Activision being cryptic with latest Call of Duty tease

Posted by Tiberius Jonez
email at tiberiusjonez@gmail.com


Activision's official landing page for Call of Duty has been replaced with a mosaic comprised of pictures of fans. The mosaic is being slowly revealed over time, but appears to me to be the skull logo featured in different iterations throughout the Call of Duty series of games.

If you click "find me" at the top of the page you can connect via twitter or facebook and presumably be added to the mosaic.

This is what you'll see at the official Call of Duty landing page.

This "tease" is starting to feel like the latest "worst kept secret in gaming". Do you think these sorts of teases are an effective marketing tool? Do you think they're a complete waste of time and money? Would you do it differently? I'd love to hear someone else's opinion on this in the comments. 

Call of Duty 4 passes 10 million units sold

By Tiberius Jonez

Infinity Ward’s smash hit and multiple Game of the Year award winner, Call of Duty 4 has surpassed 10 million units sold. According to studio head Vince Zampella, COD4 is one of less than ten titles to reach that milestone since 2000. While he didn’t list the other titles to reach the 10 mil mark, Halo 3 by comparison had sold 8.1 million copies as of January ’08 – an equally impressive feat considering it is only available on the Xbox 360.

In an interview with CNET yesterday, Zampella didn’t offer a platform by platform breakdown of sales, but he did say the game has been the most successful on the Xbox 360.

It’s impossible to say how many more copies COD4 would have sold had it been available on the Wii. But it’s a moot point as Zampella said that Infinity Ward decided not to make the game for that console because "it just doesn't fit on the Wii. We thought it would be compromised to be on (that) platform."

COD4 is the only game this writer has ever owned for three different platforms. Yes, it’s sad but true, I own the 360, PS3 and PC versions of COD4. It gets the most play on the 360 – by a wide margin, but if I am relegated to other rooms of the house for whatever reason, I can still play what I consider to be the greatest shooter of all time.

Sadly, Call of Duty 5 is being developed by Treyarch, the studio responsible for the underwhelming Call of Duty 3. Activision has decided to maintain an every-other-game development cycle between Treyarch and Infinity Ward to facilitate shorter gaps between releases. Unfortunately, Treyarch has yet to prove themselves in the same class as Infinity Ward, so I have less than high expectations for COD5. Hopefully Treyarch will prove me wrong this time around and take some lessons from their uber-talented brethren from IW. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it fellas.

Guitar Hero III Wii only outputs sound in Mono

Guitar Hero III is not exactly off to a rousing start. At release, Activision shipped out the game with no offline co-op quickplay mode. That issue was resolved on the Xbox 360 version (sorry PS3/Wii owners) with a quick patch, but now a few attentive Wii shredders have noticed another thing they left out - several channels of sound.

Despite the advertised Dolby Pro Logic II surround sound support, several Wii owners have noticed the game's sound only comes through the center channel in monaural audio. That's right, it doesn't even output sound in stereo. Activision is looking into the problem, but they said in regards to a potential fix, "the time frame is still unknown." Until a fix is devised, just pretend you're Robert Johnson jamming in the pre-stereo days of the early blues. Think of it as an added feature.