@RoxasXIII said:

Maybe I remember incorrectly... But don't you watch Frank Woods get executed in Black Ops?

That's not Frank Woods, that's Bowman:

Hmm, sounds like Treyarch is actually attempting to break off from the main formula. Sounds promising.

Rare earths are not actually rare. The only reason China has a monopoly is that they produce it so cheaply that it's not commercially viable to compete. If they were to attempt to leverage their 'stranglehold' by raising prices or cutting supplies, it would cause a period of economic damage while other countries got their mining operations up to speed. It wouldn't, however, force us to attack them for their resources, and it wouldn't be a long term economic advantage, either.

So I hope the game handles that realistically. Obviously, the rare earths thing could cause a serious short term disruption in the supply chain for most tech.

@FluxWaveZ said:

@RoxasXIII said:

Maybe I remember incorrectly... But don't you watch Frank Woods get executed in Black Ops?

That's not Frank Woods, that's Bowman:

Poor Ice Cube. He fought well.

Damn it, just as I was getting ready to kick the habit, they make it sound interesting again. Nothing groundbreaking but for a CoD game this is practically a revolution.

@FluxWaveZ said:

@RoxasXIII said:

Maybe I remember incorrectly... But don't you watch Frank Woods get executed in Black Ops?

That's not Frank Woods, that's Bowman:

Woods does die though, he takes out the right hand man of the main bad guy. He jumps out a window with him while the dude blows himself up with a grenade. Woods gets blown up.

@Yanngc33 said:

Woods does die though, he takes out the right hand man of the main bad guy. He jumps out a window with him while the dude blows himself up with a grenade. Woods gets blown up.

Oh, I totally forgot about that scene. Yeah, apparently he did "die" (though, off-camera so they can circumvent it that way):

Then again, apparently there was proof he was still alive in the original Black Ops:

Got to give Treyarch props for at least realising that they need to move COD in a slightly different direction to keep it fresh. But then again, you risk alienating the COD fans who are quite happy with all the previous games and will you really bring in more gamers (like me) who are really tired of Modern Military Shooters?

I might be in the minority here, but I enjoyed the single player of Black Ops more than the same mode in the Modern Warfare series. Not sure if it will be enough for me to start caring about the franchise again, but I think Treyarch are doing a fine job there...

@Reznov said:

am I in this one?

Amazing.

So..zombie robot dogs confirmed?

Horse back riding and flying jets in the same game? What god did I please?

That sniper rifle, by the way, can see targets through walls and penetrate cover via a charged-up shot that expends more ammo than a standard shot.

Glad they decided to ground this shit in some kind of realism /sarcasm.

This all sounds kinda awesome if they pull it off. Here's hopin.

I for one am actually excited for this although I felt the first black ops was the weakest in the series

While it tends to be fashionable among a lot of gaming communities to hate on CoD, these changes make me interested in this one, though I enjoyed the cold war era in the first black ops.

MW3 just didnt do it for me. Maybe I should just stick to the Treyarch iterations, heh.

Wow.

You know from what they showed in the trailer it looks like the campaign will be quite refreshing if they keep taking it the way it looks to be going, I know we will still have the set pieces and all but I am quite intrigued by what i saw. I hope they make significant changes to the multiplayer though because to be honest i am really worn out with it so hopefully they do something with that to.

Oh look... another COD game. *yawn*

Theres Horses ok im in... just kidding i have had enough COD for 3 lifetimes

They're beginning to sound like the Madden guys...IT'S GOING TO BE DIFFERENT THIS YEAR GUYS, FOR REALZ.

Good stuff, hopefully the replay editor returns untouched, best replay feature in any game ever.

@Yanngc33: Haha ok, well I'm glad I'm not crazy then. That was the most surprising thing out of this whole article to me.. Is that sad? I kinda hope they come up with some stupid reason as to how he's still alive haha.

