Get ready for some wild multiplayer action as we celebrate the release of Call of Duty® 4: Modern Warfare™ with a LIVE Fire Weekend.
We've got a 72-hour Play & Win Sweepstakes, a chance to play against the game developers, the PMS clan gets in on the action, plus we'll have exclusive themes, gamer pics, and game trailers available from Xbox LIVE® Marketplace.
Play & Win Sweepstakes Register your gamertag now and get ready for a whole weekend of fun and competition! From 12:01 A.M. (ET) on Friday, November 16 until 11:59 P.M. (ET) on November 18, you'll get an entry into the sweepstakes every hour when you play a multiplayer Call of Duty 4 session on Xbox LIVE®.
We've got a whopping 72 prizes to give away (one for each hour), so you've got plenty of chances to win. The Grand Prize package includes an Xbox 360 Elite console, VIP Accessories kit, Call of Duty 4 merchandise, and lots more!
You must register for your chance to win! Register your gamertag before the end of the promotion on November 18. Check out the Play & Win rules for full details on the sweepstakes, including more info on how to register and participate, as well as detailed prize information.
NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Open only to legal residents of the 50 United States (includes the District of Columbia) 18+). Game ends November 18, 2007. For details including free, alternate method of entry, see the Official Rules.
Play the Developers
To kick off the Live Fire Weekend, here's your chance to play against the development team from Infinity Ward. They'll be online between 6 P.M. and 9 P.M. (ET) on Friday, November 16.
Chat with the team and learn helpful strategies and tips for playing Call of Duty 4. To take on the devs at their own game, be on the lookout for these gamertags:
COD4CRM: Robert - Community Relations Manager
COD4LeadArt: Joel - Lead Character Artist
COD4CharArt: Oscar - Character Artist
COD4SPlayDes: Chad - Single Player Designer
COD4Video: Drew - IT / Video Guy
COD4Prog: Jon - Programmer
COD4Art1: Ryan - Artist
COD4MPLevDes: Alex - MP Level Designer
COD4SPLevDes: Jon - SP Level Designer
COD4SPDes: Roger - SP Designer
COD4QA1: Ed - Lead Quality Assurance
COD4QA2: Justin - Lead Quality Assurance
COD4MultiDes: Geoffry - Multiplayer Designer
COD4Art2: Brad - Artist
Play the PMS Clan
The PMS Clan is a group of all-female gamers that specializes in first-person shooters, and they'll be joining the festivities on Sunday, November 18 from 7 P.M. to 9 P.M. ET (4 P.M. to 6 P.M. PT). Check back for the gamertags to look for, and you could have a chance to battle these legendary gamer girls.
Exclusive Marketplace Content
Throughout the LIVE Fire weekend, grab exclusive gamerpics, theme, and trailers on Marketplace for a limited time. One of the trailers includes a game level walk-through that you don't want to miss.
A juvenile fan of the video game Halo 3 is accused of punching his mother after she forced him to end his game Sunday night and fighting with sheriff’s deputies as they tried to restrain him, according to reports released Wednesday.
Indian River County Sheriff’s Deputy Sean Harnage reported responding to the family’s home at about 11:30 p.m. Sunday in reference to an “out-of-control child.”
The parents told deputies their son was playing Halo 3, and it was getting late and he needed to shut it off. When the son refused to turn off the game, the parents reportedly took the air card out of his machine so he couldn’t play anymore.
Reports show the son became enraged, went through the house looking for the air card, and then punched his mother, prompting the parents to call the Sheriff’s Office.
After the boy retreated to his bedroom and locked it, the mother knocked on the door and told him he needed to come out and talk to the deputies, the report stated. But the juvenile allegedly responded with profanity.
Harnage and another deputy entered the room using a key from the parents to arrest the son, according to the report. The son fought the deputies - at one time punching Harnage on the lip - until they handcuffed him.
He was later turned over to state juvenile authorities on charges of battery-domestic violence and battery on a law-enforcement officer.
