Is Someone at Activision Asleep? COD 5 will be another WWII game?

On Gamer,"

Call of Duty 5 back to World War II

Story By Jay Filmer

Thought Call of Duty 4 meant no more WWII? Think again

Those of you who enjoyed the latest Call of Duty’s modern-day approach may be saddened to learn that Treyarch (the dev team responsible for three, and, who will quite possibly end up doing seven) is taking the series back to World War II for the fifth game in the series.

Well, that’s if a job ad on the Treyarch website is anything to go by.

The ad, which is for a level builder, in case you’re interested, doesn’t give away any concrete info as such, but after asking for applicants with “working experience with First-Person Shooter or Third-Person Shooter genres”, does go on to add, “if you’re a fan of World War 2 shooters, then even better!”.

Which if you ask us is a bit of a giveaway. Why would the ad say that if the person lucky enough to bag the job ends up on designing levels for a modern-day or futuristic shooter anyway?

What do you reckon? Are we reading too much into it? Also, what do you make of the step back to WWII? After the success of COD4, is this what you really want? As ever, let us know in the comments section below.

Oh, and cheers to forum user ‘farquad92’ for the heads up. Your stock is rising number 92…"

OK, I know it was a lot to ask for Infinity Ward to come back and do another Call of Duty so quickly. But how about just not making a Call of Duty game next year?

Call of Duty 5 and Guitar Hero 4 Confirmed!

Both titles have been confirmed from statements made by the newly minted Activision-Blizzard. The real question here is less about if these franchises would continue but when and how they will continue. This being that Call of Duty 4 is fresh out the gate as well as Guitar Hero 3 being fresh to publication. Most people thought that both developers would be making DLC not new games.
Therefore, any new titles created, at least from the Call of Duty camp would seem to be coming from someone else other than Infinity Ward. But most analysts now believe that since Call of Duty 4 did so well that Infinity Ward would be doing 5. But Call of Duty 2 was the most successful one in the history of the series and yet Call of Duty 3 was done by a different developer to a luke-warm response.
As far as Guitar Hero 4, perhaps this is a response to Rock Band's continuing content and the seeming lack of innovation from Guitar Hero 2 to Guitar Hero 3. This is possibly the Guitar Hero 3 that should have been. But banking on people having bought Guitar Hero 2 and 3 by making new and even harder tracks for GH4 seems a little insane. If they go back to the proverbial drawing board and come up with something completely new it might alienate those people who just bought GH2 and GH3.
Hopefully the statements that these games are in development only means that there are plans for them and that we won/t see either title for at least a year. Coming out sooner, would be jumping the gun on both titles and not allowing the franchises to properly mature. Activision is doing really well right now, but these are certainly the exceptions not the rule. Hopefully Activision will use it's experiences as a publisher to lead them into the future and not unnecessarily rush these two premier. franchises.

No Multiplayer Achievements for COD4, you'll NEVER believe the reason!

"Multiplayer: Why are there no online Achievements for “Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare” (or “Call of Duty 2″ for that matter)? Wouldn’t you want to encourage people to try to play all the different online multiplayer modes?

Bowling: Our motivation behind multiplayer is to encourage people to play all the different multiplayer modes, which is why we make every single mode in multiplayer fun. Play a fun game type — you’re going to tell a friend, and then he’s going to get his friend to play it. Now that’s how you get people to try out different aspects in your game, just make it appealing and fully enjoyable. For players hungry for unlockables and rewards in multiplayer, we have more personal goals called Challenges, which encourage you to use a variety of weapons and score you more XP and challenge-specific rewards. For example, use the M4 Carbine a lot and unlock more accessories for the M4 Carbine."Multiplayer blog.

OK, so wouldn't having online achievements make people MORE likely to play different multiplayer modes? I guess, I just don't get it... Do you?

HDCGAMER Episode 4: The one about Call of Duty 4

In this episode we talk news and do a review for Call of Duty 4. Click on the episode link to listen to or subscribe to the podcast.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Video Review

Guitar Hero 3 sells great and now there might be shortages?

"Activision expects “unprecedented” inventory of the recently-released Guitar Hero III, but even at that, the firm warns of possible shortages of the smash hit."Competitively, we expect the Guitar Hero franchise to be the winner at retail this holiday,” said CEO Robert Kotick during Activision’s quarterly earnings call. “We have huge early consumer response, well before the heavy-selling periods of Thanksgiving and Christmas, we have an unprecedented amount of global supply, and the product is available now on all console platforms." Next Generation...

OK, this is getting a little crazy. Has everybody with a big expensive thing to sell this holiday season chimed in about limited supply. Let's see we have:

Rock Band (EA says we just can't make them fast enough!)

Guitar Hero 3 (story above)

Nintendo Wii (Reggie says they will be hard to find, even though you can find them easily right now)

IPODs(Expect this announcement soon, it happens every year and ir usually happens)

What's next? My guess is that either the XBOX 360 or PS3 will have the same announcement soon.

Will all this come true? Probably not... But hey, who knows...

Call of Duty 4 Review from Gametrailers

COD 4 Arcade? Interesting...

Please Stop the War Games! Fine for Matthew Broderick, bad for 21st Century!

As I look over the games coming out in the next year or so; I wonder if I'm the only one that notices the very large number of games about war and about fighting in wars. I don't want to go to war, do you? I don't believe in killing people to make a political point, do you? Wars are often fought for reasons that no one is readily willing to admit or explain to the people who are fighting or the people who are paying. I'm not here to talk about my politics or some religious beliefs that I may or may not have.

