Robomodo president Josh Tsui catches up in a chat about Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater HD this week, discussing the latest confirmed info on the game, whether or not “summer” means “June,” and whether we’ll see reverts return as part of potential DLC. Kat joins Dan in person while Hugh Skypes in to talk about intestinal gas, MW3′s new Face Off mode, motorcycles with sidecars, suicide sandwiches, the prices of digital downloads, IW’s new CM, Minecraft, Hot Doug’s, GH DLC on sale, Diablo III, Nolan North, GoldenEye 007: Reloaded on PS3, medieval beverages, unfinished train tracks, and cheerleaders in leather jackets. Plus, Kat really wants you to attend her art show, dammit.

Get the podcast on iTunes
Get the podcast on Zune Marketplace
Get the podcast on your own with RSS Feedburner
Or use the links below to listen in the browser or download direct.

More info after the jump…

Special Guest: Josh Tsui, president, Robomodo

Co-host: Katrin Auch, graphic designer, bassist, photographer, light gun enthusiast, videographer, worgen mage, and inventor of Headshotmas
Co-host: Hugh Sterbakov, screenwriter, comic creator, and Emmy-nominated writer/toy wrangler for Robot Chicken

Soundtrack: Yameen - available on iTunes, Amazon MP3, and finer online music stores

Relevant show links:

• MW3 360 Elite drops 9 through 12
• MW3 double XP on Elite playlists extended
• GH & DJ DLC on sale
• Kat’s upcoming photography art show - buy tickets!
• Lindisfarne Mead

• Kat and Hugh and Dan on Twitter
• Dan’s book: Critical Path: How to Review Videogames for a Living
• Hugh’s book: City Under the Moon
• Enter your own question for Hugh Don’t Know Jack/Stick It To The Dan
• Write to the show’s Megamailbag

Getaway: Not exactly the summer home I'd imagined

If you are waiting for the all-clear, it’s all clear — Call of Duty Elite premium members on Xbox 360 can grab content drops 9 through 12 as of now. This includes a new multiplayer map Oasis, two new Special Ops missions Iron Clad and Kill Switch, and two new Face Off maps, Getaway and Lookout — PLUS the two free Face Off maps (Aground and Erosion) that everybody else on 360 won’t get until tomorrow. So that’s the five content drops for the month, plus two bonus bits. Take today to warm up and be ready to own in those 2v2 matches when the fresh meat drops in on Wednesday!

Want the goods? Go to the Store link from the MW3 multiplayer menu and it will send you right to the new maps.

As broadband becomes more prevalent, big-name games as digital downloads only makes more and more sense. Latest case in point: GoldenEye 007: Reloaded debuts as a PlayStation Store downloadable game today for $59.99. Same game that came out on disc — 60 FPS, four-player split-screen, 16-player online matches, and PlayStation Move Sharpshooter support. Check out the launch trailer:

Click here to view the embedded video.

There’s a free demo, too. Just check out the PlayStation Store.

Click here to view the embedded video.

After a few weeks of head-scratching and easy jokes, it’s time to find out for yourself: How do you base a game on a movie that’s based on a game? Battleship: The Video Game is available today nationwide, and to prove it there’s an official press release. Look for it on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, DS, and 3DS.

Sanctuary: One of several Elite maps that gives you 2x XP at the moment

Face-Off hits Elite premium members on 360 this week, plus you’ll get double XP on Elite playlists this week and weekend. Sounds like perfect timing for a Modern Warfare 3 PWS event this Friday, May 18 from 6pm Pacific to 8pm Pacific. If you’re new to it, here’s how it works. See you online!

Or as I like to call it, the “Several high-profile critics like Prototype 2 a lot, so what are you waiting for, here is some gratuitous gore to encourage you to not miss out” trailer.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I really am having a hell of a lot of fun with it.

Treyarch studio head Mark Lamia

I had a great conversation with Treyarch’s studio head, Mark Lamia, on this week’s podcast. We talked for a good 40 minutes about several topics — how and why the team chose to radically rethink the single-player campaign with branching options and storylines, how the studio feels about leaks, what details people may have missed during the reveal of Black Ops II, and even a few interesting tidbits about how he and David Vonderhaar met all those years ago. You can hear the interview in its entirety here; it starts at the 20-minute mark.

