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Sorting Fact From Fiction In Call Of Duty: Black Ops
For a game based on a historical period and littered with historical figures, the latest Call of Duty game sure does take a lot of liberties with, well, history. So let’s try and sort the fact from the fiction. Call of Duty: Black Ops takes place during the Cold War, a period of time in…
By Luke Plunkett Published November 17, 2010 -
Could Microsoft Give Project Gotham Devs A Lift?
Microsoft is shopping around for a new Project Gotham Racing developer. Activision is looking to offload original Project Gotham development studio Bizarre Creations. Could the timing be any better? the Project Gotham Racing franchise was a huge success for both Bizarre Creations and Microsoft, but that pairing came to an end in 2007 when Activision…
By Mike Fahey Published November 17, 2010 -
A Grenade To The Groin Makes This Call Of Duty Kill A Bit Different
At first this kill video from Call of Duty: Black Ops multiplayer seems unremarkable. But then they slow it down and zero in on a single grenade that lands in the most sensitive of places. Best First Blood Impact Kill EVER! [YouTube]
By Stephen Totilo Published November 17, 2010 -
Tony Hawk: Shred Sells Like Rancid Hotcakes
Perhaps you’ve seen the stack of Tony Hawk: Shred skateboard bundles sitting at your local video game store. You might want to get used to them, because the game’s first week sales number are very, very low. A word to publishers: Taking your franchise away from a developer two week’s before the release of the…
By Mike Fahey Published November 17, 2010 -
Ex LucasArts, Budcat Staffers To Also Have A Lousy Christmas [Update]
Bizarre Creations isn’t the only video game developer dealing with hard times right now. Two more developers appear to have been affected by holiday layoffs, including Star Wars game dev LucasArts and Guitar Hero studio Budcat Creations. Sources close to LucasArts say the studio has gone through another round of layoffs today, but numbers were…
By Michael McWhertor Published November 16, 2010 -
Bizarre Devs Took a Chance, May Get Closed
Three years after purchasing the developer behind Project Gotham Racing and Geometry Wars, Activision appears to be in the process of deciding how to ditch the studio. “Over the past three years since our purchase of Bizarre Creations,” an Activision spokesperson told Kotaku today, “the fundamentals of the racing genre have changed significantly. Although we…
By Mike Fahey Published November 16, 2010 -
Call Of Duty Looks More Fun When The Computer Does All The Shooting
Your AI buddies in Black Ops may not be able to shoot the hinges, but they can shoot hundreds of heavily-armed soldiers, and do it so well you can clear a level without firing a single shot. Those must be some hinges! And OK, so ONE shot is fired, but we can overlook a glorifed…
By Luke Plunkett Published November 16, 2010 -
Sam Worthington Nearly Ruined Black Ops For Me
I didn’t enjoy Black Ops as much as some others did, but it was still a pretty good shooter. Oh, except for the fact that a single casting decision nearly ruined the game for me. In the lead-up to the game’s release, publisher Activision was strangely quiet when it came to Black Ops’ roster of…
By Luke Plunkett Published November 15, 2010 -
GoldenEye Cheats Resurrect Big Head Mode [Updated]
An intrepid Kotaku reader found three working cheat codes for GoldenEye 007 on the Wii, but, so far, we only know what two of them do. Update: The third unlocks Big Head mode (pictured) in local multiplayer. WireX, the reader, dumped the data out of the main executable file and found three codes, which must…
By Owen Good Published November 14, 2010 -
How To Piss Off An Entire Nation With One Virtual Bullet
The biggest video game of the year isn’t making any fans in Cuba’s government. Here’s why… About 5.6 million people bought Call of Duty: Black Ops when it went on sale earlier this week. The first-person shooter had a bigger opening than any movie, any video game, any… book. But not everyone was delighted about…
By Brian Crecente Published November 13, 2010 -
You Can’t Blow Things Up With This Black-Ops Toy, But It’s Still Fun
I’m not sure at what point my test drive of the Call of Duty: Black Ops remote control truck became an attempt to blow things up, but it was easily within the first ten seconds. Of course I didn’t succeed. The RX-XD add-in that comes with the prestige edition of the game certainly looks like…
By Brian Crecente Published November 13, 2010 -
Black Ops On PC Patched: Is It Now Up To Scratch?
