Call of Duty « Gamesugar

November 13, 2012

Review – Call of Duty: Black Ops II

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: Activision, Black Ops 2, Black Ops II, Call of Duty, FPS, PlayStation 3, Review, Shooter, Treyarch, Wii U, Xbox 360 — Jamie Love @ 9:39 pm

Review Call of Duty Black Ops II 2
It’s fair to say that gaming has taught us some rather strange lessons. Eating mushrooms allows us to grow, powerful critters can be caught and stored in balls, rubbing two differently colored plants together creates medicine on the fly – the list goes on and on to spiral around a few city blocks.

And considering all the ridiculous activities videogames enable, I have to find something better to say about Black Ops II, rather than simply stating that it has a ridiculous plot at the heart of its campaign – that would just be a silly and wasteful thing to say.

It would probably be fairer to say that the story of Black Ops II simply builds on the well-worn foundation of the franchise, which may feel plenty worn depending on how many of the numerous releases in the series you’ve soldiered through.

And yet to simply suggest this would be selling the game short.

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June 17, 2012

Lazy Sunday – E3 Leftovers

Filed under: Editorial Rants — Tags: Activision, Aliens: Colonial Marines, Black Ops II, Call of Duty, E3 2012, Lazy Sunday, Mystwalker, Sega, Skylanders Giants, Spyro Skylanders, The Last Story, XSEED Games — Jamie Love @ 9:11 pm

E3 2012
Posting about all the games I spent time with at E3 has been an incredibe experience, which I remain entirely thankful for while winding down the task this weekend.

I hope you’ve dug our attempt at E3 coverage this year by the way, which owes a thankful shout-out to Shaun Hatton for providing some essential help during the typically crazy ride.

While it’s time to put E3 2012 to bed and get back to the business of more immediate releases, there were a few titles that warranted some words, and unfortunately many more that I haven’t caught up with as of yet.

In the spirit of lazy Sunday, I’ve rounded up a few more games I spent some time with at E3, which you can catch up with below.

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November 20, 2011

When Duty Redials…

Filed under: Editorial Rants — Tags: Activision, Call of Duty, Modern Warfare 3 — Brad Johnson @ 1:30 am

Review Modern Warfare 3
MW3 is out and about, scorings its eights and nines and commanding the lives of adherents the world over—though, interestingly, the game has received something of a flogging on Metacritic, with the user score ranking a paltry 3.2 (Xbox 360 version) as of this writing.

Meanwhile, the game sold seven decazillion copies in the first ninety seconds after its release. True fact.

So, you understand: never mind that Metacritic score. The verdict is in, and everybody loves Call of Duty. As a registered and licensed Digi-Herald and Internet Chronicler, it pains me to inform you, dear reader, that your internet voice, and my internet voice, and the score of 3.2 on Metacritic do not matter. The score could be zero, and it would not matter. The gaming community voted with their wallets November 8—and if you don’t like Call of Duty, well, you lost.

Call of Duty is the President of Vidyagaems. Sorry.

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September 5, 2011

Operation Kingfish Debuts at XP

Filed under: Features — Tags: Activision, Call of Duty, COD XP, Event, Find Makarov, Los Angeles, Meteoric, Modern Warfare, Operation Kingfish, The Junction VFX, We Can Pretend, XP — Brad Johnson @ 8:51 am

Call of Duty Operation Kingfish
One of the more interesting bits to come out of Call of Duty XP this weekend was Operation Kingfish, the successor to the fan film Find Makarov from earlier this year.

Operation Kingfish is something of a success story; after many mistook Find Makarov for a part of Activision’s MW3 marketing campaign, the publisher hunted down the men and women behind it—but not to shut them down. Instead, they wanted to put the team to work crafting a sequel.

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September 4, 2011

The Last Call (of Duty) at XP

Filed under: Features — Tags: Activision, Call of Duty, Event, Los Angeles, Spec Ops, XP — Brad Johnson @ 9:12 am

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 Spec Ops XP
Saturday was the last hurrah for Activision’s first fan-event for Call of Duty, and I made sure to sit down with the new Spec Ops Survival mode before tactically ex-filtrating via zipline (followed by epic shuttle bus).

I was teamed up with a girl who hadn’t yet played Survival herself, and she asked me if it was akin to zombie mode from Treyarch’s parallel series. I hadn’t though of it that way, but the comparison is apt; Survival is the Modern Warfare stab at the now ubiquitous horde mode concept, much like zombie mode was for Treyarch.

The difference, of course, is that Modern Warfare puts a slightly more in-universe spin on things—and a little more traditional, too. Treyarch’s zombie maps have been increasingly experimental, putting bizarre twists on Call of Duty gameplay—but Survival takes a different approach, instead packaging the standard COD trappings in a reasonably straightforward Battle Royale, though that’s not to say there are no new ideas.

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September 3, 2011

The View From Call of Duty XP

Filed under: Features — Tags: Activision, Call of Duty, Call of Duty XP, Event, Feature, LA, Los Angeles, Modern Warfare, Modern Warfare 3 — Brad Johnson @ 8:58 am

The View From Call of Duty XP LA
I arrived at Call of Duty XP unprepared for the level of loyalty the series commands, and the nature of that loyalty; if you had asked me a year ago, I might have questioned whether the fanbase was really there. Not in terms of scale, of course, but in terms of investment—everyone (almost literally) plays Call of Duty, but does it control the type of entrenched fan that seeks (or demands) an experience like this?

I wondered what niche XP filled, what need it answered.

Or, to put it another way: a lot of people watch Survivor, just like a lot of people watch Star Trek—but you can’t really have a Survivor convention the way you can have a Star Trek convention—it can’t be leveraged that way, and it doesn’t need to be. I thought Call of Duty the same.

Turns out I was wrong.

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September 2, 2011

Hands On with Modern Warfare 3’s Multiplayer

Filed under: Features — Tags: Activision, Call of Duty, Call of Duty XP, Event, Feature, Los Angeles, Modern Warfare 3 — Brad Johnson @ 3:31 pm

Call of Duty XP Weekend Event
Team Sugar answered the call and descended upon Los Angeles yesterday for Activision’s debut of Modern Warfare 3’s multiplayer component at Call of Duty XP, striking fear in the hearts of decent Americans everywhere with our radical Canadian notions.

After being briefly lost in the shuffle as hundreds of Xbox’s were claimed by other raging nerd-journos, I eventually got my hands on the game—and found an equal share of the expected and unexpected.

Call of Duty has made its mark by endlessly refining a very particular product; succeeding in the science of visceral, fast-paced close-quarter combat, in a shooter where shooting is even more integral than the name implies.

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