One of the key questions I asked Mark was a question I’ve been asked by several people since the game was announced: “What engine powers Black Ops II?” Mark’s short answer: The Black Ops II engine, which has been upgraded from Black Ops to meet the current game’s design goals. Mark’s long answer, however, is far more interesting.

I pulled out some relevant parts of the conversation below and reordered them a bit for easy reading (as I used to do when I was writing magazine features). They are still in their original context, and of course, you can listen to the recording yourself if you prefer. But if you just want the highlights, here’s some of what Mark discussed:

People always ask me, “Is this a new engine?” I liken it to people who live in an older house that has been remodeled. Just because you’re remodeling the house and it will look new or it will have a new kitchen, you don’t tear out the foundation, or break out some of the framing. You might even go as hardcore as replacing the plumbing, and we will do that sort of thing, as an analogy. It’s a gross simplification, but it’s one way to say that. There’s a lot of good still in that foundation that you wouldn’t get rid of, and we don’t. We look to advance in the areas that support our game design.

Engines, each time they get touched, they change. The creators alter them; they don’t modify what they don’t need to, and then they alter what they need to. You can’t make a competitive product if you’re not upgrading that engine along the way.

I think the whole thing about a new engine…sometimes that’s a great buzzword. Well, I have a new graphics engine — is that a new engine? Where does it start and stop? Elements of the code, you can trace back for a very very long time…but whole parts of the code are entirely new. Two areas we did focus on for this game were the graphics and the lighting — a pretty significant amount of work is going into that.

I think what people are asking for is for us to push. They want us to make a better-looking game; they want things. I don’t think those are things people can’t ask for. We asked ourselves that very same question — we wanted to advance the graphics. I think the questions are valid. The answer may not need to be an entirely new engine, but you might need to do an entire overhaul of your entire lighting system. The trick is, we’re not willing to do that if we can’t keep it running at 60 frames per second — but we did that this time. So this is the Black Ops II engine.

Again, there is much more than just engine talk in this excellent 40-minute conversation. You can hear Mark’s interview in its entirety here.

Your princess is in another castle. Congratulations are in order to Tina Palacios, who many people know from 1UP, IGN, and GameSpy — and the host of the 1UP Oddcast. It’s just been announced that she’s moving over to Infinity Ward as the Senior Community Manager. Since IGN is her current employer, they have the scoop with a fond farewell post today. She tells the story of how it all went down on the final episode of the Oddcast.

Once she gets her feet under her after the transition, I will try to trick her into being a guest on my podcast, too.

The Call of Duty team posted a behind-the-scenes video with some of the lead developers on the new Face Off mode — 2v2 showdowns on fresh maps built specifically for this style of gameplay. It’s coming to Xbox 360 next week with two free maps, and two more will be available as DLC. They also detail some of the new Special Ops missions and Collection 2 content.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I got to play some on Getaway and really liked it — very tense, very fast. You can play 4v4 on these maps in private matches, too, but the public playlists are going to be no more than 2v2.

Face Off and the two free maps go live May 16th, and according to Infinity Ward on Twitter, Elite premium members will get their next content drops the day before.

GameTrailers TV is doing a big piece on Transformers: Fall of Cybertron tomorrow night — the first reveal of Cliffjumper is part of it. Here’s a teaser.

GameTrailers TV airs on Spike. Check your local listings, yo.

UPDATE 5/11: Here’s the full episode. Can’t embed it, sorry, but the TFFoC segment is the very first one. Enjoy!

Now that the big reveal for Call of Duty: Black Ops II is complete, I got a chance to talk with Treyarch studio head Mark Lamia about horses, failing missions, branching storylines, and Vahn’s secret past. We even tackled that fan-favorite “what engine is this game using” question. We talk for a good 40 minutes, so it’s worth hearing. And it’s a thrill to be able to post this show due to the nasty tech problems we endured, but Kat and Hugh do appear as well, to discuss MW3 PC DLC, Bond villains, MW3 PS3 DLC, Jack Black, MW3 360 DLC, The Avengers, Prototype 2 DLC, Skylanders updates, Family Guy, and a Spidey preorder perk that Hugh actually likes. Plus, a monster truck rally breaks out at a dance concert.

Get the podcast on iTunes
Get the podcast on Zune Marketplace
Get the podcast on your own with RSS Feedburner
Or use the links below to listen in the browser or download direct.

UPDATE: Goofed on the music levels in the first segment, so the file has been replaced. If in doubt, redownload!

