Don't forget to jump down the Seatown well for 500XP.

I know, I know, the first Elite maps haven’t hit PS3 yet, but we still have plenty of reasons to play some MW3 on PS3 this weekend. For instance: Hardhat, a P90 with Rapid Fire, Drop Zone, and this bad boy. So join me, won’t you? I’ll be on PlayStation Network this Friday, February 3, from 6pm Pacific to 8pm Pacific. Facebook even is here. Come out and play!

New maps for Call of Duty Elite premium members, new Playing With Swords event. Surprise, it’s Modern Warfare 3 on a week when MW3 gets new content on Xbox 360!

The Italian Job

I will play in the new map playlists this Friday, January 27 from 6pm to 8pm Pacific time, but please note that other maps from the disc are also part of that playlist, too. Wanna know how to join? The Playing With Swords FAQ is your friend. A Facebook event reminder is here.

I see this angle a lot. I protect C.

I like to live in both the console and PC worlds, though dual citizenship makes me feel like I should always be where I’m not. So Friday, January 20, I’m committing to be in a non-MMO PC space: I’ll be playing Modern Warfare 3 from 6pm to 8pm Pacific and I encourage you to join me. (What time is that where you live? The internet knows.) Facebook reminder is here and Steam group event reminder is here.

Last week, per popular vote, we played Blur on Xbox 360 and had a grand old time. This week I wanted to show the PS3 some love and realized…why reinvent the wheel? Blur was the PS3 game with the highest number of votes last week, so let’s go with that.

Why not? You're already revved up for it.

Don’t let the whole Friday the 13th thing scare you, but do show up between 6pm and 8pm Pacfic to get your race on. Facebook event reminder is here.

I’ve been enjoying a lot of Modern Warfare 3, but I feel like I’ve been neglecting other games for Playing With Swords sessions as a result. So let’s get one of those non-CoD titles in the rotation this week. I’ll let you choose the title and the platform, and whatever wins the poll is what we’ll play this Friday, January 6, from 6pm Pacific to 8pm Pacific. I’m going with recent titles as well as games that have had strong turnouts in earlier polls, successful events in the past, the one where we have a guild, and one game that has come to renewed light due to recent product announcements.

And please remember, this is not just a popularity contest. Vote for what you will actually show up to play. I got hosed by this last year when a fan community mobilized to vote for their title, then only three people actually showed up to play. Don’t do that.

Poll ends Friday at 3pm, so…vote!

Deck the halls with lots of gunfire

Friday is a wash, isn’t it? I don’t want to do any real work on the last day before the Christmas break. Instead, let’s play Modern Warfare 3. It’s the biggest-selling game of the year and the most popular multiplayer console title right now, so it’s a pretty safe bet that people will show up. I’m setting up three two-hour sessions (with breaks so I can actually do any necessary real work…and pee) this Friday, December 23. Here’s how it works and here’s the times:

10:30am to 12:30pm Pacific – PlayStation 3

1:00pm to 3:00pm Pacific - PC (via Steam & P2P lobbies for leveling)

3:30pm to 5:30pm Pacific - Xbox 360

Just drop me a note online and we’ll get our gaming on. Sound good?

I love this map

Sorry, meant to post this earlier in the week but got distracted — I’m up for MW3 on PS3 this Friday night if you are. Hit me up December 2 from 6pm PT to 8pm PT and let’s keep marching toward Prestige together. Facebook reminder here!

Surprise, we’re playing MW3 again this week. But there’s a wrinkle: This one’s official and stuff. I was asked by my friends at Activision Customer Support to join in their Community Playdate session this week. It positively reeks of legitimacy!

It takes two hands to tackle @ATVIBernard

They called the time as 5pm PT/8pm ET to 8pm PT/11pm ET this Friday, November 18, so that’s when I’ll be on Xbox Live. My Gamertag is listed on the event advertisement on the 360 dashboard, which is a great way to get, like, 150 Xbox Live messages a day (most of which say “u wrk at callofuty?”), but my guidelines for how to find me during these three hours of insanity still live here in the form of the Playing With Swords FAQ.

Is there such a thing as "too much of a good thing"? Let's find out.

Okay, it’s a Call of Duty launch week, so that means it’s time to get crazy. I wanted to do something different for the launch of Modern Warfare 3, and I’ve been thinking about it for a while now. What would be big? What would be epic? What would be downright silly?

