Some hardcore fanatics might say that Call of Duty's a major part of their life. Thinking about killstreaks, prestiges and perks in Activision's multi-developer FPS series takes up a large part of their days and their nights get spent filling online opponents full of bullet holes.

It's these players who've flocked to Call of Duty Elite , the social network which launched alongside last fall's best-selling Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Elite's a bit like FPS fantasy football, since it lets players form clans with other individuals and track their own performance in MW3 in a plethora of ways. But, until now, you've had to be in front of a PC or a console to take advantage of that.

This week sees the debut of Call of Duty Elite on iOS, opening up the stats and leaderboards to to COD-heads who own Apple's iDevices via a free app. Starting tomorrow, you'll be able to see your profile, review you latest activity and look at kill/death ratios on your iPad, just as you can on other platforms. However, according to Chacko Sonny—the head of the Beachhead studio that's been building Elite—the most significant feature on Elite mobile comes in the form of Custom Class changes.

MW3 players will be able to change their loadouts from an iPhone and then have the changes dynamically implemented when they fire up the game on their system of choice. "Let's say we're at lunch, talking about the games that we played last night, reviewing your recent matches, and seeing what happened to your K/D" says Sonny, laying out a probable usage scenario. "We look at the top of the scoreboard and see what those guys were using. OK, that might be a combination that you might want to try. Right from the mobile app, you can configure to those same weapons and try them out the next time you play."

Sonny knows that there might be some skepticism with moving Elite onto new platforms, since it experienced an extremely rocky launch in its first month. But that's all in the past, he says. "So we're at a spot where the service is 100 percent operational. Features are in place. We know that there are things that people are still waiting on. Most notably, clan operations being one of them. And we're absolutely heads down working to ensure that clan operations experience that people get is the best that it possibly can be."

An Android launch for Elite mobile will follow some time this year but, when asked about Elite integration on PlayStation Vita, all Sonny had to say was that Activision had nothing to reveal with regards to Call of Duty on Sony's upcoming handheld.

Sniping is a key part of gaming. Whether you're playing Call of Duty or Team Fortress, you're often either being sniped or doing the sniping. It's become such a common game feature that it's easy to forget real people are doing real sniping in the armed forces. Like Chris Kyle.

Between 1999 and 2009, the Chief Petty Officer served as a Navy SEAL sniper, with 255 kills (160 have been Pentagon confirmed). This stat makes him America's most lethal sniper. As Fox 4 News pointed out, there was once a US$20,000 bounty on his head.

His colleagues called him "The Legend", Kyle once hit a target from 2,100 yards or 1.2 miles away. He also once hit Jesse Ventura.

In an interview with Bill O'Reily, who proclaimed that Kyle "liked" killing people, the serviceman said, "War is hell. Hollywood fantasizes about it and makes it look good. War sucks."

While many members of the U.S. military are huge gamers, there is a problem with how war is often depicted in video games.

‘Savages': SEAL Sniper Chris Kyle Tells O'Reilly His Thoughts on Enemy Iraqis [Yahoo! Thanks, Patrick!]

[EXT—ROOFTOP—DAY]
Two soldiers are wearing ghillie camouflage suits to blend in with the urban setting. Their adversary is frozen in a mysterious forcefield.
Ghillie Suit No. 1: "Whut th' hail you think's goin' on?"
Ghillie Suit No. 2: "Looks like he's in one-a-them Force Grips, you know whar the Sith choke you and stuff?"
Pending Victim: "..."
Ghillie No. 1: "Is he daid?"
Ghillie No. 2: "No, looks 'live to me."
Pending Victim: *does robot*
Ghillie No. 1: "Well kill 'im!"
Ghillie No. 2: "With mah sniper? Point blank? I only do that in a panic."
Pending Victim: "..."
Ghillie No. 1: "Well alright." *MELEE*

[h/t Dan Borenstein]

The three most recent editions of Call of Duty went one-two-three in the top 20 of Xbox Live's most-played titles, as measured by unique users connected to the service, reports Major Nelson. The only thing in the top 10 that wasn't a shooter or sports title was Skyrim, at No. 6.