The son’s and parents’ names are being withheld because of the juvenile’s age.
Do you like witty tshirts?? Well, check out the guys from splitreason.com where they offer all users the chance to design a t-shirt of their own and if popular enough it will become a full-time product on the site and the designer will get some cash.
We will be promoting SplitReason.Com over the next few weeks to see if the HQ community enjoy's the t-shirt, caps, cups and mugs and much more they have on offer.
Get involved in our forum topic here to leave your thoughts and comments on some of the gear they have on offer. If your going to be submitting a design and need some support let us know too.
Xbox 360 RROD T-SHIRT
A clever shirt pondering what would happen if HAL 9000 ran on Xbox 360 hardware. "If you're not careful, your 360 may jettison you out an air-lock. The red ring of death is just the first sign that something has gone terribly wrong and not only will you not be playing any games, your 360 may rebel and simply kill you.
Garage Games have released Five New Torque X Tutorials for XNA Developers.
Five new tutorials are available for Torque X right here! Download the zip file, open it up, and try them out. These tutorials will eventually make their way into the official Torque X documentation, but they can be used today, so here they are!
Torque X Tutorial Overview
No matter how good we think our technology is, if you can't use it then it's no good for you. We hope these tutorials will help you learn how to use Torque X and Torque X Builder, and help give you some knowledge and skills that you can use to work on your own game ideas.
We love feedback! At the end of each tutorial page is a link to a survey that you can use to tell us about your experience with the tutorial. After you've finished a tutorial (or decided that you don't want to finish!) please take a few minutes to fill out the survey. We welcome all feedback, positive and negative, because we want to know what we're doing right and what we're doing wrong. Understanding how people feel about our documentation is a vital part of improving it, so please help us out by filling out the surveys!
Microsoft is set to offer free Xbox Live Gold access to European Xbox 360 owners later this month as part of Xtival 07.
According to CVG, numerous sites affiliated with the platform holder are reporting that, as part of Microsoft’s Xtival 07 online event, Xbox 360 owners will be offered a free weekend of online gaming beginning November 23.
While Silver Xbox Live membership is free, it doesn’t allow players to game online and restricts user access to certain content. All gamers need to take advantage of the Gold Xbox Live access being offered later this month is an Xbox 360 console and a broadband connection.
A full line-up of Xbox Live events, competitions and exclusive downloads is promised for the weekend in European countries only.
The frequent delays multiplatform titles experience before reaching the Sony PlayStation 3 can be credited to "hardware differences in memory and processor," said Midway Games' studio head Mike Bilder who worked on Stranglehold (Microsoft Xbox 360, Sony PS3, PC). It took six weeks before the Sony console got served with Tequila (Inspector Tequila, that is), and Bilder blames technical difficulties.
According to Bilder, development of Stranglehold for the Sony PS3 took more time not because they wanted to change anything. He commented, "...part of the reason why we're delaying it, is that we want to ensure that the quality is the same on all platforms."
For Bilder, the case with the Sony PS3 and Microsoft Xbox 360 is "certainly more of a level playing field." Unlike the previous generation of consoles when "the Xbox was considerably more powerful than the PS2" and developers could just look at the PS2 as main SKU to make a game for before porting to the more capable Xbox, Bilder believes the industry is facing a challenge right now. He explained:
...When we tried to get [Stranglehold builds] game-ready and fitting on the [PS3] disc and fitting in memory, in the end it was an easier endeavor on two of the SKUs and it was a more difficult endeavor on one of them. Just, to be honest, the hardware differences in memory and processor on the PS3 vs. traditional PC and 360, it makes it a challenge, and it's representative.
However, Bilder seems to have a viable solution ready. He went on to say that:
A lot of people and a lot of focus as far as games that we have internally that are going to be multi-SKU are trying to put the PS3 out in front now... I don't think it's necessarily a negative to put the PS3 first. But it does help mitigate some of that risk in framerate, memory, technology, just the hardware differences.