Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Treyarch Dev Teases Black Ops II Multiplayer HUD and Custom Games Settings, Debunks Old Rumor

Treyarch Dev Teases Black Ops II Multiplayer HUD and Custom Games Settings, Debunks Old Rumor
David Vonderhaar of Treyarch talks about the new multiplayer HUD for Call of Duty: Black Ops II as the team tries to strike a balance between a great art style and readability and teases some upcoming intel.
“So fired up right now,” tweeted Vonderhaar recently. “UI team put together an MP HUD visual design. Clean with high readability/usability but maintains great looking art.” He added that “the boys [have] been working so hard to find the balance between beautiful and high usability. I shed tears of joy in the meeting.”
If you’re dying to know what exactly the HUD will look like (which we certainly are), Vonderhaar also teased a tease that we may be treated to in the near future, stating, “I predict a day in near future where Call of Duty Facebook ‘leaks’ an example of new icon style.” Additionally, you can take a look at this leaked image that show what the HUD could potentially look like. If it is real, you can most likely expect some updates to have taken place since then.
Vonderhaar also revealed that the Custom Games setting will allow for further options than in previous Call of Duty titles. When asked if it will be possible to take off third-person spectating from private matches so people can’t use it to assist others, Vonderhaar replied, “can’t get into details right now but doing a lot of work for Custom Games to give you more control of spectating behavior and rules.”
Lastly, when referenced to an older Black Ops II multiplayer rumor including game modes and perks which we reported on here, Vonderhaar confirmed the rumors to be fake, stating, “I don’t use 3rd party sites to give info out. Ever.”
Though, we have recently learned that Treyarch plans to build Black Ops II’s multiplayer from the ground up.
Were there any particular improvements you would like to have seen made to the HUD or Custom Games settings in the original Black Ops?

[Updated] Bizzarre Halo 4 Multiplayer Leak

[Updated] Bizzarre Halo 4 Multiplayer Leak
Yesterday, Sunday the 27th, one of the strangest leaks in video game history appeared on the internet.
Yes, it’s of Halo 4 and, yes, it’s of multiplayer, which many hardcore Halo fans are most looking forward to, but the way in which it is presented is some of the strangest stuff we’ve seen on the internet yet.
This footage, originally found on the NewGAF forums, shows what looks to be off-screen Halo 4 multiplayer gameplay footage on an old, standard-definition TV via VHS  inside a barn of some sort accompanied by some blaring music.
The multiplayer footage itself resembles what we’ve seen so far when it comes to Halo 4 gameplay. It also demonstrates the sprint ability, Promethean vision as well as the Railgun, a new addition to the Halo franchise. You can read here for more on the weapons of Halo 4.
If you decide to take a look at the footage originally posted by YouTuber Skid Kid, which you are most likely compelled to do so, perhaps consider turning off the sound as the music is rather loud and NSFW. Actual gameplay footage begins at 1:30, preceded by… a black bear sitting at a picnic table wearing a photoshopped face. Make sure to stick around until the end for some extreme insect-killing action.
Microsoft or 343 Industries have yet to deny the legitimacy of the video, leading us to believe that the video is, indeed, real. Real bizzarre, that is. However, Microsoft did contact Kotaku, telling them, “we are conducting an internal beta test of Halo 4 which is a standard development practice for most video games. We have no plans for a public multiplayer beta for Halo 4.”
Leave your thoughts in the comments below!
Thanks, David Gumberg, for the tip.
Update: Below are also some beta screens via littleenglishhaloblog (thanks, Chris Mikha). Click for a larger size, though they are already pretty blurry like so.

Infinity Ward Teases “Exciting Unannounced Title For Next Generation Consoles”

Infinity Ward Teases “Exciting Unannounced Title For Next Generation Consoles”
It looks like Call of Duty is headed to the Xbox 720 and PlayStation 4!
“Come work with the game industry’s brightest to design and implement high level network code for an exciting unannounced title for next generation console systems,” reads an ad for a Senior Network Engineer position in the Infinity Ward studios, creators of the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare franchise.
Earlier, Treyarch was rumored to be heading a next-gen project thanks to an ad stating that the team was looking for employees with next-gen experience using next-gen tools.
Activision’s only other known next-gen project happens to be Bungie’s recently announced project codenamed “Destiny.”
Infinity Ward’s ad, discovered by NowGamer, clearly suggests a next-gen Call of Duty title in the works. The questions is: will it be Modern Warfare 4, or an entirely new series?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

