One of the many volleys in DICE's Battlefield Bad Company 2 marketing campaign meant to sway Modern Warfare 2 loyalists towards its upcoming shooter was the promise of dedicated servers for PC players. That said, when the Swedish game development house recently announced a rental service for those interested in using said dedicated servers, some folks were less than thrilled.

According to producer Gordon Van Dyke in an interview with Eurogamer, the reasoning doesn't have to do with profits so much as protecting "the game's integrity on PC." Van Dyke also indicates that DICE's "authorized hosts" have already been chosen worldwide, though he notes that the studio "will see where the game goes and support it post-launch." At very least, PC gamers will get a chance to find out if the rental fee is worth it when the game goes into PC beta on January 28.

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In a surprisingly lighthearted move, Rockstar appears to have responded to recent accusations of overwork (among many other things) with a series of wallpaper designs on its official site. The designs are presumably a comment based on statements made to the MTV Multiplayer Blog from a former Rockstar New York employee who compared the company management's wandering focus to that of the vengeful "Eye of Sauron" -- the fictional all-seeing evil in the Lord of the Rings franchise.

The trio of wallpaper designs -- which are not-so-subtly titled, "The Eye" -- may very well mark the first time that Rockstar has responded to claims of mismanagement and overworking its employees. While the wallpaper is certainly stylish enough for our computer backdrop, we can't help but think poking fun at reports that the company has treated its workers like robots is a little classless. Also, we have to wonder how many overtime hours were used to create these totally radical designs.

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If you haven't got any cash to donate to charitable organizations who're currently lending a hand with recovery efforts in Haiti, don't fret -- Bungie's organizing a free method for you to show your support. All you have to do is change your Halo 3 (or ODST) emblem to the heart seen in the image above, and play any of the games' online modes this coming Wednesday and Thursday. Bungie's donating a dime for every person who does so to the Red Cross (up to a maximum donation of $77,000). Check out Bungie's blog for more information about the event.

If you're wanting to make a slightly larger contribution, you could also purchase a special version of the Superintendent t-shirt from the Bungie store -- all of the proceeds from which will also go directly to the Red Cross.

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This week heralded the end of the Calling All Cars saga, as David Jaffe finally saw the lights go out on his PSN baby. He's got a set of final thoughts over on his blog -- he says that as his first online game, it was definitely a learning experience, and while there were good times, it wasn't the most fun he'd ever had. He's suprisingly regretful about the whole thing: He says that he seriously thinks he probably should have "made it war themed and ['ditched'] the cartoony stuff," and that it was really a problem of expectation. At $10, he says, they were expecting gamers buying downloadable titles to just be "sampling them like candy," not looking for a full game experience.

But we wouldn't worry too much about Jaffe -- while he jokes that the CAC server shutdown "marks the beginning of the end of my career," we're sure there's still more fun to be had from that mind of his. We're hoping to see what he's got planned next by the time E3 rolls around this year.

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If you've been sitting on your duff, waiting for a chance to pick up a digital copy of Plants vs. Zombies or Peggle, you might just want to take the plunge at some point today. No, none of the developer's titles are temporarily discounted -- rather, for one day only, all monies spent on any of the games in PopCap's store will go directly to Partners in Health; an organization that's currently working to help Haiti recover from the catastrophic earthquake it suffered earlier this week.

It's a pretty generous promotion from the casual gaming juggernaut -- but it's only running until midnight. Get to shopping, Joystiq Biomass!

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If you're still a little incensed about the totally boobular North American box art for Heavy Rain, you might want to skip right past this post. See, Sony Europe recently revealed the EU-only special edition bundle for Quantic Dream's mystery/thriller, and it looks pretty wonderful. It's got stylish fold-out packaging covered in realistic, imprinted raindrops, and comes with a DLC voucher, a page covered in helpful notes and some do-it-yourself origami.

More importantly, the front of the game doesn't look terrible. Europe's current ratio of not-terrible Heavy Rain covers to terrible Heavy Rain covers is an impressive 2:0. They are batting 1000, as far as not-terrible Heavy Rain covers are concerned.

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The last beta phase for Zipper Interactive's pseudo-MMOFPS MAG has ended, and the developer has compiled some facts and figures you may find fascinating. According to a recent post on the studio's blog, over one million people downloaded the MAG beta client worldwide. Of that group, around 619,000 people gained at least one point of experience, 52,846 became eligible for Squad Leader status, 10,249 became Platoon Leaders, 3,181 hit the rank of Officer in Charge, and only 143 players reached the level 60 experience cap.

Zipper also broke down the populations of the three factions: Raven and Valor each netted about 38 percent of the game's player base, while SVER only picked up 24 percent. However, despite its smaller size, SVER ended up winning out overall for the Sabotage gametype. Well, now we know which private military contractor is the plucky underdog.

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Many readers have been sending tips to Joystiq about a new PS3 firmware update. In actuality, this is not a new update at all. Firmware 3.15 was released on December 9th and introduced the ability to play PSP Minis on the PS3. While this update was originally optional, the powers-that-be at Sony are now making it a mandatory update. "We have found out that users will not be able to acquire trophies on some game titles," we were told by a SCEE representative. "Users can avoid this problem by updating the PS3 system to firmware 3.15 and therefore we've made it a mandatory update. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused and appreciate for your understanding and continued support."

If you haven't updated your PS3 yet, make sure to allocate some time before attempting to jump online to install this mandatory update. You don't want to be late to your MW2 party, do you? [ProTip: Save yourself some time by downloading the update now on a USB flash drive.]

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That woman buying her 12-year-old a copy of Modern Warfare 2 at Gamestop right now may not know about it, but Activision says a recent survey concluded that 82% of gamer parents are well aware of the ESRB rating guidelines and what they mean. The survey also found that 75% of children who play games understand the rating system, and that 70% of parents actually pay close attention to the ratings when buying a game either for themselves or for their families. Note that it doesn't say they follow the ratings, only that they are aware of the system and pay attention to how games are rated.

Gaming families spend a lot of time playing games, too: 76% of parents agree that video games are a big part of their family activities, and among gamer parents, a majority (52%) of their gaming time is spent playing with their children. Finally, a full 59% of kids polled say that "it's a little creepy" when Jane Lynch shows up to play games with you for a Microsoft commercial. Okay, you got us, we lied about that last stat. When anyone from Glee shows up, it's 100% fun.

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If you took an extended break from Mega Man in the 2000s, until the release of Mega Man 9, you missed out on some great, punishing games developed by MM9 creator Inti Creates -- and it appears that Capcom's going to give you a chance to go back to them. Capcom Japan opened a site for "Rockman Zero Collection," a DS compilation of all four Game Boy Advance Rockman Zero/Mega Man Zero games, featuring the adventures of Mega Man X's buddy Zero after the X series. He has a sword.

The collection will be released in Japan on April 22. Capcom has yet to announced a localization, but we're confident the publisher will, given the general attitude of pro-Mega Man sentiment surrounding the upcoming release of Mega Man 10.

[Via The Mega Man Network]

Continue reading Mega Man Zero series to be re-released as DS collection

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