For nearly two-weeks 15-year-old Brandon Crisp has been missing after running away from his home. The Barrie, Canada, teen stormed out of his house during the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend when his parents took away his Xbox 360, arguing that his excessive play of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was affecting his sleep and social skills.
According to earlier reports, Brandon told his parents he would run away if his system was not returned and, in an effort to "call his bluff," his father helped the teen pack his belongings. Brandon's parents now fear that he has been "lured by gamers" through the Xbox Live gaming service, "It could be organized crime or someone involved in Internet gambling. Pedophiles can stalk kids through these games," Brandon's father told The Star.
While it's easy to argue how Xbox Live is being misrepresented in this situation the fact remains that Brandon, who purchased Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare -- an M Rated title intended for gamers 17 and above -- with his own Christmas money, is still missing and his family is completely distraught. We hope for his safe return home.
Posted Sep 13th 2008 2:30PM by Dustin Burg
Filed under: News
In about 30 minutes, members of Call of Duty 4's development team from Infinity Ward will be logging onto Xbox Live to pwn some n00bs game with fans of CoD4 in an Xbox.com sponsored Game with Developers event. An event that goes hand in hand with the double XP weekend and the Variety Map Pack being discounted 50% for the weekend.
Around nine Infinity Ward employees including artists, studio heads and the one and only Fourzertwo will be playing CoD4 TODAY from 3-7:00PM eastern. Make the jump for a listing of gamertags and be sure to spam the heck out of their Live inboxes. We're sure they'd love you for that.
Attention cyber-soldiers: Infinity Ward has dropped word that the Call of Duty 4: Modern WarfareVariety Map pack will be made available for half price (400MS points) this weekend. Attempting to gain popularity for the struggling title, players will also be able to earn Double XP during ranked games beginning September 12, 12AM PDT and running through September 14 at midnight -- the same time-frame for the discounted maps.
If you'd like to show your support for a title that barely made a splash during its release downloading the four map package would be a nice start. Infinity Ward needs your help and are even offering Limited Edition Prestige gamerpics for free as yet another bonus. Save a developer. Help this struggling franchise. Oh, wait. We were thinking of Soldier Of Fortune for some reason. Never mind, Modern Warfare sold like a bajillion copies.
Ed. Note: Bajillion is SO a word.
Fresh from his travels to Seattle for the Penny Arcade Expo, Infinity Ward's own fourzertwo posted an update on his blog, announcing a Call of Duty 4 double XP weekend that they have planned. The weekend of double XP is scheduled to run from September 13th through the 14th and, even though the weekend fun has nothing to do with the upcoming CoD4 playlists, fourzertwo mentions that it's their goal to release them prior to the event. So, there's a distinct possibility that we'll be experiencing twice the XP and new CoD4 playlists in a few week's time. Keep those toes crossed.
Infinity Ward community guru fourzerotwo has once again posted an update on the upcoming Call of Duty 4 playlists in production. Fans will be disappointed to hear that we still don't know when the new playlists will actually be implemented. Still, fourzerotwo drops some info on new playlists and where they currently stand as far as testing. One interesting note is that there are some playlists in testing that would actually require a patch to implement, which may be more than Infinity Ward's current schedule can handle. Still, there are some playlists that might not require a patch, so we're hopeful that we'll actually get to see them soon. Check out descriptions of each new mode at fourzerotwo's blog. (be sure to check out Hardcore Ricochet, in which friendly fire damage is reflected back to the team killer).
Just because we LOVE to stir up fanboy feelings and create all kinds of drama, we say: Call of Duty 4 manhandles Halo 3, taking the Xbox Live crown with unforgiving force! Because it's a better game! Yeah! ;)
Evil fanboy feud creation feelings aside, Major Nelson's most played games on Xbox Live list does list CoD4 as the most played Live game, dethroning Bungie's Halo 3. What's the reason? We aren't exactly sure, maybe it has something to do with an abnormally cool Guatemalan offshore breeze or the abnormally high bread prices. Speculate away and be sure to express you deepest, truest and most unforgiving fanboy feelings about the news. Not like we had to tell you to.
One of our X3F tipsters, Amanda, showcased her baking rank by crafting this Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare inspired cake for her stepfather. Going so far as to list his rank and gamertag (sorry for the influx of Friend Requests you're about to get, General!), this cake goes the extra mile. Also, it looks delicious which is a trait all cakes should be required to have. Now Amanda, some of our birthday's are coming up and we'd like to know if you can create a cake for us based on this Photoshop of Peter Molyneux jumping up and down in his race car bed? That would be delicious!
Posted Aug 6th 2008 12:15PM by Dustin Burg
Filed under: News
Talking to GamesIndustry.biz, Bungie Studios' Lead AI Programmer, Damian Isla, talked about Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4's Xbox Live rivalry, admitting that they can learn a lot from CoD4's scripted single player experiences.
"We have a lot to learn from their success too," Isla admitted, "they [Infinity Ward] did some very innovative things to keep people going and their experience-rewards system was something that we paid a lot of attention to." Talking specifically about CoD4's single player events, Bungie's Isla mentioned that "it's a great game and single player obviously is fantastic" even going as far as to say that "the way that they use those moments to craft the player experience...Halo has a lot to learn from." Learning from CoD4? Yeah, why not? We don't think anyone could keep a straight face while calling either CoD4 or Halo 3 craptacular games as each has something to offer. Group hug!
