By Quintin Smith on April 20th, 2011 at 10:50 am.
The Call of Duty: Black Ops map pack which Jim heard about last week has undergone extensive trailerisation. You can watch flythroughs of the five new maps and listen to the somewhat limp-wristed advice from the Treyarch developers (this map is pretty good for snipers, but it might also be good for people who are not a sniper) after the jump. The pack will be releasing on May 3rd on Xbox Alive, but still no PC release date just yet.
I do like unique elements in my paid-for map packs. I do. Monorails? Working garage doors? Alright by me.
20/04/2011 at 10:58 Wunce says:
I am not happy with just a rail to walk on, I demand a fully functioning monorail! I mean, who doesn’t love monorails?
20/04/2011 at 11:20 Hmm-Hmm. says:
This is true. Monorails are awesome.
20/04/2011 at 14:22 Lamb Chop says:
The simpsons do.
20/04/2011 at 11:04 Corrupt_Tiki says:
Wow, Minecraft update, A.Typical RPG, and a CoD mappack; slow news after the Portal 2 ARG and release then?
20/04/2011 at 11:05 Corrupt_Tiki says:
Also; BEARDS, FACIAL HAIR!
20/04/2011 at 11:24 CMaster says:
Alec should still have his Brink impressions to dump on us from the Zenimax event I think.
20/04/2011 at 11:13 Orija says:
I wear it on my sleeve that I haven’t bought either MW2 or Blops for instantly hobnobbing the moral high ground.
20/04/2011 at 12:01 Corrupt_Tiki says:
I found the MW2 campaign to be ‘meh’ not bad, not good, did have a few good moments in it, but nothing compared to CoD4; I enjoyed the MP quite a lot.
Then the hackers came.
—What has happened to BFBC2 now….
20/04/2011 at 11:33 Calneon says:
Are they paying you to advertise their map packs? This isn’t something I would expect RPS to be posting about, especially if it doesn’t even have a PC release date. The more people buy this stuff, the more Activision will think it is acceptable.
20/04/2011 at 11:35 Alec Meer says:
No, but they did give us all Ferraris and underpants made of gold. It’s the only possible way we could be convinced to post gaming news on a gaming website.
20/04/2011 at 11:38 CMaster says:
It’s not like loads of people play this game or anything, or RPS normally cover DLC…
20/04/2011 at 14:43 Jad says:
Thank you Alec (and Quinns). Keep on posting news from every corner of the PC gaming universe, no matter how wonderfully obscure or elitist-hated mainstream. It’s what makes RPS special.
20/04/2011 at 14:50 abhishek says:
Are they paying you to advertise their map packs? This isn’t something I would expect RPS to be posting about, especially if it doesn’t even have a PC release date. The more people buy this stuff, the more Activision will think it is acceptable.
How would you get to complain and bitch about it if they didn’t post it? Surely the opportunity to whine like babies yet again makes this post worth it, right?
20/04/2011 at 11:40 Navagon says:
Anyone else remember when the FPS developers and their community put out maps of equal quality for free?
20/04/2011 at 12:40 RiptoR says:
I do. I fondly remember the free addons for UT99. And if a developer charged for addons (or expansion packs as they were commonly called back then), it usually was for singleplayer content. Quake 1 and 2 both had a couple of pay-for mission packs that were rather fun to play.
When the DLC concept was “born”, it was simply a new name (or rather, delivery method) for expansion packs. But since then it has grown into an ugly beast with an insatiable hunger for the hard-earned money in our wallets.
These days it’s all about DLC, and plenty of it against ridiculous prices. This is one of the reasons I don’t even dare to look at the Xbox Live store or the Playstation Store.
And don’t get me started on 0-day DLC (yeah BioWare/EA, I’m looking at you). Or extremely dumb esthetical things with unbelievable price tags (with each new TF2 hat, Valve loses a good chunk of my respect ).
20/04/2011 at 13:41 Navagon says:
Expansion packs were often pretty bad value though. All expansions pretty much sold for the same kind of price tag as each other. Something which seemed to justify itself because, well, it was an expansion wasn’t it? Apparently that was enough.
One of the things that DLC should have brought with it was the need for the DLC to justify its price. We certainly saw it do that with the Fallout 3 DLC for instance. For about the same price as some Valve microtransaction bullshit you got a whole new sizeable area to explore with several hours of gameplay, along with numerous items – the kind which Valve sells individually for the same kind of price tag.
Unfortunately I don’t think all these Valve apologists quite appreciate the damage that selling such overpriced shit can cause. Essentially it means that they won’t ever put any more effort into DLC when they can make money hand over fist with bugger all effort.
Those seeking quality DLC that justifies its price tag are no longer the target market. It’s all about the core game then, well, accessorising. Don’t like it? “Well you don’t have to buy it, do you?” :P
20/04/2011 at 17:39 PleasingFungus says:
@Navagon: Length isn’t everything. (As she said.) Valve charges more money than Bethesda for the same length of game because they test and refine and polish everything they produce endlessly. Bethesda – I love them endlessly, their games are great, put about 100 hours into Oblivion + expansion and 50 into FO3 – but you can’t honestly claim that their games are anywhere near as polished as Valve’s releases.
21/04/2011 at 00:04 Navagon says:
You don’t understand. I’m talking about a DLC with over 4 hours gameplay combined with numerous new in game items that actually have some influence on the gameplay compared with… one single item. One single item which has zero purpose whatsoever yet costs almost the same kind of money as Bethesda’s epically more substantial offering.
20/04/2011 at 15:30 Tams80 says:
“When people are paying attention to their team”…
20/04/2011 at 17:25 emotionengine says:
The only CoD I’ve played is Modern Warfare and from what they show in the trailer this one somehow manages to look less impressive graphically than the latter.
(Also, sorry if you’ve seen this before but: http://www.theonion.com/video/ultrarealistic-modern-warfare-game-features-awaiti,14382/)