More info after the jump…

Special Guest: Mark Lamia, studio head, Treyarch

Co-host: Katrin Auch, graphic designer, bassist, photographer, light gun enthusiast, videographer, worgen mage, and inventor of Headshotmas
Co-host: Hugh Sterbakov, screenwriter, comic creator, and Emmy-nominated writer/toy wrangler for Robot Chicken

Soundtrack: Yameen - available on iTunes, Amazon MP3, and all online music stores

Relevant show links:

• MW3 360 DLC info - Elite drops, Face Off & Collection 2
• MW3 PC DLC info
• MW3 PS3 Elite content drops 7 & 8 info
• Play as Stan Lee in Amazing Spider-Man
• Prototype 2 Colossal Mayhem DLC
• Family Guy: Back to the Multiverse
• Kat’s upcoming photography art show
• @Hughmungous007 & Hugh M. Ungous on Facebook for the 007 Legends: Get in the Game promotion
• Shaping Sound, Kat’s new favorite dance company

• Kat and Hugh and Dan on Twitter
• Dan’s book: Critical Path: How to Review Videogames for a Living
• Hugh’s book: City Under the Moon
• Enter your own question for Hugh Don’t Know Jack/Stick It To The Dan
• Write to the show’s Megamailbag

UPDATE: Based on this new trailer, some of the dates below have been changed.

Big news this morning on Xbox 360 MW3 DLC. IGN has the scoop on Modern Warfare 3′s DLC Collection 2 for Xbox 360, due May 22 — new MP maps, new Spec Ops missions, and new maps for the 2v2 mode, Face Off, which will debut next week in MW3. If Collection 2 comes out May 22 on Xbox 360, that means Elite members will get it the week before. What’s more, two new maps for the new Face Off mode will be released May 16 for free to everyone.

It’s better to watch Infinity Ward’s Mark Rubin and Sledgehammer Games’ Michael Condrey tell you about it all in IGN’s video:

So to summarize the schedule, as I currently understand it:

• May 15: Elite drops for May on Xbox 360, containing MP map Oasis, Special Ops missions, Iron Clad and Kill Switch, Face Off maps Getaway and Lookout
• May 16: Face Off maps Aground and Erosion will be released for free to all Xbox 360 players
• May 22: Collection 2 makes all of the above available to all Xbox 360 owners as a DLC bundle

And of course, all this will be coming to PS3 as well. When I have a date I’ll let you know.

I have played a little Face-Off on Getaway — I loved it. I love the small maps anyway so I’m really looking forward to 2v2 throwdowns. Reminds me of the old Rocket Arena days in Quake II!

Believe it -- it's true, True Believers!

Talk about pure fan service — two preorder bonuses have just been announced for the Amazing Spider-Man game, due out June 26, and they’re both going to be of interest to long-time Spider-fans. Preorder from GameStop and you’ll gain access to The Rhino Challenge, where you play as the Rhino “in a timed event full of speed, combo streaks, and of course, a ton of things to break.”

But in my opinion, it’s going to be tough to beat Amazon’s preorder perk: play as Stan Lee himself as he races around Manhattan on his own mission, aided by some of Spidey’s powers. They’re promising a special ending in honor of Spider-Man’s 50th anniversary too. Hmm.

Both of these perks are only available on the PS3 and 360 versions of the game, and they are limited-time offers. So if you’re intrigued, preorder sooner rather than later.

NYZ advice on your mobile? Technology is crazy now.

If you’re looking for a mobile app to help you navigate the treacherous world of New York Zero, check out the Prototype 2 Official Sidekick app on iOS and Android. It’s a free download and offers all the info on the Yellow Zone, but like many other “freemium” apps, you can pay an extra two bucks to unlock all its content for the Green and Red Zones. Hey, there’s no charge to check it out — what do you have to lose, really?

Click here to view the embedded video.

The first DLC pack for Prototype 2, Colossal Mayhem, is available on PS3 and 360 this week — and it’s cheap or free, depending on your situation.

The pack includes everything you see in the video above: three new powers (Anti Gravity Field, Air Time, and Warp Vortex), three new skins for Heller (Infected, Infantry, and Test Subject), and a nasty, nasty new rocket launcher called the Thermobaric Boom-Stick. I’m almost glad that I haven’t finished the game yet, because these will come in handy in the Red Zone — not to mention my RADNET challenges.

