Activision have announced the Australian release date along with some new information about the Game of the Year edition of Call of Duty 4, for Xbox 360:

Scheduled for release at all retailers nationwide from 30th April, Call of Duty® 4: Modern Warfare™ Game of the Year Edition will feature a token to download the Variety Map Pack, a series of four new multiplayer maps exclusively for Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft. The Variety Map Pack will also be available for purchase on Xbox LIVE® Marketplace in April, arming gamers with multiple ways to experience the newest multiplayer action from the blockbuster hit title.

Once released, the new downloadable Variety Map Pack for Xbox 360 will be available for download on Xbox LIVE Marketplace exclusively for 21 days.

i tried playing this on ps3, it's so gumby with a controller :\

looks awesome on a 52" lcd though

No, you are so gumby with a controller!

im with the rwd fag on this one
I can barely controll all the keys on k/m let alone a noob stick

No, you are so gumby with a controller!

OMG MAN IF WE COULD PLAY PC VS XBOX YOU WOULD GET PWND OK LOL!

It was a pretty good game, but GOTY? It really gave me the s***s that I couldn't clip to a wall ( GOW, Vegas, etc ), but all the NPC charaters could. So your team mates are doing all this fancy technical stuff when entering a room, and you just have to run in like a beserker.

clip to a wall

what ?

is that something i'm missing in the PC version ?

what is it?

He means like in some games you can press a button to take cover against a wall (like uncharted, rainbow 6 vegas) but in coh4 you can't.

I couldn't clip to a wall

You fail at quoting.

you need to get coh off your brain

i'm still not completey with you, when i want cover from a wall i run behind it ?

are you talking about sliding along the wall or something

i went from playing cs to cod4 pretty much, so i don't know this fancy stuff

lol coh. Some c*** on steam is pestering me about company of heroes while I was typing.

are you talking about sliding along the wall or something

Yes. Press button "x" to take over behind a wall and slide along it and peak out and shoot. Often used in 3rd person shooters. COD4 is more arcadey, doesn't need that s*** imo.

forget that, it will get you killed more often than not

lol@pc gaming. serusly. the only game thats on the pc that is better than the console counterpart is Tf2.

otherwise, console ftw.

oh dear

lol@pc gaming. serusly. the only game thats on the pc that is better than the console counterpart is Tf2.

Oh no you didn't start this again.

talk about trolling

no, really, its truth. even ut3 has better online on ps3 than pc. the pirates have won (/lost?).

no really, you keep telling yourself that

domino: do yourself in right now.

oh no he di-n't!

I'm not interested in starting s*** but I'm actually curious because buying CoD4 has been on my "to-do" list for a month or so and I've got the option of Xbox360 (which would please my housemates) or PC (which would please only me). If you've played both which would you choose?

I'm prefering it on the 360

I just find it much more cruisey and relaxing sitting back on the couch playing some cod4 on the 360 rather than sitting at desk playing on the pc.

i would choose pc, cos it's far easier to'rent cod4 for pc

I've gotten the impression that multiplayer is the only way to fly with this game so why would i bother to pirate it?

Screenshots from the new maps:

when will these new maps be coming to the pc version?










oh, thats right, there not yet are they?

It's funny that you think the fact that the Xbox 360 is going to get maps that the PC isn't is something to be happy about. Have you already forgotten the good old days when they'd release a game, release a map editor, and then we'd just bask in the glow of thousands of user-created maps?

User-created content is responsible for some of the biggest PC gamers ever; game developers and publishers would do well to remember this and to not forget that its one of the biggest advantages the PC has over consoles (well, at least until MS announced their new Live stuff at GDC, anyway).

CoD4 has mapping tools (IIRC?) so I have to assume there's plenty of CoD4 maps available for PC as well..?

nothing uniform like this though

they would need more maps to entice more console noobs to buy it anyway

I must be playing the wrong games because ever since cs moved to the source engine no one plays custom maps anymore (fun maps don't count) they're all on dust/d2/office and every time I look at the ra3 servers they're all on ra3map1.

trog, the fact that Xbox 360 is going to get maps that the PC isn't IS something to be happy about. new maps are awesome! but it does also illustrate the fact that there is more love(/money) for consoles from developers. i am all for user created content and it think its sad that there will be less of it in the future, and close to none at all on the consoles.