How about a 12-hour Playing With Swords session, spread across two platforms?

Starting at 9am Pacific on Friday, November 11, I will play for 12 hours more or less straight (allowing for the usual food and bio breaks, not to mention work emergencies) and I will alternate between PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 every three hours. It breaks down like this:

ALPHA SESSION: PlayStation 3
9am PT/12pm ET/5pm GMT to 12pm PT/3pm ET/8pm GMT

BRAVO SESSION: Xbox 360
12pmPT/3pm ET/8pm GMT to 3pm PT/6pm ET/11pm GMT

CHARLIE SESSION: PlayStation 3
3pm PT/6pm ET/11pm GMT to 6pm PT/9pm ET/2am GMT

DELTA SESSION: Xbox 360
6pm PT/9pm ET/2am GMT to 9pm PT/12am ET/5am GMT

These alternating times give the UK gamers a chance to jump in during the first chunk, and the US gamers some evening opportunities during the second. And who knows, maybe you night owls will stay on in the UK if you’re barmy. (Do you Brits still use the word “barmy” or have I been watching too many old comedy shows?)

What’s more, now that I have finally dipped my toes in the stream, as it were, and I am hoping to broadcast most if not all of the gameplay on my channel on Twitch.tv. This is new for me and hopefully I will be able to make it happen with my freshly obtained gear and the office’s hefty bandwidth. I hope it works — no promises, but this is the plan. UPDATE: The stream doesn’t look likely; I’m not happy with the results and need to work on this some more. Anyway, join me and see what happens! :) The FAQ is here.

Classic GoldenEye multiplayer is now on PS3

Early reviews of GoldenEye 007: Reloaded are good — three sites gave it a 9 out of 10 — which is only positive news to me, since I was already planning on a PWS session for the game. The PS3 edition features Move Sharp Shooter compatibility and an exclusive character, so let’s do some multiplayer on PlayStation 3 on Friday, November 4, from 6pm PT until around 8pm PT (longer if I lose track of time). Hugh says he’ll join us later in the session, too. Here’s a Facebook reminder.

I call Max Zorin!

I like Domination in the zoo. Wow, that sounds wrong.

It’s a double XP weekend on all platforms for both Modern Warfare 2 and Black Ops this weekend. Kat is still pushing toward her next Prestige, and I did Black Ops on PS3 last time, so let’s do 360 this Friday, October 28, from 6PT/9ET to 8PT/11ET and start soaking up that XP. After all, now that you know there are tokens in it for you, why not? Facebook reminder is here.

I suspect Kat will join in. We’ll be playing Domination more often than not, but I’ll try to hop around to different groups frequently so I can play with as many people as possible.

Bring it.

Blur is now available as a direct download on Xbox Live via Games On Demand — and that’s as flimsy a reason as I need to call a Blur 360 Playing With Swords session! Join me online Friday, October 7 at 6pm PT/9pm ET and we will race in the 20-player Powered Up lobby. My gamertag is OneOfSwords and the details of how all this works are right here. Need a Facebook reminder? Here ya go.

I'm not a good sniper, so I hate Hazard!

The zombies are coming…hell, the zombies are everywhere now! In honor of the release of the Rezurrection DLC pack on both PS3 and PC, the double XP is going to be flowing this weekend – so let’s take advantage of that with a standard multiplayer session (not Zombies) on PlayStation Network this Friday night. September 23, at 6pm PST.

UPDATE: I have decided that this will be a Nuketown 24/7 event! That way everybody has the map, and the XP is going to flow freely, and we can shift gametypes quickly. So look for me in the Nuketown 24/7 lobby under Core.

My PSN ID is OneOfSwords, the PWS FAQ is here, and a Facebook reminder is here.

And hey…if you are in the beta by then, some of you will be able to check your stats on Elite when we’re done!

With Call of Duty XP and my vacation taking up my last two Fridays, I haven’t done any gameplay sessions in a while. I know next week will be Black Ops due to the double XP weekend (it’s in honor of Rezurrection on PS3 and PC). That leaves me with a lot of options for this week — crippling, terrifying options.

What do you want to play and on what system? Majority rules; we’ll play whatever you choose wherever you choose this Friday, September 16 at 6pm PT. (But if you vote, you better show up to play if that game wins!) You are spoiled for choice, so get your vote on.

