Infinity Ward has responded to forum users over on Xbox.com when asked why there has not been any information, let alone the release of some of the promised playlists for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Apparently this because Infinity Ward is hard a work on the next installment in the series, plus I guess they figure gamers have enough to do with Call of Duty: World at War burning up the charts.

Thanks to Adam over at The Gamer Limit who has kindly posted the discussion from the Xbox. com forums which started when a member was asking where the promised content was:

“Glad to hear you enjoyed CoD:WaW. As for DLC for our games, we did three map packs for Call of Duty 2, ending with an impressive number altogether. For Call of Duty 4, we focused on including as many maps as we could out of box, and had 16 from DAY 1 (adding four more later for a total 20 Maps total).

Personally, I prefer to give the community as much as possible out of the box instead of making them wait and pay extra for them later. However, whenever possible (like with COD2) we continue to make maps if our development process allows for it.

It’s a bit of a catch 22 in gaming. Of course as a gamer you always want more, more more. If you include them out of box (shipped with game for no extra cost) then it’s just ignored and people demand more. If you instead, decide to get the game out and then worry about beefing up the map selection via DLC, people say “don’t nickle and dime me” or “this should have been included in the shipped game”.

Perfect solution, ship with a load of maps (like we did) and also release a lot of DLC (for free). In a perfect world, that would be fantastic. Regretfully in a realistic development environment, it’s near impossible. Unless your Criterion of course, with their magical DLC fairies ; )

In all seriousness though, I hear ya, and We’re always working on improving our development process and planning to ensure that we can deliver more and more community support in the form of updates / DLC and other forms of support for our future games. We have big plans for our future (still currently unofficial) projects.”

The discussion continues after the jump.
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It looks as though U.K. fans are just as crazy about the Call of Duty franchise as those in the U.S. because according to the All Formats charts from Chart Track, the week one sales of Call of Duty: World at War are higher than sales for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare when it debuted. Outselling CoD4 by more than 2 to 1, World at War is expected to be the most popular game during the Holiday Shopping Extravaganza across the pond.

If you look at the rest of the chart, you will notice that games published by Activision Blizzard dominate the chart by having 25 percent of all sales for the one publisher. Of course, World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King is on the chart as well, taking spot number two while Guitar Hero: World Tour coming in at number six (full kits for this game were just released recently released).

Last week’s number one best-selling game was Epic’s Xbox 360 exclusive Gears of War 2, which dropped 64 percent and down to position number four.

To give you an idea what our British brethren are playing, here are the top selling games for week ending November 15:

1. Call of Duty: World at War
2. World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
3. Football Manager 2009
4. Gears of War 2
5. FIFA 09
6. Guitar Hero: World Tour
7. Professor Layton and the Curious Village
8. Mario Kart Wii
9. Pro Evolution Soccer 2009
10. WWE Smackdown Vs RAW 2009

Thanks: GamesIndustry.biz

One industrious modder by the name of Qrysalis has apparently uncovered a lost level from Call of Duty 4 that was abandoned later on in the development process. The new level is basically an extended version of the first training mission, which features some extra tasks between the indoor firing range and the timed obstacle course that determines your difficulty setting. The developers apparently decided to keep the final version of this mission short and sweet, so you could get right to the meat of the game — and the spectacular cargo ship level — much more quickly. If you want to give the extended training run a go for yourself though, you can download it through some posts on Infinity Ward’s forums.

Via FourZeroTwo

It should come as no surprise that WoW would be number one in sales on the PC charts, but for one company to have five titles in the Top 10? That is a testament to the popularity of the games it creates. Blizzard is no stranger to being the dominant company in the NPD charts though, and as you can see below, the week of August 17-23 was no exception:

• 1. World of Warcraft: Battle Chest
• 2. The Sims 2: Double Deluxe
• 3. World of Warcraft
• 4. Spore Creature Creator
• 5. World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade
• 6. The Diablo Battle Chest
• 7. Nancy Drew: The Phantom of Venice
• 8. Call of Duty 4
• 9. The Orange Box
• 10. The Warcraft III Battle Chest

It is also no surprise that the Spore Creature Creator is up there, nor CoD4 or even The Sims 2 for that matter. I have even stopped batting an eye at the Nancy Drew game because despite what we choose to believe, even little girls like PC games too. However, what is shocking to me is that The Orange Box is still in the Top 10 after all this time- maybe this is because of all the Team Fortress updates and the like, because I would think that Portal and Half-Life 2 would be old hat by now.