Black Ops was No. 1; November release Modern Warfare 3 was No. 2 and 2009 release Modern Warfare 2 was No. 3, making Call of Duty the SEC West of video games. (That's a sports joke, son, you're not supposed to get it.)

Halo: Reach was No. 4 and Battlefield 3 was No. 5. The full top 20:

1. Call of Duty: Black Ops
2. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
3. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
4. Halo: Reach
5. Battlefield 3
6. Skyrim
7. Gears of War 3
8. FIFA 12
9. FIFA Soccer 11
10. Madden NFL 12
11. GTA IV
12. NBA 2K11
13. Battlefield: Bad Co. 2
14. Call of Duty 4
15. Battlefield 3 Beta
16. Halo 3
17. Gears of War 2
18. Forza Motorsport 4
19. Red Dead Redemption
20. Call of Duty: World at War

In other categories, Pinball FX2 was the top Xbox Live Arcade game (measured by full versions purchased, in this case the base game, not all of its tables.) FortressCraft was the top Indie Game, Age of Empires Online was the top Games for Windows game, and Angry Birds was the top Windows Phone game. See the full rankings at the link.

Top Games of 2011 [Major Nelson]

Eight months after confusing teammates and adversaries in Black Ops, the guy running a Samuel L. Jackson soundboard took Jules Winnfield/Mace Windu/Eddie Murphy's uncle into some Modern Warfare 3 multiplayer, with much better dialogue selections and more hilarious, and oblivious, reactions.

I realize voice communication over Xbox Live is not always crystal clear, but you've got to be dumb as a stump to hear "What this situation requires is a whole lot more of you shuttin' the fuck up," and not get that this is a guy with a soundboard, even if you don't recognize the quote. I would not be surprised to discover that Normal Difficulty, the video maker, is using this app.

It really, really gets good around 4:30, with a pitch perfect line, and an entirely predictable reaction from a stupid racist gamer—although it's good to see everyone else gang up on the bastard and tell him that the situation needs a whole lot more of him shuttin' the fuck up.

[h/t Mathue S.]

Commenter Seivewright has completely fucking had it with online multiplayer games, and he isn't going to take it anymore. Find out why in today's Speak Up on Kotaku.

I've totally decided now. no more fucking online multiplayer whatsoever.

No more "maybe this will be different..."

No more "maybe if we work as team..."

No more "if you keep at it, you'll get better..."

Every game, every genre, it's always the goddamn same; spawn, run for a little bit, die.

The only exception is Battlefield 1943 and that's because if you get me in a cockpit, any cockpit, I'm a goddamn tyrannosaurus...

It's pounding ground where I suck.

I freely admit that I'm clearly shite at these games but I'd like to get at least some value for money from games with ever shrinking SP campaigns. I also admit that I do get a bit more skilled as time goes on but that just means I manage to kill one, very occasionally two people before i die.

Any kill chain that occurs is purely born from circumstance and dumb luck. I've never been able to accrue the skill that sees me running forward and hitting my opponents with unerring accuracy.

Sadly, it's not going to happen. ever.

So this is me, retiring, abandoning, giving up totally on multiplayer. I've taken the arrow to the multiplayer knee...

Games with 5 hour campaigns, you can wait for bargain bin prices now before I pick you up.

It's SP gaming all the way now.

Let's say you're curious as to how, exactly, developer Infinity Ward determines whether an online offence is grave enough to warrant banning from their blockbuster shooter Modern Warfare 3. Or you're an asshole who just wants to see how far he/she can push it before copping a ban.

To satisfy your potentially self-harming curiosity, here is exactly how Infinity Ward deal with cheaters. How they're warned, what the various stages of punishment are, the works.

The complete guidelines have been publicly shared by Infinity Ward, and focus on the six things you can do that can result in a ban: Boosting, cheating, glitching, hacking, offensive behaviour and an offensive gamertag.

Boosting - Any player demonstrating 'game abuse' in the form of organizing cooperative or single game play for the purpose of gaining experience, prestige, score, weapon levels, icons, titles or other related in-game unlocks.

