Blog Posts by Chris Morris

Pac-Man's Kill ScreenPlaying video games can be a punishing hobby. From the grueling difficulty of old legends like Contra to the fiendish trials of new nightmares like Dark Souls, gaming is rife with moments that make even the most dedicated player wonder why, for the love of Mario, they put themselves through this.

That doubt, of course, is erased the moment you make it through a seemingly impossible segment or unlock an achievement that few others can manage. It may be fleeting, but that natural high is the stuff gamers live for. If you're looking for such a rush -- and believe you have the skills to handle any game -- try testing your might against these seven insane challenges.

It's a three-peat.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (Activision)Modern Warfare 3, the latest installment in Activision's juggernaut shooter franchise, has set a new entertainment industry record for the biggest product launch of all time, selling 6.5 million copies in the U.S. and U.K. in its first 24 hours and earning $400 million in the process.

That tops the $360 million Call of Duty: Black Ops made last year in its first 24 hours and the $310 million Modern Warfare 2 took in during its first day in 2009.

L.A. Noir's Cole PhelpsFor a detective whose star is rising at a phenomenal rate, Cole Phelps sure is angry.

There's no crime in L.A. Noire he can't solve, but his people skills are a bit lacking. Even when a witness is cooperating with his investigation, he'll inevitably start shouting at them, a behavior that always mystified players.

Now, developers are finally explaining the detective's anti-social tendencies. And it turns out that Phelps isn't actually bi-polar.

Blizzard's cash cow is starting to produce less milk.

World of Warcraft (Blizzard)Subscriptions for World of Warcraft fell to 10.3 million at the end of September, the company announced in its quarterly earnings call Tuesday. That's a drop of 800,000 subscribers -- or more than 7 percent of its customers -- in just three months.

The sharp decline is due to a combination of factors, the most prevalent of which is a drop off of users in the Far East, though Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime noted the game is still very popular in China.

While Microsoft hasn't uttered a peep about the next iteration of the Xbox, it's one of the industry's worst kept secrets that development is well underway. Now, a new rumor from a blog that has a decent track record when it comes to Microsoft information has a few new theories about what we can expect.

If MS Nerd is correct, the Xbox 720 (or Xbox Next, or whatever Microsoft decides to call it) is currently being developed under the codename "Loop" -- and the machine may run on a modified version of Windows 9.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (Activision)If you thought that the guy who bid $1,725 for an early copy of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 was a bit too eager to play the game, you ain't seen nothin' yet.

Over the weekend, two separate delivery trucks carrying copies of the heavily-anticipated shooter were hijacked in France, reports CVG.  French police estimate the stolen shipments to be worth roughly 780,000 euros (over $1 million).

Call of Duty fans are a dedicated bunch. So when word escaped earlier this week that certain Sears and K-mart locations had mistakenly put upcoming release Modern Warfare 3 on sale early, they descended, buying what they could before the store realized its error.

And, true to form in the gaming world, a few cash-strapped types immediately put those copies up for sale on eBay. Some went for a couple hundred dollars, but one lucky seller saw a bidding war erupt — and may have walked away with $1,725 for his copy.

Spyro, the toyThree years ago, when Activision was trying to figure out what to do next with the long-running Spyro the Dragon series, it really didn't have ambitious plans.

While the character was tremendously popular in the PlayStation 2 days (when Ratchet & Clank/Resistance developer Insomniac Games was running the franchise), a string of mediocre sequels had long since dulled its earnings potential. But a radical idea from Toys For Bob, a developer most gamers had never heard of, quickly convinced the company to bet big on the little fire-breather.