UPDATE: MW2 for 360 is the winnah. See you on XBL.

I will die, but it will be fun

This weekend, GamesRadar is doing its annual 24-hour gaming marathon, and they’re kicking it off August 19th with Call of Duty: Black Ops on multiple platforms from 5pm PT to 7pm PT. Seems like a good excuse to overlap my weekly event with their annual event. I’ll play on Xbox 360 because I just did PS3 and PC.

I will also try to jump in for the PC Super Street Fighter IV AE session right after it — just as a fan who has the game and wants to have my ass handed to me.

It’s worth noting that they’re also playing Blur on Saturday from 1pm to 3pm. I’m not sure if I can make that as I have plans for the morning and early afternoon, but if I can jump in, I will.

I have not played Call of Duty: Black Ops on PC in a Playing With Swords event since earlier this summer. So, let’s.

A map of mystery

I’ll be hosting a Playing with Swords event to kick off the weekend, Friday, August 12th, from 6pm PST to 8pm PST on one of the official Domination servers, Treyarch DOM #161. It’s located in Chicago and we regularly use it for my PC events with great success. It’s a Domination server because that’s my favorite gametype — it’s great for those of us who are lousy shots! And yes, we will be playing the new Annihilation maps in addition to the on-disc maps, so if you want to join in, you should get Silo, Hazard, Hangar 18, and Drive-In before jumping on. Friendly fire is off and voice chat is on, so hook up a headset, add me to your Steam friends, join Friends of Swords on Steam, and play Friday. You can find reminders on Steam and on Facebook.

To join the correct server, you have two options:

1. Use the in-game Server Browser and scan until you find Treyarch DOM #161. The word “Treyarch” will be orange. Make it a favorite server to find it easily again later.
2. From the in-game console, type /connect and enter the IP and port number directly, exactly as you see it here:

/connect 173.199.92.243:3074

I have upgraded my video card — bit the bullet and bought a GTX 570 for the long haul — so at least the game looks better now when I die. Time will tell if a better frame rate and higher detail actually does anything to help my generally pretty poor aim.

After the 360 session a few weeks ago, folks asked when I’d be running a PS3 Blur event. Friday August 5 at 6pm PT until 8pm PT is the answer! Let’s get our Blur on.

Sort of the opposite of Thursday's NASCAR event, really

Details on how this works, if you need them, are in the FAQ. Facebook reminder is here. See you then!

Wanna race against the folks who made NASCAR The Game 2011? This Thursday, you can — a few of the developers from Eutechnyx will be joining me for a very special Playing With Swords session on Thursday, August 4th at 10am PDT, which is 6pm BST in England, where the devs from Eutechnyx are. (What time is that near you? Click here to find out.) And see? It’s legit because Eutechnyx says so!

Ah, but they're all left-hand drive, aren't they...!

In international stereotypes, that means I’ll be eating lots of junk food for breakfast, then plopping my fat ass down at work to start my day with a race that I think I deserve to win because I showed up, while the Brits get to unwind after a long day at the pub by telling everyone how dreadfully sorry they are about passing them and all that rot.  Or, in more of a racing context, we’re Richard Petty, they’re Nigel Mansell. This will be fun. Join if you can!

PS3 players, the wait is finally over: The third DLC pack for Call of Duty: Black Ops, Annihilation, will be available in the PlayStation Store this week. (It’s on PC as well, and you’ll find it at Steam and Activision’s store when it’s ready.) So, this Friday night, let’s soak up that double XP with a Playing With Swords session.

Now Showing: Annihilation

I’ll be on PlayStation Network Friday, July 29, from 6pm to 8pm Pacific. You don’t have to own the new maps to play with me, but it’d be a good idea, as I think a lot of people will want to play on them (myself included). If we get into a party and the folks who don’t have the maps are bumped due to a majority rule, please don’t take it personally. Also, it will be double XP for all players on all maps on all platforms, regardless, so jump on your system of choice for some fast leveling. Details on how this works, if you need them, are in the FAQ. Facebook reminder is here. See you then!

