- Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare preview: can laser rifles and stealth mines refresh the CoD formula? - 11 June 2014
Call of Duty has a laser gun. And a jetpack (okay, okay: jump-pack. Semantics.). And grenades that you don t have to throw. And a cloaking device. And a landmine that cancels sound? Activision toured me through this new futuretech after inviting me to watch more than 30 minutes of Advanced Warfare that wasn t shown at Microsoft s E3 press conference earlier this week. First: a recap on Advanced Warfare if you haven t been following along. It s developed by Sledgehammer Games, a relatively new Activision studio that contributed to Modern Warfare 3. It has the distinction, among Call of Duty games, of being developed over a three-year period. It s set in 2085 in America and other parts of the world, with a focus on (you guessed it) warfare with hovertanks, drones, and high-technology based on Sledgehammer s real-world research and imagination. Its campaign has a single protagonist, it ll…
- Call of Duty: Ghosts Devastation pack includes alien kraken and The Predator - 31 March 2014
The Devastation map pack for Call of Duty: Ghosts will include four multiplayer maps and part two of the increasingly mad Extinction mode. The co-op players vs. NPC aliens aside is set on a "high-tech ghost ship" besieged by a "skyscraper-sized" sea monster and infested with dog-like alien creatures. The trailer also teases the inclusion of the Predator. The actual Predator, from the films. I haven't paid attention to Call of Duty in a while, so it feels like returning to a familiar old house I thought I knew, to find it full of dinosaurs. The shooting will be familiar enough, I'm sure, even with the addition of the "Ripper 2-in-1 SMG/AR", pronounced "Ripper two-in-one Smgaargh". Multiplayer maps include Behemoth, set on the walkways of a vast mining machine, Ruins, set in a Mexican jungle near an erupting volcano, Unearthed, a map "inspired by" Modern Warfare 3's Dome, and Collision, s…
- Reinstall: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare - 12 March 2014
Reinstall invites you to join us in revisiting classics of PC gaming days gone by. This week, editor Sam Roberts returns to the fury of Call of Duty 4's singleplayer campaign. With Titanfall jettisoning the idea of a traditional single-player mode and Battlefield 4 s campaign inducing widespread sighs, this has become a disposable bolt on to most of today s big shooters. Titanfall is able to create much of the drama of a single-player game in the midst of its impressive systems, but it s worth remembering that the old Infinity Ward were really good at making campaigns, too. But it might be that Titanfall s lack of a true single-player mode is a sign of the times: COD s rigid campaign formula has been exhausted. Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was its peak. The single-player is, in levels without a significant story beat, a slog to get through today. Perhaps this is because its ideas have…
- Call of Duty: Ghosts system requirements released officially, 64 bit OS required - 24 October 2013
Nvidia put out some unofficial Call of Duty: Ghosts system specs a couple of weeks back suggesting that Infinity Ward's peppy manshooter would require a 64 bit OS, and they were right. The Call Of Duty site now has the official specs, which adjusts the 50GB install to a 40GB one (lets face it, 30GB of that is hi-res dog), but retains the 6GB RAM requirement. Watch Dogs, another game designed to span the gap between current and 'next-gen' console hardware, needs similar tech. We can expect system requirements to quickly jump up when we start seeing ports of games that target the PS4 and Xbone exclusively next year. Will the similarity of the new console hardware to PC architecture make for smoother ports? I can only hope. Meanwhile, get yer Call of Duty: Ghosts system requirements right here. OS: Windows 7 64-Bit / Windows 8 64-Bit CPU: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E8200 2.66 GHZ / AMD Phenom™ X3…
