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The secret to Call of Duty’s mass popularity is due, in part, to how smoothly the game runs, according to Treyarch design director David Vonderhaar. Speaking to Eurogamer, the developer explained that running at 60 frames per second is an absolute necessity for the series.

“We think 60 frames is super essential,” he said. “Any time you have any kind of input latency at all, players can feel that. I’m pretty convinced Call of Duty is as popular as it is because of how fluid it can feel. You can feel the difference, and we go to a lot of trouble to try to keep the game running at 60 frames all the time.”

Vonderhaar’s comments came as part of a larger feature that looked at the frames-per-second debate between first-person shooter franchises Call of Duty and Battlefield. DICE executive producer Patrick Bach defended Battlefield’s console rate of 30 frames per second, saying, “In the end, everything is a compromise.”

“On console we have to make some compromises,” Bach said. “We love our vehicles and we love our destruction and we love the pretty graphics and the awesome sound. We think 30 is pretty decent. Some people complain because it’s a number, and you can compare numbers. And then there are a few people who complain because they say it’s a worse experience. That group has their needs and their urges, and then you have the other group that says, you know what? I’d rather have destruction, vehicles, graphics, audio because it’s fun. So, it’s a compromise.”

Top Gun and Man on Fire director Tony Scott, who jumped to his death from the Vincent Thomas Bridge in Los Angeles on Sunday, wanted to direct the forthcoming Gears of War movie, according to tweets from former New Line Cinema producer Jeff Katz.

“When we acquired Gears of War at New Line, [Tony Scott] badly wanted to direct. Chased it hard,” Katz said.

“It didn’t work out, but I always loved the idea of seeing him play in that sort of Ridley-adjacent space, which he’d really avoided. I’ll always wish it happened,” he added.

Epic Games design director Cliff Bleszinski responded to Katz’s tweets, adding that he recalls Scott’s enthusiasm during a meeting about the project.

“I remember the meeting,” he said. “He had a video presentation and everything. He told stories about filming Man on Fire in Mexico.”

The Gears of War movie has been long in development. Lord of the Rings studio New Line Cinema acquired the rights to the film in 2007, with Live Free or Die Hard director Len Wiseman coming aboard in 2008, before dropping from the movie in 2010. The current status of the project is unknown.

Call of Duty: Black Ops II is gunning for the Wii U, according to the LinkedIn resume of a Treyarch quality assurance tester. This person’s profile indicated he performed various forms of testing on an unannounced Wii U version of this November’s Call of Duty.

As of press time, neither Nintendo nor Activision had responded to GameSpot’s requests for comment.

If Call of Duty: Black Ops II does arrive on the Wii U, it will represent a continuation of Activision’s eagerness to ship Call of Duty games for Nintendo hardware. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Call of Duty: Black Ops, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare: Reflex Edition, Call of Duty: World at War, and Call of Duty 3 all came to the Wii.

Additionally, Nintendo of America vice president of sales and marketing Scott Moffitt said in June that the Wii U could become the preferred way to play core games, like Call of Duty.

“You can imagine how a game like Call of Duty would work on the Wii U–the GamePad will allow you to declutter the TV and pull gaming items like maps down and not interrupt your interaction and enjoy the cinematic quality of the game on the TV,” he said at the time. “That’s one application that could be exciting and could enhance gameplay for a core gamer.”

The Wii U will ship worldwide this holiday season.

Call of Duty: Black Ops II is due out on November 13 and is a sequel to 2010’s original Black Ops, which is the best-selling series entry to date, moving more than 25 million copies as of August 2011. For more on the upcoming game, check out GameSpot’s latest preview.

If a new rumor proves accurate, Bethesda’s next Fallout game will be set in Boston. A Reddit user going by “fallout4boston” claims the unannounced Fallout 4 will be set in the Massachusetts capital city.

This tipster says Bethesda has been “scoping out and researching” the city, and suggests the developer has a “strong connection” to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a prestigious research university near Boston. The Reddit user “may or may not be an MIT employee,” according to the post.

A Bethesda representative told GameSpot, “We don’t comment on rumors and speculation.”

According to the Fallout Wikia page, “The Commonwealth” was referenced in 2008’s Fallout 3. Four real-world states in the US categorize themselves as Commonwealths: Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Virginia, and Massachusetts. Bethesda lead designer Emil Pagliarulo told 1UP in 2009 that the Commonwealth reference in Fallout 3 was in fact speaking about Massachusetts, not any of the other three states.

Additionally, Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas included mentions of a mysterious “Institute,” which is located in The Commonwealth. This could potentially be related to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology referenced by the Reddit user.

The most recent Fallout title was 2010’s Fallout: New Vegas, which was developed by Obsidian Entertainment and set in a postapocalyptic Las Vegas. Its predecessor, Fallout 3, was developed by Bethesda Game Studios and took place in Washington DC and the surrounding area.

Gamers eager to scoop up every morsel of Metal Gear information should mark their calendars for September 1. On that day at PAX Prime 2012, Hideo Kojima will participate in a PAX Prime 2012 panel of the past, present, and future of the Metal Gear series, Konami announced today.

