Oh, sorry, I just called it a "mod". It's not just a "mod", it's a total conversion, meaning the entire game - from handling to graphics to the menus - is being overhauled and given a Star Wars theme.

Galactic Warfare is the work of German modding powerhouse the blackMonkeys, and you can also check out some screens below.

[Galactic Warfare @ blackMonkeys]

Developed by Infinity Ward, Call of Duty 4 was originally released on the PS3, Xbox 360 and PC back in November 2007. Treyarch is handling the Wii porting duties and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare will be on Nintendo's home console this November.

The movie, 6 Days in Call of Duty 4, was created by machinima artists J. Joshua Diltz and Joseph Delappe using both a static and roaming ground cameras for the capture. It's essentially nine minutes of a multiplayer match with nothing but the visuals, the sound of the game and music that I don't immediately recognize. They've created the project in "homage to the lives, both military and civilian, lost during the Second War of Fallujah."

I actually got in touch with Diltz because I remember asking a question about Six Days in Fallujah at the conference during the Q&A. Damned if I can remember what I asked, but apparently, it left an impression.

Diltz emails:

The idea for 6 Day originated from the conference. Your question I think actually sparked the concept that Joseph DeLappe conceived. Joseph was curious what six days in a military themed shooter would look like through a static camera. He wanted to see what effects combat would have in a virtual space, particularly how many deaths would occur and how many bodies would be left on the screen after 6 days of game sessions.

I developed the point of view camera concept and also the console panel. I thought it was interesting to see what the conflict looked like from the ground perspective and how it correlated with real life events. The scrolling command console keeps the piece grounded in the virtual world. I found it quite intriguing that all the action on screen was visible in the scrolling data. It certainly separated the visuals which mirror real conflict from the data that was creating the illusion behind the scenes.

Joseph will be showing a more somber version of movie in a gallery installation at the Beijing Biennale. That piece will include only the static camera which is visible in the larger pane of movie.

You can download the video for yourself here.

Thanks for the link, Professor Lowood!

This silver bullet will apparently come in the form of a patch for the Xbox 360 version of the game, which is "going through certification now". So it shouldn't be too far off.

While this won't end all cheating in the game, it should certainly curtail most of it, and in the time it takes the cheats to come up with workarounds you, Ice-T and Xzibit can come through buildings without fear of rule-breakers.

[FourZeroTwo @ Twitter]

While accepting one of the three BAFTAs Call of Duty 4 received earlier in the week, Infinity Ward's Rob Bowling revealed that 11 million people have now been detected playing the game over Xbox Live (that will, of course, include those who have never played multiplayer but were connected while playing). That's 11 million unique users, too.

As for the PS3, Bowling said there have been "over four million" people tracked playing the game over the PlayStation Network. Add those together and you have 15 million people.

Which is an extraordinary number. I mean, there are only 17 million unique Xbox Live accounts. And that's not even counting the PC users, which must also surely number in the millions.

Just...wow.

COD4 has 11m Live, 4m PSN players [Eurogamer]

Wilson, after being snubbed by his Office co-star John Krasinski, himself a supposed Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare player, went on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, spouting off a list of famous "Avatar" names.

Who should we look out for, according to Wilson? John "jcrazysoxfan" Krasinski, Will "arnott27" Arnett, George "OldDirtyClooney" Clooney, Tom "MoOscars09" Hanks, and the "leprechaunofdeath", U2's Bono. Let the stalking begin!

Genuine? Highly doubtful. I mean, absolutely 100% real! We feel sorry for whomever might have wanted those Xbox Live handles, not to mention a little bit pissed that I didn't snatch up "leprechaunofdeath."

[via GamePro Arcade]

Yeah. More than ten million. And that's just those who got a copy and have played at least once over Xbox Live, so it's not counting those who got a copy on 360 and aren't connected. Or, you know. Those who have the game on PC or PS3 (of which they could only count those playing multiplayer...all 4,381,276 of them).

With those numbers in hand, Bowling breaks them down with some fun statistics:

71.1%, or 7,111,508 people have completed F.N.G.

That’s more than the entire population of Hong Kong (which is 7 Million).

68.8%, or 6,886,509 people have completed Cargo Ship.

This is the same number of adults in the US who were morbidly obese in 2005.

46.5%, or 5,654,643 people have beaten the game on any difficulty.

This is more than the current population of Finland!

2.8%, or 283,632 people have completed Airplane on Veteran difficulty.

The population of Stockton, CA is 280,000.

So nearly 30% of people who own a copy on 360 have never even finished the tutorial mission? Wow.

