A few days ago, a long time friend of mine called to let me know that he had some positive video game related news for me, and I said “ok shoot.”

He told me that his brother had gotten his COD4 disk stuck in his recently purchased PS3, and that the system would not eject it. So he decided to give a ring to Sony’s customer service line. He explained the situation to a supervisor and was told that it would all be taken care of immediately. What Sony did next was pretty amazing. Read more…

Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, Bungie’s lead AI programmer Damian Isla praises Activision and Infinity Ward’s hugely successful FPS, Call of Duty 4. Even going as far as saying that Halo could learn a few things from Call of Duty.

“We have a lot to learn from their success too, they did some very innovative things to keep people going and their experience-rewards system was something that we paid a lot of attention to,” Isla explained.

“I think it’s a great game and single player obviously is fantastic… they did a hell of a job with their set pieces, of scripting certain moments that they were really sure the player was going to actually see and experience first hand. The way that they use those moments to craft the player experience…Halo has a lot to learn from.”

While both games are extremely outstanding and have a strong fan base, the battle for the most-played game on Xbox Live continues between Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4.

It’s good to hear that Bungie is willing to learn from other successful games so they can make their titles better. Because we all know improvements can always be made to make any game better.

Source: gamesindustry.biz

The trend in gaming as of late has been a push towards “reality”. Games like COD, Battlefield, and SOCOM all boast military advisors on staff, with a focus on making the game experience as “realistic” as possible.

The obsession with reality doesn’t end there, and its relation to a game’s overall fun factor, got me thinking — just how real do we want things, and at what point does reality cause a game to no longer be fun? Read more…

The latest issue of Xbox World 360 claims that one of their employees somehow gained access to information they believe confirms the existence of an Infinity Ward Sci-Fi game while attending a recent Call of Duty 4 event. However, the magazine does not go as far as to claim the game will have anything to do with the popular Call of Duty franchise. Read more…

We just received an email from Activision’s PR department containing 9 new screenshots of their upcoming DLC map pack for the hit game, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, due to hit XBL on April 10th. The four maps included in the pack are Kill Creek, Broadcast, Chinatown, and Killhouse. Read more…

In a very small tidbit of news, Activision and Infinity Ward have confirmed that new Call of Duty 4 multiplayer maps are on the way via downloadable content. Read more…

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was just awarded Overall Game of the Year at last night’s 11th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards Show. See, we were right!

In addition to Game of the Year, Infinity Ward’s hot little number also called in an airstrike on Console Game of the Year, Action Game of the Year, and Outstanding Achievement in Online Game Play. Activision rejoiced at the kill streak and called in a helicopter. Read more…

We here at Ripten are bemused by the talk of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare not being an HD resolution (that is 720p or more), because to our eyes the game is one of the best looking around, and is also an incredibly smooth experience. In a private conversation, we talked with an individual from Infinity Ward who will remain nameless. Read more…

As an individual who spent countless hours playing Call of Duty 2, I was a little disappointed in the experience that was Call of Duty 3. This goes to show you that the importance of the developer behind the title is something that should never be overlooked. So while COD4 bids farewell to the WWII era, it emphatically welcomes the return of Infinity Ward, and I for one am glad to have them back at the helm. Read more…

While the PC and 360 versions of Call of Duty 4 got most of the attention durring the beta period, Playststion 3 owners can rest assured that the men and women at Infinity Ward were deep in the trenches, hard at work developing a PS3 experience that Sony fanboys would be proud to call their own. Read more…

Anyone who has played video games in the 8 or 16-bit era remembers a genre that has since become the black sheep of 3D gaming culture: the platformer. Platformers made up a huge percentage of all console games and arcades of the day, and would all be started by one game in particular, that put it’s highly pixilated main character through every kind of death trap imaginable. Read more…

An open invite has just gone out courtesy of Activision and Infinity Ward! Select GameStop locations will be opening their doors allowing eager gamers to experience the single player version of the game hands on before the official release on November 6th.

To get in on the fun, be one of the first 100 to enlist on the scene at participating GameStop locations. Swag and prizes include a signed call sheet from Infinity Ward. Read more…

Ok, the good ol’ boys (and girls) over at Infinity Ward have made the single player beta for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare available for everyone to download on the PC. It is approximately 1.37 GB, so if you want to download it, make sure you have a fast internet connection — or just set it, and forget it, like the Ronco Rotisserie.

After my download was complete, I fired up the self-extracting executable. In about 10 minutes or so, I was up and running. You enter the game, and it wants you to create a profile. No biggie, we’ve see this before. You click on “Play Demo” and then your mission starts.

You start off as a Marine, and while the mission is loading, you get an aerial overview of the terrain ahead. This is a much better use of the loading time than the note you read while waiting for COD2 to load, plus it’s pretty fun to watch. Read more…

“Your processor speed is killing us Sergent”

The Single Player demo of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is set to hit PC’s tomorrow, October 11th. Don’t be caught with your pants around your ankles when it does.

Make sure you check the specs of your PC against the official recommended and minimum specs courtesy of fourtwozero, Infinity Ward’s blogging informant.

And remember, if you don’t like what you see, you can always make a quick run to your local Best Buy — there are no excuses for being an unprepared soldier. Specs available after the jump. Read more…

Neon soldiers have no place on the battlefield…

After playing the Call of Duty 4 Beta until our fingers bled, we decided to bounce a few questions off of Infinity Ward’s Associate Producer Pete Blumel.

One topic that was mentioned a lot during our time online was “spawn protection”, specifically whether or not it would be in the game. We asked Pete and he mentioned that “spawning is part of the beta test.” This is good news for those that constantly found themselves getting ambushed shortly after spawning into a map. Read more…

Infinity Ward’s Call of Duty 4 will apparently not only look great but sound great too, as composers Stephen Barton and Harry Gregson-Williams are set to provide original scores for the upcoming title.

Gregson-Williams’ is known best for his work on Team America: World Police, Enemy of the State, Spy Game, and most recently The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Press release available in full after the jump. Read more…

Infinity Ward has begun testing the PC version of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare by bringing in random gamers to their studio. Read more…

Angry fans that waited for the Call of Duty 4 Beta sign up today at noon soon realized that the site could not take the traffic and that it crashed again, just like it did when news of the beta was first announced. Read more…

The few, the proud, the unbelievably freakin’ lucky. Head on over to the official site for COD4 (charlieoscardelta.com) and if you manage to get the beta info pages to load, that is exactly how you will feel.

Yea, it seems that the announcement of Beta details has caused their site to get somewhat overloaded. On top of that a good amount of other sites are linking directly to their images (which doesn’t help) so visiting those sites won’t do you any good either … unless you want to stare at blank images that won’t be loading anytime soon.

Oh quit your belly achin’ we got you covered soldier! Get yourself together and review the information below … and if you EVER cry in our presence again we will beat you severely. Read more…

We were lucky enough to sit down with Infinity Ward’s extremely busy Associate Producer (and all around nice guy), Pete Blumel to discuss the finer details of their upcoming can’t miss blockbuster release, Call Of Duty 4 - Modern Warfare. Read more…