If those North Korean propaganda games weren't odd (and unsettling) enough, the country's state media is incorporating Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and "We Are the World" to show the U.S. under attack. Yeah.

Never mind that "We Are the World" was written by Americans (Lionel Richie and Michael Jackson) or that North Korea probably (um, definitely?) didn't get permission to use this bit from Modern Warfare 3, the entire thing is one complete and very scary mindfuck.

Uploaded by North Korean propaganda agency Uriminzokkiri, the video, as LiveLeak points out, is a dream sequence that shows a North Korean rocket—the same kind the country recently launched into space. As an elevator music version of the USA for Africa charity song plays, the rocket circles the globe, an elated Korea is reunited, and at around the 2:15 mark, an American flag is draped over a bombed out New York City.

That scene of destruction will look familiar to anyone who has played Modern Warfare 3, because it is from Modern Warfare 3. It's as though the North Korean propaganda wizards were unable to render destruction of New York on their own, so they had to borrow images from Call of Duty.

"Somewhere in the United States, black clouds of smoke are billowing," reads the caption on the propaganda video (via LiveLeak. "It seems that the nest of wickedness is ablaze with the fire started by itself."

Then the man in the video believes that his dream will "surely come true". A caption on the video reads, "Despite all kinds of attempts by imperialists to isolate and crush us... Never will anyone be able to stop the people marching toward a final victory."

All this using "We Are the World" and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3! Sure, the whole thing is unsettling, but the irony is beyond baffling. Surely, North Korea knows, right?

The video was uploaded over the weekend. But this morning, The Guardian is reporting that a North Korean nuclear test is "imminent".

North Korea video shows US city under attack [LiveLeak Thanks, Sean for pointing out COD!]

When you think of Japan and cosplay, you probably imagine ladies dressed in skimpy anime outfits or dudes in Gundam gear. And you'd probably be right! That type of cosplay is prevalent, sure, but it's not the only game in town—especially with more and more Japanese players totally digging Call of Duty.

Recently on Japanese bulletin board 2ch, one cosplayer showed off his latest creation: a Juggernaut, which first appeared in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2's Special Ops Mode. The outfit weighed a hefty 20 kilograms—30 kilograms when carrying weapons—and took thirty minutes to put on.

Some wondered where someone would go dressed like this, while other said the outfit appeared better when it wasn't being worn. "Isn't this somewhat off balance?" asked one commenter. Added another, "It looks cool. But heavy."

The get up does look better with a large firearm. Running around between warehouses helps pull off the outfit, too.

In case you missed it, here is Kotaku's roundup of some of the best Call of Duty cosplay the internet has to offer.

コスプレ衣装作ったったｗｗｗ [2ch via ラビット速報]

The same security company that found a security flaw in Steam earlier this year has found security holes in Modern Warfare 3 and CryEngine 3.

As ComputerWorld reports, researchers from security company ReVuln announced their findings at a security conference in Seoul today. They demonstrated two major issues. The first was with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 which, according to the presentation, is open to malicious denial of service (DDoS) attacks that can crash the game servers.

The other major issue was found in Crytek's CryEngine 3, and demonstrated on the game Nexuiz. The research team was able to access a remote player's computer via the game servers and "caused a graphic of cat riding a rocket to be displayed on the victim's computer."

If only all hackers sent cat pictures.

Of course, as a security company, it's in ReVuln's interest to point out security flaws, even minute ones, in any software they can. The company is planning to release full advisories about their findings next Tuesday, to coincide with the launch of the next Call of Duty game, Black Ops II.

Researchers find vulnerability in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 [Computer World via Polygon]

Earlier this month, one of Modern Warfare 2's most popular maps, Favela, disappeared. The reason was that the map contained imagery some players found offensive: holy teachings written in a bathroom.

As previously reported, in a single room on the map, two paintings had been hung whose frames contained a decorative representation of a quote attributed to the Prophet Muhammad, which reads "Allah is beautiful and He loves beauty". Those paintings were hung in a bathroom, one right above a toilet, and didn't appear to be found anywhere else on the map.