I am surprised how interested I am in this game now after reading/listening to Jeff's thoughts, because i didn't want to like this game! lol Every year I swear I wont buy the next CoD and every year they get my money... I wish someone could create a non "military FPS" game that could match the feeling you get playing CoD/BF... I am tired of military shooters, but nothing else has come along to replace that nightly "rush" of playing a couple hours of MP, until that happens I guess I will just keep buying CoD every year.

Kind of weird they'd be ok telling everyone that Frank Woods is still alive, considering he exploded in the first game.

Treyarch always did make the more interesting CoD games

I'm... I'm... I think I'm excited, guys. Is there something wrong with me? Should I see a doctor?

Well, I DID really enjoy Modern Warfare 3's campaing, though. But all this sounds really cool and even fresh for the franchise.

am I in this one?

I played a TON of Call of Duty 2, and a decent amount of Modern Warfare, but nothing in the franchise since then, so it hasn't gotten stale for me yet. The multiple playthroughs thing seems kind of dumb to me though. Linear stories interest me more than branching ones, though I'm probably in the minority on that. (There's a difference between "on rails" and "linear".) Choosing between a sniper rifle and a machine gun sounds like a completely uninteresting decision to make. And like I said, I don't like story decisions because you can just go back and do things the other way if you feel like, and the story gets robbed of its drama.

I hope the campaign changes make the multiplayer feel fresh. Even having only played Modern Warfare, every iteration has seemed like more of the same. And the unfortunate thing is that no matter how fresh it feels, the Call of Duty brand can't escape its audience of racist, homophobic 13-year-olds and frat boys. The game might be great, but those types of people make me less interested in it.

Overall, it sounds like they're making compelling changes, though at the end of the day it's all about the multiplayer, for me.

So have we confirmed Rambo III references?

@cikame said:

Kind of weird they'd be ok telling everyone that Frank Woods is still alive, considering he exploded in the first game.

Just a flesh wound, sir.

Maybe this one will be worth picking up on a sale which is saying a lot since the previous games since CoD4 haven't even been worth the free weekend download.

Sounds as if Treyarch has been listening to the complaints of stale, yearly COD installment and are looking to change it up. In my opinion BLOPS was better than MW2 and 3, both campaign and MP. I wonder if it is too late though. I've always been a big COD fan but I'm probably going to hold off on this one. I'm thinking Halo 4 will be my MP game of choice this winter.

@MarkWahlberg said:

@Kierkegaard said:

I like that breakdown of Treyarch's approach. Although they play around with some rank shit, Treyarch seem like they are having so much more fun with storytelling. IW proper is gone, but the self-seriousness that worked okay in the dramatic COD4 became self-indulgence in MW2.

I haven't played one of these damn games since COD4, so color me impressed that I'm even interested. Still, I don't like the imagery of non-western people in these games. People of color are usually bad guys at the end of a gun. I hope this game changes that and, even as its having future fun, crafts a more equitable interpretation of society. Big bad China and a dude with a Latino-sounding name seem like more of the same jingoism from here....

Still, those gameplay changes and the desire to go on a more meaningful adventure make me intrigued. Good job at least doing that, Treyarch. And good writing, Jeff.

Modern Warfare and BLOPS had kind of interesting takes on jingoism, though. BLOPS was less subtle about it (the final shot is so ironic it borders on satire), although it had a better story, but what made those games so bizarre was the quiet reminders in the background that you're not good, you're just less evil than the guys you're shooting. Woods' line in the trailer about 'we who can do what others cannot' is overtly jingoistic, and in with any other game I'd be put off by it; but he's actually just the continuation of what these games have been doing with Capt. Price and Reznov (and yes I know they're from different creators, it still holds). I don't want to turn this into a big long thing, but if they can continue with that same crazy take on anti-war, anti-patriotism stuff, I'm totally fine with whatever else they do.

They take a shaky line on it, though. For all the oooh the military white guy you're working for is actually evil stuff, there's still Price hanging a dude through a glass ceiling and the continual appearance of "enemies" as dudes of Russian, Middle Eastern, or, now, Chinese appearance. It seems like they're trying to be anti-war while using all the 'hoo-rah I hate foreigners' imagery, too. It seems like a cynical way to win middle America's money rather than have a consistent tone.

