Last week, a survey leaked to Kotaku suggested that Tampa Bay Rays third baseman Evan Longoria would be on the cover of 2K Sports' Major League Baseball 2K10. 2K sent out a press release earlier today to make it official, but we now know that the four covers that the survey included were mere mock-ups. Six different box art designs, available for your viewing in the gallery below, accompanied the press release; you can vote for your favorite at 2ksports.com/vote. (They did the same thing for NBA 2K10.)

Longoria, like MLB 2K9 cover athlete Tim Lincecum, is one of baseball's most quickly rising stars; he made the AL All-Star team in his first two years in the league, and he recently won his first Gold Glove and Silver Slugger awards. And he isn't related to Desperate Housewives star Eva Longoria.

Which cover do you guys like? I prefer the one pictured above. MLB 2K10 will be out in March for the PS3, 360, Wii, PS2, PSP, and PC. Cover voting will be open for two weeks, until noon EST on December 8th.

The Tampa Bay Rays may have missed out on the playoffs this year, but the team’s third baseman, Evan Longoria (no relation to actress Eva Longoria) may be cashing in on his two very good years in the major leagues. A confidential survey asked respondents to choose between four potential Xbox 360 covers for 2K Sports’ Major League Baseball 2K10, and each version of the box art features Longoria.

A survey taker broke the survey’s NDA by sending images of it (and the covers themselves) to Kotaku; you can see two of the four options above (hit the gallery below for all of them). Of course, you should take this with a grain of salt -- we haven’t yet heard anything official from 2K Sports regarding this leak. But note that all of the cover artwork sports (*rimshot*) the same golden “1999-2009 Tenth Anniversary” banner that appeared on NBA 2K10 and NHL 2K10.

Longoria earned the 2008 AL Rookie of the Year award after a stellar campaign in which he made the All-Star team, and this year, he repeated as an AL All-Star and even won a Gold Glove. Personally, I’m a fan of the bottom left image (above left) -- Longoria reminds me too much of Ben Affleck in the top two shots, and that’s never a good thing. Which one do you prefer?

[Via Kotaku]

On the eve of the release of what is arguably the most anticipated game of 2009, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Activision joined with Microsoft and GameStop to take over New York’s Union Square with a massive party celebrating the launch. Numerous celebrities and athletes stopped by, and the main attraction was that Nick Swisher and Jerry Hairston Jr. of the New York Yankees would participate in some multiplayer action along with Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Cole Hamels (yep, the same guy from the now-infamous PSA).

Swisher couldn’t make it, but as you can see in the 27 photos in the gallery (25 of which were taken by yours truly), Hairston and Hamels took on some of the game’s developers, including Robert Bowling, Creative Strategist at Infinity Ward. Activision teased a “surprise guest DJ,” which I assumed to be DJ Jazzy Jeff (he was on the turntables when the event began around 5:30 PM). But later in the evening, none other than ?uestlove of The Roots (and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon) showed up and began spinning. Other attendees included rapper/actor Ice-T and his wife, Nicole “Coco” Austin, and a few New York Giants players. (All the VIPs, including Ice-T, left with a copy of the Prestige Edition of the game.)

By the time I got there, it was close to 5 PM, and a sizable crowd had formed a line outside the tent that had been set up in Union Square -- folks had been standing for hours, just for the chance to play Modern Warfare 2 a few hours before it officially launched. I don’t get it, either. At least it was an unseasonably warm November day. Actually, now that I think of it, giveaways at the event offered the Limited Edition Modern Warfare 2 Xbox 360, as well as a Hummer emblazoned with multiple MW2 logos. I still don’t get it.

Regardless, I had a great time hanging out at the launch party, and I even got to play a couple of the Spec Ops co-op missions. (They were pretty damn hard.) Plus, I capped off the night by shaking Hairston’s hand, congratulating him on winning the World Series, and thanking him for helping to bring the championship trophy back to New York. In other words... Best. Night. Ever. Thanks to Activision, Microsoft, and GameStop for throwing the party!

Last night, Infinity Ward posted a short video on their YouTube account featuring an in-game version of Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Cole Hamels (who will be facing the New York Yankees tonight in Game 3 of the World Series). In the vignette, Hamels advised Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 players that random grenades are “for pussies”; the “public service announcement” was provided by an organization called “Fight Against Grenade Spam.”

I somehow missed the “FAGS” acronym the first time around, but the Internet certainly didn’t. Numerous Web sites and Twitterers condemned the PSA and Infinity Ward’s perceived endorsement of an anti-gay message (something that’s especially troubling in the context of the foul-mouthed gamers who comprise much of the online user base for Call of Duty).

Infinity Ward has since taken down the video, and the studio’s Community Manager, Robert Bowling, posted a couple of responses on Twitter. In reply to Philip Kollar of Game Informer, who called the PSA “stupid” and said that it “makes [him] reconsider [his] purchase [of Modern Warfare 2] more than any other controversy surrounding the game thus far,” Bowling said:

I think it was more of a social commentary joke of that stereotype than it was a fist-bump of acceptance to it.

But after freelance gaming journalist Mitchell Dyer noted that the video “was so poorly handled/executed that it looks derogatory” and “seems to enforce the [assh*le]-ry,” Bowling agreed and pulled it:

I think the core gag is great, the end is a bit too far from the intent of the joke & can appreciate the concerns.

What do you all think? Do you buy Bowling’s claim of “social commentary”? Should Infinity Ward have seen the response coming, or is the Internet overreacting to a harmless joke? Is the studio perhaps merely appealing to the people whom it hopes will buy its game, and if so, is that an acceptable explanation?

For the New York Yankees’ sake, I sure hope Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Cole Hamels continues his sub-par playoff performance tomorrow night in Game 3 of the World Series. But as much as I want to see him crash and burn against the Yankees, I have to hand it to him -- this public service announcement imploring Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 players to avoid throwing grenades randomly is pretty damn funny (its NSFW language contributes to that).

At this point, I’ve just about hit “information overload” on Modern Warfare 2 -- the game’s going to be out in a week and a half, and I’m just going to play it when it releases. But unlike some controversial footage from earlier in the week, this doesn’t spoil anything; it’s just a good bit of fun. (And for some reason, I find it funny to hear a baseball player swear. I can’t explain it.)

I, for one, strongly suggest that you all follow Hamels’ sage advice, because like him, I’m tired of seeing a killcam replay where someone merely runs forward and tosses a grenade as far as they can in the general direction of the opposing team. Remember: that bush-league stuff is for pussies.

[Update: For the record, everyone, I completely missed the "Fight Against Grenade Spam" thing the first time around, and I didn't realize it until after I saw everyone lambasting Infinity Ward on Twitter and the Web. Obviously, that (apparently anti-gay) message is not something that Destructoid or I endorse, and had I noticed it before this story went live, the tone of the post would've been completely different.

As it turns out, Infinity Ward has pulled the video; you can check out their official response here. -Samit]

I’ve never played the original Just Cause, but I sure hope that Rico Rodriguez, the protagonist of that game and its upcoming sequel, Just Cause 2, is a tongue-in-cheek character in the vein of Nathan Drake. Because I don’t think I’d be able to deal if lines like “I thought I was done ... but I was wrong” are meant to be taken seriously, and I’m not immediately getting that vibe from the “No Ordinary Mission” trailer above. (Perhaps you can let me know, dear reader.)

So here’s hoping that the tone of Avalanche Studios’ Just Cause 2 is in line with its awesome-looking gameplay, which seems like it would be right at home in a Die Hard flick or an episode of 24. (Okay, so neither John McClane nor Jack Bauer make use of grappling hooks. They’re still both one-man killing machines who regularly do crazy sh*t that tests a viewer’s suspension of disbelief.) If you’re interested in reading more about the game, check out my preview from E3.

Just Cause 2 is set for release sometime in 2010 on PS3, 360, and PC.

Yes, I know “badical” isn’t technically a word, but that’s the term Nick Chester used to describe the opening cinematic to LEGO Rock Band, and I couldn’t think of a more appropriate or accurate word. So there you have it: badical.

There’s a cute little LEGO band rocking out to “Grace” by Supergrass, which implores you to “save your money for the children” -- a subliminal buy this for your kids for Christmas message to parents, perhaps? In any case, you can follow the band as they traverse a number of the game’s outlandish venues in a variety of vehicles, including a pirate ship and a jet. There’s even a goddamn dinosaur from the LEGO City History Museum to spice up the proceedings, and as you all know, dinosaurs make everything better.

You can buy LEGO Rock Band for your kids -- or yourself, if you’re just interested in exporting the game’s 45 songs to your hard drive for use in Rock Band 2 -- on November 3rd in North America, and November 27th in the UK, for $49.99 on PS3, 360, and Wii ($29.99 on DS). (The export -- available on PS3 and 360 only -- will cost you an additional $9.99.) Hit up my preview of the game here!

Color this PS3 owner surprised: after more than 11 months of Xbox 360 exclusivity, Netflix will be making its way to the PlayStation 3 next month. We’ve heard this rumor many times before, with Netflix CEO Reed Hastings only saying that they eventually “want to be on all game consoles, all the Blu-ray players, all the Internet TVs.” But now, Sony has officially announced on the PlayStation.Blog that this is finally happening: starting this November, PS3 owners who have Netflix accounts will be able to stream “thousands of movies and TV episodes” right from their consoles.

Of note is the press release (after the jump), which mentions something curious: you can head over to netflix.com/ps3 right now to sign up to be notified when the service is available, and to reserve a free “instant streaming disc.” That’s right: at least “initially,” Netflix on PS3 will require a Blu-ray Disc to be in the PS3 in order to stream content. Destructoid tipster Adam Dork informed me that Netflix on the 360 requires syncing a console with a code, so maybe that’s what this disc is doing.

In any case, Netflix users will be able to set up their Instant Watch queues on their computers or on their PS3s, but of course, 360 owners can still tout the 1080p streaming functionality that the Zune Video Marketplace will soon bring to the 360. The timing of this probably isn’t a coincidence -- my guess is that, with Netflix coming to the PS3 sometime next month, Microsoft had a one-year exclusivity contract with Netflix (the service went live on the 360 on November 19, 2008, so that might give you an idea of when to expect it to hit the PS3).

If you’re a PS3 owner looking to open up a Netflix account, the minimum monthly plan that allows for Instant Watch costs $8.99 a month. That’s not bad -- especially when you don’t need a fifty-dollar-a-year Xbox Live Gold account in addition to it.

Hey, remember when Street Fighter IV producer Yoshinori Ono informed gamers that there won’t be an arcade version of Super Street Fighter IV? Well, there may still be some hope for arcade fans. I spoke with Seth Killian, Senior Manager at Capcom and Street Fighter guru, at a press event on Wednesday, and when I asked him about the possibility of SSFIV in arcades, the first thing out of his mouth was, “That’s a complicated football of a question.” (A sports reference! I was hooked immediately.)

Killian pointed out that an arcade version is “not very relevant” for America, though he quickly followed that up by noting that he has many friends who run arcades here. But there’s been an outcry, among Japanese fans in particular, for SSFIV in arcades. Killian hinted at a debate inside Capcom, as well as a possible ideological shift at the company, saying that an arcade version of the game “has a lot more to do with what’s going on internally,” but offering a sliver of hope: “We’re not ruling it out yet.”

And for the record, Killian is rooting for it: “I would love to see it; that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. More to be said on that front, I hope.” So keep voicing your opinion, folks -- in this case, you definitely don’t want to STFU.

I’ll have much more on Super Street Fighter IV coming up next week, including a (hands-off) preview, so keep your eyes peeled!

In case you weren’t aware, this is, unequivocally, the greatest week in the nearly two-year history of Rock Band downloadable content. Yes, I said it, and here’s why. Available today for purchase on Xbox Live and the Wii Shop Channel (Thursday on the PlayStation Store) is the “Complete The Album Pack” for Abbey Road in The Beatles: Rock Band, which costs $16.99, along with a ten-pack of Queen songs for $15.99. That’s over twenty songs from two of the best bands of all time.

Yesterday, I played and sang some of those songs at MTV’s offices in Times Square, New York. Abbey Road may be my favorite Beatles album, so I was thrilled to play parts of the famous 16-minute side two medley. (You can’t buy every song individually -- they all run into one another, so Harmonix split them up as best they could. For example, “Sun King” and “Mean Mr. Mustard” come together for $1.99.) Just as a note, Harmonix’s Alex Navarro told me that all the Beatles DLC songs will include their own unique dreamscapes; they will, however, utilize art assets that are already on the game disc.

I played guitar on “Golden Slumbers” / “Carry That Weight” / “The End,” and the first thing I noticed was that Harmonix charted a variety of instruments on the guitar part just to keep things interesting. This includes, for instance, the horns on “Carry That Weight” (which are a reprise of the melody from “You Never Give Me Your Money”) and the strings on “Golden Slumbers.” I don’t think it’s right to fault Harmonix for this, though; charting non-guitar instruments in the name of fun gameplay seems like a fair compromise to me. And they didn’t make up instrument parts where there weren’t any -- “Because,” for example, has no drums.

When we switched over to Rock Band 2 to play the Queen songs, I decided to be brave and tackle both Freddie Mercury and David Bowie on “Under Pressure.” That one went okay, but I was most proud of my 97% score on “Somebody To Love,” whose vocal part is devil horns-hard. I’m just glad there were no windows in the demo room for me to shatter.

Anyway, you’ll have a good time if you buy any of this week’s DLC. I personally guarantee it -- unless you don’t like great music. In that case, you should probably pick up the tracks just to educate yourself.

The New York Yankees eliminated the Minnesota Twins in Game 3 of their 2009 American League Division Series matchup last week, and that baseball game is the last one that will ever be played in Minneapolis’ Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome. Next spring, the Twins will take the field for an outdoor home game for the first time in 29 years when they open the 2010 season in Target Field, which is still under construction.

The $522 million stadium won’t see its first regular-season action until April 12, 2010, but baseball videogames always release during the first week of March, and according to Kotaku, it takes Sony San Diego -- the developer of the acclaimed MLB The Show series -- almost four months to build a stadium in their game. That means that the dev team has to put together a digital version of Target Field without ever having seen it under real-world conditions, a tall task indeed.

Sony San Diego has been hard at work on MLB 10 The Show for quite some time now, and the studio explained to Kotaku the meticulous process of recreating stadiums in the game. Baseball is a peculiar sport in that the dimensions of the field aren’t standardized across all stadiums, and each of its ballparks is a unique venue that demands a staggering attention to detail. Whether it’s the white frieze that rings the top of Yankee Stadium, or the Coke bottle above Fenway Park’s Green Monster, you’ve got to make sure that it’s in the stadium’s digital doppelgänger.

Be sure to check out the full article at Kotaku for many more details on how Sony is doing its best to make Target Field look as good as it can in MLB 10 The Show.

[Via Pastapadre]

When Harmonix and Traveller’s Tales announced LEGO Rock Band back in April, the Internet went a bit crazy, charging that Harmonix had finally joined Activision among the ranks of the money-grubbing sequel-makers of the world. Granted, the mash-up seemed to come out of left field -- a LEGO-infused Rock Band game? Really? The connection between the two, not to mention the reasons for the game’s existence, seemed tenuous and dubious at best, respectively.