Treyarch Discuss Black Ops 2′s New Charge-and-Fire, X-ray Sniper Rifle

Speaking to Ausgamers at a recent Black Ops 2 promotional event, Treyarch’s Mark Lamia – when asked about the tradition of keeping Call of Duty’s guns authentic and how that would translate in Black Ops 2′s near-future setting – discussed a radical new sniper rifle that’s set to feature in the upcoming sequel.
The electronically initiated, charge-and-fire, X-ray scoped sniper rifle is based on technology that is available today, believe it or not! Lamia justifies the inclusion of the weapon in Black Ops 2 in the interview embedded below, and explains how the team have worked hard balancing the new sniper rifle and other features of the game.
“In the demonstration of LA, we showed you a sniper weapon, but it was not a sniper weapon like anything you’ve ever played with in Call of Duty and in fact, if you just stopped right there and looked at it, there’s this weapon that you can see through walls and shoot people through. Right?”
“Is that realistic or is that not realistic? Well I’ll tell you how we think about it, and how we have to justify it to ourselves before it makes it into the game, is we go: ‘ok, in the future, what would a sniper rifle be, and what would be a really amazing optic for that sniper rifle?’. Well you flew here from Australia and you probably had to go through those TSA scanners right? Where they put your hands up here and they can see through everything, well there’s that millimetre wave technology, it exists in large form-factor right now.”
“Every 18-24 months, there’s this thing called Moore’s Law, where processing power is going to double. Right? It’s going to double. That is very hard to conceptualise. In fact, you almost have to look to the past to even get an idea of what that actually means. Well look thirteen years back. The PS3 or the 360 that you can go buy, is the same processing power as the most advanced piece of processing kit the military would have running. The military.”
“So you project that out. Go back to the millimeter wave technology; processing power continues. We also know that as time advances, form factors get smaller. We know that from our own personal consumer electronics devices – they’re all smaller, things get more efficient.”
“”Now you have an optic, that would be a pretty impressive optic to have as opposed to being on a vehicle – mounted on a vehicle moving through a city – it’s actually on a weapon. Now what do you do? You can see through it, now you want to be able to – from a gameplay point of view – you want to be able to do something about that. How do you justify that?”
“That’s a pillar, that thing is four feet worth of concrete or whatever it is! Well I don’t know if you’ve seen a thing called (and this is not a technology that we’re using, but it exists today), there’s something called Metal Storm technology that we saw that inspired us.”
“It’s an electronic charge as opposed to a gunpowder charge. It fires a million rounds every 60 seconds. That’s today! Now it’s in big form-factor, again we’re talking thirteen years out. So now, from a gameplay point of view – because you have to balance that, because that’s a pretty powerful weapon suddenly – if you’re putting this technology on a sniper weapon, how do you balance that? Well, it’s a charge-shot mechanic you have to hold down. The longer you charge up, the more you can penetrate. If you don’t charge up enough, you’re not going to be able to penetrate the surface material.”
“That’s a combination of fiction with game-balance with everything else, the drones are the same thing. You saw the quadaped, the CLAW. That went through a lot of revisions as well for the team to get that right — to make that feel like ‘yeah, this feels plausible’.”
“Does that exist right now? No. Does the other weapon exist right now? No. But every single one of those things has a backstory. We know that there are quadrupeds that are basically mules – robotic mules, that can carry large amounts of gear and things like that. Well, how long before that sort of thing could potentially have a camera or a weapon mounted to it or something like that? So we go through that whole process for everything.”
“The cool thing about our fiction that I think works really well – just from a gameplay point of view, so let’s pull the fiction and help serve the gameplay in this point – what happens is in our fiction is our villain, Raul Menendez, steals the keys to the US military infrastructure and turns our advantage – which is this advancement in robotics and drones – on us. Turns our own weapons on us.”
“So what that means is, while you’re playing with them as allies, at some point in the fiction, you’re going to be fighting against them. What that means is now you’ve got entirely new AI that you’ve never fought against in a Call of Duty game. Flying AI or quad AI or the Cognitive Land Assault Weapon, and what that means is that these aren’t humanoids, which means they might require different strategies to take them out.”
“In this way the fiction, and our desire to create a compelling fiction, but also introduce new kinds of gameplay sort of serves each other really nicely. “
“As we were wrapping up Black Ops 1, the team was really firing on all cylinders. And while we really gave everything we had to that, and we were really happy with it, we kind of felt like, as a team, that was the first time that the entire studio had just focused on one game.”
“So we were really proud of what we’d created, but we felt like that was kind of like the base-level. We felt like we could push it so much more. So that’s why you’re seeing so many new things go into Black Ops 2.”
“We felt like we created something as a great foundation, we felt like we had just scratched the surface with the fiction, we loved the storytelling — this is the history that you didn’t know about and these are the black operations.. We liked the tone of it — dark things and dark places and everything that’s going on in that world. The multiplayer team was excited about what we’d created; the zombies team was excited about what we’d created.”

Source:  http://www.codblackopsblog.com/treyarch-discuss-black-ops-2s-new-charge-and-fire-x-ray-sniper-rifle/

Monday, May 28, 2012

Black Ops 2 has “Dedicated PC Team” and PC Version Built from Ground Up


Treyarch’s Director of Technology Cesar Stastny (@pcdev), has recently confirmed via Twitter that Treyarch is stepping up this year when it comes to supporting the Call of Duty PC community. With all the PC drama that began with MW2, it’ll be interesting to see what direction they’ll take with Black Ops 2. This is a great start though:
-”[Black Ops 2].. developed by a dedicated PC team simultaneously with the other platforms.”
-”BO2 built from the ground up to catch cheaters”
-”Ability to detect and ban based on lessons learned on Black Ops.”
Still no word on how dedicated servers will be handled this year. It’s clear fans have beens asking for dedicated ranked servers fo a while now, we’ll let you know the second we receive more PC intel from Treyarch..