When your game becomes "killing is cool!" but, "sometimes it leads to eternal warfare, which is bad, but here's more killing, so yay!" I get skeptical.

@BigChickenDinner said:

Holy shit I feel like I'm losing my mind. A charge up shot that uses more ammo ?! WHAT THE FUCK?! FUCK ME!!!

Before I go take a hot bath and slit my throat (wrist cutting just ain't gonna.. cut...it...) I'd just like to point out that this "branching" bull shit they are talking about, well I'm gonna call it right now, Instead of going through an on rail scene, your now going to be able to pick WHICH rail scene you go through.

WHAT THE FUCK?! CHARGE SHOTS?! WHO THE FUCK OKAY'D THAT SHIT?! DO PEOPLE EVEN KNOW HOW GUNS WORK?!?! WHAT THE FUCK?!

I'm glad I stopped giving a shit about these games after CoD2

Not trying to troll you here, but this post is like textbook "giving a shit"

Hmm first time it looks like they're really doing something new....we'll see

@BrianP: Well, I see what you mean. But I'm just flippin on the ridiculousness of the mechanics. I haven't wanted to play, or hoped that a CoD game would be good since 2.

It just boggles my mind. These people don't have a military adviser or something? Maybe they were sick that day.

Hirshberg wasn't lying about that meaningful innovation then. May be the first CoD I buy since 4.

And though I didn't play it, I like bits of what I've seen and heard of Black Ops. namely the whole interrogation/terminal/Zork conceit and wrapping it around historical events. That sounds cool. I've got more faith in Treyarch than IW at this point to come up with something interesting.

Appreciate they're making the effort to ground Blops 2 in a similar manner. It can be difficult to care when things get too crazy. But you know, the scenario may be within the realms of plausibility and all scarytrue, but then you see a giant robot bear stomping around, controlled by Raoul Menendez, the mad, power hungry dictator seeking world domination. So that may be a challenge for one's disbeliefsuspension.

@Smokey_Earhole said:

@YukoAsho: Insightful post. You're a cool dude.

Insightful, sure. Dude, not so much. :P

@Yanngc33 said:

@FluxWaveZ said:

@RoxasXIII said:

Maybe I remember incorrectly... But don't you watch Frank Woods get executed in Black Ops?

That's not Frank Woods, that's Bowman:

Woods does die though, he takes out the right hand man of the main bad guy. He jumps out a window with him while the dude blows himself up with a grenade. Woods gets blown up.

Does he? I remember when Mason wakes up after Woods tosses himself and Krevchenko out the window. He sees Woods at first, but then the image changes to that of Reznov. Entirely possible it was actually Woods, who told the CIA to watch out for the rogue agent (remember, they KNEW Mason was there when they were on the island, were even trying to contact him).

@YukoAsho: Dude or no dude (as it is), you're still cool :)

Here's my prediction - the bad guy in Black Ops 2 turns out to be old Alex Mason.

I'm surprised Jeff is slightly excited. From what I have read and have seen, it doesn't look that much different. The graphics look the same, dated, the gameplay will surely be the same, and the setting has been done before. An entire robotic army by 2025? I'm sure it will be a decent game, but it isn't the major change I've been looking for.

@BigChickenDinner said:

@BrianP: Well, I see what you mean. But I'm just flippin on the ridiculousness of the mechanics. I haven't wanted to play, or hoped that a CoD game would be good since 2.

It just boggles my mind. These people don't have a military adviser or something? Maybe they were sick that day.

I don't know how that's the thing you get hung up on when there are ROBOT BEARS.

@BigChickenDinner said:

Instead of going through an on rail scene, your now going to be able to pick WHICH rail scene you go through.

The VTOL and Strikeforce parts to me indicate that they're actively looking to expand the game design beyond your typical shooting gallery. And if they feel like meaningful decisions in terms of how they affect the story and they're integrated well, then well, that's pretty much all you can hope for a branching story to add to the game.

