If you haven't played Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 yet, you can give it a free test drive this weekend. From the Steam news post:

Activision will be hosting a Free Weekend for Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare® 3! Pre-load the game now and be ready to play when the free weekend starts on Thursday, April 26th at 10am Pacific Time.

Check out our review for a closer look at this smash hit title. promoted/edited forum item

Activision has released a new trailer today with Lt. Colonel Rob Riggle showing off the next Content Drop included in Call of Duty Elite. Each month Call of Duty Elite Subscribers will have the oppourtunity to experience new and exciting maps in these Content Drops, a new way of experiencing DLC.

With Cupid done shooting his arrows, you're free to head online and shoot your way back into manhood with ELITE Drop 3,"Overwatch." A multi-floor-frag-fest 70 stories up, it's just what you need to cure that V-Day hangover.

Premium Call of Duty® ELITE members receive new Call of Duty®: MW3 content every month of the season for their platform for 9 months. Overwatch, the new Modern Warfare® 3 multiplayer map, is available February 21st on Xbox Live for Call of Duty ELITE Premium members.

Non-premium Call of Duty ELITE members can still look forward to new content with Modern Warfare® 3 Content Collections, including maps, modes and other features previously released through content drops. Stay tuned for more details on the first Call of Duty®: MW3 Content Collection, available for purchase in March for Xbox Live users.

Check out the trailer below showing off the new map and leave us a comment on whether your still playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.

Continuing on with the Call of Duty Elite Content Season, Activision have announced the 3rd content drop, which will be a new map titled "Overwatch".

Call of Duty Elite Drop 3: Overwatch drops you into a construction site atop a New York City skyscraper. The battle takes place along two levels in a near symmetrical layout, with the central bridge and side routes open to attack from multiple angles. Watch your every step, as a lack of safety barriers surrounding the perimeter leaves nothing between you and a 70 story fall to the ground below.

This content drop will be available to Elite Premium Subscribers on February 21st.

Check out the screenshots below showing off the very action packed map, and head over to our game page for more information and screenshots.

Sony's PlayStation Blog have confirmed that PlayStation 3 owners can expect Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3's DLC season to kick off on the 28th of February 2012 in the US (so Feb 29th for Aus), at which point subscribers of the Call of Duty: Elite service will have access to the first two new maps for the game Piazza and Liberation -- yes, the same ones that Xbox 360 subscribers could access a week ago.

With Call of Duty DLC offerings looking to consistently lag a month behind the Xbox 360, the PS3 appears to be the second-class platform for this particular game in publisher Activision's eyes, however the poor chumps who bought the game on PC seem to be fairing worse still as there is still currently no word on when any of the DLC will be arriving on the desktop -- as the Call of Duty: Elite Service is still not an option for Windows players.

Watch the trailer below (from the Xbox 360 DLC launch last month) for a look at these two maps in action.

Following the ludicrously successful November launch of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, the attention of Activision, Infinity Ward and the other dev studios still involved in the game has turned to the upcoming downloadable content schedule -- and with a big part of the Call of Duty Elite premium subscription service being the included access to said content, this is shaping up to be the biggest post-launch push that the flagship franchise has seen.

Today Activision have officialy revealed their intended DLC release schedule for Modern Warfare 3, promising nine months of regularly released new content -- well, for Xbox 360 players at least.

As the lead and favoured platform for the game, all the dates and releases pertain to the Xbox Live launch of the new content, with "at a later time" being the only dates given for PlayStation 3 and PC offerings (with still no date for when the Elite service will be available for the later).

All content drops for Call of Duty Elite premium members will occur once a month, starting in January for Xbox Live users and will continue through the year, ending in September. During the first three months of 2012, Activision will release five different content drops on three occasions in January, February and March, first on Xbox Live, followed by additional platforms at a later time.

The first two Content Drops will be multiplayer maps—also playable in Modern Warfare 3 Survival Mode—that throw combatants into a war-torn Central Park and an Italian seaside village. Liberation is a vast, militarized landscape, ripe for long-range sniper and LMG fire, with mounted turrets on either end that lend power to anyone brave enough to expose themselves in exchange for deadly firepower. Piazza is the idyllic Italian getaway that is anything but, where tight corners and branching pathways pose great risk at every turn. Close-range combat dominates in Piazza, where attacks from behind, above and below are an ever-constant threat.

The third Content Drop will be available for download in mid-February and two additional Content Drops will go live in March, as premium Call of Duty Elite members will receive new content once a month through September. Also in March, the first Modern Warfare 3 Content Collection will be available for purchase by the entire Call of Duty: MW3 player community on Xbox Live.

A glimpse at some of the new maps on the way can be found in the latest promotional trailer which you can watch embedded below or here on the HD video page.

A title update and hotfix has been released across all three platforms for Modern Warfare 3, as detailed below thanks to Robert Bowling and CallofDuty.com, along with a laundry list of other fixes the team are currently hard at work on for any other future updates.

Update History - All Platforms

• TU1: Enabled Theater, Vault, Private Match options, Elite and Facebook functionality for Launch Day.
  
• TU2: Fix for YouTube video upload on SD TVs. Matchmaking Improvements.
  