But pc gaming fans have killed there own industry through piracy, its sad, i know. The gaming is on the consoles now, and the sooner everyone realises that the better. its time to move on.

Piracy on PC's hasn't done squat to slow PC game sales. If that was the case then pirated Console games would also be a problem.

More so for a 'dwindle' in PC game sales would be the absolute butt loads of consoles that have been sold over past 6 or so years. It is simply easier to buy a console and buy games for it and not worry about PC specs. A lot of games from the old skool days are older now, many of them are parents. It is easier to sit down with your kids and play a game or two on a console then it is playing via a PC or 2.

I have found one custom maps server, its a gamingSA one.. gets decent pings.

Some of the maps it runs are farking awesome.. however its running the modernwarfare mod or whatever its called, basically u get to choose your entire loadout with everything unlocked... and its Hardcore mdoe too..

Anyone know any other custom maps servers?

Did I read somewhere that the maps are only exclusive for a few weeks?

Anyway like it matters, FPS's on console = retarded. I've got a few FPS games on my PS3 and I just get so frustrated in MP, single player is alright because you don't have to have quick aim.

I think I'll keep my FPS gaming to a PC thanks. Also don't forget you gotta pay for those new maps - one reason they might not be coming to PC is because they can't figure out how to charge the PC users yet.

Just fyi, played through CoD4 SP on a 360 but bought it for my PC to play MP.

last edited by reso at 20:37:32 26/Mar/08

yeah pro wars on console... sif!!!

lol domino, you deranged fool

the fact that Xbox 360 is going to get maps that the PC isn't IS something to be happy about.

there are hundreds of custom maps for PC. WTF are you smoking?

consoles are gay. like domino. the end.

Piracy on PC's hasn't done squat to slow PC game sales. If that was the case then pirated Console games would also be a problem.

not true. It's much easier to pirate a PC game than a console game. Most consoles require hardware modification to play pirated games, PC games can be just be downloaded on bittorrent and played ( yes they may require some cracking, but this is often done prior to uploading to torrent ).

Many prominent members of the game development community have said that one of the reasons for the focus on console games over PC games is piracy. Yes the take-up of consoles and discarding of the PC as a gaming platform also makes a significant dent in it, but piracy is definately up there in the top 10 reasons game devs barely give lip-service to the PC as a gaming platform.

what the f*** is that monstrosity? I'd rather have a modded xbox running xbmc sitting under my tv than THAT horrid looking ugly POS.

Kimbo, you said it sister!

yeah car games and fighting games are great on console, but leave the fps to pc's plz

Many prominent members of the game development community have said that one of the reasons for the focus on console games over PC games is piracy. Yes the take-up of consoles and discarding of the PC as a gaming platform also makes a significant dent in it, but piracy is definately up there in the top 10 reasons game devs barely give lip-service to the PC as a gaming platform.

That's fine, but rather than throwing their hands in the air and abandoning the PC wholesale (I still don't think this is happening, there's still a lot of PC games out there, and MS will be pushing it harder than ever I reckon given the strides Apple (and to a lesser extent, Linux) are making in the desktop world) they just need to adapt their tactics a little bit. Follow in the footsteps of those that are still making hugely successful PC games.

There's so much wild speculation about piracy (would they have bought it anyway? is it really a lost sale? do those questions even matter? etc etc), but there's simply still a lot of popular PC games (and more coming). That PC gaming alliance thing will hopefully breath some life back into the market as well.

I have to assume though that developing for consoles is about a billion times easier than developing for PCs (because of the fixed hardware) - sure as f*** there's a lot of good reasons to migrate to consoles.

You're spot on there trog. It's very difficult for game devs to treat PC as the main platform for games. PC games just don't sell very well right now, a great example is Call of Duty ( these figures are North American only, and don't count digital distribution ) :-

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare 2007

PC :- 383,000
Xbox360 :- 3.04 million

in 2007, only two games sold more than 500k copies on PC, WoW Burning Crusade, and WoW. ( well same game really right? ). On console the 10th best selling game ( Mario Party 8, Wii ) sold 1.82M. The top six sold over 2M copies each.

The unknown quantity to me is TF2/Orangebox, I'm sure it sold tremendously well on steam, so it's numbers might be quite good.

However, with this information, it takes a brave company to produce a $20M game with the PC as their target platform. It's more likely to be just a SKU of the game.

