Hi! I work in video games, and my life goes as such...
Comments
If you’re not already addictively twittering, then I’m sure you’ve at least heard about it by now. As it’s hard to miss my personal account @fourzerotwo which is syndicated on the left-side of this blog. Twitter is a micro-blogging (140 character limit to be exact) service, which allows you to make quick and easy updates regarding “What you’re doing”, wherever you are. With the help of web and mobile apps like Twitteriffic on iPhone or TwitPic online, you can also attach photos and GPS coordinates to your updates.
Simple concept that seems to be oddly polarizing for people. Either you totally get it or you are completely boggled by it’s usefulness. I for one, LOVE IT. It was literally my life-line for the 3-something weeks I was on vacation with no access to a computer.
I kept tabs on the Gaza Strip Conflict via CNN’s Breaking News twitter @CNNbrk , stayed in tune with some of my favorite bands as they went through the recording studio, via Bad Religion guitarist and Epitaph Records head-honcho Brett Gurewitz twitter @OblivionPact (which led to the official Epitaph twitter being made @EpitaphRecs), and kept up on Gaming specific news among many site’s Twitter feeds, including @Kotaku.
In short, Twitter has personalized, summerized, and made the internet intimate again. Providing me 140 character bursts of information every minute, straight to my phone / email / other device of my choosing albeit the fact it also helped to further destroy my already limited attention span - but honestly, who needs one of those in this day and age.
While I’ve obviously been using Twitter personally for quite sometime, I’ve finally launched an Official Infinity Ward Twitter @Infinity_Ward this past week. Which I plan to update strictly with PR friendly updates, studio news, job postings, and some free DLC codes every now and again.
(Download a custom Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare twitter background here)
Essentially, if you’re not on Twitter yet, you should be. As it’s quickly becoming THE place to source exclusive and raw news regarding just about anything, as well as giving a voyeurtastic look into the personal lives of just about anyone you could imagine, from @MCHammer to more gaming note-worthy @djaffe .
The big reason I mention it though, is because Twitter (specifically @fourzerotwo and @Infinity_Ward) are going to play a key role in getting quick and raw updates regarding the development of our future games. As I can easily update them with info, news, and even photos from anywhere I am at anytime. While @Infinity_Ward will be focused on top-level news, @fourzerotwo will be chockfull of a more personal look and more in-depth details throughout development of our future games.
So try it out, go to Twitter.com, sign-up, and start tweeting. You’d be surprised by the people who are interested in listening or the amount of people you’d be interested in following. To get you started, here are just a few of the people I find interesting to follow:
CNN Breaking News - @cnnbrk
Brett Guerwitz of Bad Religion / Epitaph Records - @OblivionPact
Felicia Day of The Guild / Dr. Horrible - @Feliciaday
Amazon Game Deal of the Day - @amazongames
Valve Software - @valvesoftware
Naughty Dog for Uncharted 2 updates - @naughty_dog
Jeff Gerstmann of Giant Bomb - @jeffgerstmann
Kotaku - @kotaku
Just to name a few of the 107 I actively follow.
Update: Sam “QforQ” Houston posted a comprehensive list of all the video game companies and people on Twitter for you to follow. Pretty handy resource for those new to twitter. Check it out here.
Comments
We decided to pull some numbers on Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare this past week, which Slothy (one of our coders) so graciously put into a perspective we can all relate to.
As of Jan. 3rd we hit 10,006,606 unique users who have ever played Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare on Xbox 360 and have connected to Xbox Live at least once after playing.
That number got us curious as to how many of those 10 Million+users finished the F.N.G. mission, or beat Airplane on Veteran (among other things). Well, it turns out:
71.1%, or 7,111,508 people have completed F.N.G.
That’s more than the entire population of Hong Kong (which is 7 Million).
68.8%, or 6,886,509 people have completed Cargo Ship.
This is the same number of adults in the US who were morbidly obese in 2005.
46.5%, or 5,654,643 people have beaten the game on any difficulty.
This is more than the current population of Finland!
2.8%, or 283,632 people have completed Airplane on Veteran difficulty.
The population of Stockton, CA is 280,000.
So if you’ve beat Airplane on Veteran difficulty, then congratulations. You’re in a very elite club. Considering less than 3% of players have been able to do it.
Now keep in mind, these are only players on Xbox 360 (who have also connected to Xbox Live at least once). So there are more than this playing Call of Duty 4, we just can’t track them. For PS3, we pulled MP-numbers only, and it looks like theres approximately 4,381,276 unique users playing PSN (not including SP-only players).