Call of Duty 4 stats put into perspective [IAMfourzerotwo, via Giant Bomb]

The Gizmodo Gallery that took place here in NYC over the weekend played host to many strange, custom electronics and gadgets. But the one thing I just had to see for myself was the 103-inch plasma Panasonic TV running Xbox 360 games. Attendees were able to compete for prizes in head-to-head match-ups in games such as Call of Duty 4 and Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix. I'll let the pictures do most of the talking.

As you can see, it's very awe-inspiring. It's almost unbelievable that such a thing even exists.

Seeing Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare four-player split-screen on this behemoth made me remember how much fun this style used to be. Nowadays, though, most developers complain they can't do it or they'll give excuses about how no one will use it. I tend to agree, taking into consideration the growing budgets and shorter deadlines.

But this. This TV could spark a renaissance.

Check out the rest of the pics from the day below!

(Note: Gizmodo's Matt Buchanan lost to a 15 year old at COD4)

Microsoft is to be lauded for putting its money where its mouth is, and a missing child is a no-holds-barred effort, to be sure. But man, who knows how many people this kid gamed with over Xbox Live. They better not have any porn laying around when the cops come calling. I'm deadly serious.

Meantime, you-know-who has thrust himself into the Crisp family's misery. Jack Thompson says he called the cops offering his help, then said some bullshit about game addiction. I don't know what offer he made to them, maybe to cast the demons out of Brandon when they get him back. Why not. His faith healing skills are probably as effective as his lawyering ones.

If you have information you believe can help find Brandon Crisp, contact the Barrie police at 705-725-7025.

Reward Reaches $50,000 for Missing Ont. Kid; Microsoft and Jack Thompson Offer Assistance [Ripten]

We sat down and we said CoD4 multiplayer is sterling, it's a wonderful experience, and we said, 'what can we add to it?', and the list is really long. It's a lot of different weapons, it's keeping some of the perks but renaming some perks but doing lots of new perks, it's different weapons and different attachments for every different race, different types of grenades, bringing back game modes that people liked from previous Call of Duties, like War, adding in tanks, adding in the ability to revive, giving you a reward when you Prestige, raising the level cap to 65 and doing a lot of different things at different levels, adding in some new kind of spoiler gameplay like nerve gas and signal flares and stuff like that, adding a squad mode, so now you can choose to be a squad leader and set a waypoint on your map that everyone can go to, and the kill streaks of course, lots of these little tweaks add up to something which feels like Call of Duty but I think it also feels like something new and different... I think it feels much better than any Call of Duty I've had a chance to play. CoD4 is great multiplayer. CoD: World at War is its own new multiplayer and I think fans will really enjoy both.

Call of Duty 4 set a high bar that must be daunting for Treyarch. Even if the developer gets close and fails, World at War should turn out a-okay.

CoD: World at War Interview [VideoGamer]

We also love our sequels. The only new properties to crack the top five on each of the big three platforms are Army of Two, Wii Play and Wii Fit.

Another fact that will likely not blow your hair back are the best sellers on the Nintendo Wii side of things. Four of the console's best sellers are published by Nintendo and four feature strong peripheral tie-ins. Consider us nonplussed!

2008's Top-Selling Games So Far: How They Stack Up [Gamasutra]

We have a lot to learn from their success too, they did some very innovative things to keep people going and their experience-rewards system was something that we paid a lot of attention to... I think it's a great game and single player obviously is fantastic... They did a hell of a job with their set pieces, of scripting certain moments that they were really sure the player was going to actually see and experience first hand. The way that they use those moments to craft the player experience... Halo has a lot to learn from.

Always nice to see developer take another's work, incorporate it and hopefully improve what they do. Warm fuzzy feelings all around!

Bungie: We've got a lot to learn from Call of Duty 4 [Games Industry] [Pic]

Penthouse Lady: You are behind Call of Duty 4, right?
Robert Bowling: Uh, yeah. I'm the Community Manager for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warefare and Infinity Ward, which is the developer.
Penthouse Lady: Right on.

Phew. Good thing that wasn't all awkward. It sure could've been. These clips are from GDC and will never get old. Never.

In Bed With The Pets [Das Gamer via videogaming247]

I'd say that one of the things that's hard for a player to understand, I'm sure you guys can understand it because you have a lot more insight into the industry, is that Call of Duty 3 was about eight months end to end for development... And it's very hard to make a great game in that time. Call of Duty 3 is a very good game. It sold very well so a lot of people must have liked it... But it's not the game this team could have made if it had the time to polish to the level they needed to... Look at the great games of just this last six months or year. Look at Modern Warfare, look at BioShock, look at GTA 4. What these games have in common is enough time to polish and iterate on it, and I think as an industry we're learning how important that is... I feel like it's a little bit of an underdog story almost. Here's a team that's never had a chance to actually make a game with this much time. Modern Warfare comes along and raises the bar really high and now the team says, we've got to show what we've got, we've got to show up with a great game or else the players aren't going to want to play it. Expectations are so high.

