Modern Warfare 2 was released earlier this week to universal praise. It has also hit a few speed bumps, regarding it’s controversial “No Russian” level, where you play as a CIA agent that has infiltrated a Russian terrorist cell that attacks a Moscow airport. Besides the controversial nature of the content in the level, gamers have also noticed that there’s no Achievements associated with “No Russian”.

Or is there? Secret Achievement unlocked, after the jump.

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Top row, L to R: Wonder Russell (PR for Runic Games), Jason Varden (PR for Perfect World), Mike Fisher (2D Artist) Matt Tanwanteng (Engineer), Patrick Blank (Lead Level Designer), Peter Hu (Lead Engineer and Founder) Bottom row, L to R: Travis Baldree (President of Runic Games, Project Director) Brock Jones (Producer) Jason Lamb (QA)

I love underdogs.  I love scrappy young upstarts who buck the system and manage to come out on top.   So, when I see Torchlight scoring an 86 over at Metacritic and getting positive front page coverage at Penny Arcade…well, it’s just a Irish jig fest all around.

Runic Games took some time out of their busy schedule of soaking up praise from the PC community to sit down and talk with me about their recent launch, their future plans, and even answered some of our community members questions!  Take a listen here!

Subscribe to all of the great community shows via iTunes or RSS, or download this episode right here:mp3

For those that subscribe to the iTunes feed and support the SGC Podcasts, we’d REALLY appreciate your iTunes feedback. Thanks!

Whilst trudging one of the Eurogamer Expo’s many well-carpeted corridors (seriously, these carpets are plush!), we passed a screen showing Avatar: The Game in three dee! Fascinated by the large, JVC, coruscating display we decided to wander over in hope of having our minds utterly blown. As we carried out the aforementioned wandering, we heard an expo visitor point to the screen and say, “Oh yeah, that’s the new Halo.”

To be honest, expo visistor, we made the exact same mistake (thrice, in fact!) and, well, it’s easy to see why.
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NB: This should’ve gone up yesterday but I sorta fell asleep before I could put it up. Enjoy regardless!

Guys: STREET FIGHTER. MightyMutt’s winning.

It’s just coming up to 1am in London, and I’m sitting here with MightyMutt, Pillowfort and Krelith in MM’s humble abode having recorded our first podcast (which might hit soon, might not).

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Choochoo! Trains don’t make that sort of noise anymore. In fact, the one I’m on at the moment is practically silent. And it tilts in the corners.

Why am I on board such a marvellous contraption? If the header image and the title weren’t much of a giveaway, I’m making my way down the country to London for the Eurogamer Expo!

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This Friday and Saturday the Sarcastic Gamer UK team will get to flex their convention skills for the first time as they attack the Eurogamer Expo with full on sarcastic force! Myself, MightyMutt, Pillowfort, Krelith and possibly even Monstar and Eoco will be making ourselves known at and around the Expo and you’re more than welcome to join us and annoy us and stroke my hair and whatever else it is you strange internet people tend to do among real human beings.

You want to know more? Course you don’t. Hit the jump anyway.

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Editor’s note: This is yet another in a long list of kick-ass Sarcastic Gamer Survival Guides. If you want to check out the others in the series, click here for the list of guides, which includes GTA IV, Call of Duty 4, Gears of War 2 and Far Cry 2.

In Dead Space Extraction, it’s kill or be killed. You have to think fast, with a finger ever at the trigger. Of course, it’s important to make every shot count. You don’t want to get caught with your pants down, forced to reload with a bevy of foes bearing down.

For those having some difficulty surviving the Necromorph-infested halls of the USG Ishimura, I’ve put together a handy little guide to ease the pain. Even if you’re an ace shot, you might find that some of my tips push your star rating to a new height. So, as Black Label Society singer and guitarist Zakk Wylde would say, fire it up.

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Well, I wasn’t going to write on any of these topics, but seeing as times are tough and we’ve got a very large demographic of people who haven’t had their first part time job yet, free and cheap is more good-er.

So here’s a trio of deals too good to pass up on!

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"Alas and alack! I am teh OWNED!"

In honor of two of the larger titles to hit the shelves in some time (in my opinion), we’re going to double up on them for this week’s Duelist League:  Brutal Legend and Uncharted 2!  Of course, if I could do a Demon’s Souls Duelist League week, I totally would.

Maybe you people need to look at the leaderboard, but all that separates 1st place from 4th place is one match!  It’s still anyone’s ball game!  Shiny prizes await those at the top three! Hit the jump to see who you your competition is! Official sign ups here!