Comments
Will Arnett, Justin Theroux, and Jon Glaser swung by the studio late today to talk games, check out an early sneak peek of the project we have in the works, and to hang out to play a little multiplayer during our weekly Friday Night Fights. Arnett is best known for his role as Gob from Arrested Development while Justin Theroux and Jon Glaser are probably more known for their awesome writing. Justin’s most recent work was the Ben Stiller, Jack Black, and Robert Downey Jr. comedy Tropic Thunder, as well as being announced as the writer for Iron Man 2. Jon Glaser was a Conan O’brien writer for 5 years before breaking off to do various other TV shows and projects such as Assy McGee and the Human Giant series recently. Funny guys, but most importantly, fucking hardcore COD4 players.
I started playing MP with Will, Justin and their crew awhile back after a Conan O’brien appearance where Will spent most of the interview talking about playing online in COD4. Ever since, everyone pictured above have been meeting up regularly on COD4 for some RPG + Knife only private matches where we entertain ourselves by jumping off roof tops and attempting to RPG and / or knife each other as they fall (DON’T JUDGE US!) - as well as whatever other drunken rules can be come up with at the time.
Regretfully we all live on separate coasts (IW on West Coast / Will + Justin on East Coast), so this was the first time we all met in one place while they were in Los Angeles on some business. Jon Glaser typically isn’t part of the regular crew, but after today he said he’s going to finally give in and join our 10 pm - 4 am gaming sessions. So hopefully he’ll feed into the COD4 addiction and join in on the fun in future matches.
It was great to finally meet in person after playing online together for so long. We’ll be meeting back up, hopefully late Jan / early Feb, to blow shit up. I’m in the process of planning a weapons shoot for early next year and there is no better reason to get together with friends than to blow up cars, watermelons, and anything else we can talk the range owners into letting us destroy with automatic weapons and explosives.
Comments
A few months back we enlisted the help of Ben Heck (Benheck.com) to engineer us a device to help us monitor the response time of when you press a button on the controller, and when the action actually takes place on screen. It didn’t take long for Ben to whip up this awesome controller mod (seen above) that does just that. The device has been a great tool for improving overall controls in the game and to tighten up the response time for the player. The fine details that I feel really define the basic building blocks of the multiplayer experience and makes the difference between a good game and a great game.
Ben posted up a little “making of” guide of the controller mod on his blog as well as a few videos of it in action. Be sure to check it out if you’re interested in grabbing it or something similar for your studio, because everything he does is pretty much gold.
Comments
It’s that time of year again, just after I stuff my face full of Turkey, Gravy, and an unhealthy amount of Pumpkin Pie - I sink into a blissfully lethargic state of being. This lasts for about three months. Three things are certain when this happens; I’ll become suddenly and overwhelmingly nostalgic for anything from my childhood (causing late night Ebay impulse buys of NES game lots )- It’s A Wonderful Life and A Christmas Story will be in my DVD player at least once - AND - My Christmas music playlist will become a permanent soundtrack of my life (on constant repeat).
Each year I recompile the playlist; giving me a chance to tweak it a bit and find different versions. I prefer a perfect blend of quintessential classics from my childhood, original one-offs from my teenage years, and modern remakes.
With that said, I present to you, my 2008 Christmas Playlist:
The Modern Remakes and Originals -
Grandpa’s Last Christmas - The Vandals [Listen]
Icicles - Punchline [Listen]
Winter Wonderland - Hellogoodbye
Ex-Miss - New Found Glory [Listen]
Last Christmas - Jimmy Eat World [Listen]
Christmas Time is Here - Gatsby’s American Dream [Listen]
Christmas Night of Zombies - MxPx [Listen]
What We Do On Christmas - Atom and His Package [Listen]
My First X-mas (As a Woman) - The Vandals [Listen]
This Time of Year - The Mighty Mighty Bosstones [Listen]
I Saw Daddy Kissing Santa Claus - Stand Still [Listen]
Christmas in Hollis - The A.K.A.s [Listen]
Forget December - Something Corporate [Listen]
Things I Want - Tenacious D (Feat. Sum 41) [Listen]
A Wicked Hardcore Christmas - Big D and the Kids Table
The Quintessential Classic Christmas Tunes -
Little Saint Nick - The Beach Boys
White Christmas - Bing Crosby
Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree - Brenda Lee
Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer - Burl Ives
Silver and Gold - Burl Ives
Christmas Don’t Be Late - The Chipmunks
Let it Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! - Dean Martin
Here Comes Santa Claus - Doris Day
Frosty the Snowman - Jimmy Durante
Jingle Bell Rock - Bobby Helms
Sleigh Ride - Ella Fitzgerald
Jingle Bells - Bing Crosby
Santa Claus is Coming to Town - Perry Como
Silver Bells - Bing Crosby
Santa Baby - Eartha Kitt
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas - Frank Sinatra
The Twelve Days of Christmas - Harry Belafonte
You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch - Thurl Ravenscroft
A Holly Jolly Christmas - Burl Ives
If you’re looking into compiling your very own Christmas playlist to drown yourself in cheer, then you can grab the majority of these songs from the following albums:
20th Century Masters - Best of Burl Ives
20th Century Masters - Seasons Greetings
Christmas With The Beach Boys
A Santa Cause - It’s a Punk Rock Christmas
Oi to the World - The Vandals
Happy Holidays from Drive Thru Records (out of print)
What does your Holiday Playlist look like? Have any awesome suggestions that I should be adding to mine?