• TU3: Theater Improvements (Fix to FF and RW in Theater), LAG improvements, Improvements to Hot Fix system.
  
• TU4: Change to address hitching and lag in gameplay.
  
• TU5: Further improvements for hitching and addressing lag in gameplay.
  
• TU6: Additional improvements to address lag. Fix for Melee Jump. Clan Tag Validation (remove buttons from clan tags). Improve Host Migration logic. Prevent stat loss when player loses connection from server (internet pull / drop).

Hot Fix Updates - Now Released

• No Recoil glitch
  
• Infinite Laptop killstreak glitch (Stealth Bomber Glitch)
  
• Map Exploits (Getting into trucks, under maps) Fix
  
• Prevent Slow-mo and Super Fast lobbies
  
• Fire rate normalization for Assault Rifles with undermounts
  
• FMG9 Re-balancing (Nerf)
  
• Akimbo FMG9 Re-balancing (Nerf)
  
• Type95 Re-balancing (Nerf) - Reduce hipspread.
  
• Fix for ACR with Red Dot / Shotgun
  
• Fix Type 95 bug related to dropping it.
  
• Fix map exploits on Dome

Re-balancing and Updates currently in Development and/or Discussion

• Updates to the Spawn system
  
• Further “lag compensation” or “host advantage / disadvantage” updates plus ability for on-going hot fixes based on feedback.
  
• Improvement to PS3 Mic Quality.
  
• Improvements to "weighted matchmaking" to improve games for regions with low populations.
  
• Fix for Shotgun's with Extended Mags (Prevents them from shooting more pellets than intended).
  
• Default :30 Round Start timer for System Link only, while looking into adjustable timer for System Link games for Competitive Play.
  
• Options to allow System Link players to 'unlock all' for competitive play in System Link only.

We'll let you know as soon as the team have any solid details on a planned rollout for any new updates.

Activision have just announced that the very recently released Modern Warfare 3 has hit $1 billion dollars in only 16 days:

Highlighting the trend of interactive entertainment gaining a greater hold of audiences worldwide, the game achieved this milestone in just 16 days, eclipsing the record set in 2009 by the feature film "Avatar," which reached the $1 billion milestone in 17 days.

While 2011 box office revenue is on the decline — down 4 percent this year at $9.4 billion, compared with $9.8 billion in 2010 -- the number of people purchasing and participating in gaming is on the rise, with no sign of slowing.(1) With more than 30 million gamers, the Call of Duty community now exceeds the combined populations of the cities of New York, London, Tokyo, Paris and Madrid.

If those numbers aren't enough to make you want to check it out, have a read of our review for a closer look.

While the unwashed console masses are quite content with their peer-hosted multiplayer games, the PC master-race still foam at the mouth if they don't get sweet dedicated server love. While the dedicated server implementation in the freshly-launched Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 isn't ideal (in the supposed interests of leaderboard integrity and security, only peer-hosted games contribute to your player rank and statistics), the option of running your own standalone server is at least present.

If you have the hardware and bandwith and you'd like to get your very own server up and running, MW3 co-developer Sledgehammer Games have posted up a starter guide describing the basic setup and explaining some of the features you can tweak.

Unfortunately for those playing today, it might take a little longer than usual for your regular GSPs to get a full fleet of servers up and running as the server currently requires what appears to be an almost complete 14GB install of the game to function and with Steam's content servers seemingly straining at the moment, it's going to take a while for Australian providers to get these up and running in their data-centres.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is now available on PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. For our take on the console version of the game, hit up Steve's in-depth review.

As part of an agreement to get more time with the game than a solid 10+ hours after midnight launch last night, we've been sitting on our review and champing at the bit to let it go live for you.

Now, at 6:01PM AEST we can.

So what do we think? Should you continue to disapprove, or give the series another year-long investment? Does single-player stack up in the wake of all the Infinity Ward turmoil, or has the team fallen flat on their faces like everyone predicted they would? And is Spec Ops: Survival really that addictive?

We answer all of the above and more, in our in-depth review!

(PS Spec Ops: Survival really is that addictive)

While we obviously won't have official sales data for a few days, Activision have wasted no time in reminding us that a lot of people are buying Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, their hugely anticipated first person shooter that launched at minute-past-midnight openings around the country this morning.

After a year of anticipation, after the breakout success of the first-ever Call of Duty® XP live fan event, and after pre-order numbers that toppled even those of 2010’s mega-seller Call of Duty®: Black Ops, the final dye has at last been cast. Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare® 3 is now available at retail outlets across Asia-Pacific. Also launching today is the revolutionary new social gaming network Call of Duty® Elite, conceived expressly to help Call of Duty®’s 30 million devoted fans Play Together Better™.

As one of the biggest franchises in gaming history, each new Call of Duty release catches is fair share of community criticism, but one thing even the most jaded Aussie gamer shouldn't fault is the simultaneous global launch that due to time differences actually saw the game launching Down Under before North America and Europe (ignoring some broken street-date shenanigans).

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is now on Aussie shelves (and Steam for PC) for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC. Read the official press release while you wait for our review.


Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Launch Trailer