What I am here to say, is that if you repeatedly play games where all your doing is killing people who look like adversaries that either historically or currently we are fighting. In games like Quake Wars or Halo you are just fighting the other, the aliens. No problem here, I know that psychologically this might be just as bad for us as playing a game where we are killing realistic looking people in a realistic setting. But it seems like there is a pretty fine line between action movie and war movie when it comes to video games.

In games like Halo or Quake Wars there is at least the ability to pretend that it is all a movie or science fiction novel. But in a game like Call of Duty or Medal of Honor there is really nothing separating the reality from the gamer's mind. Unlike games like Doom or Quake; I honestly believe that games where you are killing realistic enemies are much worse. There certainly seems that there is a much more direct connection between who we consider to be the enemy.

Worse than all of this however, is the absolute unimaginative blundering that is passing for a war game now a days. Call of Duty 3 was a rehash of Call of Duty 2 and Medal of Honor: Airbourne was a rehash of both COD 2 and 3. Minus the parachuting of course. Company of Heroes, while a well designed RTS could have just as easily been set in space or on some alien planet. Did WW2 really have an integral part in the gameplay of this game. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is probably the most realistic and exciting FPS out there. It will be out in November and it looks to be the best thing since sliced bread. Problem is that the game's character models are, photorealistic. The enemies are supposed to be Russian but they look a lot like Middle Eastern people. I certainly couldn't comment on the story considering it hasn't been released yet; but the graphics really sell this game as real; maybe too real.

This certainly wouldn't be an issue if it wasn't coming out in a year of first person shooters and right before a second year that seems loaded with them as well. Besides this, there is no shortage of World War 2 games out there. Combining all of this together, it is really hard to stomach anything like Call of Duty, America's Army, Company of Heroes, Medal of Honor: Airborne, Hour of Victory, Medal of Honor: Heroes 2, and of course the upcoming Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway.
There is no doubt that games like: Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2, Rainbow Six Vegas, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and Counter Strike: Source are some of the best First Person Shooter titles the industry has ever seen.
The only problem with these games is the fact that are SO MANY OF THEM. The games have glutted the market. Ubisoft is one of the biggest developers and publishers of video games in the world. They could have certainly consolidated their efforts into one title and made the the best tactical first person shooter, ever. They chose rather to try and make two.

I'm certainly not asking anyone to give up their favorite game. Just think a little about what it is you are actually doing when you are playing them and why you are doing it. Is there some good story basis for why you are doing these things or is it just random killing in the warzone. Also, if you find the images or nationalities of the people you are shooting in these games disturbing; please contact the developers. Because this is the only way they are going to stop doing these kinds of games. Finally, PLEASE don't buy anymore WW2 games. Please let these die the death they so richly deserve. There is truly no reason to reinvent the wheel and there is truly no reason to recreate a game that was done perfectly by Call of Duty 2 and Company of Heroes.

UGO Tries to find some Halo Killers, probably not guys!

The offerings from UGO.com are right here.
I can/t say that this was a surprising article given the furor over Halo 3's recent good reviews and sales. However, to be a "Halo Killer." The game is going to need to have the kind of impact that Halo 3 does. Which is virtually impossible to do. Any games that come out from now on, won't be able to do better than Halo. Why? Because beating Halo is like beating Madden. The competition might be critically better, but you aren't going to find the kind of sales that Halo pulled.
Two games on the list certainly have the best chance of being "Halo Killers." These would be Unreal Tournament 3 which doesn't come out until next year except on PC. The other game is the Orange Box. Unreal Tournament 3 has some of the best graphics on any system since Gears of War and the addition of a map editor that allows the players to make maps and upload them to either the PC to play them or to your PS3. This is revolutionary and exciting. Problem is, that in order make the maps you have to buy a copy of the PC version of the game. To play them on your PS3 you need to have a PS3 version. Theoretically, this could give the game double normal sales. But I think only around 10% of the population of Unreal community will do this. Too bad, built in double sales could definitely kill Halo 3. The Orange Box, probably the best deal in all of gaming will include: Half Life 2, Half Life episode 1&2. Portal, and Team Fortress 2. It also comes out next week. It will be available on three platforms XBOX 360, PS3, and PC. All of which will probably help it's sales immensely. Even with all this packed on to one disc, I think that this critical darling will probably suffer from lagging sales. The commercials this last week were good but Microsoft has been touting Halo 3 for the past 2 years and Valve won't be able to compete with that. Personally, I'm more excited about both games than I was for Halo 3.
Their sales won't reflect this and considering how many 9s and 10s Halo 3 received where can these games go critically to beat Halo 3? This is why when people start saying that it is too early in the year to say that Halo 3 or Bioshock will be Game of the Year; I wonder then, why they gave the Halo 3 and Bioshock 9.5s or 10s. These are normally not scores people throw around. I have never given a game a 10/10. Mostly because there is no room for improvement there and every game has room for improvement.
The other games on the list have too low of a budget and are a little too pat to be able to compete with the most popular FPS in history next to Counter Strike.
The games that aren't on the list that might topple Halo 3; that aren't FPSs. For instance: Rock Band, Guitar Hero 3, Mass Effect, or even Super Smash Bros on the Wii. These games have broader appeal and even with small marketing budgets with the holiday season it is possible they could compete with Halo 3. It's going to be really hard to beat Halo 3 and even critically speaking it will be a real battle royale this holiday season.
But I get the feeling that in the end when all the scores are tallied and sales figured, Halo 3 will be the winner.

XBOX 360 Achievements has COD4 Achievements!

Over at XBOX360Achievements.org they have the achievement list for Call of Duty 4. Click over there on the link and take a look.