Call of Duty: Black Ops developer Treyarch has pushed live an update for the PC version of the game, promising to fix many of the issues that have plagued the title since its launch earlier this week. Users have been complaining for a few days now of two major issues: intermittent “lag” in multiplayer matches…
By Luke Plunkett Published November 12, 2010 -
Call of Duty: Black Ops Luckiest Kill Is Axe To Ankles
We’ve seen off the wall knife kills before in Call of Duty multiplayer—remember this lucky Modern Warfare 2 stab?—but across the map, off the wall, off the floor and into the Achilles heel of an online opponent? The unlucky recipient—a player by the handle of “BotteDimix”—of this Call of Duty: Black Ops tomahawk is likely…
By Michael McWhertor Published November 11, 2010 -
This Is What Nearly 3 Million People Gaming Look Like
This image of active Call of Duty: Black Ops players was snapped by reader The Dude at 11 p.m. eastern time last night. Note the nearly 3 million active players and the fact that seemingly the only people not playing Black Ops last night lived in the Rocky Mountains…. sorry, I had things to do.
By Brian Crecente Published November 11, 2010 -
Rock Band Will Still Be Rock Band After Harmonix is Sold
Viacom, like any good media conglomerate, loves big bottom lines… and it cannot lie, you other investors can’t deny that when a subsidiary walks in with itty bitty net earnings you’ve got to sell it… OK, that didn’t really work. But here’s the important thing: The makers of Rock Band and Dance Central will continue…
By Brian Crecente Published November 11, 2010 -
Which Version of Call of Duty: Black Ops Comes Out On Top?
If you care deeply about pixel counts and frame rate—or are simply still on the fence about which console version of Call of Duty: Black Ops to buy—don’t miss Digital Foundry‘s deep technical tear down of the Xbox 360 and PS3 releases. Eurogamer’s techy side examines the two console versions of Treyarch’s latest Call of…
By Michael McWhertor Published November 10, 2010 -
Black Ops Dev: Glitchers Are “Douche-Bags,” Who Want To Be “Internet Nerd Famous”
David Vonderhaar is not a happy guy. The design director for Call of Duty: Black Ops’ multiplayer is busy dealing with the baffling lag problem in the PC version, so please stop “Twit-bombing” him with video of glitches and exploits. “I’m not going to talk about it publicly,” an obviously pissed Vonderhaar said in the…
By Owen Good Published November 10, 2010 -
Frankenreview: Call Of Duty: Black Ops
An elite force of soldiers that operates beyond the boundaries of any law. They are shadows, waiting for the perfect time to strike. They are the assembled video game critics, and this is the Call of Duty: Black Ops Frankenreview. There’s a new Call of Duty game in stores, and regardless of what the critics…
By Mike Fahey Published November 10, 2010 -
Cuba Slams Call of Duty: Black Ops As ‘Perverse’ Propaganda For Sociopaths
Call of Duty: Black Ops is rubbing one nation the wrong way. Cuba’s state-run media has blasted Activision’s latest entry in the Call of Duty series as “doubly perverse” propaganda for a story arc involving former president Fidel Castro. According to a report from the AP, state-run news web site Cubadebate is slamming Black Ops,…
By Michael McWhertor Published November 10, 2010 -
Vietnam Vet Calls Black Ops Release Timing “Tacky”
Vietnam veteran and East Kildonan, Winnipeg resident Ron Parkes is angry, and Activision is to blame. The Vietnam veteran accuses the company of purposefully releasing Call of Duty: Black Ops to coincide with Remembrance Day. For those of you in the United States, Remembrance Day is a holiday observed in Commonwealth countries that remembers the…
By Mike Fahey Published November 10, 2010