The creators of Game of the Year 2007 Call of Duty 4 are looking to the community to add some variance to the map rotation – Infinity Ward is holding a mapping contest.

Instructions are on the site – about prizes IW had this to say

On March 31st, we're going to be choosing our favorite community made maps and award the map makers of our favorites picks with special prizing and opportunities which we can't announce just yet but will be in the very near future (probably within a week). However the clock is ticking to get your map designed, as I said, we'll be choosing our favorite community made custom multiplayer maps on March 31st.

We’ll keep you updated as more information becomes available, but you can get mapping right away - download the tools from out game library now. What kind of map would you make for COD4? Maybe one of the Call of Duty 2 maps? Or would you emulate the experience on one of your favourite maps?

It was announced on Major Nelson's blog recently that Call of Duty 4 has surpassed Halo 3 in Xbox Live activity in the week ending the 14th of January – it’s the most played game on Live.

Halo 3 hasn’t fallen far however – it’s still kicking it in the number two spot. Third place is sitting with Guitar Hero 3. Call of Duty 4 overtaking Halo 3 is a testament to the games’ multiplayer popularity – especially the Xbox 360 version.

So what version of Call of Duty 4 did you get? The pick-up rate for COD 4 on the Xbox 360 would have to be huge to overtake Halo 3, even discounting people who quit playing the Master Chief’s game to pick up a gold-plated Desert Eagle – have you got the PS3 version, the Xbox 360 version or the PC version?

Making good on their promise to release more frequent smaller patch updates, Infinity Ward have now released the v1.2 patch for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

From the official site:

This patch optimizes the Lean view offset issue, addressing the glitch reported by several community members and documented and sent in directly by community member GaretJax which is commonly referred to as the Left/Vertical Lean Glitch, in addition to preparing files for compatibility with the future release of the Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare™ Mod Tools.

Grab it right here from GameArena files.

Kicking off the post-release support for their much-loved new title, Infinity Ward has released the first patch update for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

At 1.5MB this small client-side only patch addresses an issue were rank and stats may be reset when moving between ranked and unranked online servers. Currently, the patch has only been released as a .zip download that you will need to install manually - you can nab that right here from GameArena Files. However, an automated installer version is said to be on the way.

Just to clarify, this patch isn't essential, you'll still be able to play online just fine without it. Those that bought the Steam version will need to wait until the patch is rolled out in the regular Steam manner.

Well if the GameArena Call of Duty 4 servers' player numbers are anything to go by, most of you already realise this, but Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is a pretty decent game. Just how decent? Kreese takes an in-depth look at the series' first venture outside of its comfortable World War 2 setting in today's review (and no, those stars aren't empty).