It was revealed this morning on MTV Multiplayer that during a demo for the upcoming James Bond title Quantum of Solace, that Activision polled gamers in advance before starting development on the game. Slated for a Fall release on multiplatforms, the newest entry in the James Bond franchise was heavily researched by game developers Treyarch, and according to Josh Olin, the community manager for studio, the survey produced a 60/40 split; thus crowing “first-person” the winner.

However, fans of the third-person shooter should not fret, for while the game is indeed a FPS, when Bond takes cover or engages in hand-to-hand combat the view switches over into third-person mode. In doing so, Activision is banking on giving both genres the game they crave. Hopefully it will pay off for them, and the Bond franchise as whole.

The game Quantum of Solace will cover both the most recent Bond movie “Casino Royale” and its upcoming sequel, “Quantum of Solace”. The game will be run will use the Call of Duty 4 engine, and since the game will be released onto multiple platforms, it will be interesting to see how it will differ from port to port. COD4 was not released for the Wii, so I imagine (correct me if I am wrong) that either they will have to tweak things a bit or use a different engine for the Nintendo console. Plus, a myriad of developers will be creating the game for different versions: Treyarch (Xbox 360 and PS3), Vicarious Visions (handheld), Beenox (Wii) and Eurocom (PC).

What this means, is that like most multiplatform games, you can expect each one to look drastically different from the next. Unless of course you are looking at PC/PS3/360 comparisons, which mainly just differ in matters of clarity – or so I have found. Of course, this could be because I added a bit of whiskey to my espresso earlier.

With the ability to play the iconic British secret agent in both FPS and TPS, do you dear readers, think that it will give us the best of both worlds? Or will it just prove that sticking to one style throughout is the best route to go?

If you like the Call of Duty games, and you like explosions, then you will dig this trailer that was shown at E3 for the upcoming Call of Duty: World at War from Activision and Treyarch. I know that the WWII shooter genre has been done to death, but this looks pretty damn cool.

The game will utilize the CoD4 engine and in the game you will have the ability the burn down the buildings and foliage within the war-torn pacific. Gamers will be up against Imperial Japan this time around and thanks to Gulf War Veteran, and military adviser Frank Kearsy, the way the Japanse fight suppose to be authentic, brutal, tenacious and shocking.

Here is bit of disappointing news for those who play CoD4 on their PS3.

Infinity Ward has no plans to go back and add trophies to the game. Pulled straight from the Infinity Ward forum, Rob Bowling had this to say regarding the situation:

Hey Everyone -

With the latest Playstation 3 firmware now available, I see a lot of questions regarding how it effects Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

At this time, we have no plans to patch in Trophy support for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare for the PS3. Much like DualShock rumble addition to the PS3, the support for these new features have come much to late for us to add it to Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare due to our current production schedule.

We would have loved to have these in the game at launch if the support was available, or shortly after.

If any gamers were looking forward to the possibility of this, I am sorry to have ruined your day.

Via: Infinity Ward Forums

Finally, more than just one Quantum of Solace screen has been released for the game.

The new Bond game will be run on the CoD4 engine, but other than that, not much else is known about the game except for it being a movie tie-in that will be released sometime around the debut of the movie in theaters.

Since the game is based on the movie, it is rational to assume that the game will pretty much have the same plot elements to it and hopefully Activision will have more updates for us soon, in the meantime, just keep checking back every once in a while.

Activision has released a new patch for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Official patch version 1.7 fixes an multiplayer exploit which may upset some players. However it fixes the Chinatown Sabotage overtime crash and problems with MP icons showing up in English on multilanguage installs. Here are the v 1.7 patch notes.

Call of Duty v1.7 fixes :

Fixed an exploit that allowed players to access certain console dvars during multi-player matches.
Fixed a crash that could occur when a Chinatown Sabotage match would go into over-time.
Fixed a bug where the MP icons (Bomb, Defend, Capture, etc) were always showing up as English regardless of the install language.

You can grab the patch below. Check out FileFront for Maps Levels and Missions, mods, unofficial patches and skins for CoD4.

via FileFront

Some say that videogames are highly addictive. Some have even said that they are as bad as crack. I beg to differ. Look at the picture of Amy Winehouse above, and tell me if you think it is. Personally, I think that if she were addicted to games, she would have a little more meat on her bones – she would still look just as pasty for lack of sunshine, but no longer would she resemble a Stalfos. A few months of chips, pizza, soft drinks and WoW would do the pitiful thing a world of good.