The one-hour session will focus on the history of the Metal Gear franchise, which marks its 25th anniversary this year. The session will be held at 1 p.m. at the Paramount Theatre in Seattle, Washington. It is open to all PAX attendees.

The next entry in the Metal Gear series is Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, which was recently assigned a release date of February 19, 2013. The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 action game is in development at Platinum Games (Bayonetta, Mad World), and a demo for the project will be included with copies of Zone of the Enders HD Collection, another Kojima property.

In June, Kojima confirmed Metal Gear Solid 5, which will not directly tie in with the upcoming Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. Kojima also confirmed that Metal Gear’s main character, Solid Snake, will appear in the game.

Crytek’s Roman warrior Kinect game Ryse remains in development, but whether it lands on the Xbox 360 or its successor remains in question. Speaking to Eurogamer, Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli said the project is “moving forward really well, we just can’t talk about it.”

Ryse was announced during Microsoft’s 2010 Electronic Entertainment Expo as “Codename Kingdoms,” with its new name coming a year later. A report from December 2011 suggested the project had shifted from the Xbox 360 to the Xbox 720, which is rumored to ship in 2013 with Kinect 2.0.

Speaking to the rumor of Ryse shifting console generations, Yerli said, “I don’t know! We’re still working with Microsoft, so obviously we can’t change platforms. But if you mean within Microsoft–that I can’t comment on.”

Since Ryse was initially unveiled, development on the project has moved from Crytek’s Budapest outfit to its Frankfurt studio. Yerli explained this shift, saying, “The development team shifted, but for different reasons than people assume. People think it’s because it didn’t work out, but actually it was a studio redirection. We wanted Budapest to focus a bit more on mobile and tablet, and they released Fibble, which was quite an excursion for Crytek. And we’ll do more casual stuff but that’s also free-to-play.”

In June, Microsoft Studios executive Phil Spencer said Ryse will not ship until summer 2013 at the very earliest. At the time, he said the game was playable on the Xbox 360.

Battlefield developer DICE has explained why it chose not to offer mod tools for last year’s Battlefield 3. Speaking during a GDC Europe session this week attended by Gamasutra, DICE general manager Karl Magnus Troedsson said the studio was fearful of the potential implications.

Magnus Troedsson explained that DICE is aware that offering mod tools can help extend the life of a game like Battlefield 3. However, the company decided against it because it was “afraid of all the things that can come with releasing the code,” including hacking exploits.

The developer also cited Battlefield 3 being a multiplatform release as a reason it chose not to make public mod tools. Magnus Troedsson said if DICE were to release mod tools, it would want to let console players in, too, and the studio was not prepared to do this.

“If we do mod support, we want to do it really, really well,” he said. “We are not ready to do this yet.”

DICE offered modding tools for Battlefield 3 predecessor Battlefield 2, which led to a range of offerings, including pirate and zombie mods.

Assassin’s Creed III creative director Alex Hutchinson has taken a shot at Japanese games and those who critique them. Speaking to CVG, the developer claimed the narratives in Japanese games often leave something to be desired, and reviewers give these games a free pass.

“Just think about how many Japanese games are released where their stories are literally gibberish,” he said. “There’s no way you could write it with a straight face, and the journalists say, ‘Oh it is brilliant.’ Then Gears of War comes out and apparently it’s the worst written narrative in a game ever. I’ll take Gears of War over Bayonetta any time.”

Hutchinson’s remarks came as a response to a question regarding how Nintendo is able to release new iterations of long-running franchises every year without drawing much criticism. To this, Hutchinson remarked, “I think there’s a subtle racism in the business, especially on the journalists’ side, where Japanese developers are forgiven for doing what they do. I think it’s condescending to do this.”

Ultimately, Hutchinson said he thinks games should be judged on a simple scale of “is the story any good?”

Though media conglomerate Viacom sold off Rock Band developer Harmonix in 2010, it’s still paying a contested sticker price. The two companies have disputed payments owed to Harmonix’s stockholders for several years, and a Delaware court last week reiterated an arbitrator’s decision that Viacom must pay $299 million.

The suit stemmed from performance based “earn-outs” which were set to be paid to Harmonix’s former owners as part of its 2006 purchase, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Viacom initially purchased the developer behind Guitar Hero for $175 million in 2006, and paid out $150 million in earn-outs in 2007. Harmonix found significant success with its peripheral-based music games, but as the market began to show signs of overcrowding, Viacom reversed course. The company did not pay out in 2008, and demanded a refund for previous payments.

An independent arbitrator decided in December 2011 that Viacom owed Harmonix’s shareholders a total of $383 million in unpaid earn-outs, and Viacom proceeded to challenge the decision in its home state of Delaware’s Court of Chancery. While Viacom agreed in a previous settlement to pay out $84 million (the amount set for unpaid 2007 earn-outs), the $299 million calculated for 2008 earn-outs remained.

With the court’s decision to dismiss Viacom’s claims, the media conglomerate must either pay out the remaining money decided on through arbitration or appeal to a higher court. “We are disappointed in the court’s decision, and are evaluating our options for the next steps of this process,” Viacom said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter.