With a month to go until Activision start blabbing about Call Of Duty: Black Ops 4, the last annual sequel in their mega-blockbuster shooter series, the rumour mill is filling in the space. According to whispers on the wind, Cod Blops 4 won’t have a traditional story campaign, scrapped because it wasn’t going to be ready in time for the October launch, and will instead focus on multiplayer and the cooperative Zombies mode. Other whispers say that the game will have a battle royale mode too. Activision reply that they “don’t comment on rumor and speculation.” Believe as much or as little as you please. Read the rest of this entry »

Surprising absolutely nobody, Call of Duty is getting another game this year, and as per Activision’s alternating annual release schedule, we’re headed back to the Black Ops side-series.

It’s been too long since we’ve had a chance to use the most accursed of abbreviations, but Cod Blops is back, and possibly now the even more absurd Cod Blops IIII thanks thanks to the series apparently abandoning proper usage of Roman numerals.

The official announcement also confirms that Treyarch are back in the driver’s seat for this one. After finding myself very pleasantly surprised by their previous Blops title, I’m eager to see what they’ve got planned.

Read the rest of this entry »

The next Call of Duty may be only five weeks from launching, but last year’s model is about to get a new lease on life. Developers Treyarch last night launched the long-awaited Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 [official site] mod tools into open beta, letting people create and play with custom levels, weapons, and modes – y’know, mods. Treyarch still have a bit of work to do, but now the tools are available to all players, rather than a handful of testers. Get cracking!

Read the rest of this entry »

Maybe you think you’ll like shooting things, but you’re not sure what flavour of shooting. Are you the type who likes tense, simulated military manshoots you can play with dozens of friends in wide open areas, with missions you make yourself and vehicles you can pilot and drive? Good news! Arma 3 is free on Steam this weekend.

Or are you the type who likes slightly-silly, rapid paced, run-and-gunning against chums and zombies? Good news! Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 multiplayer is free on Steam this weekend.

Read the rest of this entry »

Call of Duty doesn’t really have time for ‘classic’ maps, given that a new game comes jumping across time and space every year (smart money says 2016’s CoD will pit World War 1 Tommies against robotic Visigoths from the future). CoD’s Black Ops subseries has run long enough to establish Nuketown as a staple – though since Blops 2 it’s been held back as a pre-order bonus. Well, now all and sundry can visit that old nuke-testing model town in Cod Blops 3 [official site], as it’s finally free to all players.

Read the rest of this entry »

Call of Duty: Black Ops III – Multiplayer Starter Pack is a big mouthful for a simple idea: it’s Cod Blops 3‘s [official site] ranked multiplayer sold separately as a cheaper standalone game. It’s an interesting experiment in selling CoD’s many modes separately and a short one – Activision will stop selling it on Monday. But until Sunday evening, you can check out this substantial slice of CoD for free. This handy link should fire up Steam and start installing it.

Read the rest of this entry »

Activision are finally trying splitting Call of Duty’s many modes into separate games, for folks who are only interested in part or want a cheap way in, though they’ve started in a baffling way. Last night they released a standalone version of the Cod Blops 3 [official site] ranked multiplayer which costs only £11.59/14,49€/$14.99 – about a quarter of the full game’s price. I’d hoped for a standalone Zombies mode, but what’s odd about this release is the restrictions. For starters, Activision will only sell this version until the end of February.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Big Blopper, The Blopster, The Codchop, Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 [official site] launched last night, and it’s the first in the FPS series to really interest me in a while. Campaign co-op, customisable cyborgs filled with cyberbees, and Jeff Goldblum are right up my alley and oh! supposedly it’s a wee touch less corridor-y too.

It has a few problems at launch, though, with many folks reporting unreasonably poor performance. Developers Treyarch are looking into it, and have a few ideas for fixes.

Read the rest of this entry »

Call of Duty: Black Ops III [official site] looks just about weird enough to be interesting. Whether it’s Jeff Goldblum’s zombie-splatting magician, the introduction of full-on Chaos powers or the general rocket-powered leap into a robo-soldier sci-fi future, BLOPS the Third does not appear to be constrained by reason. Of course, it may still be restrained by corridors but on the server and modding side we can expect some freedom. Treyarch have announced that modding and map-making will be coming to the game sometime next year.

Read the rest of this entry »

Alright, so we’re not the sorts to post every Call of Duty: Black Ops III [official site] trailer, but we are the sorts to post things with Jeff Goldblum in. We’ve known he’s going to be in Black Ops 3 since July, but now there’s a new trailer explaining the set up for why he, playing a magician, is going to be fighting alongside a boxer, an actress and a cop in its co-op Zombies campaign mode, Shadows of Evil. Watch it below.

Read the rest of this entry »

I would buy the heck out of Call of Duty: Black Ops III‘s [official site] co-op Zombies mode as a cheaper standalone game. The mode has developed into such silly schlock horror, and draws an increasingly impressive cast of folks from cult movies while going weirder places.

This year’s offering, named Shadows of Evil, will see Jeff ‘Jeff Chuffing Goldblum’ Goldblum, Ron ‘War Never Changes’ Perlman, Neal McDonough off Band of Brothers, and Heather ‘How’s Annie?’ Graham teaming up to fight zombies and tentacled monsters in a noir-y ’40s world. It looks absurd and I like it so much. Come watch the trailer to see Jeff Goldblum as The Magician, chewing the scenery as if it were made of delicious buttery Marmite toast.

Read the rest of this entry »

Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 [official site] turns soldiers into cyberwizards with dominion over cyberbrains and robobees, but does that make the game much different from any other CoD, Blops or otherwise? For the first ten minutes of a new thirteen-minute gameplay trailer showing off four-player co-op, the answer appears to be no. Soldiers run along corridors in a sandy city and shout and shoot and there’s a cinematic where a man dies and oh it’s so very tragic. The final three minutes, however, venture into one of the boss battle arenas, and that looks a whole lot more fun.

Read the rest of this entry »

Wall-jumping and robo-soldiers and crazy weapons and teleporters and OTT awards for doing almost anything: whatever would Captain Price think? Me, I’m sort of relieved that Call of Duty Black Ops III [official site] has given up all pretence of military realism and entirely embraced science-fictional absurdity: it’s as though the series is finally allowing itself to be what it’s wanted to be for years. This trailer is focused on the hectic-looking multiplayer, which conjures up Titanfall as well as UT, but I sorely hope there’s a healthy dose of deliberate silliness in the campaign too.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tweets from developers dumping details are a bit like bubble gum wrapper trivia facts, aren’t they? You won’t be fascinated and enthralled, you won’t learn the deepest secrets of the darkest beings, but you might raise your eyebrows a little, but approvingly, and at the back of your mouth grind out an approving throaty vocalisation like “Mmh!” or “Hhhoh!” or “Hmm!” or “Hrmmm!”

Now we’ve chewed the Cyberbazooka Joe gum of Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 [official site] in that trailer, it’s trivia time, with wrapfacts on dedicated servers, field of view, and other touchy issues.

Read the rest of this entry »