Folks outside of the Los Angeles area may be unaware of what the press is calling “Carmaggeddon” — the closing of the vital 405 freeway this weekend, which connects LA to Anahiem (home of Mickey Mouse) below and to the San Fernando Valley (home of the porn industry) above. Basically, the city is doing major repairs on the most heavily used highway in Southern California. The mayor of Los Angeles officially are predicted it will be “an absolute nightmare.” The county supervisor says “Stay the heck out of here.” Hell, it has its own Downfall meme video. Some are even saying this event’s power could rival that of Lord Voldemort – in a very real, financial way.

People are working from home on Friday because they simply won’t be able to get to their places of business. I will be in the office — I plan to ride my bike, like a good ex-SF Bay Area resident — but I can think of no better game for Friday’s Playing With Swords event (well, other than Carmaggeddon) than Blur.

This is the only way I'll see moving cars this weekend

We haven’t played Blur for a few months, so now, as all of the cars around me grind to a halt, I want nothing more than to drive at 200 mph on open roads. In other words, get out of my way, suckers.

See you on Xbox Live this Friday, July 15 from 6pm to 8pm Pacific. Facebook reminder is here. Check the FAQ if you have any questions.

Hazard: A foxhole in one?

This week the third DLC pack for Call of Duty: Black Ops — dubbed Annihilation — hits Xbox 360, and I’m happy to host a Playing With Swords session this Friday night, July 1, from 6pm to 8pm. You don’t have to own the new maps, but it’d be a good idea, as I think a lot of people will want to play on them (myself included). If we get into a party and the folks who don’t have the maps are bumped due to a majority rule, please don’t take it personally. On Friday, it will be double XP for all players on all maps on all platforms, regardless, so jump on your system of choice for some fast leveling. Here’s a Facebook reminder if you like those kind of things. Check the Playing With Swords FAQ if you have any questions.

I like me some robot carnage

Transformers: Dark of the Moon comes out this week, and after the fine job High Moon Studios did on multiplayer in War for Cybertron, I’d like to give their latest effort a spin with you guys this Friday, June 17 at 6pm Pacific on Xbox Live. I’ll be online for about two hours, and we’ll mix it up. Get the game and join in!

Questions? Answers.

Crazy week with lots of crazy news — so let’s send it out with a crazy round of Call of Duty: Black Ops, which gets the long-awaited Escalation pack this Friday. I’ll be on the PlayStation Network — PSN ID OneOfSwords — Friday, June 10 from 6pm to 8pm Pacific, taking your bullets in the order that they were received. I will have the Escalation maps and I would like to play them, but owning them is not a requirement to jump into my sessions. In cases like these, majority rules — if most people want to play the new maps, that’s what we wind up playing. If everybody votes something down, away it goes.

If you haven’t seen what’s in Escalation, here’s a video that came out shortly after the maps were revealed to the public.

Click here to view the embedded video.

See you Friday!

I refuse to reveal my Domination strategies for Zoo. But I do have them.

The Call of Duty: Black Ops Escalation DLC will be released for PC this week, and Activision is actually hosting a free Black Ops weekend on Steam to celebrate. Download the multiplayer component of the game gratis right now and play all weekend for free!

By no coincidence at all, I’ll be hosting a Playing with Swords event to kick off the weekend, Friday, June 3rd, from 6pm PST to 8pm PST on one of the official Domination servers, Treyarch DOM #161. It’s located in Chicago and we used it for the last two PC events with great success. It’s a Domination server because that’s my favorite gametype — it’s great for those of us who are lousy shots! And yes, we will be focusing on playing the new maps, so if you want to join in, you should get them before jumping on. Friendly fire is off and voice chat is on, so hook up a headset, add me to your Steam friends, join Friends of Swords on Steam, and play Friday. You can find reminders on Steam and on Facebook.

To join the correct server, you have two options:

1. Use the in-game Server Browser and scan until you find Treyarch DOM #161. The word “Treyarch” will be orange. Make it a favorite server to find it easily again later.
2. From the in-game console, type /connect and enter the IP and port number directly, exactly as you see it here:

/connect 173.199.92.243:3074

I have a different mouse now — I got a lovely Logitech G500, to replace the nice Mad Catz RAT that I accidentally killed. Will it make a difference to my usually poor performance? Time will tell.