Blackwatch Collector’s Edition owners get Colossal Mayhem for free if they redeem the code that came with their game. Everybody else can get it on Xbox 360 for 400 Microsoft points or PS3 for five bucks.

UPDATE: Colossal Mayhem for Xbox 360 should be out now and PS3 customers in the US should be fine, but the EU PlayStation Store probably won’t have this live until tomorrow. It’s just a hiccup in the system; no need for tinfoil hats or conspiracy theories about platform bias.

Piazza is still my favorite map from this pack

If you’re looking for some fresh content for Modern Warfare 3 on PC, you’ll find some today. Collection 1 contains four multiplayer maps (Piazza, Liberation, Overwatch, and Black Box) as well as two Special Ops missions: Black Ice and Negotiator. Check Steam now and you should see it on the MW3 DLC page; as with previous Call of Duty DLC packs, it’s $14.99.

Remember that customized Prototype 2 Camaro SS that Gamestop was giving away to one lucky fan? I don’t know who won, but I know the car exists, because I just got some photos of the work in progress at West Coast Customs. It’s pretty spectacular.

West Coast Customs is taking care of this one.

Passenger's side, in progress -- damn, that's nice!

Ryan "Ryno" Templeton incorporated the side vents into his design.

There's no shortcut for this kind of work. Really stunning.

Just in case anybody asks...yeah, it's a Prototype 2 thing.

If you’d like to learn more about the artist, Ryan “Ryno” Templeton, check out his work on a previous WCC project:

Foundation offers some small rooms, wide areas, and sniper perches.

If you’re a Call of Duty Elite premium member with a PS3, you’ve heard the news that new maps Sanctuary and Foundation are coming Thursday. So let’s play some MW3 on PlayStation 3 this Friday, May 11 from 6pm to 8pm to celebrate. Facebook event is here and event FAQ is here.

Since I’m trying to match my events to the most current content, I know I owe the 360 community a playdate now. I’ll make good, even if I have to do 360 two weeks back to back, which I’ve done before.

Sanctuary: Lots of stone bridges & corridors around one gorgeous cathedral

Hot off the Twitter presses, @CallofDutyElite has confirmed a date for the next Content Drop for PS3 Elite premium members. Sanctuary and Foundation will arrive this Thursday, May 10.

Once the maps go live on Thursday, go to the Store link from the MW3 multiplayer menu and you’ll be able to download the goods if you are a Call of Duty Elite premium member. If you aren’t and you want to be, you will get all the previous DLC already released as well as all the DLC still coming for MW3 later this year. Info is here.

Amazon sort of did one of those “I’ll just leave this here” things a few days ago with a listing for Family Guy: Back to the Multiverse for both 360 and PS3. This surprised a lot of people but not me. I reported that the Family Guy license was mentioned over a year ago in the Q4 2010 earnings call, but I think people missed it because this was also the call that saw Guitar Hero’s business unit dissolve and True Crime: Hong Kong get canceled. Still, I’ve been waiting for some sort of more official announcement on a Family Guy game ever since.

We got it, officially, today…and the press release says very little you hadn’t already guessed: A game is coming this fall. “The title will offer gamers an interactive Family Guy experience inspired by one of the most popular and notable episodes in the series’ history.” And aside from the 20th Century Fox executive confirming that the game will use the voice talent and writers from the series, that is pretty much all it says. No screens, no developer, nothing else yet.

The episode used as inspiration for the game is the season 8 opener, “Road to the Multiverse,” where Stewie and Brian zap their way through different alternate realities. You can watch that online — legally and everything! — on Hulu. Or heck, watch it here:

As for the game? “More details about the console game will be announced in the near future,” says the release. Not sure if this will be at E3 or not, but let’s hope.

The game based on the upcoming movie Battleship is due in stores next week — on five platforms, no less — so this seems like a good time for Activision release the launch trailer.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Yes, it’s a shooter! I got a little hands-on time with the early part of the game a few weeks ago, and wrote up a preview here. Battleship, um, ships on May 15.

Now that Black Ops II is confirmed and being discussed, to steal a line from (supposedly) Winnie-the-Pooh, “There has been an alarming increase in the number of things that I know nothing about.” Everybody has follow-up questions, but right now there is not much known beyond the information I’ve already shared. The game does not come out for another six months, and during that time, many more details will be revealed.

So, while I am thrilled people are curious and excited and starting to think about what November 13 may hold for them, my Twitter feed is already exploding with the same questions every few minutes. Honestly, it’s easier to make a list of what I do not know at this time: 

• any confirmation or details on Hardened, Prestige or any other limited editions of the game (if in doubt, ask your retailer if you can upgrade your preorder if/when something is announced)
• when we’ll get more information about Zombies
• when we’ll get more information about multiplayer
• whether the PC version will support dedicated servers
• which Nintendo platforms will or will not be supported
• what weapons will be in the game
• whether COD Points are returning
• whether specific game modes (One in the Chamber etc) are returning
• what, how much, or when DLC will be released
• whether or not there will be a DLC partnership in 2013 similar to the one that ends this year
• how Call of Duty Elite will be integrated with the game (confirmed: it will)
• how Call of Duty Elite will evolve/be improved
• how Elite subscriptions will work/what membership options will be

• whether or not there will be a Call of Duty XP event this year, let alone when/where
• any details on Call of Duty for PS Vita — title, developer, or release window
• specific dates for MW3 DLC releases, beyond the Content Calendar

I realize this list makes me look amazingly ignorant, but I will have all this information in the coming months, and when I know it, I will post it here on the website — I always do. I am not holding out on you. You can track all the Black Ops II related news that I post just by bookmarking this link. Any other games or topics can also be browsed just by using the category menu to the right.

E3 takes place in early June, so we might learn some of the above stuff then. If not, there will still be another five months until the game comes out, and it stands to reason that they will want to keep you interested throughout that time, so they’ll probably release a little info here and a little info there. Also, the Call of Duty franchise is very large and encompasses many elements, and some of these elements are interdependent — for instance, how Elite factors into Black Ops II will realistically not be discussed until multiplayer is discussed.

So, patience is a pain but also necessary in this case. All of the above are good questions and deserve answers — you just gotta give it time for those answers to come to light. And I’ll post here on the site as soon as I know those answers.

So, yeah, Black Ops II. Also, your letters, Kat, Hugh, being your own Bond villain, PS Vita, Mad Men, UK game retailers, a Kate Bush song, on-disk DLC dilemmas, fabric stores, Kat’s big upcoming art show, Mortal Kombat, Michael Jackson lyrics, frustrating fans, $400, Duty-O’s, Kingdom Rush, the next-gen consoles, and how Hugh bats .500.

Get the podcast on iTunes
Get the podcast on Zune Marketplace
Get the podcast on your own with RSS Feedburner
Or use the links below to listen in the browser or download direct.

More info after the jump…

Co-host: Katrin Auch, graphic designer, bassist, photographer, light gun enthusiast, videographer, worgen mage, and inventor of Headshotmas
Co-host: Hugh Sterbakov, screenwriter, comic creator, and Emmy-nominated writer/toy wrangler for Robot Chicken

Soundtrack: Yameen - available on iTunes, Amazon MP3, and all online music stores

Relevant show links:

• What I Know About Call of Duty: Black Ops II
• 007 Legends: Get in the Game promotion
• Kat’s upcoming photography art show
• Mortal Kombat on PS Vita
• Kingdom Rush
• Twitter joke accounts: @SunshineHugh, @DansHair, @CODHorse

• Kat and Hugh and Dan on Twitter
• Dan’s book: Critical Path: How to Review Videogames for a Living
• Hugh’s book: City Under the Moon
• Enter your own question for Hugh Don’t Know Jack/Stick It To The Dan
• Write to the show’s Megamailbag

Some of those clues posted at callofduty.com over the last week are now making a lot more sense. Several were taken from this series of documentary clips with Oliver North and P.W. Singer as they talk about the very plausible future in which Black Ops II is set. The Black Ops II interactive experience on YouTube offers extended versions of these interviews, but there’s also a two-minute edit, which was shown last night during the NBA playoffs:

Click here to view the embedded video.

I don’t know about you, but I need to go hug some kittens.

Mark Lamia, Studio Head, Treyarch

“I don’t think it’s what anyone thinks.”

That was one of the first things Mark Lamia, studio head at Treyarch, said when I visited Treyarch to see a sneak peek at Call of Duty: Black Ops II. Mark’s not stupid: He saw the leaks. He reads the internet. He understands the expectations of his audience. Mark called the game “the worst-kept secret in gaming, but also the best-kept secret in gaming” — then proceeded to go into detail on a ton of things that nobody saw coming.

