http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=iIOxjztMZfc First Bulletstorm took on Halo with a touching, vomit-soaked diorama. That's good enough for Halo, but to take on Call of Duty it'll need something meatier, like the full downloadable PC game Duty Calls. More »
#callofduty
Josh Olin, Community Manager at Call of Duty: Black Ops developers Treyarch, thinks that "pundits" and "angry entitled fans" are ruining creativity in video games. They're not. More »
Microsoft is warning players who are picking up the Call of Duty: Black Ops First Strike map pack from the Marketplace to make sure they choose the same language for the game they own. If you purchase an alternate language pack, the company is quite explicit that the DLC "will not work" and you'll receive an error message.
This shouldn't be of concern to those in the States, but Canadians may run into the issue of having the English and French versions offered. It also gets messy if you have a French-language copy of Black Ops in the States, as the French DLC isn't offered in that Marketplace. So, in conclusion: make sure your Black Ops disc language matches that of the DLC you're buying.
#clips
Call of Duty: Black Ops' four newest maps add a healthy mix of new places to run and gun, hide and shoot, play and kill. Here's a first-hand play-through. More »
#whoops
An ordinary gamer is cleaning his Xbox Live inbox of dozens of friend requests each day, most of them containing a mercy plea from some Call of Duty cheater. What happened? His gamertag was shown in a Black Ops trailer. More »
Next Tuesday, Activision will launch the "First Strike" of what CFO Thomas Tippl has called the company's "largest digital offering ever" of Call of Duty DLC in a single year. This first Black Ops map pack will be exclusive to Xbox Live, beginning February 1, for a limited time and will include four competitive multiplayer maps -- "Berlin Wall," "Discovery," "Kowloon" (pictured) and "Stadium" -- along with the Zombies mode map "Ascension."
For Xbox Live players, that means one last weeked with the same old maps, a prime opportunity for Activision to toss another pitch for next week's DLC (priced at $15). In the gallery below, you'll find the first screenshots of the map pack (with bonus zombie poster), and after the break you can catch an in-depth video preview of the new competitive maps, produced by Inside Xbox. Did you know that Kowloon is known as a "rule-breaker map?" Ohhh ... so that's where all those pirates got shipped off to, eh?
#callofdutyblackops
Lurking somewhere beneath this striking Left 4 Dead style First Strike zombie poster are a series of screens showing off the new zombie playground and four new multiplayer maps coming to Xbox Live on February 1. Study them and survive. More »
Dirty, dirty Black Ops cheaters that downloaded the new PS3 firmware, update 3.56, are finding out exactly what Sony meant when it said the patch would help bolster "security." A grip of consoles have been permanently banned from Black Ops multiplayer servers for hacking or cheating after their users installed the new firmware -- though some of the outspoken among the banned are contesting the presumption that they are cheaters on the game's official forums. (Which is like, the first thing you'd do if you were a dirty, dirty cheater.)
In a seemingly cooperative attack executed by two mortal enemies, firmware 3.56 joins last week's mandatory Xbox Live update, which also stopped pirated and modded copies of Black Ops and Modern Warfare 2 in their tracks. Is Activision's cash cow so powerful that the publisher can request its own console updates at will? If that's the case, Activision: Would you please, please ask Sony to add cross-game chat?
Oh, and see if Microsoft will bring black the blades. We miss the blades.
Early this morning Treyarch unleashed a major patch for the PlayStation 3 version of Call of Duty: Black Ops, fixing freezing issues, stability problems, and various other annoying issues. Check out the official forums for full patch notes. More »
• Explosives are not visible through walls when using Hacker perk.
• Ninja perk is ineffective at times.
• Additional sound mix tuning for Ninja Pro users - increased ranges and volume of enemy footsteps, and removed player footstep sounds
on concrete material types.
• Increased headshot multipliers for sniper rifles. Sniper rifles with suppressors equipped will be ensured [...]
If you're a PS3 player troubled by Call of Duty: Black Ops bugs, take heart in the fact that Treyarch is listening to you. Particularly those of you troubled enough to submit a complaint to the government, we're guessing. Last night, the developer issued a new patch for Black Ops, fixing various freezing, "infinite loading screen," and other issues.
The patch also includes balance tweaks for weapons including the PSG1, silenced sniper rifle, RCXD, and AK47U, a new pre-match timer for system link and LAN multiplayer games, and some new Contracts, all of which you'll hopefully get to experience if the glitches are taken care of. Find the full list of changes at the official forum.
We're now just one week away from the release of "First Strike," the first downloadable map pack for Call of Duty: Black Ops. While last week's trailer went into some detail on some of the maps - notably excluding the zombie map "Ascension" - this week's trailer goes into no detail on all of the maps.
Allow us to explain: You'll catch a well-edited glimpse of each of the five new multiplayer maps, but without any details it's tough to get excited; you're better off watching last week's trailer over again. However, if you're looking for a peek at "Ascension," this is the only game in town, so click that play button and scrub ahead to the 43-second mark.
Gamers' Voice, the UK-headquartered video game enthusiast advocacy group founded by British Labor MP Tom Watson, will file a formal complaint to "relevant government agencies" this week regarding unresolved bugs in the PC and PS3 versions of Call of Duty: Black Ops. The group explained its position on the Gamers' Voice blog, stating "it doesn't matter how big a game is, it should not be released 'unfinished' or with bugs that make the game unplayable, which are words we have seen in a lot of emails to us recently."
The group further explained why these bugs drew their attention, saying, "in the case with CODBLOPS, entire sections of the PS3 and PC gaming community are apparently being used as game testers for an extended period after a game's release, yet being asked to pay for the privilege." Hey, it could be much, much worse. They could be asked to participate in a reality television show for the privilege.
#xbox360
Seems like that innocent little Xbox 360 update yesterday wasn't just to restore the option to boot the console straight to a disc. It also contained secret pirate-fighting juice. More »
#screengrab
The numbers, Mason, are 59Fifty, the fitted New Era cap style for two models of Black Ops lids, $2 from each sale goes to the Army Wounded Warriors program. They're $45. Seen via Strictly Fitteds. More »
#callofduty
A huffy customer support worker at Activision, no doubt fed up dealing with people complaining about Call of Duty: Black Ops' poor online performance, has snapped over an email exchange with tech blogger Jason Koblovsky. More »
#screengrab
A real-world tragedy is a triumph for Activision and developer Treyarch. Dutch infographic makers Spijkermat average the stats from Call of Duty: Black Ops' multiplayer lobby in order to paint this grim picture of death and destruction. More »
The graphic designers of Spijkermat figured that reducing 8 days' worth of Black Ops multiplayer stats to a pretty picture of daily averages would make the carnage counts comprehensible (as opposed to the unfathomable figures that scroll across the counter in the game's lobbies). They were wrong.
