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Uncategorized Monday, April 23rd 2012 at 10:30 am

This Weaponized Quadrotor is Fake, But Cool Viral Marketing for Upcoming Call of Duty Game

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Activision has announced today that their next Call of Duty game — rumored to be Black Ops related — will be revealed on May 1st during the NBA playoffs on TNT so you know what that means: Let the viral marketing begin. The first piece, in what is sure to be an onslaught, is a special episode of the YouTube series FPS Russia featuring a military quadrotor with a machine gun. It may be fake, but that doesn’t make it any less fun to watch.
“I can tell from the pixels” arguments aside, there are a few things which should be setting off your BS sensors in this video. Mostly that it’s just too good to be true: 30 mph top speed; slim, sophisticated design; unidentifiable weapon; and shockingly good picture quality on the hand-held tablet. Not to mention that this robot would be way ahead of any comparable device available today, nor the ludicrous concept of loading an enormous explosive into a piece of expensive military hardware.

Also, I’m  not expert but I don’t think everything explodes when you shoot it.

But all that aside, this is still a fun to watch stuff get blown up. What’s more, it’s an interesting comparison between what the CoD makers think will be coming down the pipe and the current state of drone warfare. And if you’re a fan of the Call of Duty series then it will surely whet your appetite for the May 1st announcement.

(FPS Russia via Gizmodo, Coming Soon)

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  • Silentspikers3

    ”
    Also, I’m  not expert but I don’t think everything explodes when you shoot it.”

    In almost every video FPSRussia fills his targets with explosives so when he shoots them they have a much bigger bang.  He explains this in earlier videos.

  • Crgstiles

    No, not everything explodes when you shoot it, unless of course you place some explosive in the dummies.  It’s become quite popular lately al la “Sons of Guns” on the Discovery Channel & “Top Shots” & “Top Guns” on the history channel.  Also, it’s not a sophisticated robot, it’s a drone.  Drones are not nearly as sophisticated, and provided you have the right controls, you can make them do almost whatever you want.

    A Quad rotor doing 30 mph?  Not unheard of really.  But unless they have access to the same technology as the US Government, that may have been 30 mph going foward in a 45 degree dive.  Therefore, an exageration of the facts.  Something every WWII era navy could be accused of in the reported top speed of their ships, tanks, air planes, etc.

    As for the “Unidentifiable Weapon”, my 1st thought was that it was a cut down M16/M4 varient w/o a stock.  I only watched it twice, but on second thought, I think it was probably a cut down .22-cal. semi-auto rifle that was converted to full-auto capability.  The .22 version would have been much lighter and those puffs in the dirt seem a little small for even a 9-mm pistol round, much less a high velocity military round.  Plus 100 .22-cal LR rounds would have weighed about 20% of what 100 rounds of even a small military round like the 5.56-mm (.223-cal) that the M-16/M-4 uses.

    That Call of Duty may have used a better ultra-light weight camera & tablet than is typcally commercially available is not surprising as this was a “Promo Video”.  As for the “Unidentifiable Weapon”, they stuck a custom cooling shroud on whatever gun they used in the test.  Again, not too hard as they have done it plenty of times on “Sons if Guns” (GO RED JACKET!!!).

    What I saw was a STUNT staged using readily available, existing technology to sell a video game.  It was definutely edited and probably took several takes to put together what was in the video.  But in my opinion, it was NOT FAKED.

  • http://www.facebook.com/circleville Brandon Schlichter

    Looks like his 10″ commando m16 that he’s used in several other videos, just with the stock removed and only having the buffer tube. 

  • Horatio

    Tough call on this one. All the technology exists. A quad rotor design would lend itself well to a computer controlled, gyro stabilised UACV. The machine would need little in the way of piloting, because the all the inputs (via 2.4GHz radio link) would be interperated by the CPU/ESC before output to brushless motors and servos/actuators. Certainly, the model on the ground looks ‘physically real, whilst static’. However, even with recent advances in LiPo cells and brushless motors, it does seem too compact to loft the weight of a sub machine gun, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, a camera and enough LiPos to power 4 powerful brushless motors. Those propellers are pretty small – just not what you’d expect. Also, at 2:13, I notice a significant ‘issue’ with the picture that only seems to affect the aft of the Quadrotor. Is this a rendering issue of a CGI quadrotor, or, just a glitch on the camera that, by total coincidence, only affects the UACV? Jury’s out….