Infinity Ward's Robert Bowling plays Batt

Infinity Ward public face / creative strategist Robert Bowling has already admitted plans to purchase Battlefield 3 later this year, and a hands-on session with the game's multiplayer at Gamescom last week appears to have done nothing to dampen his enthusiasm for the Modern Warfare 3 rival. "GamesCom completed," he wrote on Twitter. "Spent an hour playing @Battlefield 3 multiplayer with friends from DICE, I loved it!"The EA-published FPS will be arriving worldwide in October, a fortnight before Activision's MW3 hits shelves. Bowling said last month that although both games' communities were "baiting" each other, there is "definitely room" for the duo of shooters on the market.The respect shared between developers Infinity Ward and DICE - the picture (via Battlefieldo) shows Bowling with BF3 community manager Daniel Matros - isn't uncommon, but it's refreshing to see given the way top executives at their respective parent companies, Activision and particularly EA, have been behaving recently.Back in June, EA CEO John Riccitiello said in no uncertain terms that he wanted to see Call of Duty "rot from the core". Last week, this led Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg to call for a stop to the mudslinging. EA quickly responded with more trash talk, goading Hirshberg by welcoming him to "the big leagues" and predicting the death of Call of Duty. Tom Ivan