“We needed to think about really pushing the boundaries on this franchise,” he said. “We’re very grateful that Black Ops was such a hit, but not for one second did the team think they would come back with the same thing for the sequel. It’s in our DNA; we are not afraid to push this franchise in new directions. And Black Ops II isn’t what anyone expects that we’re making.”

So what are they making? Now that the reveal trailer has confirmed Black Ops II — due out November 13, 2012 — I can share what I have learned:

It’s a Roman numeral.
A housekeeping note: The game’s official title is Call of Duty: Black Ops II, with a colon and the Roman numeral. The Twitter hashtag is #blackops2, but Twitter style concessions should not be confused for official titles. :)

That's not David Mason, but it is Los Angeles of the future, quadrotors and all.

Welcome to the future — and the past.
The game’s narrative is split into two eras — the Cold War of the 1980s and the second Cold War taking place in the year 2025. The villain, Raul Menendez, spans both time periods; we learn about what created him during the previous Cold War and what makes him so pivotal in the next. Black Ops II will also answer the questions posed from the first game — namely, what was reality and what was in Mason’s head? Thankfully, Woods will be back to explain some of that himself; he is alive in both eras. And Mason’s son David will be the soldier in the 2025 segments, dealing with the realities of the past that have come back to cause such chaos in the future.

This war isn’t science fiction.
Black Ops II’s future Cold War needed to be rooted in the actual present. Today, China controls 95% of the world’s rare earth minerals, a critical resource used in electronics, new energy tech, hybrid cars, and military equipment like F35s and missile guidance systems. Consider this: whatever screen you are using to read this, it was created with rare earth elements. And China’s near-total control over these materials is already causing global concern; check out this video of President Obama from mid-March. (This took place long after Treyarch had set its fictional course for the game; as Mark joked after showing the video, Call of Duty is powerful, but not that powerful.) By contrast, Iran controls 10% of the world’s oil, and you know how high tensions are about that today — so if China controls almost all the world’s tungsten and neodymium, global concerns could very plausibly grow exponentially in the next decade. (And speaking of Iran, it’s been suggested that a cold war there has already begun.)

This is called the CLAW. It reminds me of BigDog with weapons and armor.

Quadrotors are just the beginning.
That’s the cold war; what about when it heats up? As game director Dave Anthony puts it: “Warfare, up until very recently, has been hundreds of guys shooting at each other across a battlefield. But warfare has been completely redesigned, and 15 years from now…” You saw the quadrotor in action and you probably have seen the BigDog project; more and more of the military is turning to unmanned drones to keep humans out of harm’s way. You may recall Iran captured a CIA spy drone in December; this New York Times article on the U.S. officially confirming its use of drones to fight terrorism was written yesterday. This is all happening right now. Treyarch clearly sees a future where automated technology plays a much larger role on the battlefield — and they also see a way that those weapons can be turned against us. This is the technology that you’re going to get to play with in Black Ops II.

Branching storylines and player choice rule.
The playable level I saw — an escort mission protecting the President through a semi-destroyed downtown Los Angeles in 2025 — began with a choice: Snipe or Rappel? You’ll be able to pick paths during levels that better suit your play style or sense of adventure. The game’s director, Dave Anthony, admitted that he loved Choose Your Own Adventure books as a kid and wanted to do something like that in a game. As a result, he says the linear rulebook “has been thrown away, and all bets are off in term of how you expect this game is going to play.” What’s more — and this might come as a real surprise — you can fail missions in Black Ops II, and that will divert the main story. In some cases, people will live or die based on your success or failure on a mission, and that will affect the story’s outcome.

Strike Force Operations let you control anything you want -- human or drone.

Get ready for Strike Force Operations. 
Strike Force Operations “have a very meaningful influence on how the story progresses,” says Dave Anthony. In these missions, you choose which mission to play and who to play within them. You can swap between people within the squad, or you can also just control the drones — be the quadrotor, if you want — or you can be in Overwatch mode and control from a top-down perspective, almost like a tactical strategy game. But at any point, you can pick a soldier on the field and zoom in instantly to take their place. These are open sandbox levels with clear goals — the one I saw took place on the Singapore docks, clearing out defenses so that a gunship could come in to destroy the place — but Strike Force Operations are not linear, so if you replay it, it will be different. Mark Lamia cites these as an example of “the team wanting to give the player new experiences inside the campaign. On every single front, the team is not resting on its laurels.”

