The Week in Review

The Week in Review, the only gaming news roundup endorsed by Mornos and Born-Again Lizards.

Of Brains and Bewbs

Sex sells; everyone knows that. From beer to cars, advertisers use ‘teh boobies’ to hawk us products, and games are no different. We’ve all seen the ads for free MMO Evony and likely rolled our eyes at the parade of increasingly lurid adds. Well guess what? PopCap did the same thing, and then satirised the Evony ads with one of their own for the horticultural and undead themed tour de force Plants Vs Zombies.

I like to call her ‘Darleen’, I think she’s purty… (link)

Sinning, Winning and Rebuffing

EA has caught plenty of heat over their ‘Sin-to-Win’ marketing campaign, and it appears that in an effort to regain some face, they selected a man posing with another man as one of the runners-up. Unfortunately for them, the winner in question was a writer for GayGamer who politely turned down the offered prize and offered EA some useful suggestions about how they might spend the $240 he had saved them.

So fair EA has kept its mouth shut over PixelPoet’s message. Probably wise. (link)

Germany Bitten by Net Petition

In the hierarchy of effective protests, the internet petition ranks somewhere alongside angrily yelling at the moon. This holds true everywhere, well, everywhere except German it seems, which has a law that any internet petition that receives more than 50,000 signatures must be discussed in public hearing.

This becomes especially relevant as Germany has been mulling over a blanket ban on violent games following the Winnenden shootings and this humble petition has thrown a spanner into the works. Will this be the saviour of German gamers? Only time will tell. (link)

William Shatner: Poet of the Frozen North

If there’s one thing that Republicans and Democrats can agree on, it’s that Sarah Palin’s resignation speech was a sprawling mess. Thanks to Conan O’Brien though, we discovered what the problem was, Palin lacks a poet’s soul.

But help was on hand was in the form of Captain Kirk AKA William Shatner, whose dulcet tones lent the speech the rich warmth it deserved. Click the link for the video. (link)

Raining Down Death in Modern Warfare 2

UAV, Airstrike, Helicopter. For players of Call of Duty 4 this is a familiar list, perhaps too familiar. Knowing that familiarity breeds contempt – and kidnappings – Infinity Ward have released video footage of their new unlock system, which allows players to customize their list.

I’d be surprised if they let you get something like an airstrike before you get something like a UAV, but the ability to call in an AC-130 should you get to a kill streak of 11, is a pretty nice addition. Hit the link for video-y goodness. (link)