- Call of Duty: Ghosts screenshot analysis: special forces, jungles, random armchairs and frightened fish - 22 May 2013
- Call of Duty “has almost ruined a generation of shooter players,” says Tripwire Interactive - 13 March 2013
Tripwire President John Gibson holds an M1 Garand inside the team's studio, one of the guns carried by the Americans in Rising Storm. Earlier this month I visited Killing Floor and Red Orchestra 2 creator Tripwire Interactive to play Rising Storm, the upcoming standalone expansion to RO2 (look for a preview on Monday). After the demo, Tripwire President John Gibson and I got talking about the state of first-person shooters, and Gibson laid out a detailed criticism about the way Call of Duty "takes individual skill out of the equation." Gibson also expressed frustration over how difficult it had been trying to design a mode for Red Orchestra 2 that appealed to Call of Duty players. PCG: How do you feel about the state of FPSes? John Gibson, President: I think that single-player shooters are getting better. I think they’re finally coming out from under the shadow of the Hollywood movie, o…
- The sun rises, tides fall, babies cry, another Call of Duty game confirmed - 8 February 2013
Activision's efforts to forcibly insert Call of Duty releases into the yearly rhythm planet Earth continue today. There's some pretty dry biz news floating around this morning so let's enshrine key details in haiku form to keep things lively. More CoD is mentioned, In ActiBlizz earnings call, Bear shits in the woods. Shocking, I know. Gamespot report that Activision CFO Dennis Durkin's future-sense has become clouded by the onrushing next-gen apocalypse. "There is increased volatility this year due to the ongoing console transition, which makes predicting the future more challenging than during normal years in the cycle," he opined, clawed hand hovering over a glowing ball of demonic energy. "For Call of Duty, consistent with our past practices," he managed, gasping, "we are planning for the mainline release in Q4 to be down versus 2012." And with that he tore his hand away, and was spa…
- TED talk outlines how action games help your brain - 23 November 2012
How's your brain? Is it full of thoughts of the weekend and exciting upcoming things like DINNER and CHRISTMAS? Good, you might be pleased to know that thanks to action games like Call of Duty, your brain is probably better at juggling multiple thoughts of dinner and Christmas better than the average non-gamer brain. It's also good at tracking happy and sad children as they bounce around a circular playground, and is better at picking grey objects from a grey background. We can thank Gears of War for that. Cognitive researcher Daphne Bavelier can do a much better job of explaining it all than I, so I'll give up the stage to her TED performance, which you'll find embedded below. You can find plenty more talks on all sorts of topics on the TED site. For a more amusing turn, TED has been perfectly parodied by The Onion as well.
- Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 video shows eight minutes of multiplayer blasting - 3 October 2012
Black Ops 2's future setting moves its gruff warrior sorts into a world that's used to drone warfare, but hasn't invented awesome laser cannons yet. That lets Treyarch weave a pleasantly paranoid plot in the single player campaign without jeopardising the great golden goose that is CoD's multiplayer mode. I imagine Call of Duty devs are quietly terrified of messing around with that world-winning formula too much, which is why the eight minutes of multiplayer scooped by IGN look so darn familiar. The appearance of a little robot 5:44 in livens things up a little, though. What do you think? Has Black Ops 2's new setting, zombie campaign mode, polished up PC version and open character design system convinced you to give it a try when it comes out in November?