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Gaming for 24 straight hours requires planning: a comfortable chair and clothes, a stack of unopened video games, a phone with pizza and Chinese take out numbers on speed dial, a crate of various power and energy drinks…the list goes on and on.

But it requires a game plan.  The question was asked in a staff email the other day by Lesley, and I have compiled the list of games that the staffers here at SG are going to be tackling during Extra Life!  Look us up, find us online: let’s get some major online parties going on.

We will also be updating a forum posting as we go throughout the day with our in-game plans, travels and exploits.  Track where you can find us, make plans with us, etc.  For example, I’ve already secured a four man fire team to go through all of the achievements in ODST for first thing Saturday morning, while Lono and the Lono-nauts will be tackling Call of Duty: World At War Zombie Map 3 over with Achievement Hunter.

Hit the jump for the list of games and the staffers playing them, complete with PSN IDs and Gamertags!

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Hey, cutie, why don't you put down the lightsaber and....WHOA!

I came up with this great idea to get people into dueling and totally forgot about until the day before Extra Life!  Der, way to promote your contest, dipstick.

Sarcastic Gamers, listen up!  If you’ve ever wanted to duel anyone from the community and get credit for it towards our contest (now with shiny prizes!), now is the time!  I am officially announcing that at the start of Extra Life tomorrow morning until the final bell rings Sunday morning, there is no restriction of which games you want to play for duelist credit!

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Okay, look. Just because I can’t draw any neat-o logos or graphics of your Xbox avatars in race jumpsuits and fancy sponsor stickers and whatnot doesn’t mean you can’t go get some in another racing game out there.  The work UndeadDog has put into his Forza 3 racing league has, methinks, overshadowed plain ol’ vanilla Burnout from last week.

Here are the stats after last week’s competition!

Leaderboard: (as of October 13th):
Jus Blaze Man02: 2 W/0 L, 135 XP
TinyButDeadly: 2 W/0 L, 125 XP
PurpleDemon: 2 W/1 L, 120 XP
Yamster:1 W/0 L, 115 XP
BlinkinCard: 1 W/1 L, 100 XP
Shanghai Six: 1 W/1 L, 100 XP
NuclearNinja: 0 W/1 L, 90 XP
TomCoopz: 0 W/1 L, 85 XP
Otacon91: 0 W/1 L, 85 XP
Pikminguts92: 0 W/1 L, 85 XP
IceKatanaX: 0 W/1 L 80 XP
SmellyPirate: 0 W/1 L, 75 XP

If you’ve haven’t checked it out, take at look at the Gamernights forum and check out the Forza 3 race series that UndeadDog is putting on (here’s the link).  Pretty wizza stuff; too bad I’m not a racing guy.

Back into the mix bag we go, and out we pull a fighting game!  Street Fighter IV, the perfect freestanding arcade, I’ve-got-next, put-your-quarter-on-the-screen challenge game, seems to me. 

RULES:
1)  Each week, look for the thread in the Official Sarcastic Gamer Gamenights forum for the stickied Duelist League thread (here’s the sign up link!).  If a game is not listed for the systems you own (Wii, PC), you may choose one game for one of these systems and challenge someone else with it, but you’ll only be able to get one match that week.

2) Post in the thread that you own the game and that you are looking for a fight.

3) Pick a fight with another SG member who has registered on the thread.  You can only challenge that member once a week.  The details (time, place, system, game type) of the match are up to the two combatants.

4) All combatants start at 100 experience points.  Both players agree to a wager on how many points they are playing for.  Max wager is 25 points, and you cannot go below 5 points (so someone can work their way back up if they are knocked out).  Not only will win/loss be registered, but the experience point tally will be kept as well.

5) The results of the match are posted on the thread.

6) WE HAVE PRIZES. Top duelists will be rewarded with forum titles, avatars, bragging rights, serving wenches, and yes, now top finishers will receive prizes.  It won’t be for points cards like Summer Games was, but you’ll still walk away with something if you finish respectably well on the leaderboards.

Round 5, FIGHT!

That’s right bitches we finally got one right! The Defibrillator has been confirmed in L4D2.  Sarcastic Gamer had it first about a month before the big boys, Kotaku and Joystiq. We out rumored Kotaku? Aw hell yeah, next thing you know, we’ll start posting pictures of gaming inspired pumpkins and cakes.

Read on for more awesomeness.

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