( i ) First Offense: With proper verification, user is banned for 48 hours and a stats reset.

(ii) Second Offense: With proper verification, user is banned for 48 hours and a stats reset, and a permanent ban from leaderboards.

(iii) Third Offense: With proper verification, user is banned for 7 days and a stats reset, and a permanent ban from leaderboards.

---

Cheating - Any player demonstrating 'game abuse' in the form of unknown boosting, glitching, hacking or other related offenses for the purpose of gaining experience, prestige, score, weapon levels, icons, titles or other related in-game unlocks.

( i ) First Offense: With proper verification, user is banned for 48 hours and a stats reset.

(ii) Second Offense: With proper verification, user is banned for 48 hours and a stats reset, and a permanent ban from leaderboards.

(iii) Third Offense: With proper verification, user is banned for 7 days and a stats reset, and a permanent ban from leaderboards.

---

Glitching - Any player demonstrating 'game abuse' in the form of organizing cooperative or single game play for the purpose of gaining experience, prestige, score, weapon levels, icons, titles or other related in-game unlocks. Examples: Exploiting map holes, the javelin glitch, and participating in modded lobbies

( i ) First Offense: With proper verification, user is banned for 48 hours and a stats reset.

(ii) Second Offense: With proper verification, user is banned for 48 hours and a stats reset, and a permanent ban from leaderboards.

(iii) Third Offense: With proper verification, user is banned for 7 days and a stats reset, and a permanent ban from leaderboards.

---

Hacking - Any player demonstrating 'game abuse' in the form of modifying the executable or creating infected lobbies with or without the purpose of gaining experience, prestige, score, weapon levels, icons, titles or other related in-game unlocks.

( i ) First Offense: With proper verification, user is console banned.

---

Offensive Behavior - Any player demonstrating in-game verbal abuse, harassing, or other related behavior deemed as universally unacceptable to other players.

( i ) First Offense: With proper verification, user is banned for 24 hours

---

Offensive Gamertag - Any player demonstrating an offensive in-game gamer tag, to be decided as universally unacceptable to other players.

( i ) First Offense: With proper verification, user is reputation banned 5000. A reputation ban that exceeds a certain threshold can lead to bans from playing.

---

So there you go. All the stuff that can get you suspended, banned or even permanently banned, laid out nice and easy. It's a lot of words to basically say "don't be an asshole or we won't let you play our game", but that's not legalese enough for official documentation.

Also, as a bonus, Infinity Ward's Robert Bowling has posted an accompanying image of what the banhammer actually looks like on their end. Sadly, it is just a dialog pop-up with a picture of a hammer on it, and not a screen that's part of a giant Norse hammer.

Modern warfare 3 online Code of Conduct (How to get banned) [Call of Duty]

Harrison Krix's replica Half-Life 2 gravity gun looked incredible, but it was never destined for his shelf, or that of an international adult collectible retailer. It was built for charity, and it's for charity it was auctioned.

Awesomely, the gun went as part of a Child's Play auction for a whopping $21,000. That'd be a bargain if the thing actually worked.

To celebrate, he's posted a lengthy explanation on how it was built over on his website, along with the above snappy video showing it in action.

Half Life 2: Gravity Gun [Volpin Props]

Actor Gary Oldman has a long and lengthy resume with varied roles. But the one that concerns us today, and Conan O'Brien, is his work as Viktor Reznov from Call of Duty: World at War and Call of Duty: Black Ops.

In this Conan clip, Oldman voices some Reznov and talks about doing "battle chatter", or shouting commands over music and explosions to players.

I don't know which is cooler: Oldman doing Reznov or Oldman doing Reznov in a purple bow tie.

Gary Oldman: Call of Duty Black Ops Screamovers [TeamCoco.com]

If you've ever wanted to see a live-action Half-Life 2 movie, these mock posters are only going to make you want to see one a lot more.

They're the work of British graphic designer Sean Keenan, and are, for the most part, wonderfully tasteful and subdued.

He's based them on the posters for Chris Nolan's The Dark Knight Batman movie, if you think the colour palettes and design are familiar.

Sean Keenan [Portfolio, via Elysha]