- Call of Duty: Black Ops zombie co-op campaign teased by trailer - 27 September 2012
Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 is getting an expanded co-op mode called "Tranzit" that'll send four survivors on a zombie road trip across the US. As one of those survivors you'll get to bus from place to place, mounting heroic stands against the zombie army at each location. IGN mention "buildables" that con be constructed to furnish you with new weapons, or open up extra areas, which are probably full of more zombies. The latest Black Ops 2 zombies trailer shows a fuel stop, a diner, a farmhouse reminiscent of Left 4 Dead's Blood Harvest finale, a power station and a town center blighted by lava pools. Zombies AND lava? It's the doompocalypse alright. You'll find the video stamped into the page below. Parts of the video show a tiny snippet of someone shooting zombies of the roof of the bus in first person, suggesting that we'll have to defend against legions of zombie marathon runners as t…
- Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 system requirements and enhanced PC features detailed - 4 September 2012
Treyarch have upgraded the DirectX 9 Black Ops engine to a "leaner" DirectX 11 edition that promises "significant improvements" for us PC players. The updated engine should make more efficient use of GPU power, and will have "more quality vs. performance options than ever before." The upgrade means that it won't run on Windows XP, however. "Performance has been a top priority for Black Ops II PC from day one" say Treyarch in a post on the Black Ops 2 site, spotted by Eurogamer. "Black Ops II PC features enhanced lighting, shadows, antialiasing, bloom, depth of field, ambient occlusion, and other enhanced effects that are still in the works. And the game can run at higher resolutions and higher framerates on the PC." There's no frame rate limit either, so we'll be able to cram even more Call of Duty into our eyeballs every second than ever before. Treyarch also released some minimum syst…
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 trailer teases Content Collection 4 - 31 August 2012
Content Collection 3 isn't out on PC yet, but Activision are already teasing the fourth "final assault" map pack. It's due to arrive on Xbox on September 6, which pegs it for somewhere around October 6 on PC. It'll add five new maps: Boardwalk, Off-shore, Decommission, Parish and Gulch. Men are murdered to a backing of clamorous gun-song in the new trailer showing off each map in turn. The noise acts like a mental battering ram, breaking down the superficial differences between each map and laying bare the very bones of what Call of Duty is, a grain of truth best expressed by a looping gif of a man running around the corner and shooting another man in the head for 100 points forever. HEADSHOT. Hopefully Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 can mix things up a bit when it arrives in November.
- Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 Hardened and Prestige editions detailed - 28 August 2012
Are you already dead set on picking up Call of Duty: Black Ops 2? Then you might be the sort of player intrigued by a shinier special edition ultro-box version. MP1st have word of two offerings, a "hardened" edition with a "collectible steelbook" and a "prestige" box which comes with an MD-27 Dragonfire Drone. That's not an in-game item. That's a drone that you can fly around and use to scare dogs. Attach a gun to it and you have a pretty close facsimile of the futuristic doom-bots we'll get to mess around with in Black Ops 2 (please don't do this). Read on for a list explaining which extra bits come in which box, and a couple of pictures proving that they exist. No price announcement just yet. Black Ops 2 is due out on November 13. Hardened Bonus In-Game Content: Nuketown Zombies & Nuketown 2025 Exclusive Xbox Live CLAW Avatar Prop & Zombies Avatar Costume Limited Edition Challenge Coi…
- Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 screenshots show tight multiplayer scraps on futuristic maps - 15 August 2012
It's the future that's for sure. The riot shields all have lights on them, someone's finally realised that those quadrocopter toys could quite easily double as deadly recon drones, and humanity has become warped and warlike in its relentless quest to capture flags. The latest Black Ops 2 screenshots from Gamescom offer us a glimpse of this grim but probably quite fun dystopia. Absorb them below. It's impossible to tell from looking, but there's an interesting "pick 10" character builder behind the loadouts of these futuristic soldiers. Treyarch have been talking about the highly customisable system at Gamescom.