Also, the Black Ops 2 “Paused Game Screen” was recently spotted during a Treyarch Interview:
SOURCE@Pcdev Via CallofDutyWikia

Halo 4 Pre-Order Bonus Items Revealed

Halo 4 Pre-Order Bonus Items Revealed
Ready to get your customize game on Spartan? Halo 4 is offering some snazzy armor and gun skins that are customizable for pre-ordering Halo 4 at their respective retailers.
First off, pre-ordering from the Microsoft Store will net you a customizable “Pulse” armor skin. Gamestop pre-orders will receive the “Forest” armor skin. EB Canada will outfit you the same “Forest” armor but with an additional artic camo-styled Battle Rifle. Best Buy will reward players with the “Venator Raptor” exclusive multiplayer armor design. Amazon will get the “Web” armor skin while Play in the UK equips Master Chief with the “Deadeye” helmet skin. Lastly, Mightey Ape New Zealand will score players both the “Locust” helmet, “Venator Raptor” armor and “Pulse” armor.
If you haven’t yet, also make sure to check out the Halo 4 Limited Edition.
Check out the armor skins below and click on the retailer name to pre-order.
Halo 4 Customizable Pulse Armor Skin. (See Mighty Ape below.)
Where will you be pre-ordering Halo 4 at? Let us know in the comment section below!
Source: http://mp1st.com/2012/05/27/halo-4-pre-order-bonus-items-revealed/

Black Ops II Zombies – “We Just Want To Keep Making It,” Says Treyarch

Black Ops II Zombies – “We Just Want To Keep Making It,” Says Treyarch
Mark Lamia, Studio Head at Treyarch, entertains the idea of a spinoff for the ultra-popular Call of Duty game mode, Zombies.
“That’s interesting, because you know we finally did exclusive DLC Zombies for Black Ops; it had its own marketing campaign, had no multiplayer maps, had no campaign. It was just zombies,” referring to the original Black Ops’ latest DLC, Rezurrection, as Lamia stated in the latest issue of Gamemaster Magazine. ”Millions of people clearly wanted it because they got it,” he added. He had no specific sales number on hand, but he did mention that it sold in the millions, keeping in mind that this is nine to ten months after the release of Black Ops.
Nazi Zombies originally debuted in Treyarch’s Call of Duty: Wold at War back in 2008 as a bare-bones, co-op add-on with one small map and no story – just wave after wave of increasingly difficult-to-kill zombies. Originally a mod, it has since then grown into it’s own universe with characters, story, unique weapons and even more dangerous zombies types. For many, it has become the go-to game mode in the Call of Duty series, becoming even more likeable than the competitive multiplayer, for some. Lamia insists that ”the whole mode just exists because of fans.”
Treyarch has hinted that Zombies will no longer be a mini-game in Black Ops II, but a fully-fledged game mode with the additions of new gamed modes within, 8-player co-op and a possibility of competitive play. Given the amount of attention Zombies is receiving from Treyarch, It would not be surprising at all (in fact, it would probably make sense) if it ever ended up becoming it’s own spinoff title.
“Honestly, I don’t know where it’s going to go,” says Lamia. “Right now, it’s just part of Black Ops.” Whether it ever becomes a spinoff title or not, we can definitely expect more zombies, as he later stated, “we just want to keep making it basically.”
Would you purchase a Call of Duty: Zombies spinoff title, either as a full retail release or an arcade title? What would you like to see happen with the Zombies game mode in the future?
Source: http://mp1st.com/2012/05/25/black-ops-ii-zombies-we-just-want-to-keep-making-it-says-treyarch/

Friday, May 25, 2012

Minecraft tops Black Ops on Xbox Live

4J Studios' open-world creation game tallied more unique users than Call of Duty: Black Ops for the week of May 14.



Minecraft is digging away at the success of Call of Duty on Xbox Live. Microsoft's latest online activity chart reveals that for the week of May 14, Minecraft: Xbox 360 Editionhad more unique users than Call of Duty: Black Ops.
Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition was surpassed in unique users only by Activision's latest blockbuster shooter Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. In notching the number two spot, Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition also recorded a higher number of unique users than footie simulator FIFA 12, as well as popular shooters Battlefield 3, Halo: Reach, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.
Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition launched on May 9 and became profitable in just 60 minutes. It sold 400,000 copies during its first 24 hours, on its way to move more than 1 million units in its first week, becoming the fastest-selling Xbox Live game in history.
Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition was developed by 4J Studios, the Scotland-based shop that built Xbox Live Arcade titles Perfect Dark, Banjo-Kazooie, and Banjo-Tooie. The game will add Kinect support at a later date via a patch and was the last title in Microsoft'sArcade Next promotion, which also saw the release of Trials EvolutionBloodforge, and Fable Heroes.
For more on Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition, check out GameSpot's review.


 
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