Unfortunately, Amy nor anyone else will become addicted to the game demos released this week. Other than Stronghold Crusader Extreme, nothing seemed to be too popular this week, but I will list them anyway just in case something tickles your fancy.

• Stronghold Crusader Extreme (English): This demo is also available in French, German, Italian, and Spanish. Featuring three levels of varying difficulty, the Stronghold Crusader Extreme demo caters for those wishing to see what the fans have been raving about for years and also for the seasoned Crusader veterans needing an extreme new fix. Be warned though, this is EXTREME and not for the faint hearted.

• Vega PC: Vega is an arcade styled casual game where speed and accuracy is everything. As precious resources fall onto your base, you must guide them on to a designated landing pad for them to be collected. The only way to change their seemingly random trajectory is to “bump” them in the right direction with small rescue pods that have limited air and fuel. To be efficient you must be at the right location at the right time… with just the right nudge. It’s an all around fun and easy to play game. Also available for Mac.

• Candy World : Tome II v2.21: Candy must get courageous and explore more levels (35), having more habilities she will show more polyvalency and more efficiancy than the latest free game Xilvan Design made this year… Candy must find its Golden Bones to get alive again… 35 Worlds are waiting for her… from dank Mushroom Worlds, Brisk Automn Breeze, Salty dog ocean, Anciant Atlantis City to Spiritual Mountain, by passing into Futuristic city and rural village and Cloudy land until the final in the graveyard… Where you’ll uncover the fantastic secret behind its regeneration.

• Martians vs Robots: Who could have believed it? The Earthlings invented a race of robots and wiped themselves out! Now the Martians are the only ones left in our solar system that can clean up the mess. They better hurry though, because the Robots are growing fast and consuming all the crystal ore to be found! It’s a race for resources! And no matter how well the Martians were able to hide from the humans, a confrontation with the Robots is inevitable. Classic Asteroids style gameplay – also available for Mac.

• Total Battleship: The classic naval strategy turn-based game of Battleship combined with modern warfare. Take part in epic battles with aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, frigates, submarines and even seaborn aviation, using the state of art missile technology while deciphering morse code communications. Apply your best strategy in order to be the first one to seek out and destroy all enemy vessels based on radar clues. Your performance will be tracked by a improved rank and rating score system. As in real life enlisted personnel would be given a commissioning oportunity from Seamen to Admiral of the Fleet while mastering your skills with flotillas, squadrons or fleets.

• Zoo Vet: Endangered Animals: The reality-based Zoo Vet: Endangered Animals is the follow-up to the 2005 hit Zoo Vet. The retail version has garnered awards including the coveted 2007 Editor¹s Choice Award from the Children’s Technology Review, the 2008 Parent’s Choice Gold Circle Award and the 2008 iParenting Media Award. The game features 30 scenarios created by actual veterinarians in which players treat 20 different endangered animals including a lion, elephant and panda in situations ranging from setting an eagle’s broken wing to saving a crocodile that has swallowed a penny. A cast of colorful characters assist in teaching animal lovers about actual medical tools, animal statistics, vet techniques and true-to-life zoo maladies. Also included are zoo animal trivia and jigsaw puzzles, as well as fascinating conservation information provided by the African Wildlife Foundation, which benefits from a portion of the game’s proceeds.

• Myriad RPG: Myriad is made by Rancor Online Games. It is a OFFLINE RPG game with a enhanced combat system, sweet skills, and more. Visit Rancor’s website (Soon-to-be-domain) freewebs.com/rancoronline.

In the patches department, unless you were living under a rock you would know that a new CoD4: Modern Warfare patch was released, but other than that not much else really. Eudemons Online v1101 to v1112 Patch was released as well as patches 1113 to 1117 so if you are a Eudemons fan you have a nice list of them. The following patches were also released: Ship Simulator 2008 amBX , Albatross18 S3 Revolution v4.16 Client , Soldner: Secret Wars v33724 , Voyage Century v0.30 to v0.42 , and DOFUS v1.23.0 to v1.24.0 .

As always, for the complete list of both demos and patches, click here and here.

Enjoy all the Diablo III news and have a great weekend.