Call of Duty

Watch These Top-Level Call of Duty Players Go Apesh*t

If you’ve played a game online, chances are you’ve experienced ragers in their full extreme, screaming glory. So it shouldn’t be surprising that even top-level players rage, as Eurogamer discovered. Here is a compilation of (sometimes celebratory!) rage moments during a European Call of Duty championship. One of the competitors notes that raging is done…

Believe It Or Not, There Is Actually More Than One Way To Play A Game

Breaking a habit is no easy thing—even when a game designer does their best to give players options. Take Call of Duty: Black Ops II, for instance. Few things are as seductive to a CoD player as perfecting their kill/death ratio, and little about the game is designed from the ground up to encourage anything…

Microtransactions for ‘Customization Items’ Come to Black Ops 2 on Xbox 360

Beginning Wednesday, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 will begin offering “personal customizations” on the Xbox 360, the game’s community manager said this morning. The items don’t affect gameplay—they’re items like weapon skins, targeting reticles, and player calling cards. Moreover, the multiplayer map Nuketown 2025, originally a preorder incentive back in November, will be made…

Five Things That Make For A Good Power Weapon

Competition demands dominion. Dominion begets power. And, if you’re serious about keeping that power, chances are power weapons come into the picture. Power weapons are tools that allow us to deal immense damage. Think stuff like sniper rifles, or even vehicles like tanks. These can dictate the entire flow of the match, so it’s not…

You Can Play An Infinite Game of Catch With A Live Grenade In Black Ops II

Sure, shooting people is an option in Black Ops II, and that’s plenty of fun. Or, you can play catch with your enemies. With a live grenade. Don’t worry, it won’t go off. Here’s how. The folks over at defendthehouse found that, if two people have the “fast hands” perk—which allows you to throw back…

Call of Duty Co-Creator Jason West Has Left His New Studio [UPDATE]

Jason West, a co-creator of Call of Duty and co-founder of video game studio Respawn Entertainment, has left the company he helped found, two sources have informed Kotaku. The departure was amicable. West, who left because of family issues, has been gone since last May, according to one reliable source who asked not to be…

Cryptic Infinity Ward Messages Show off Branded Mini-PC

Call of Duty makers Infinity Ward posted two telling photos to Facebook and Twitter this week, showing off what appears to be an Xi3 Piston PC, one of Valve’s adorable prototype Steam Box devices, with the company’s logo plastered on it. (UPDATE: Or any of the other Xi3 mini-computers—the Steam Box is just one possible…

This Real-Life Version Of Black Ops 2 Reminds Me How Violent Black Ops 2 Is

It can be easy to become desensitized to Call of Duty‘s brand of realistic-yet-cartoonish violence. As motion-captured video-game dudes blow each other away over and over again, whatever I’d normally feel at watching that kind of carnage melts away. I see the game for what it is, and it stops having an impact. Videos like…

This Type Of Kill Cam Shows An Amazing Yet Lame Way To Die In Call of Duty

Lame or anticlimactic kill cams aren’t so rare: in fact, I’d bet that most of the final kills we view at the end of multiplayer matches aren’t noteworthy at all. But there are weak endings to matches…and then there’s this. Dying by way of care package also isn’t new—heck, there are medals for it in…

The People Who Created Call of Duty Imply We’ll See Their Next Game At E3 [UPDATE]

Vince Zampella, one of the studio heads of Respawn Entertainment, says his team will “be” at E3 this year, presumably showing off whatever kind of game you make next after you make Call of Duty the biggest thing going. We scoff at most announcements of announcements, but this is a special one. After all, one…

This Call of Duty Harlem Shake Just Wants The Meme To Die Out Already

Maybe you’re sick of all the Harlem Shake videos (they almost never have the real Harlem Shake, dang it!) This take on the dance by SanchoWest knows your pain, knows it well enough to take matters into its own hands and destroy the jerks that are running the meme into the ground. Boom. Gone. If…

Activision Lays off About 30 People, Saying There Will Be Fewer Licensed Games This Year

Even the massive money-making game publisher Activision lays off people from time to time, as the company confirmed today that they’ve cut about 30 jobs from their global work force. Kotaku first heard that the cuts were affecting Treyarch, the studio behind Call of Duty: Black Ops II, but a spokesperson for Activision said that…

The Most Amazing Snow Levels And Zones In Video Games

Barring timed underwater escort missions, snow levels, with all their slippery ice and falling rocks (not to mention the fog), are probably the deadliest. Yet it’s easy to find enjoyable—or at least memorable—ones, even if we disregard games where the entire setting is snowy (We’re looking at you, Skyrim). Assault On The Control Room (Halo:…

Shooters Need To Get Better At Depicting Arabs

Whether it’s the news, television or the movies, Arabs have become synonymously linked with the word “terrorist.” And thanks to video games, we’ve become the target—literally. Both my job and my personal experience give me a unique perspective on the situation. I was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan and moved to the Beirut, Lebanon…

Of Course Call of Duty’s Name Was Eventually Going To Lead To A Fish-Blasting Parody

Call of Duty. Or, CoD. It’s an abbreviation so ubiquitous it’s kind of weird that nobody thought to do this sooner. Indie dev Ryan Evans has made Cod of Duty, a short, simple game where you… shoot fish. You know. Cod. They’re even (mostly) in a barrel, just to complete the whole Call of Duty…

It’s the 49ers vs. the Ravens in Call of Duty—With These Emblems

This emblem tutorial brings together two dewchuggin’ classics—football and Call of Duty, enough to make any bro-gamer stand up straight and armpit fart Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA The gang at FPSGeneral put together this tutorial if you want tomorrow’s Super Bowl combatants in today’s Call of Duty. The 49ers logo lacks the stylized,…

Call of Duty isn’t a big deal in the world of e-sports. Microsoft, Activision and $1 million are hoping to change that

Thirsty Call of Duty Fans Have Made Their Own Range Of Perk-a-Cola

Perk-a-Cola—soda that grants you a much-needed perk—is a life-saver in zombie rounds of Call of Duty multiplayer. It’s also not a real drink, so a pair of fans set about changing that. Redditor Kjkemme and their zombie-handed sister have recreated all the sodas found in the game, right down to the nutrition labels. Call of…

Go read this fascinating Simon Parkin piece about the relationships between shooting games and gun manufacturers.

In-game broadcasting from Call of Duty: Black Ops II comes to Twitch today