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After having a blast getting slaughtered by dogs in the Xbox 360 and PC betas and suffering the ignominy of having it played back to us on the kill cam, Call of Duty (yes, I said doody) World at War fans in India will be able to start kicking the living crap out of my hapless soldier in the game starting today. In what is a welcome change from seeing games release months after their international release dates (or sometimes, not at all, thanks to stupid, mutated two-headed bovines and even dumber Fox network-ey legal types) World at War will be available for the PC, the Xbox 360 and the PS3 for INR 1299, 2499 and 2799 respectively. Sure, you’re not running around gunning Soviet / Chechen / Islamic fundamentalist hydrids and saving the world seven seconds before nuclear annihilation, but hey, at least this time you have the option of being able to train your gun sights on World War II cannon fodder with your friends instead of being humiliated by getting knifed nine times in a row by the multiplayer whore (read “best friend”) sitting next to you.
Before we start, lets get this one thing out of the way – Call of Duty 4 (COD4) is woefully short as far as the single player campaign is concerned. Agreed, there’s tons of fun to be had with the superbly well done multiplayer aspect of the game, but still, once you see the end credits roll, you have this feeling that the game could have gone for a little more.
Now that we have that out of the way, we come down to what we have on hand, which is nothing short of amazing. This is a game that will grab you by your throat and never let you go till the very end, such is the quality of it. Right when you thought that war games were passé, Infinity Ward came out with COD4, completely revamping the series, taking it light years beyond Treyarch’s Call of Duty 3. While it is still essentially Call of Duty as far as the gameplay is concerned, the wise choice of shifting the setting from the much used World War II theater to a grittier, modern day setting comes as a breath of much needed fresh air, even as announcements start to go out that Treyarch will be taking the series back to boring World War II with the next game in the series.
Ahoy thar me harties!
Aye, before you start readin’ this post, I’d recommend headin’ o’er t’ har and read up a bit on the most important day (okay, it isn’t but my mind likes t’ imagine it is) o’ the entire year: International ‘Speak like a pirate’ day, shiver me timbers! (not t’ be confused with the International ‘Speak Like the Goddamn Batman’ day or the far more local ‘Walk like I’’e been kicked in the balls by M$’ day which Enoon has been celebratin’ for the past few weeks). Due t’ the utter awesomeness o’ Pirates, I was goin’ t’ ask for a guest speaker t’ come in today, but it seems the Pirate-ninja feud sort o’ intensifies at this time o’ the year meanin’ their all out busy kickin’ ninja ass. So fer now its all me! YARRR!
*coughs as he’s kicked in the nads by several TAP members*
Okay, okay, fine! Onto more serious matters then. I’ve been rather quiet recently for several reasons. I finally got an Xbox 360 and my recent time has been divided between working, studying, writing and playing GoW, WiC, SoTS, PGR3 and a few other games.
OK, looks like a lot of crap has gone down in the last 24 hours since we posted that the countdown timer for the Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare beta will be going up this week. After details surfaced at the CoD4 website about registrations being “sorta” open for the beta at 5 PM, the Internet just exploded and the website, predictably, went down 60 seconds later. After putting up a maintenance page up and redirecting people to Activision.com, the traffic, unsurprisingly, blew up Activision web servers as well, and every news site that picked this up also obligingly went down with the whole crazy internet descending upon them like starving zombies.
With the official announcement going out that the beta registrations at the COD.com website would be delayed a bit longer, thanks to “logistical issues”, Microsoft certifications, the token handling systems, etc., IW’s very own fourzerotwo, (who you’ve seen in all the beta videos released so far) ran the first wave lotto of the beta invitations on his blog.
The idea, of course, was pretty simple. Simply fill out an email with all the required details, including the answers to the trivia questions and then send them back, hoping and praying that you get a token. The first batch of tokens have now started going out to people, and don’t worry, if you don’t get in now, there’s going to be a bunch of other ways to get in, including the big tickets at the official website later.
The beta is going to roll out in waves. Rather than just putting a million people in the beta and hope nothing goes wrong, we will ramp up the playercount over time.