According to MP1st (via (Eurogamer), the map has returned in a recent 17MB update for the PS3 version. The picture frames remain, but the decorative quotes have been removed. You can see the edited version above. There's a pre and post edit comparison below.

Favela Returns [MP1st via Eurogamer]

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3's record-breaking, first-day sales are impressive, but almost more impressive is the life these Call of Duty games seem to have online.

This morning I hopped online to see how the past four year's worth of Call of Duty games were doing online. Yes, people still do play the original Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. I did the same thing at the beginning of the year, to see how the games were doing. Let's compare.

Each of these games show the current number of online players when you log in to find a match on the Xbox 360. I happen to only have all of these games on this platform, so I wasn't able to check out the PC or PS3. Here's what I found:

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 had 776,152 people logged in shortly before 11 a.m. eastern on Veterans Day, a work day for many. Last year's Treyarch-developed game, Call of Duty: Black Ops, had 196,648 players logged in. The previous Infinity Ward-developed game, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 still had 62,541 people playing it. Remember, that's a 2-year-old game and it's a weekday. Call of Duty: World at War, a game set during World War II, still had 5,800 people playing it. Finally, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, the game that helped propel the series into the stratosphere, was being played by 3,309 people four years after the game was released. Not bad.

Back in January of this year I had the same idea of looking at how many people were still playing this dated Call of Duty titles. One evening on Jan. 30, I logged into all four Call of Duty games, from the original Modern Warfare to the then most recent Black Ops to see how many were playing. Comparing those numbers from almost a year ago to today's, I'm a little surprised how little they have changed.

Here's a quick run down:

Black Ops: 757,237
Modern Warfare 2: 174,059
World at War: 15,079
Modern Warfare: 15,361

What's it all mean? Well judging by these numbers, it looks like the series has a strong fanbase that like to stick around.

As Josh from FinalLevelGames was making his way through Modern Warfare 3's story mode, he noticed a particular structure that he was sure he had seen before — in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare's multiplayer.

Game developers recycle older assets all the time, so it's really not that odd to see a building from the original Modern Warfare making an appearance in the latest iteration of the series. If anything I'm taken aback by how much better the building looks in the original game than in its second sequel. Those are some lovely textures Infinity Ward was sporting back in 2007. At least they left a couple of layers intact for nostalgia's sake.

The latest Call of Duty's out today and there's going to be lots of trash talk and cuss words among the many fans who'll be cutting class, calling in sick and otherwise shirking their duties to play the latest entry in Activision's best -selling FPS series. But, as Jenny Haniver can attest, there's a special kind of trash talk reserved for female players. It's filled with casual sexism, vulgar slurs and an angry dismissiveness of any skills a woman playing an online game might show.

As a longtime fan of first-person shooters and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 in particular, Haniver—which isn't, by the way, her real name—has heard the vitriol of online competitive play for years now. But she's doing something a bit different than other female gamers: she's recording it. Haniver archives the saddest, most misanthropic chatter she's confronted with on Not in the Kitchen Anymore, a blog that grew out of an art project she did last year. That project plastered excerpts from the verbal harassment she'd run into onto the walls of an exhibition space and Jenny's continued that same work in digital form. Not in the Kitchen Anymore holds up a mirror to those who've supposedly got skills in the headshot, grenade toss and melee arenas and shows what it looks like when they lack simple human decency, the most basic skill of all.

So, on the day of release for the latest Modern Warfare, Kotaku asked Jenny to share the most angry recordings that she's made playing MW2—as well as other FPSes— along with some of her own commentary.

Two Chicks That Play Xbox
If you are a female who plays online games, it's an almost automatic guarantee that some guys will assume that you are fat. Or that you have nothing better to do, because you're forever alone. But if you try and turn it around and suggest that, perhaps since they're on the same game, at the same time, maybe THEY'RE fat loners too… That's just madness!

