Very disturbing accusations are being hurled from the Bungie camp this morning, as the developer takes aim at Inifinty Ward.

“Modern Warfare 2 is just like an idea we’ve been kicking around for some time,” said Bungie’s Jeff Needler.  “For years we’ve been talking about releasing something awesome that innovates upon a franchise without just recycling the same character models, weapons, vehicles, and graphical assets.  It’s obvious that corporate espionage has occurred here.” (more…)

As if fake mustaches and kissing Rothbart’s ass wasn’t enough, we’re proud to bring you the next round in our series of sponsor competitions, ramping up to the January launch of the Sarcastic Gamer Racing league.

Be further intrigued/disturbed after the jump!

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Michael Atkinson just doesn’t get it. The South Australian attorney general has penned a letter explaining his staunch opposition to a R 18+ rating for computer games in the country, which can be read at Grow up Australia, a site in support of a classification above the current MA 15+ marking. In the piece, Atkinson defends the current structure, even though it “restricts adult liberty to a small degree.” He opines on what he believes to be a troubling amount of violence in society, and the need to protect children and “vulnerable” adults from excessive gore. His concerns are certainly admirable, I’ll give Atkinson that.

However, it is not his duty – nor that of the government – to act as a dam for adult content.

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Sarcastic Gamer has been given an inside exclusive on a Left4Dead2 story of momentous importance and significance. Sure to shock the gaming world, this news is so fresh we do not even have pictures to prove it has happened. You are just going to have to rely on something thin on the ground in these modern days of evil globe conquering Internets – that of trust.

Trust, that we at Sarcastic Gamer would not lie to you — except every Friday, where we do Fiction Friday, oh and every time we talk about Frawlz’s known whereabouts, and, um, the fact we haven’t told you that Doc has been replaced by an evil cyborg from the future, oh and also that time I told Rothbart I really did have an Atari 2000 rather than admitting a typing mistake — apart from THOSE times, we would never, EVER lie to you…well…unless we had to for some reason… But now is not one of those times!

For all the hair raising (or trimming) truths better buzz on over to the next page…

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It was a moment of extreme satisfaction; the cap to a short, yet mentally taxing journey. An accomplishment that one tends to gloat over, raising a fist while proclaiming: “Fuck yes, I won the day.” Despite my trials, I persevered, and emerged stronger as a result.

For some, Braid is an artistic gem, offering gorgeous, stylized visuals and an equally impressive score. I certainly won’t provide a counterargument. However, to me, the challenges make the experience.

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Let’s get this party started! It’s time for the Sarcastic Gamer Racing League to fight tooth and nail for sponsors…in front of all of you fine readers! We have two sponsors up for grabs, and believe me, one of them is REALLY “up for grabs.”

Hit the jump, League participants, for all the info on who you should be getting noticed by!

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Our intrepid roving reporter MightyMutt tackles Ubisoft on Assassin’s Creed II and Splinter Cell, gets the facts on Alien vs Predator and Bayonetta from SEGA, learns a ton about LittleBigPlanet on PSP and gets the dirty on Split/Second from developer Black Rock.

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

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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!

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There’s a bunch of new games out this week. A bunch came out last week and the MOAB of games will drop like the mighty God of Thunder next Tuesday.  I don’t have time to play them all, but I did have time to play the first couple of hours of:

Ratchet and Clank: Crack in Time

GTAIV: The Ballad of Gay Tony

Read on for initial impressions and see if either is worth your time.

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Podcast number two from the UK team of Yamster, Pillowfort, MightyMutt and Krelith, recorded at the end of the first day of the Eurogamer Expo. Hear what they had to say on the games they saw including Split/Second, Heavy Rain and more! Check out part one of the podcast 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!

We took loads of photos (well, I took a load of photos) at Eurogamer over the course of two absolutely brilliant days. While we still have plenty of things to come over the next couple of days, I figured it’d be cool to share some photos with you so you could see what you missed out on.

You might even be in some of them! Check them out over the jump.
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This is important. So important in fact, that if Chuck Norris approached you and said, “Hey, the contents of this box I’m holding are REALLY important,” you’d be all like, “No way Mr Norris, this article on SG is more important than your box. Goodbye, and I loved you in Forced Vengeance.”

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Welcome to Eurogamer London, where the games of tomorrow (as well as the games of last month), are playable, and you can’t get anywhere near them because in true gaming fashion, the event organisers have set up what I can only describe as “choke points” throughout the building. Were I a hunter of gaming nerds, I’d be on a guaranteed kill streak.

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