They are, they really are. Treyarch was given a two year development cycle for CoD5, so hopefully that extra time in the oven will pay off. Willing to give World War II another spin if the game dazzles.

World at War First Look [Videogamer]

'Call of Duty 4' hits 10 million units sold [Cnet]

The four maps for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare are the Broadcast, Chinatown, Killhouse and Creek maps. Furthermore, PC players will get a patch that fixes a server crash, fixes some other bugs, adds in some things and, oh yeah, enables support for the new maps.

So, PC gamers, don't say nobody never did nuthin' for ya. Xbox 360 owners had to buy this. Enjoy!

Variety Map Pack Sponsored by NVIDIA hits PC June 5th [IAMfourzerotwo]

Meanwhile the Gold Box deals have kicked off with Rainbow Six Vegas 2 for $29.99, which is going pretty fast, to be followed up with Scene-It at 10 Pacific, possibly Madden at 2, and possibly Frontlines: Fuel of War at 6.

The fact that Amazon keeps cranking these video game day deals out means that the gamer response has been overwhelming, so as long as we keep buying they'll keep discounting until we form a giant, writhing, perpetual sale engine, which sounds terribly sticky.

Amazon Deals Of The Day [Amazon - Thanks Ben!]

Strong worldwide sales for Call of Duty 4, Guitar Hero III and Spider-Man 3 drove the considerable growth, supported by Transformers: The Game and Shrek The Third. NPD data also shows that GHIII was the year's best-selling game in the U.S. and Europe in dollars during the year, while CoD4 was the number two worldwide best-seller in Europe, and the number one highest-earning PC title worldwide. Both franchises have surpassed a billion dollars in sales since launch.

It was the most profitable fourth quarter ever for Activision, even though the publisher did not release any new titles during that period. With its overall growth outpacing the rest of the market by more than four times, the company is now the number one console and handheld software publisher in dollars, according to NPD Group data.

Activision also said that a thriving video game industry overall bolstered the $1.39 billion growth on the year and near-doubling on the quarter. On the company's call to investors, chairman and CEO Bobby Kotick said he expects the install base of next-gen consoles to continue growing by 60 percent over the coming year, and that current software price points should hold, though he said the company would "monitor prices closely and remain mindful of competitive practices."

Kotick also said the Guitar Hero franchise would "continue to expand, through more SKUs and more hardware innovations, including the first peripheral ever created for Nintendo DS."

Also upcoming on the company's release slate are Enemy Territory: Quake Wars for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3; Kung Fu Panda on the Xbox 360, PS3, PS2, Wii, Windows PC and DS; Guitar Hero: On Tour for DS, and Guitar Hero: Aerosmith for Xbox 360, PS3 and PS2.

Additionally, a game based on the upcoming James Bond: Quantum of Solace film will release concurrently in Q3, developed on the same engine as CoD4. Kotick also said that "we're reinventing Tony from the ground up," hinting at big announcements to come regarding innovation on the Tony Hawk: Pro Skater franchise. "This won't be your father's Tony Hawk," he promised.

Activision also announced today that it will release downloadable content "for certain key titles" at the end of 2008, an area in which the company says it sees "continued growth and emerging opportunities."

Primarily, the company looks ahead to the finalization of its merger with Vivendi Games (notably including Blizzard Entertainment and its market-leading World of Warcraft), which still requires stockholder approval and other closing procedures.

Through the partnership, the company is planning moves into the MMO business in both North America and Asia. Activision's September 2007 acquisition of Bizarre Creations also positions the company, it said, to enter the racing game genre.

Kotick said that the company's studio structure positions the company advantageously, as it "allows studios to maintain creative culture which gives edge in attracting talent and fostering creativity." He also said that Activision remains the only publisher not to delay a key title during the year thanks to its proficiency in next-gen console development and the strength of its studio structure.

"Fiscal 2008 marks the 6th consecutive year we have grown our business," Kotick. "This achievement would not have been possible without the creativity, hard work and dedication of our employees and our commitment as a company to deliver long-term shareholder value."

"Over the last two decades Activision has had many successful years. However, this fiscal year was a breakthrough year for the company."

The official word from Infinity Ward is that the devs will be available for headshotting on Friday, April 25 from 11AM to 2PM PDT and from 5 PM to 8 PM PDT. It should give us something to do while we wait for the Metal Gear Online beta to go prime time.