Harper's role is, as of yet, unknown.

Storytelling is key.
Mark says Black Ops II will offer “an epic story that’s going to span generations.” David Goyer, writer of  Batman Begins and script consultant on the original Black Ops, returned to work with Treyarch on Black Ops II. According to Dave Anthony, Goyer said “Let’s rewrite the rules of storytelling in Call of Duty.” Expect a renewed focus on character development — both for the good guys and the bad guys. “We wanted to create the most compelling villain that Call of Duty has ever seen,” added Dave Anthony. “You understand who he is as a human being. One minute you will understand where he’s coming from, and the next minute you will see him do something that you cannot support in a million years.”

The experts are on board. 
The charming and imposing Lt. Col. Hank Keirsey is once again Call of Duty’s military advisor, but Treyarch has sought the expertise of some other notable names for this project, too. P.W. Singer, author of Wired for War and one of the government’s top advisors on future warfare, worked with Treyarch to discuss a world where, as Lamia puts it, “technology is evolving faster than our governments can respond.” As for the past, can there be a better expert on covert operations in the 1980s than Colonel Oliver North? He met with the team at Treyarch to discuss the government’s role in Nicaragua, Panama, and Afghanistan. (How that history will be incorporated into the game remains to be seen; don’t take those locations as confirmations of levels. Those conflicts are just North’s areas of expertise.)

Dan Bunting said map construction is a bit like a Lego set. This is Aftermath.

We’re in for a visual overhaul. 
Dan Bunting, Treyarch’s Director of Online, showed some of the graphical upgrades Treyarch has been working on – what he called a mix of “tech and technique.” He walked us through an unpopulated level on Socotra Island in Yemen that showed off HDR lighting, bounce lighting, and self-shadowing (“Lighting is what does most of the work when it comes to visual fidelity,” says Bunting) as well as a new texture technique called reveal mapping. I don’t know what it does — all I know is I saw beautiful, detailed sand that looked like it had haphazardly fallen between the cobblestones on the street. When “the old way” of texturing and “the new way” were shown side by side, the differences were undeniable. Some of the improvement is more practical than technical; on a future LA level called Aftermath, Dan pointed out that there were lots of unique environments within the level — a coffee shop, a hotel lobby — designed so players could easily call out their locations to teammates without having to struggle for a description. And yes…it’s all still running at 60 frames per second. Dan said the team was not willing to sacrifice frame rate for visual detail. The build he was showing was on an Xbox 360, but it’s worth noting that Mark Lamia mentioned that the PC version will take advantage of DX11 cards.

Zombies is going to be big.
Mark Lamia didn’t want to beat around the undead bush: “I’m not going to hide it from you – it’s a Treyarch game, we’re making Zombies. It’s a huge world, running inside the multiplayer mode. There are new game modes; it’s bigger and better” Any details to go with that tease? Nope — Mark is saving some of his secrets until later. “Zombies is its own game and it deserves its own time.” Guess we’ll have to wait and see, but since they dragged the confirmation out last time, I’m glad to see they’re being up-front on this lap.

Vahn did reveal that all multiplayer will take place in the future.

“Multiplayer is no longer a one-size-fits-all solution.”
Yes, there will be multiplayer, but no, they’re not talking much about it yet, and no gameplay was shown. But game design director David Vonderhaar did offer a few cryptic clues: “Multiplayer is no longer a one-size-fits-all solution. We’ve stripped the game back a lot and started from a very core place” with a goal of supporting the broadest range of players and play styles. Sounds like changes of some sort are coming — and I know a lot of people have told me, in agitated and detail-free feedback, that they feel MP needs to change — so have fun trying to figure out what that means until we get some solid info. For Black Ops and MW3, they didn’t offer solid details until September, so it could very well be a long summer.

They mocapped a horse.
Animation lead Adam Rosas showed some extremely impressive performance-capture demos — very emotional stuff, as a woman speaks to her soldier husband via webcam. No idea if that was just a test or if a scene like that will be used in the game, but there was a lots of nuance in the face and extremely expressive eyes; it was a very believable scene. Adam said they intentionally aimed for some of the toughest emotional challenges they could think of when testing out the animation rig, and they were very pleased with the results. Adam then showed some raw footage of, yes, a real-life horse with mocap sensors all over it, and showed us some of the resulting data to go with it. They performance-captured…a horse. You probably spotted a few in the trailer.

