Tag Archives: Call of Duty: Black Ops 2

Train2Game News: Mid-week round up – 31.10.11

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Possibly the biggest news this week is that Disney has purchased LucasArts for $4.05 billion. In doing so Disney now has the rights to everything in the Star Wars vaults. The plan is to release Star Wars episode VII in a couple of years time. LucasArts also makes some of the games in the Star Wars universe so this could mean changes in future games from the company. We will have to wait and see.

Grand Theft Auto V has finally had a release date confirmed. The highly anticipated fifth part of the saga will be coming to PS3 and Xbox360 in Spring 2013. There has been no mention of a PC release as of yet but it is common for Rockstar to release their PC versions several months later.

Another release date has been announced this time for Peter Molyneux’s Curiosity: What’s inside the cube. The release date has been given as November 7 for iOS and Android. The app will be free to download and play.

One of my most favourite games of this year is Borderlands 2 and it has just surpassed five million sales. The sales include retail and digital sales. Take-Two said it has become “one of the most successful releases in [subsidiary] 2K’s history”. In addition Borderlands Legends has been released for iOS today.

The Call Of Duty: Black Ops 2 trailer hit the world on Monday. The trailer was directed by Guy Ritchie and has a cameo from Robert Downey Jr. You can watch the trailer here.

Kickstarter, the most popular vehicle for crowdfunding games development projects, is now available in the UK. Previously UK-based developers could only pledge, but not create projects, now they can seek funding on the platform.

A sequel to the terrifying Amnesia: Dark Descent has been announced with a creepy trailer to get you in the Halloween spirit. Frictional games have always asked for fans to record screams, whimpers and blood curdling shrieks to be put in to the game. You can email your screams to piggies@thechineseroom.co.uk. The trailer can be seen here.

Lastly in more worrying news the terrible storm, Hurricane Sandy, that has hit the US has knocked out Activisions data centers and shut down online play for a number of games including Call Of Duty and Guitar Hero. My best wishes go out to all those affected by the storm.

Train2Game News: Mid-week round up

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Blizzard Entertainment released Mists Of Pandaria yesterday. The latest expansion for World Of Warcraft. Blizzard have also said that they have no fear of Windows 8 and will release games for any platform their players are on.

Avenged Sevenfold have released a new track that will feature on Call Of Duty: Black Ops 2. The song, Carry On, is the second song the band have released for a Call Of Duty game. They previously released Not Ready To Die with one of the Call Of Duty: Black Ops DLC packs.

Telltale’s five Walking Dead episodic games will be put on disc in December for Xbox360 and PS3. The game is based on the graphic novel turned TV show and through playing them myself I can say, if you are a fan of the series, play this game. You won’t be disappointed.

Nvidia’s head of cloud gaming, Phil Eisler, believes that cloud gaming could take over from consoles. He believes that consoles have one final generation in them before they die out, leaving the world of gaming in the hands of the cloud.

Ubisoft have announced that Assassins Creed 3 will not play on Windows XP. The company has released the specifications needed to play the game. There is a version for Windows 8 in the pipeline though.

Bethesda have released an animated prequel to its upcoming Dishonored. The webseries is called Tales of Dunwall and the gorgeous animated shorts are being released in three parts. The videos can be found on YouTube and they show the downfall of the in game city.

Sony Xdev are giving a small studio the opportunity to win £25,000. This new initiative, called Playstation Pioneers, will reward developers for a PlayStation Mobile game concept and will also offer successful candidates the opportunity to work alongside XDev. Further details can be found here.

An extra four titles have been added to the Humble Bundle 6. The titles are: Bit.Trip Runner, Gratuitous Space Battles, Jamestown, and Wizorb. If you have already purchased the bundle, you will get the new games added at no extra cost.

If you are attending Eurogamer this weekend you can get a special surprise when you play Company Of Heroes 2. Everyone that plays the game or attends the developer session at the event will get a code to access a future beta for the game.

Finally Train2Game will be at Eurogamer this weekend. If you are attending go and say hello, it is always nice to meet these people. I will be attending on the Saturday so if you see me feel free to talk to me. I hope everyone that attends has a brilliant time.

Train2Game News: Nintendo’s Wii U UK launch date revealed

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The Wii U will be released in the UK before it’s released in Japan. Nintendo’s next-gen console goes on sale November 30. Japan gets the Wii U a week later.

There will be two hardware bundles being released. The white Basic pack will include an 8GB Wii U console, one GamePad and a Stylus. The black Premium pack contains a 32GB Wii U, one GamePad, all the accessories featured in the Basic pack, plus extras such as a charging stand and a Premium subscription for discounted download games.

UK consumers that pick up the Premium pack will also get a copy of NintendoLand and a Wii Sensor Bar.

Buyers of the Basic pack can pick up a new accessory pack called the “Wii Remote Plus Additional Set”. It contains a Wii Remote Plus, Nunchuk and Sensor Bar.

The trade price for the Basic pack is £205, the Premium is £246 and the ZombiU version – which includes the Premium Pack and a copy of Ubisoft’s horror shooter ZombiU – has a cost price of £270.

A list of launch games have been announced on Nintendo’s official site. Some of the games that have been announced for the launch window are:

  • Rayman Legends
  • ZombiU
  • Mass Effect 3: Special Edition
  • FIFA 13
  • Call Of Duty: Black Ops 2
  • Nintendo Land
  • New Super Mario Bros. U

Train2Game News: Call of Duty: Black Ops II officially revealed, 300 staff working on it

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Train2Game students will have noticed that Call of Duty: Black Ops II has been officially been revealed. The latest title in Activision’s highly successful series is being developed by Treyarch, with the story set in 2025 and a branching story.

Call of Duty: Black Ops II is scheduled for release on Tuesday 13th November 2012 with over 300 staff working on it.

“There’s over 250 people at Treyarch, but there’s over 300 people working on the project,” Treyarch studio head Mark Lamia told VentureBeat.

“We do have contractors and test teams that aren’t part of the company. Those others aren’t actually employees of Treyarch. But there’s over 300 people working on the game right now.”

He added that due to the size of the project, Treyarch are happy to share resources with other Activision studios.

“We actually do open up anything from our side that they can have access to, but they have their own team with their own creative work,” said Lamia.

“Whether it’s inside of the Call of Duty franchise or, frankly, some other area of essential technology or whatever other area – if there are things that teams can access or leverage, then they do.

“For example, the facial rig and the performance capture was something that we worked with Activision’s central technology team on quite a bit. There are a lot of learnings there that can be applied to other teams.” he added.

The full Call of Duty: Black Ops II interview with Treyarch’s Mark Lamia is over on Venturebeat, while you can watch the Black Ops II reveal trailer below, right here on The Train2Game Blog.

What are your initial thoughts on Call of Duty: Black Ops II and the size of the team behind it?

Leave your comments here on The Train2Game Blog, or on the Train2Game forum.