As fourzerotwo mentioned, right now some friends/family are testing. The press will be joining in the next couple days — including those of you who make it into the first wave.
No worries if you aren’t in the very first wave (most won’t be), we should have a new wave of players every day or so as we ramp up.
And, oh, the answers to the CoD4 beta trivia questions that were asked in the first wave?
What is the current level cap for the beta: Currently it is at 11, but if you entered 20, it’s OK, considering that was the level cap that was previously announced.
What button do you press to activate your streak rewards (radar, airstrike, etc): Right on the d-pad
What button do you press to use your weapon attachments or explosives (m203, c4, etc): Left on the d-pad
Keep checking back here to get more news on the beta as and when it breaks. Toodle-oo!
Boy, do I love being right! After convincing people over and over again that they’d have to wait for the Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare beta until the Leipzig Games Convention begins, word finally comes down from developers Infinity Ward that the long-awaited beta should be up and running this week.
After Xbox LIVE Marketplace temporaily leaked the beta a couple of days back, Infinity Ward announced on the CoD4 website that the countdown clock will go up later this week and added that the wait should be a pretty short one. For those that have been swimming in pools of their own drool waiting for just this announcement, keep checking back here for more details as and when they arrive. In the meantime, keep yourselves amused with the new Perks video, which shows off a lot of the “Vacant” map and how the user-created classes work. See you all in the game soon!
Looks like some people just can’t keep their mouths shut, and for once, we are glad they didn’t. With Activision yapping on about a Winter release date for their upcoming, photorealistic shooter Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, a senior brand manager slipped the news at a press event saying that the game would be available on November 5th for the US and on November 9th for Europe, with simultaneous launches for all three planned platforms: PC, Xbox 360 and PS3.
While we are still awaiting confirmation that the game will indeed ship on this date, it looks like this is the date they will be, pardon the pun, gunning for. With a multiplayer beta on it’s way, and a major showcasing at the upcoming Games Convention in Leipzig, Germany, it looks like the game is all set to climb to the top of the shooter charts this Holiday season, that is, depending on how the hundred and one other shooters releasing around that time, including Crysis, do.
No news on the beta still (Announcement / Details) and Infinity Ward has promised all those with their keisters parked at the CoD4 website that they will give us a big heads-up long before the beta is about to be released, and even put a monster countdown timer till sign up opens. So please, keep your panties on for now, we will let you know the instant the sign up announcements are made, as well as mirroring the countdown timer right here.
In the meantime, amuse yourself by checking out the latest Perk video, called Ghillie in the Mist, which shows off the UAV Jammer and Extreme Conditioning. More details straight from the overworked souls at IW:
We’re doing things completely different with this video. Instead of showing off one awesome perk, we’re showing off an entire Sniper class. This video is triple the length, showing off double the perks, and did I mention it’s all Ghillie action? In this video we’re showing off UAV Jammer and Extreme Conditioning, two perks which are great for snipers, but work in pretty much any scenario. We decided to make this video epic, to do that we played in Hardcore Mode, which explains why there’s no HUD on the screen, no Kill Cam, and increased weapon damage. We also decided to film in some 3rd person perspective. You’ll never play in 3rd person perspective, but when you’re spectating, you’ll be in 3rd person following people.
In the video, our Sniper is lurking through the overgrown brush (ever wondered why we call this map Overgrown?), where he makes contact with three enemy troops. After taking out their point man, the enemies call in an air strike on his position, which is when the Extreme Conditioning perk comes in handy; allowing him extended sprint to haul ass out of the area before the jets come in and devastate it. Once barely escaping the air strike, the Sniper utilizes the environment with his Ghillie suit and UAV Jammer to stay off enemy radar as they rush over to clear the area and look for any survivors.
The rest… speaks for itself.
In the end, UAV Jammer allows you to remain undetected on enemy radar, while Extreme Conditioning allows for extended sprinting time. As you can tell, pretty useful perks for just about any class.
Click the links below to download the video.
HD Flash Video (Requires Flash Player)
HD Quicktime
HD Windows Media