Infinity Ward community head fourzerotwo has informed the masses that all four of the new Call of Duty 4 playlists tested the weekend before last have made the cut and will soon find their way into the game. The four new playlists on the way are:
Bare-Bones Team Deathmatch
Hardcore HQ
Multi-Bomb Search and Destroy
Hardcore FFA
Harcore HQ and FFA are fairly self-explanatory, as they are simply more hardcore versions of standard gametypes. They include higher damage and no HUD, so tactics are key. Multi-Bomb Search and Destroy, unsurprisingly, gives all memebers of the attacking team a bomb for their planting pleasure. Bare-Bones Team Deathmatch may be the most intriguing of the bunch, as it removes all perks and kill streak rewards. In other words, you can't blame all your deaths on enemies that poop grenades when they die.
The new playlists are currently "In Testing," so there is no ETA on exactly when the playlists will arrive, though fourtwozero promises to keep everyone up to date on their progress.
[Via Evil Avatar]
Source -- New Playlists - Status / Process
Source -- Playlist Status Update (causes earthquake)
For the second week in a row, Halo 3 has successfully defended its golden "most played Xbox Live game" crown from the angry, desperate hands of Call of Duty 4. Major Nelson just posted the Xbox Live activity for the week of July 21st, where GHIII makes the list at 5th most played game, Gears of War at 4th, GTAIV at 3rd, CoD4 at a respectable 2nd and Halo 3 sitting atop everyone in 1st. Looks to us like we have a heated Xbox Live popularity contest a brewing. Quick, pop some popcorn!
Considering how long the game has been out now, we're glad that Infinity Ward is keeping up with its community and making sure that they continue to play. Over at IAMfourzerotwo's blog he's updated readers on the playlists that'll be "in testing" over the weekend. The best and most liked of the lot will be added to the playlists in the next update. The four playlists that'll be tested include Multi-bomb Search and Destroy and Hardcore HQ. The full run down with playlist descriptions are listed after the break.
When the rumor went around that the next Call of Duty from Infinity Ward would be going sci-fi, there was some who said that the described game might be an entirely new IP. We still don't know about the sci-fi part yet, but the new IP part looks pretty solid. Their deal with Activision was renegotiated (they 've got enough clout to do that these days) to give them a chance to do "a unique new IP by Infinity Ward, that we'll have complete control over."
To be honest, we almost feel a bit dirty posting this rumor. The game that for all intents and purposes, is COD5, is currently still being teased, and there's already rumors about the next game? Indeed there is, thus the faintly dirty feeling. Apparently an Infinity Ward team member spoke to someone from TalkPlaystation.com and told them that the company is at work on a new sci-fi title that may or may not see reveal at E3.
With Call of Duty: World at War returning to the familiar territory of WWII, and the series' current hit staking the claim of Modern Warfare it would seem to make sense that Infinity Ward would want to jump things into the future. If this ends up being accurate (heck, they could be working on a non-COD sci-fi game too) let's hope Infinity Ward can do better than some other popular franchises that have used a futuristic setting. We can't help but get flashbacks of the ill-fated Battlefield: 2142 ...
Fresh off of a 10 million unit milestone, Mr. Call of Duty 4 himself, fourzerotwo just announced that this weekend, beginning Friday, June 6th, Infinity Ward will be answering Bungie's recent shenanigans with their own CoD4 double XP weekend. Even better, the double XP fun will be enabled for ALL online playlists. W00t! Fourzerotwo also mentioned that they've recently tweaked the map rotation, lessening the frequency of Variety Map Pack maps and giving every map (new and old) the same odds of being selected. Now run along kids and have a happy double XP weekend!
Talk about successful. In an industry driven by sales numbers, Infinity Ward's premier shooter, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, has now sold over 10 million units world-wide. While those numbers are undoubtedly impressive (according to IW only 10 games since 2000 have sold so well) they are for all platforms and IW doesn't know the exact numbers for the individual SKU's, though they did note that the game had been the most successful on 360 and that they hope to sell even more copies of the game this winter ....
With such excellent sales what are the odds that we won't see COD5 until spring 2009? Would COD4 be enough of a mainstay shooter to keep you satisfied for the rest of the year if Activision decides to ride out the long tail of the fourth game's sales?
Just because we LOVE to stir up fanboy feelings and create all kinds of drama, we say: 
Talking to GamesIndustry.biz, Bungie Studios' Lead AI Programmer, Damian Isla, talked about 
For the 
Considering how long the game has been out now, we're glad that Infinity Ward is keeping up with its community and making sure that they continue to play. Over at IAMfourzerotwo's blog he's updated readers on the playlists that'll be "in testing" over the weekend. The best and most liked of the lot will be added to the playlists in the next update. The four playlists that'll be tested include Multi-bomb Search and Destroy and Hardcore HQ. The full run down with playlist descriptions are listed after the break.
When the 
Fresh off of a 
Talk about successful. In an industry driven by sales numbers, Infinity Ward's premier shooter, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, has now sold over 10 million units world-wide. While those numbers are undoubtedly impressive (according to IW only 10 games since 2000 have sold so well) they are for all platforms and IW doesn't know the exact numbers for the individual SKU's, though they did note that the game had been the most successful on 360 and that they hope to sell even more copies of the game this winter ....