Everyone should play The Walking Dead by the way.

@Kierkegaard said:

@MarkWahlberg said:

@Kierkegaard said:

I like that breakdown of Treyarch's approach. Although they play around with some rank shit, Treyarch seem like they are having so much more fun with storytelling. IW proper is gone, but the self-seriousness that worked okay in the dramatic COD4 became self-indulgence in MW2.

I haven't played one of these damn games since COD4, so color me impressed that I'm even interested. Still, I don't like the imagery of non-western people in these games. People of color are usually bad guys at the end of a gun. I hope this game changes that and, even as its having future fun, crafts a more equitable interpretation of society. Big bad China and a dude with a Latino-sounding name seem like more of the same jingoism from here....

Still, those gameplay changes and the desire to go on a more meaningful adventure make me intrigued. Good job at least doing that, Treyarch. And good writing, Jeff.

Modern Warfare and BLOPS had kind of interesting takes on jingoism, though. BLOPS was less subtle about it (the final shot is so ironic it borders on satire), although it had a better story, but what made those games so bizarre was the quiet reminders in the background that you're not good, you're just less evil than the guys you're shooting. Woods' line in the trailer about 'we who can do what others cannot' is overtly jingoistic, and in with any other game I'd be put off by it; but he's actually just the continuation of what these games have been doing with Capt. Price and Reznov (and yes I know they're from different creators, it still holds). I don't want to turn this into a big long thing, but if they can continue with that same crazy take on anti-war, anti-patriotism stuff, I'm totally fine with whatever else they do.

They take a shaky line on it, though. For all the oooh the military white guy you're working for is actually evil stuff, there's still Price hanging a dude through a glass ceiling and the continual appearance of "enemies" as dudes of Russian, Middle Eastern, or, now, Chinese appearance. It seems like they're trying to be anti-war while using all the 'hoo-rah I hate foreigners' imagery, too. It seems like a cynical way to win middle America's money rather than have a consistent tone.

When your game becomes "killing is cool!" but, "sometimes it leads to eternal warfare, which is bad, but here's more killing, so yay!" I get skeptical.

That's what I meant by it being bizarre. I wasn't referring to Gen. Shepard, actually, I was talking about Price. I'm not a huge fan of Zero Punctuation, but Yahtzee was spot on in his MW1 review when he described the SAS guys as violent thugs; Price may act as a wartime role model/surrogate father figure for Soap, but he's also wholly absorbed in a violent lifestyle, to the point that he's at least partially insane by the second game. Reznov in BLOPS was sort of a darker version of that. I do agree with you that they're shaky on it, though, especially in MW2 (can't comment on 3, never played it). Where the bad Russians (and Middle Easterners) in the first were a splinter group, and you actually worked with the good ones, in the second they were just all bad guys. And the big reveal about your boss was just stupid. MW2 was much more Bruckheimer/Bay inspired than anything else, so the snarky use of Rumsfeld quotes they put on the deathscreen doesn't really carry the thread they started in 1. The whole point of the first game was that modern warfare tends to be these smaller-scale combats between factions rather than between nations (i.e. nationalities), and so having Russia straight up invade just undercut that. At the same time, if you're going to have a war, you need to have an enemy, and I doubt any publisher would OK a story where you fight other Americans in a Civil War, or go to war against America, so it's kind of inevitable that other foreigners are going to be the bad guys.

Maybe it is just a cynical cop-out to ethically absolve themselves, but I just find it interesting the way they sort of use war to make an anti-war statement, at least in MW1 and BLOPS. That you still are entertaining yourself by killing people does undercut that, but it's still better than them not making any statement at all, I think.

Game looks good. I'll be interested to check it out

Great write-up Jeff, looking forward to the game a little more than I thought I would be.

4 stars

Definitely sounds exciting, hope it turns out well. I think going into the future might be the right step, you can fit more craziness and not expect backlash if it doesn't take in a modern setting (i.e. realism).

Ugh, I could have done without the Zombies mode. Otherwise, looks great! Looking forward to learning more!