In my own personal experience, due to the complex nature of coding for the PS3, the xbox 360 is the best platform to target as the main SKU of a game. Although with PS3 sales ramping up, that may make the extra difficulty of coding for the PS3 worthwhile.

Here's the thing that I don't get though:

There's so much precedent in PC games for success if you make a solid, "open" platform for your title. Release mod tools and map editors and support them well and you could end up with the next Counter-Strike. All of a sudden your moderately successful PC game is the next CS and everyone is buying it (in fact, everyone is buying multiple copies of it because they keep getting banned for cheating because they're idiots).

Call of Duty on PC has a bit of a stigma attached (at least in my mind) about being crap for modders/mappers, but I'm sure this'd be recoverable.

Of course, just releasing an open game and promoting modding doesn't guarantee anything - Epic gave out $1,000,000US in prizes for their modding competition for UT2004, and while I'm sure it helped sales a little, it certainly didn't catapult the base game to Half-Life-esque proportions.

PC games just don't sell very well right now, a great example is Call of Duty

It was interesting to go to the launch announcement of that PC Gaming Alliance thing - one of the common themes of it was software developers blaming Intel for shipping s***ty onboard graphics chips that suck for gaming.

Obviously Intel do this because its cheap and most people don't need high-end 3d hardware (especially for business/work machines), but the example cited (I think by Mark Rein from Epic) was the classic person buys a game, takes it home to run on their brand new PC, only to find out it doesn't run because they don't have a $300 video card, or whatever.

( these figures are North American only, and don't count digital distribution )

I would lurrrrrv to see some stats on digital distribution figures. Its sort of ironic that the best system for selling games and tracking sales is yet to actually give us much in the way of numbers of games sold. Valve are notoriously tight-lipped about what they're selling on Steam, which is really frustrating - it has to be the best gaming distribution system for PC games at the moment. I'm sure you can get stats if you're a developer on NDA with them but I find it a little annoying they don't have a real-time counter of sales.

I guess that'd be extremely useful for gamers and probably not so great for game developers though :)

There's so much precedent in PC games for success if you make a solid, "open" platform for your title. Release mod tools and map editors and support them well and you could end up with the next Counter-Strike. All of a sudden your moderately successful PC game is the next CS and everyone is buying it (in fact, everyone is buying multiple copies of it because they keep getting banned for cheating because they're idiots).

Ask the bank for a $20M loan so you can go to the casino and put it all on red.

Well, my point is - if you're making a game anyway, and you're going to release it on PC anyway, why not just make an even half-assed token effort to release some sort of mod/map tool thing, provide minimal support for it, and see where it goes

sure as f*** there's a lot of good reasons to migrate to consoles.

yup.

but then i'd have to play with f***tards like you.

stinky: do those figures for cod4 include steam? i'd love to see sales figures for games off steam - it's pretty much the only way i buy games any more.

Ok, well, normally I hate the quote-salad style posts, but I think this calls for it:

ou can't run VMWare, MAME, on console and video and music require console modification.

Vmware I'll give you (though honestly, what that has to do with gaming I'm not sure), but the 360 can play lots of videos natively now, and any that it can't, I can stream to it via a media server like TVersity. A soft modded original XBox (a modding process with any nub could manage to do, and doesn't require any hardware modification at all, doesn't even require opening up your XBox) can run Mame and lots of other emulators. If you don't want to do that, the Xbox live arcade and the Wii Virtual Console offer up tonnes of old school retro gaming between them.

PC can always be upgraded. Console, go out buy a new one. Go out buy a new one.

And Xbox 360 is what, $500? How many times have you upgraded your PC to the best new hardware and spent $500 or less? And a console stays current for a lot longer, you're looking at 5+ years between each new iteration of a console, theres no way that video card you buy is going to be able to play the latest games for the next 5 years.

we remember the red light debacle with M$ and the XBOX 360. How many annoyed gamers were there when the XBOX 360 FAILED and the RED LIGHT just locked up M$'s attempt at a console.

PCs are hardly an error-free, user-friendly environment either though are they. I've had power supplies blow up, taking motherboards and CPUs with them, I've had sound cards die, video cards die, network cards die, ram die, hard drives die. Then theres just your every day blue screen errors and program crashes. s*** goes wrong with PCs all the time, I've had way more s*** go wrong with my PCs over the years than I ever have with consoles.