Comments
I’m back from Las Vegas and most importantly the Call of Duty 4 National Champsionships that were held there this past weekend as part of the MLG National Finals. While I was there I met with up team FeaR (seen above) who took home the title as the best Call of Duty 4 players in the country. I watched over their shoulders as they shut out EnvyUs three games straight in some of the most impressive COD4 skills I’ve ever seen.
I caught up with (Robert) FeaR Assass1n, Kevin (FeaR Choppy), Joey (FeaR Moho), and John (FeaR PacMan) just after their win, before they scored their giant check, to congratulate them and talk about flying them out to the Infinity Ward studios at some point in the future.
While team FeaR came out as the best, 2nd place EnvyUs, 3rd place Head Trauma, and 4th place TBRE (seen below) were still some of the best Call of Duty 4 players I’ve witnessed. The fucking speed of some of these guys was incredible.
While sheer speed and skill will get you far, it definitely won’t get you the National Champion title which takes a lot more than just the ability to get quick headshots. The most impressive part of watching professional teams play is the level of communication they use (keeping the mics clear of useless information) and relaying the location of every enemy, what weapon they’re using, and any other useful information as they see it.
Overall the entire event was impressive, and a great debut for Call of Duty 4’s first live national champsionships. It was great to meet up with the MLG staff, and I have plans to meet up with them more formally once we get back to the studio and talk about how we can make Call of Duty 4 and it’s professional players a more prominent role in future seasons / tournaments.
Congrats again to FeaR on taking home the cash and title. Expect to hear from me once I get back to the studio.
In addition to those competiting in the tournament, I met up with several of our community members to talk “shop” and discuss Call of Duty 4, Infinity Ward, and get some of their direct feedback on what we can continue to improve on in the future (in terms of game development and a CRM point of view). I had lunch with Chase (Th3 Wiz4rd) and Brett (Th3 VerDict) on Saturday as well met with DpG Witness (when he wasn’t coaching teams). It was great to meet you guys and learn the meaning of “Jugger-twatting”.
Comments
The MTV Game Awards is this weekend in Berlin, Germany and we’ve been invited to attend thanks to our nominaton for the “Let’s Play Together Award” for Best Multiplayer Game. Regretfully, we won’t be able to make it out to Berlin for the live show, but we’ll be recording a little video tomorrow morning to show our appreciation and thanks to all of our German players who voted and supported the game in the awards, just in case. So if you’re part of our German game community, be sure to check the show this weekend, more info here www.mtvgameawards.de.
My Fallout 3 character. (Feral Mask + Chinese Spy Uniform)
Over 60 hours of gameplay later, and I’ve finally finished Fallout 3 this weekend; Holy hell was that an amazing game. You can definitely beat it in half that time, but I savored the gameplay, and completed every main and side quest before beating the main story line - as well as maxing out my character at the level 20 cap. I love the amount of detail and thought that went into every aspect of this game. Bethesda did a great job of really immersing you in their world and I’m kind of depressed it’s over. I still need to find a few bobbleheads and do a few random achievements, but for the most part it’s over, and I’m gonna miss it.
Although, thankfully I can get back to living a productive life now that it’s over, not to mention focus on finishing up Gears of War 2 (on the last level) and Mirrors Edge (on Chapter 6).
Hopefully I can finish them both up before Friday, because my entire weekend is being spent in Vegas. I’ll be flying in to attend the first ever LIVE tournament for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare at the MLG’s National Championships. There will be over $340,000 in cash prizing up for grabs overall this weekend - which will promptly be blown on hookers and blow immediately following the event. So be sure to drop me a line if you’re in Vegas or competing in the tournament. I’ll be held up at the Hard Rock where the event is taking place, so stop by and say hey. We can get together and gamble our life savings away in a horrible drunken rage.
Comments
Treyarch’s Call of Duty: World At War hit today, so if you haven’t already picked it up, GO GET IT NOW! If I haven’t stressed it enough, Zombies are awesome. What’s even better than run of the mill everyday zombies? Nazi Zombies!
I’m going to spend most of today powering through the 4-player co-op single player in order to unlock the Nazi Zombie mode at the end. So who’s with me?
I wasn’t kidding when I said this is one of the most awesome things about World At War.
If you’re not familiar with what the hell I’m talking about - Nazi Zombies is a bonus mode after you beat the single player campaign. Essentially, it’s you (and 3 other co-op buddies) defending an abandoned house. Every window / door is boarded up at the start and there are weapons lining the walls around the house.