If you’ll indulge me, I’d like to offer an editorial comment: This strikes me as a lot more info than I expected to get at this point. I saw the hints, teases, and unfortunate leaks that everybody else saw, and I saw a lot of people smugly saying that they had found out the name of the game — as if spoiling that piece of information was a personal trophy. But really, did anybody have a clear vision of the future elements of the game before CallofDuty.com itself started leaving really big hints? Did anybody see this info avalanche coming with branching storylines and Strike Force Operations? Missions you can fail, rare earth minerals, Oliver North, a mocapped horse? What Treyarch has been creating goes so much further than a cell-phone photo of a poster or a pre-order card, and I strongly suspect the folks who coolly say they knew everything all along are, quite honestly, talking out of their asses. I personally like surprises, and I don’t celebrate when information gets out early. But I’d like to think that even the Hardcore Spoiler Corps got something that they didn’t expect today, so I call that a win for anybody who still believes in enjoying the ride.

That said, I am excited about what this game promises. As I learn more, I will share it as soon as I am able.

If you’re a Call of Duty Elite premium member, then you are familiar with the show Roll Call, which is normally only available to subscribers. Well…they’ve made an exception, since the reveal of Call of Duty: Black Ops II is kind of a big deal. The latest episode of Roll Call is available for everyone to see. Treyarch studio head Mark Lamia talks a little bit about what the studio wants to achieve, and yes, confirms that Zombies will be returning — it’s “the biggest, most ambitious Zombies ever.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Did I mention I’m the guest host on this one? I’m totally the guest host.

The official reveal trailer for Call of Duty: Black Ops II has been posted on the official Call of Duty YouTube channel. It begins. 

Click here to view the embedded video.

I asked, and there will be more video to see during the LA/Denver NBA playoff game that starts at 7:30pm PT tonight. So this isn’t everything that’s coming today.

“Name…your name.” Well, maybe not quite that direct, but James Bond fans will have a chance to add a little something of themselves to 007 Legends before it comes out for PS3 and Xbox 360 later this year: You can be a villain. Just design a nemesis for Bond — with Photoshop, or cosplay, or however you choose — and submit the photo and description to the proper authorities by May 24. Then the community will vote on ten finalists in the week that follows, and the winner of that poll will be added to the game. So put on your villainous thinking caps, bust out the costume trunk, and get to scheming.

I still love you, Kowloon

So…everybody’s talkin’ ’bout Black Ops II today. Let’s go back to where the series began this weekend with a Playing With Swords session on PlayStation Network this Friday night, May 4, at 6pm PST. Facebook event reminder is here.

My PSN ID is OneOfSwords, the PWS FAQ is here, and I will see you in the Domination lobbies.

In my never-ending quest to clear out the old closets here at Activision, sometimes I find weird things. One of those things…is a full-length, one-size-fits-all black terrycloth bathrobe with the Modern Warfare 2 logo embroidered onto it.

For the fan who has everything

I don’t know where it came from. I don’t know why it was made. Maybe it was a strange gift to the press. Maybe it was a product sample that some company sent to see if we wanted to make them. All I know is…I washed it. I’m not taking any chances. And it can be yours, along with a bunch of other stuff I found in the office: 

XL shirts: A rare CoD4 shirt (back: "Go Deep Go Hard"), an Elite skull shirt, and a Zombie Labs shirt signed by M. Shadows of Avenged Sevenfold.

A one-off MW3 cap that I haven't seen anywhere else, and a COD4 water bottle. I have one of these from back in the day and still use it at home!

To finish up, here's CoD: World at War for PC, a Steelbook copy of Black Ops on 360, and a no-game-just-the-autographed case for MW3, signed by Josh Smith of the Atlanta Hawks. Plus some Kill Confirmed dogtags.

One person will win all the goodies above — so I hope it’s a Call of Duty fan, you know? Just fill out the form below before the end of Thursday, May 3 and I’ll pick a winner sometime on Star Wars Day, May the 4th. Please, one entry per personand the usual contest FAQ applies.  I’ll list the winner here when it’s all over. Good luck!

UPDATE 5/4: Congratulations to Caleb Concepcion of Oceanside, California — random.org picked his email out of more than a thousand. Your swanky robe and all this other gear is on its way!