The festival is happening in Bonifacio Global City, Taguig, Philippines and this looks like the first year they’ve ever had a machinima category in the 11 years the festival’s been around. Voting for machinima films is happening now and you can cast your vote here.

The results will be made public October 20.

Thanks for the heads-up, Joshua!

Dark Forces & Battlefront fans, you may want to watch this clip from Galactic Warfare, an upcoming Star Wars mod for Call of Duty 4.

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.

More Call of Duty: Modern Warfare: Mobilized News & Previews

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 recognise. 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 cheatsto come up with workarounds you, Ice-T and Xzibit can come through buildings without fear of rule-breakers.

[FourZeroTwo @ Twitter]

In January, Infinity Ward released statistics revealing how many people had played Call of Duty 4 over Xbox Live. It was a lot. Didn’t mean much without PS3 stats, though. Which we now have!

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]

Don’t piss off Rainn Wilson on Xbox Live. You might live to regret it, especially if you’re an anonymity-loving celebrity. “Dwight” from the The Office has, spitefully, divulged some of Xbox Live more famous gamers.

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.

Genuine? Highly doubtful. And we feel sorry for whomever might already have those Xbox Live handles.

[via GamePro Arcade]

Over on his blog, Infinity Ward’s Robert Bowling has posted some user statistics they’ve gleaned from the 360 version of Call of Duty 4. Stuff like how there’s now been, oh, over 10,000,000 unique users.

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.

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 Aeroplane 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]

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]