But then, people got a whiff of the game’s varied soundtrack, spanning profanity-free classics like Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin’” and the Ghostbusters theme, and they started to come around. Until now, though, we’ve been unclear as to exactly what LEGO brings to Rock Band, aside from miniature, blocky versions of rockers like Iggy Pop and David Bowie. I’m here to tell you all about it -- I saw a demo of LEGO Rock Band at MTV HQ in Manhattan last month, and I came away with the realization that a family-friendly game doesn’t necessarily have to pander to kids.

You know what’s awesome about Harmonix? They’re truly committed to the idea of Rock Band as a music platform. (Of course, that doesn’t include The Beatles: Rock Band, but I think most of us can agree that Beatles is much better off as a self-contained ecosystem -- it’d be pretty damn silly to see Rock Band 2’s Fritzi Kostopoulos drumming along to “Come Together.”) LEGO Rock Band is the newest addition to the family, and for ten bucks, you’ll be able to export all of the on-disc songs to your hard drive.

The process works the other way around, too -- but with an interesting wrinkle. LEGO Rock Band will be able to read the DLC songs on your PS3/360 hard drive, and it’ll let you play “family-friendly” tracks in the game. (They’ll show up in the song select screen as regular old DLC.) Don’t worry; this doesn’t limit you to stuff like SpongeBob SquarePants’ “The Best Day Ever.” As long as a song doesn’t contain objectionable material -- such as, say, “Beethoven’s C*nt” by Serj Tankian -- it’ll be fine. For example, “Baba O’Riley” by The Who isn’t what you’d call a kids’ song, but it wouldn’t make your grandmother blush or anything, so it’s playable in LEGO Rock Band.

In addition, LEGO Rock Band will include its own music store, which will only sell songs that fall under the same age-appropriate guidelines. (LEGO Rock Band is rated “E10+” for “Everyone 10 and older.”) Plus, since a lot of the DLC has already been censored for the “T” for “Teen” rating of RB and RB2, you’ll have more songs to choose from than you might expect -- the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Sir Psycho Sexy,” for instance, is pretty much an instrumental as it is. So even if your pre-teen son starts scrolling through the LEGO Rock Band Music Store when you’re not home, he won’t be able to buy anything that might cause him to ask you where babies come from.

Our full LEGO Rock Band preview will be up in an hour -- be sure to check it out!

As we reported earlier, owners of the PS3 or 360 versions of LEGO Rock Band will be able to export most all of the game’s forty-plus songs to their hard drives so the tracks can be played in Rock Band or Rock Band 2. If you’ll recall, 55 of the 58 songs from the original Rock Band could be exported, and the song export key cost $4.99 (400 Microsoft Points).

Harmonix PR man John Drake told me that, unfortunately, you’ll have to cough up more than that for the LEGO Rock Band key, though he couldn’t confirm the exact price: “It’ll probably be a little bit more than five [dollars], but it’s not going to be super-expensive.” He did point out that, at least on the PS3 and 360, LEGO Rock Band is a value-priced title -- at $49.99, it’s $10 cheaper than most retail games, and Harmonix figures that they can recoup some of that with the key.

In defense of Harmonix (and other videogame makers who license music), I imagine that all songs are not created equal -- getting classics like the Ghostbusters theme and Queen’s “We Will Rock You” probably costs more than, say, Good Charlotte’s “Boys and Girls.” (Just guessing, of course.) And passing development costs on to the consumer is just business, folks.

There’s more LEGO Rock Band news to come, dear readers, so keep your eyes on Destructoid!

[Update: Twitter seems like the place to be for breaking videogame news. Drake announced that the LEGO Rock Band song export key will cost twice as much as the Rock Band key: $9.99 (800 MS Points).]