P
Ha ha! My plan is working!
This reminds me of when I played laser tag against, unbeknownst to me at the time, one of the top teams in the state. I spent literally 90% of that game shooting at one guy, who spent the same amount of time shooting at me. He ended up getting first while I got third, ahead of most of his teammates. Hopefully the NG won't completely embarrass themselves.
Undercover: Real soldiers? We're talking the NATIONAL GUARD here, people! If they're real soldiers I'm a fairy princess. At least they're doing something worthy of their "training" and playing laser tag. I dealt with a lot of these American weekend warriors when I was in the Canadian military, and the word "unimpressed" almost describes my feelings. Untrained, unprofessional, and too much attitude. Our reservists would destroy them without even trying (and proved it time and time again in war games.)
Sorry to shit all over this, but it irritates me when the National Guard gets glorified in any way, they're mostly fucking lawyers and dentists who like to play bang-bang on the weekends, then hit the golf course. Put them in a real combat situation and they'll freeze. This happened over and over again in Afghanistan and Iraq, but you won't hear about it on the news. I heard about it from the source, Canadian soldiers risking their lives to save some half-assed wannabes.
Other than that, it sounds like a pretty cool way to promote a video game; have some regular joes go up against some Guardsmen. Sounds like a fair fight, neither of them have any training.
Not that I have an opinion or anything...
If your national guard are anything like our Terratorial army then your are incredibly wrong, but I dont think they are so I will let your comment lie for now.
Scranton?! But Michael was going to do that at Dunder-Mifflin, except you'd get to meet people who work at paper mills. Best Buy is always stealing the good ideas!
OT: I assume that is gonna be annoying for the soldiers... they'll snap by the end of the day.
They were at the VGExpo and talked about how they were having this competition as well. Apparently, these guys go around doing "free to enter" tournaments. At the VGExpo, they were doing a 2v2 tournament for free copies of Halo: ODST.
They also had a push-up competition...the national guardsmen lead it with 81...
Undercover: Real soldiers? We're talking the NATIONAL GUARD here, people! If they're real soldiers I'm a fairy princess. At least they're doing something worthy of their "training" and playing laser tag. I dealt with a lot of these American weekend warriors when I was in the Canadian military, and the word "unimpressed" almost describes my feelings. Untrained, unprofessional, and too much attitude. Our reservists would destroy them without even trying (and proved it time and time again in war games.)
Sorry to shit all over this, but it irritates me when the National Guard gets glorified in any way, they're mostly fucking lawyers and dentists who like to play bang-bang on the weekends, then hit the golf course. Put them in a real combat situation and they'll freeze. This happened over and over again in Afghanistan and Iraq, but you won't hear about it on the news. I heard about it from the source, Canadian soldiers risking their lives to save some half-assed wannabes.
Other than that, it sounds like a pretty cool way to promote a video game; have some regular joes go up against some Guardsmen. Sounds like a fair fight, neither of them have any training.
Not that I have an opinion or anything...
You must have terribly low standards if playing Laser Tag as part of a promotion is being 'glorified'.
Too bad it's only laser tag. Should have been either paintball or airsoft.
Probably an insurance thing or something. Paintball and airsoft generally have a much higher injury rate than laser tag. I know that during my own paintball playing days if I didn't lose blood during the course of the day, I probably wasn't being challenged much. Of course, not everyone has my unique combination of determination, pain tolerance and more than occasional wild flailing so I imagine the worst most get is the minor bruising from the paintballs.
When I read Scranton, PA, I almost crapped a brick. That Best Buy is literally 10 minutes from my house.
Too bad I'm currently at Penn State, which is 3 hours away. Though I might just give my parents a call and come down for that. If only to school the National Guard in the finer points of Laser Tag. :D
Undercover: Real soldiers? We're talking the NATIONAL GUARD here, people! If they're real soldiers I'm a fairy princess. At least they're doing something worthy of their "training" and playing laser tag. I dealt with a lot of these American weekend warriors when I was in the Canadian military, and the word "unimpressed" almost describes my feelings. Untrained, unprofessional, and too much attitude. Our reservists would destroy them without even trying (and proved it time and time again in war games.)
Sorry to shit all over this, but it irritates me when the National Guard gets glorified in any way, they're mostly fucking lawyers and dentists who like to play bang-bang on the weekends, then hit the golf course. Put them in a real combat situation and they'll freeze. This happened over and over again in Afghanistan and Iraq, but you won't hear about it on the news. I heard about it from the source, Canadian soldiers risking their lives to save some half-assed wannabes.
Other than that, it sounds like a pretty cool way to promote a video game; have some regular joes go up against some Guardsmen. Sounds like a fair fight, neither of them have any training.
Not that I have an opinion or anything...
Geez lotta hate on the Guard there.....I question your sources about the iraq/afgan part.
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Take On the National Guard at Best Buy's Modern Warfare 2 Premiere
Customers at the Best Buy in Scranton, PA, will have a chance to throw down with real soldiers from the Pennsylvania National Guard when they swing by to pick up their copies of Modern Warfare 2.
The idea of warming up for digital soldiers by tangling with a bunch of real ones doesn't strike me as a particularly wise idea but then I've always felt that one of the great things about videogames is that I can shoot as many people as I want and nobody ever actually shoots back. The same is true for this Best Buy premiere, of course; they're not going to hand out M16s to gamers or set up hand-to-hand exhibitions in the home theater section. Instead, you'll have a chance to take on members of the Pennsylvania National Guard in the time-honored martial art of Laser Tag.
The Scranton Warfare Premiere will take place outside the store, said David Partenio of Best Buy, while a Modern Warfare 2 LAN party will rage on inside. The store will also be offering a "pre-order price match" program, in which anyone who brings in a receipt showing a $5 pre-order placed at GameStop, Walmart or Toys R Us will be given $5 off the price of the game at Best Buy. Kotaku said Best Buy was "testing" the program, indicating that we might see more of this sort of thing in the future.
This won't be the first time Best Buy has gone all-out for a videogame launch: In March the store in Stroudsburg, PA, held a "Blood Red Carpet Event" for Resident Evil 5, featuring a haunted house, contests, a horde of zombies and another appearance by the National Guard, this time struggling to stem the tide of the undead.
The presence of the Army at a videogame-themed event certainly won't go over well with everyone but it sounds like fun to me. More information about Best Buy's Modern Warfare 2 premiere in Scranton will be revealed soon; in the meantime, if you're going to be in the neighborhood on November 10 anyway, why not swing by and check it out?
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