Oh, so that's how it works.
Occasionally, guys will admit that you legitimately have some skills at whatever game you're playing. At first, this can seem promising, but hold on- don't get too excited! This sort of comment is almost invariably followed by an insult.

Wow, how did you know?
Another typical male comment is that girls online sound like 12 year old boys, or men. This is supposed to be degrading to the female gamer ("Oh no! Some guy on the internet thinks I sound like a boy?? Time to cry myself to sleep again."), but is mostly just humorous.

Non et non.
It seems outrageous that female gamers like to game just because it's fun! Surely it must be for an alternative reason? Perhaps you're secretly just hoping to meet the perfect man over Xbox live. If that's the case, lucky you! There are persistent fellows willing to pitch virtual woo at you, even from across the world.

Girl on girl Action
And, of course, guys are not the only perpetrators. From time to time, you will run into The Only Girl On The Internet. Since women are an acknowledged minority in the gaming community, a few girls can get territorial about their gamer status. This leads to a Highlander mentality (there can only be one!). It can be disastrous for all parties involved if another woman stumbles into the same lobby as one of these girls.

You can read and listen to more of Jenny's recordings at Not in the Kitchen Anymore.

Not in the Kitchen Anymore

A 22-year-old California man pled guilty today to child pornography charges for getting a 10-year-old boy to send nude pictures of himself in exchange for Call of Duty "cheat codes," according to U.S. Attorney court records.

John Kenneth Calderon Basto, also known as Tribal x MoDzz, of Long Beach, California, pled guilty to causing the distribution of child pornography, according to Sanford C. Coats, United States Attorney for the Western District of Oklahoma.

Basto and the elementary student met while playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 on Xbox Live, according to court records. Basto and the boy talked online, and he eventually invited the boy into a private chat room, where they exchanged cell phone numbers. Through phone calls and text messages, Basto asked the boy for pictures of his genitals. In exchange, Basto promised to send the boy 20 cheat codes, which, according to the court papers, give a gamer "elite weapons, unlimited lives, and other advantages."

After the boy sent pictures with his cell phone to Basto in California via text message the 22-year-old told the boy to delete his text messages and pictures so he would not get caught. But the child's mother discovered the text messages from an out-of-state number and alerted authorities.

Basto is currently in federal custody. He will be sentenced on February 8. He faces not less than five years and up to 20 years in federal prison, lifetime supervised release, and sex offender registration.

This case was part of Project Safe Childhood, the flagship program in the Department of Justice's National Strategy for Child Exploitation Prevention and Interdiction, and was the result of an investigation conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Oklahoma and California. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Brandon Hale.

One of the highlights of the Call of Duty XP convention was its paintball field recreation of "Scrapyard," a multiplayer map plucked from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. I took a few stinging paintballs to the thigh and bicep for your enjoyment, if you couldn't make it to Los Angeles this past weekend.

Armed with one paintball gun, some light protection and a GoPro Hero helmet camera—provided by the fine folks at GoPro, thank you very much—mounted to my chest, I ran the "Scrapyard" course for one game of real-life Domination that lasted about seven minutes. Five minutes of that session allowed for infinite respawns, with the last two minutes "sudden death" for Team Black and Team Khaki.

As you watch the above video, keep a few things in mind: we totally kicked ass; I was shot at least six times, hence my frequent trips to the red "respawn point"; yes, I really should have mounted that GoPro on my head, not directly behind my gun; people lined up for hours to experience this Call of Duty recreation and for good reason—it was a hell of a lot of fun.

Take a look at the pint-sized "Scrapyard" recreated for Call of Duty XP above and pray that Activision has the good sense to do this again next year—only bigger.

One of the many activities on hand at this weekend's Call of Duty XP event—activities that earn attendees badges of honor—is Juggernaut Sumo. The game? Put on a bulky fat suit gussied up to look vaguely like a Juggernaut from Modern Warfare 2's Spec Ops mode and... fight!

Lines are long, rounds are short. You can see just how quickly the battle between Call of Duty XP attendee Ryan and his grandfather, a man with a flair for falling over, lasts. But it may not end the way you expect.