Now, it might look like I'm anti-PC from all that, but I'm not, I love my PC for gaming. I also love my XBox 360 and my Wii for gaming. I don't see why its necessary to love one and hate the other. Both platforms have their advantages, and both platforms have their disadvantages, but they're not mutually exclusive. The people who fanatically support PC gaming and s*** on console gaming are doing nothing but depriving themselves of some really awesome games to play. And the same goes for the people who rabidly support consoles over PCs. You're all gamers here, I thought you'd all be keen to play awesome games wherever they appear, regardless of what platform they're on.

seriosuly, nintendo and sony should work together and bring out a sony nintendo.

the people who fanatically support PC gaming and s*** on console gaming are doing nothing but depriving themselves of some really awesome games to play. And the same goes for the people who rabidly support consoles over PCs.

Agree, but there are only a minuscule amount of triple A games that are on pc that aren't on consoles. However, there are a lot more great games on the consoles that aren't available on the PC.

i totally agree with you khel, as i said fighting games and racing games and a whole stack of games have their place on consoles and yeah sure you can play fps on a console

but no one sit there and try and tell me that fps games are better on consoles cause you're full of s***.

GT5 + ps3 + 52" lcd tv = win

but no one sit there and try and tell me that fps games are better on consoles cause you're full of s***.

What exactly do you mean by better? Last I checked TF2 on pc was the same as 360, just different options for the controls.
PC being able to use mouse/keyboard or 360 controller, 360 only able to use its controller.

Hell, when I play tf2 on the pc (I bought it before my 360) I plug my 360 controller in and use that now, as I find the controller lazier and just as good (thanks valve for putting in 'exec 360controller')

playing the game, the games themselves are generally the same

fps + control = lose.

edit: thats a lie, the bit of COD4 i played on ps3 had about a 10th of the enemies in it that on pc, probably because the controller is so gumby you couldn't survive it

last edited by paveway at 14:54:53 27/Mar/08

if you played tf2 using a 360 controller against decent pc players using kb/mouse you'd get so utterly smacked down

consoles are rad for racing, sports, fighting, 3p shooters, rpgs, 3d platformers/adventure/whatever you call em games. some of which are much better on console and some of which i wouldn't care whether i played on pc or console.

consoles will never compare to pcs for fps (maybe the next gen of motion control sensors will change that?), rts or turn based strategy/sims though. i'm with khel, i use and enjoy both.

Raisty, tell me next time you are playing tf2 on PC so I can get some free melee kills :P

I'm in the QGL steam group, you might be waiting a while tho
TF2 only gets played when someone else is using the 360 :)

There seems to be a consensus that playing fps on consoles just isn't the go yet. It's always been my suspicion and the few times i've picked up HALO or something at someones house I've been very unsatisfied.

Thanks guys.

According to shacknews, the PS3 extra maps will be released three weeks after the 360. The PC version will be released 'in the future' once they work out the logistics (how to charge money for the maps aka. battlefield booster lol packs).

Do devs release free content anymore? I remember people had to pay 10 bucks for a pretty dress for a horse in oblivion. I'm waiting for valve to start charging for additional content, Counter-strike Source was probably the closest but that was a total conversion to a new engine, and it came free in retail versions. Hardly 10 bucks for a few maps.

something like this might offer some hope of console fps gaming being a bit better but I doubt it.

If microsoft DID make a keyboard/mouse adapter for the 360 that lets you use the full functions of the keyboard & mouse in games and not just pre-defined keys with the rest being useless FPS games on the 360 could get a whole lot better.

Do devs release free content anymore? I remember people had to pay 10 bucks for a pretty dress for a horse in oblivion. I'm waiting for valve to start charging for additional content, Counter-strike Source was probably the closest but that was a total conversion to a new engine, and it came free in retail versions. Hardly 10 bucks for a few maps.

quake.three.team.arena.

quake.three.team.arena.

It's 2008 not 2000.

I never play my consoles but as soon as there's a proper mouse/keyboard setup for the 360 I'll be all over it. Consoles are great for pretty much everything but when it comes to quick and precise movements with a control pad in FPS games nothing can beat a mouse and keyboard. I really can't believe MS hasn't made an official adapter yet that will let you map all keys.