- The origin of Call of Duty’s most-heard sound - 14 August 2012
When you shoot someone in Call of Duty, there’s a noise. It's positive feedback—a fwip-fwip-fwip to let you know that your bullet, knife, claymore, or phoned-in helicopter is hurting someone. While visiting Treyarch I asked the Black Ops 2 sound team about the creation of the simple-but-essential effect. PCG: Why does it sound the way it does when I shoot someone in Call of Duty? Brian Tuey, Audio Director: So... The sound has impact and it has meaning and it's useful and all that, but it's not a particularly pleasant sound, especially in isolation. There was a time recently where I was like, "You know? I'm gonna redo this with something else." So I kinda went a different direction, and it felt like this was going to be good. I checked it in, and within three hours, my email box was full of, like, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO MY SOUND?" I'm like, "But it's so much better!" Chris Cowell, Audio…
- Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 MP to have Diablo 3 style unlock system, guns and perks revealed - 14 August 2012
Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 details have been oozing out of Gamescom. VG247 have details of an updated "build a class" mode that will let us occupy ten gear slots with any combination of weapons, perks and killstreak rewards. Levelling up will mean choosing one of seven new pieces of kit to unlock. If you want to grab the six you missed, you'll have to prestige and reset your character. You're not restricted to having to occupy certain slots with weapons, and other slots with perks. You can forgo your primary gun in favour of an extra perk, or a "wild card" ability that changes the way your weapon behaves, adding an alternative fire mode or letting you slot an extra attachment onto your weapon. Treyarch refer to the system as "pick 10." It's not too far off Diablo 3's sideways levelling system that lets you slide any unlocked skill into a limited number of slots. Levelling grants you new…
- Modern Warfare 3 Collection 3 trailer shows Chaos Mode, spec ops missions, face off maps - 10 August 2012
The latest collection pack for Modern Warfare 3 has arrived on Xbox. We'll have to wait a while before the included face off maps and spec ops missions make their way to PC, but we're at least able to look at moving pictures of the pack right now. The trailer for collection 3 introduces Spec Ops CHAOS MODE, an educational exercise that teaches basic arithmetic through the medium of endless score modifiers. Here's a test. If you kill five men in 30 seconds for 50 points each and for each kill your score multiplier value increases by one, how many points do you have? Quickly, now, men are shooting at you. QUICKLY. The new pack adds four new missions for Modern Warfare 3's Spec Ops mode. Arctic Recon "tasks you with destroying a Russian battleship by planting beacons for an air strike." Vertigo puts you on top of a Dubai hotel with a bunch of laser-guided RPGs and has you fend off waves of…
- Modern Warfare 2 designer explains the thinking behind No Russian mission - 9 August 2012
Modern Warfare 2's No Russian mission asked players to choose to take an passive or active role in an airport civilian massacre. It caused quite an uproar back when it was released, but a lot of time has passed. A legal battle has been fought, a new studio has been formed, and many of the designers who worked on Modern Warfare 2 at Infinity Ward are now working for Respawn Entertainment. Mohammad Alavi is one of them. The designer responsible for one of Call of Duty 4's most memorable levels, All Ghillied Up, also had a hand in creating Call of Duty's most controversial moment. With the legal NDAs surrounding his attachment to Infinity Ward expired, he's spoken to Matthew S. Burns on Magical Wasteland about the intent behind No Russian. "We were trying to do three things" he explains, "sell why Russia would attack the US, make the player have an emotional connection to the bad guy Makar…
- Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 trailer shows new bad guy, jetpack skydive attack, drone strikes - 11 July 2012
Black Ops 2's far future setting feels like a good backdrop for Call of Duty's mad action movie plotlines. The latest trailer profiles Raul Menendez, the big baddie we'll be hunting down in the sequel. He's a widely loved, poplular sort, but beneath that charming exterior there lies "an insidious mastermind hell bent on global insurrection." He's a cat, basically. A cat with access to America's entire arsenal of automated drone weapons. Time to strap into a jetpack and divebomb out of the clouds through a storm of scorching flak. That's just one of the scenes that awaits you in the latest trailer below.
- Call of Duty DLC on sale for charity - 4 July 2012
Hey, remember how we always say Call of Duty DLC is overpriced? Well VG247 are reporting that Activision have just launched a great big sale, offering 50% any Black Ops or Modern Warfare 3 Map Pack for the next week. That takes the price down from an exorbitant £11.49/$14.99 to a much more reasonable £5.74/$7.49. There's something else to, a portion all sales will go to the Call of Duty Endowment, a charity launched by Activision back in 2009 that helps veterans find jobs when their tours of duty are over. The full list of discounted DLC is as follows: Call of Duty: Black Ops First Strike Call of Duty: Black Ops Escalation Call of Duty: Black Ops Annihilation Call of Duty: Black Ops Rezurrection Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Content Collection 1 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 content collection 2 Activision have long been seen as the 'Evil Empire' by gamers, but this is a good thing. £…
