Grave Gamer News & Views — call of duty

From Zombies to Aliens -  Call of Duty: Ghosts’ Extinction Mode Revealed

Our nation has been invaded by extraterrestrial creatures intent on wiping our collective gene pools off the map of existence. Our only defense? Four-player co-op!

Infinity Ward’s run on the Call of Duty series usually serves as the straight-laced dose of military action while Treyarch pumps out their games with whacky shit like B-List celebrities fighting zombies and an after credits performance by a digitally rendered Avenged Sevenfold (I traded in my copy of Black Ops II without regret or feeling).

Now, IW is joining the genre-bending fun with Extinction Mode; a four-player co-op mode that replaces the undead from Zombies with – get this – aliens. I’ll forever lament a game called Ghosts for not featuring a first-person ghostbusting mode, but the ghoulie wheel was spun and chance said it wanted aliens.

This Invasion: Earth flavored horde mode has you fending through waves of unfriendly E.T.’s while you eviscerate the hives that spawn them. The classic Zombies suite of base fortifying and item hunting return in addition to an upgrade system and character specific classes, each with their own abilities (that just may be the saving grace keeping Extinction from being the tired Zombies clone it’s already teetering towards).

Watch the Extinction Mode debut trailer right hereabouts!

Call of Duty Preorders Weakened By Impending Consoles

Something interesting is happening to the once mighty COD and Activision is putting the blame squarely on Sony, Microsoft, and your fickleness.

More specifically, Acti says the soon-to-be next generation — which encompasses the unreleased PlayStation 4 and Xbox One (if nobody looks Wii U in the eye, it won’t try to join the conversation) — is negatively affecting preorders for their annualized money bath, Call of Duty.

Eric Hirshberg, Acti’s CEO of Publishing, revealed that Call of Duty: Ghosts’ preorder numbers are nowhere near “the record-setting pace" Black Ops II cemented before its November release last year.  Could it…Could it be that the gaming masses have grown tired of purchasing a rehashed, increasingly formulaic product year-over-year?  Are gamers finally at the boiling point where they’re wisely using dollars withheld to send both a message and a plea for inspired, innovative gameplay once mo—

“Our quantitative consumer research indicates that hesitation amongst past COD pre-orderers is primarily due to not knowing which platform they will be playing on, which is natural at this time in the console transition."  Oh.  I guess there’s also that.  Thanks for clearing that up, Eric.  Indecisiveness hath wounded the beast it seems.

It’s an interesting dilemna Sony and MS have presented third-party publishers with.  Over this past generation, publishers have taken to relegating one-off’s or shaky IP’s to smaller digital affairs and focused their efforts into building sequel spewing franchises because their business models have morphed into almost totally relying on guaranteed cash-in’s.

Besides a shortlist of annual sports titles, you didn’t really see these yearly blockbusters running towards the PS3 and 360’s launch.  Now, we’re witness to companies like Ubisoft and EA packing up their totem titles like Assassin’s Creed and Battlefield, hoisting them over their shoulders, and making the journey to a brave new, next-gen world.

But missed preorders almost definitely won’t mean missed sales when Ghosts launches (like clockwork) this Holiday.  The third-party, Activision included, has a contigency against the very same install base they fought and bled to root over the course of this generation.  Of the three heavy hitting franchises mentioned in my rambling, all have current-gen counterparts being made available for the unwilling and undecided hesitant to go next-gen.

I think the upward battle ahead pushes the first-party into the frontlines more than the third-party.  Any angle you approach it, it’s not a matter if games will sell — because they will.  It’s a matter of where games will sell.  Why cry over spilt milk, Activision?  (If "crying” in this instance means issuing a sales report and the “spilt milk” refers to low preorders on a multi-billion dollar video game…Listen, I wasn’t formally trained in metaphors.  Lay off me.)

“Now consider that these Internet Tough Guy rants and demands are not unique to CoD, but exist everywhere, in many gaming communities. This is why the world often does not take gaming seriously; this is why gamers are assumed to be immature, whiny assholes. Because the immature, whiny assholes are louder.”

Dan Amrich, Activision Community Manager, lambasting the enraged and, in some cases, threatening verbal assault from certain "passionate” fans, doled out to a Treyarch employee in charge of Black Ops II’s tweaks and balances.

Excerpt from Amrich’s plainly put editorial Stop Threatening Game Developers.

“The Ghosts Are Real” - New Cast, New Engine, Next-Gen Call of Duty

And now for the announcement that surprised no one today: Activision has officially revealed Call of Duty: Ghosts, this year’s entry into the military shooter franchise, releasing November 5th and headed up series creator Infinity Ward.  That much anyone without internet access knew already thanks to some critical leaks.

What we didn’t already know is sure to excite fans, especially those growing tired of the series’ baby step amount of “innovations."  Ghosts is slated for release on both existing consoles as well as Sony’s PS4 and Microsoft’s soon-to-be-unveiled Next-Box.  Because of this, Infinity Ward is using an entirely new engine for the game, finally retiring the one powering the last seven hundred Call of Duty’s.

Despite Infinity Ward’s involvement, Ghosts isn’t a follow up to Modern Warfare 3.  The game features an all new cast of characters within a brand new setting.  "Everyone was expecting us to make Modern Warfare 4, which would have been the safe thing to do,” said IW executive producer Mark Rubin.  “But we’re not resting on our laurels."  Rubin explains that the transition to newer hardware was the perfect opportunity to reintroduce the world to Call of Duty through a new branding with new ideas.

Just what those new ideas are is up in the air.  The first official trailer for the game is a live action teaser featuring precisely zero gameplay.  But Activision promises way more, including actual gameplay, will be shown off right alongside Microsoft’s Next-Gen reveal event taking place on May 21st.  Till then, here’s a corporate byline to make you feel all fuzzy on the inside:

"Infinity Ward is going all-in to create the next generation of Call of Duty worthy of the world’s greatest fans.”

Well, then.  I guess this is Activision’s version of a confirmation.