The PC gaming industry may not quite have the earth-shaking force of its heyday, but PC gamers still enjoy the occasional perk. Take for instance the sweet, sweet nectar of patches and updates often weeks or months (Team Fortress 2?) before their console brethren. Tomorrow, PC gamers will enjoy just such a bounty when Call of Duty: World at War gets patched to version 1.2.

Besides the expansive list of changes -- which you can find right after the break -- PC players will also get to feast their mouses on a brand new map! ... OK, sure, it's just a daytime version of the "Makin" map. But it's so free! And so not on consoles.

Due to popular demand, Treyarch is now opening up Call of Duty: World at War's Nazi zombie co-op playlist to everyone on PlayStation Network and Xbox Live, nullifying the previous requirement of completing the single-player campaign. For the uninitiated, Nazi zombie co-op has you and up to four others fighting off endless waves of -- you guessed it -- nazi zombies. And before you ask, no, we never tire of nazis or zombie massacres.

Treyarch is also giving out double the experience points this weekend. It started this afternoon at 1:00 PM ET and will stay in effect until an undisclosed time -- probably Monday morning, if we had to guess. If you're in desperate need for some double XP, we suggest you take off work / school now and head to your console of choice.

[Via X3F; thanks, mdouet!]

Infinity Ward Community Manager Robert "Fourzerotwo" Bowling is warning of fake Call of Duty 5 beta invites being sent out. Mr. Two states that if you happen to receive one of the invites, "just delete it." The email is an "exact replica" of invites sent our for the CoD4 beta, with all pertinent parts updated for the hoax.

Bowling clarifies that there is currently no beta for the game, and if there was he'd be "screaming it from every internet rooftop." For the record: So would we.

OK, so maybe it wasn't developed by Infinity Ward, but that hasn't seemed to dull the praise for Call of Duty: World At War. It's not quite the white-hot, face-melting love heaped upon CoD 4, but it could very well be king of the FPS castle for this holiday season.

• Yahoo! Games (100/100): "Call of Duty: World at War is clearly one of the top games of this year, and a must have for any action gamer."
• Team Xbox (92/100): "Call of Duty: World at War was a surprisingly satisfying experience all around. Developer Treyarch really showed that they could be trusted with the keys to Dad's car, and made a game that could be compared favorably to anything Infinity Ward has done."
• OXM UK (90/100): "Maybe Call of Duty 3's harsh reception has turned out to be a good thing. Treyarch has pushed itself further than ever before and come up with a Call of Duty game that comfortably matches, and sometimes even dares to excel, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare."
• Giant Bomb (80/100): "Call of Duty: World at War is a perfectly competent game with exciting multiplayer options and a campaign that's worth playing. But in most of the ways that actually count, last year's game was better."

	1 Platinum 2 Gold 18 Silver 44 Bronze	Difficulty: Difficult Online Trophies? Yes Time to Completion: 20 hours DLC Trophies? Yes* *Trophies requiring DLC are highlighted in yellow.
	View Trophy List	Read More About the Game

This week, we had the chance to enlist into the Call of Duty: World at War beta for Xbox 360, which features a handful of online maps to play. What follows is a back-and-forth discussion of our initial impressions after playing the game for a few hours.

360Sync has revealed the entire list of achievements for Call of Duty: World at War, the next installment in the long standing war series. The achievements are pretty standard, offering points for completing various levels and tasks within those levels during the campaign. Some are reserved for solo play only, while others can be achieved in co-op as well. Our favorite is probably 'No Safe Place' which awards 15 gamerscore for burning an enemy out of a tree with a flamethrower.

Also worth noting is that there aren't any achievements for online versus multiplayer. It appears that restricting achievements to the main campaign has become the mantra for Call of Duty games, as Call of Duty 4 had no online achievements either. Head over to 360Sync to check out the full list.

Usually PR reps aren't so cavalier about dropping big news, so we're going to go ahead and posit that the team at Only the Games must be exceptionally attractive and/or cunning, because they managed to get an Activision rep to tell them during the X08 event in Toronto that Treyarch's Call of Duty: World at War would be arriving in November. Way to go guys!

Though we are rarely described as attractive or cunning ourselves, we tried to get more specific info from Activision, which told us, "wWe haven't made any announcement about date other than Fall of 2008." Before you whip out a calendar you should know that Joystiq can officially confirm that November falls within the autumnal season, so they could both be dead on. We'll keep an ear out.