This weekend is a three-day weekend, and we should kick it off with a Playing With Swords event. We played on PS3 last week (some Blur, some Black Ops during the double XP period) and I’ve had some feedback and suggestions from the community that I want to throw out there for a vote:

Several people have asked for a night of the original Modern Warfare, and I’ve heard a lot of people say they miss “the old Tony Hawk games” — and THAW is as far back as the modern consoles go. And the last time we had a guild night for WoW, it was a total blast and everybody said they wanted to do it again. I never spend enough time with the PC COD community and, of course, it’s Memorial Day, so doing the current top military game on 360 also makes sense.

So that’s my dilemma: To me, they all make sense. Which one do you want? Tell me by Friday morning, and we’ll play the top vote-getter Friday night, May 27, from 6pm PT to 8pm PT.

UPDATE 5/27: The votes are in — we’re playing Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare tonight! Don’t have the game? You can get it as a direct download from Xbox Live Marketplace for $30. See you on Xbox Live…

PlayStation Network is back online! Let’s get our Blur on Friday night to celebrate.

Ooh, pretty. But still ahead of you.

I’ll be on the PlayStation Network Friday May 20 at 6pm PST and I’ll play for about two hours. (Facebook reminder is here.) I’ll be in Powered-Up Racing, which accommodates 20 players at a time.

If you want to play, even if my friends list is full (which, despite my better efforts, it often is), just send me an invite — my PSN ID is OneOfSwords.

Ooh, this week, we’ve got a Friday the 13th — the infamous day of bad luck. Let’s test just how lucky you are in a round of Blur on Xbox 360.

Do you feel lucky, punk?

I have gotten a few notes from people in recent weeks saying they picked up Blur for cheap and they were looking forward to playing online — so yeah, that’s a good enough excuse for me! Jump on Xbox Live Friday, May 13th at 6pm PT and look for me in the Powered-Up Racing lobby. Since that accomodates 20 racers, we should be able to get a whole bunch of folks into the same race for maximum chaos.

If you want to play, even if my friends list is full (which, despite my better efforts, it often is), just send me an invite — my Gamertag is OneOfSwords.

Escalation, the second DLC pack for Call of Duty: Black Ops, will be available on Xbox Live Tuesday, May 3. Only makes sense to put together a Playing With Swords night specifically for those maps to celebrate.

Let's go hunting in the Zoo

We’ll get things underway on Friday May 6 at 5pm Pacific (or whatever time that is in your area). Here’s a Facebook event to remind you. I know a lot of people are stoked to play Call of the Dead (and for good reason!) but I won’t be doing that in this event because, well, I can only play with three other people in that case, and I want to play with as many people as we can manage. A traditional 16-player multiplayer match lets more people play at once and lets people come and go as they need to. So by all means, enjoy Call of the Dead, but this Friday’s event is for traditional MP on the new maps.

UPDATE: Podcast co-conspirator Hugh Sterbakov says he’ll join in if I start at 5pm. So I’ll start at 5pm.

As previously announced, it is a double XP weekend, courtesy of Treyarch. Any other questions, check out the small Playing With Swords FAQ and I’ll see you Friday.

Since Escalation comes out next week and I’ll be playing Black Ops next Friday night, I had hoped to do a PS3 event this week, but obviously, that’s not in the cards. However, it creates a good reason to have our first guild night in World of Warcraft.

As you might know, there is a One of Swords friends-and-fans Alliance guild on Doomhammer-US but we haven’t done too much with it yet. I want to run some Arathi Basin battlegrounds or perhaps a dungeon or two, so let’s aim for that this Friday, April 29 at 6pm PST/9pm EST. Patch 4.1 just went through and it includes a new Guild Finder feature. 

There's no level restriction to join the guild -- level 1 characters are welcome

Basically, hit J to go to the guild menu, search for our guild based on your interests (hint: we are listed for Questing, Dungeons, and/or PvP), then send a request to join. You will still have to be online at the same time as I am when that request is approved, but if we’re planning an event at a specific time…that makes it easy. Everybody who wants in will be approved as soon as we all log in Friday night.

You may also insult Hugh to be accepted

Battlegrounds are level-restricted — my main character, cleverly named OneOfSwords, is currently in the mid-30s, so anybody who is level 30 to 39 will be able to play in my group easily. I hope we can put together another group in the 20s for people who haven’t quite gotten that far (we only have one level 40 at the moment).

So…let’s give it a shot and see how it goes. I don’t have a voice chat server, so don’t forget to /g in your chat window to talk to fellow guildies. Hope to see you there!