Each weapon costs money, once you own a weapon, you can go to it’s place on the wall to replenish ammo (for a cost). To get the money to buy the weapons / ammo, just kill zombies. Bonus points for headshots! Every once in a while a zombie will drop a power-up (Instant Kill, Double Points, etc.) and even one that allows you to explode all zombies on screen at once (save that till you need it) which lasts for a set duration.
The zombies will come in waves, so you have to work as a team to cover all the windows and doors, and most importantly work on rebuilding the barricades the zombies tear down in their attempt to get in. Once you hit wave 10 and over, fuck the windows, just find a secure location to defend from because your ass is going to be swarming with the nazi undead. It’s awesome.
Once you get $1000 though you can unlock more portions of the house which gives you access to even more weapons. Move a couch to access the upstairs, knock open a door to get to the basement, etc. Once you’re in the basement, you’ll have access to a random weapon box. Essentially everytime you open the box you’re entering a lottery for a random weapon. Could be a shitty pistol, or a bad ass flamethrower (which is only available in the box, not on the wall) as well as a few “special” weapons that you’ll definitely want to shoot for.
It’s all about working together to cover and secure the windows, going for headshots, reviving your teammates when they go down into last stand, and calling out zombie positions so you can defend a certain area of the house. The highest we got in-house before it went retail was about Lvl 20, so that’s what I’m aiming for.
So if you’re down for some co-op zombie action in World At War then hit me up, send me a message and I’ll try to add you to my friends list.
Comments
I’m currently 32 hours into Fallout 3 and I’m STILL fully addicted to it. Now that says something about a game. What is really blowing me away about the game is the fact that I can come into the studio today and start talking about it, and everyone I talk to has completely different stories about what happened in their game. Despite us doing the same quests. The reason being, and what makes the game so unique, is every quest has multiple ways it can be solved - in many ways changing the entire course of events for that and other quests. I don’t want to spoil anything, so I won’t go into great detail, but I’m really loving this game right now.
Other than that, Gears 2 has finally arrived. I’m making my way through Single Player co-op now, and have already completed all 50 levels of Horde Mode. They have definitely brought a lot of cool new features to the table with Gears 2, especially on the UI front with their in-game friendslist via the LB button. Completely independent from the Guide system and it works beautifully. They also did an amazing job with their Achievements; making me feel like I’m ALWAYS getting rewarded for what I do. The pacing of achievements if perfect, even when I’m not getting achievements, their in-game achievement progress tracker is always reminding me that I’m working towards a big one. I love that shit! It’s the kind of stuff that pushes you to keep playing (besides the awesome gameplay). For example, I’m in horde mode, and it’s getting hellish. There’s locust coming out of the wood work and every locust I drop is a potential chance to get that sweet sweet reminder that I just hit my 400th / 500th kill. Good stuff.
So whats everyone else addicted to at the moment. It has to be something, because there are WAYYYY too many amazing games coming out at the same time. Mirrors Edge tomorrow, then Left 4 Dead, and Call of Duty: World at War. I feel sorry for our loved ones.
Comments
Seriously man…. You’re killing me!
If I see one more Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare google alert come through my inbox, that ends up being a COD:WaW article that is only showing up because YOU referenced Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare more times than you mention World At War….
Especially when you’re pulling shit out of your ass. Come on man, interview about your game. Not OURS! Call of Duty: World at War can stand on it’s own merits, leave ours out of it. Like this gem of a quote from today’s article on CVG…
“In the previous Call of Dutys it might take three or four shots from a bolt action rifle,” he explained. “We made sure that a single shot centre mass would kill that opponent because that’s the expectation of the player.”
WTF are you talking about?! “in previous Call of Dutys blah blah blah”. First of all, you didn’t work on “previous Call of Dutys”, so don’t talk as if you’re down with how / why things were designed the way they were. Second, you’re completely fucking wrong.
Bolt Action rifles are one hit kills in every Call of Duty we (Infinity Ward) made!!
I won’t compare it to World at War’s Bolt Actions, I can’t speak to that because I don’t work there. Just like you don’t work here, so please stop talking about our games.
A rule of thumb I like to use is…. when promoting your game. Promote YOUR game. Don’t compare it to another game, or reference what OTHER games did in the past, pitch YOUR game. I mean, you have lots of cool things you could talk about… like Nazi Zombies….
Can you guys please stop interviewing this guy, talk to someone who actually works on the Dev Team at Treyarch and knows what the fuck they’re talking about. Not Senior Super Douche Noah Heller from Activision - who apparently has never played the game and doesn’t even work at the developer.
Alright, I’m done ranting… but I can’t take another google alert of garbage coming through my inbox with bullshit quotes from this guy.