While many of you are wondering how Call of Duty 5 ... uh, won't suck on the Wii, check out Joystiq's interview with Treyarch's Mark Lamia. He talks about the Wii version, how it will include online play and also has its own team dedicated to the Wii version of the game. It's a pretty interesting interview that covers some of the concerns Wii gamers have for the title, so head on over and check it out.

Wondering what happened to the number "5" trailing Call of Duty and preceding World at War? Senior producer Noah Heller offered some insight into its absence, saying, "We're getting rid of the number in Call of Duty for a very specific reason: It's because we want you to know that when you're playing Call of Duty: World at War you're playing the best shooter, the best WW2 game ever. Likewise when you're playing Modern Warfare, likewise when you play any game that will be called Call of Duty."

Now, a handful of us have tried to parse that quote and, no matter which angle we take, it proves elusive. Is he saying that Modern Warfare didn't have a number in the title (because the game's box clearly says otherwise)? Is he saying that future Call of Duty installments, including whatever Infinity Ward is presumably working on, will also be sans number? Or perhaps, as rumored, Infinity Ward has renegotiated their relationship with the flagship title and any numbered sequels (all future sequels?) will be saved for them to develop?

We've sent our own inquiry into Activision for some clarification. We'll let you know what it throws back.

This morning Activision announced a number of details regarding the latest installment in the Call of Duty franchise. Call of Duty: World at War will allow players to live vicariously as both the side of the US against the Japanese and the Russians against the Germans. The most anticipated feature, however, is the four-player co-op mode. On the PS3 (and Xbox 360) version, players can choose between a multiplayer four-player split-screen offline co-op mode or a four-player online co-op mode. Finally, there is experience points to be earned in both online modes, with a difficulty level that "will scale dynamically to provide a deeper level of challenge," so how challenging it will be depends on the experience level of the player and the player's comrades.

[Via Joystiq]

[Update: There is a four-player offline co-op mode and the wording has been changed to clarify this.]

Please don't mind the Games for Windows and Xbox 360 logo at the end of this video. Rest assured, Call of Duty: World at War will be making its way to the PS3. For one rea$on or another, the debut trailer for World at War was featured exclusively on the Xbox Live Marketplace. It looks like Treyarch is using a similar (if not the same) engine used by Infinity Ward for Call of Duty 4. However, will Treyarch be able to match the success of one of the best games of last year?

[Via Joystiq]

To be honest, we almost feel a bit dirty posting this rumor. The game that for all intents and purposes, is COD5, is currently still being teased, and there's already rumors about the next game? Indeed there is, thus the faintly dirty feeling. Apparently an Infinity Ward team member spoke to someone from TalkPlaystation.com and told them that the company is at work on a new sci-fi title that may or may not see reveal at E3.

With Call of Duty: World at War returning to the familiar territory of WWII, and the series' current hit staking the claim of Modern Warfare it would seem to make sense that Infinity Ward would want to jump things into the future. If this ends up being accurate (heck, they could be working on a non-COD sci-fi game too) let's hope Infinity Ward can do better than some other popular franchises that have used a futuristic setting. We can't help but get flashbacks of the ill-fated Battlefield: 2142 ...

[Via Joystiq]

You've known about it for a while, you've been teased and now it's finally here. Debuting on the Xbox Live Marketplace earlier this morning and now available for internet viewing is the first look debut trailer for the upcoming Call of Duty: World at War. We'll let the trailer speak for itself, but be on the lookout for a few of barbecued bodies, body knifing, tree climbing and the occasional man who is on fire. Give the trailer a watch and tell us if you think World at War can reach the same level greatness Infinity Ward achieved with CoD4.

Call of Duty fanboys be prepared to get your Xbox Live downloading fingers ready this weekend, because Activision is set to premiere a brand new Call of Duty: World at War trailer via Xbox Live this weekend.

A new World at War game trailer will be available for download exclusively from the Xbox Live Marketplace beginning Saturday, June 21st and will be available until Sunday, June 22nd. So, we advise hopping on the XBLM sometime during your ritualistic Saturday morning cartoon viewing and Lucky Charms eating to download the latest glimpse at what Acti has planned for the CoD franchise. Here's to hoping World at War knocks our socks, shoes and pants off.