Recently some more trophies and achievements have been listed for Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. We have long known that the game will take place in both the year 2025 and in the past, but until now, we didn’t know how those two settings were going to tie in together. We assumed that the chapters set in the past would be playable flashbacks or the like. Now it seems that things may be a bit more complicated. Here are the achievements:

Futurist: Complete all future levels in veteran.
Family Reunion: There are two futures.
Back in Time: Use a future weapon in the past.

Those seem pretty straightforward. It’s hard to read “back in time” in any other manner than the obvious literal interpretation. Apparently there’s going to be time travel in Black Ops 2, and the two eras involved in the game will interact in a much more solid fashion than simply through character flashbacks. It’s also interesting to see the reference to “two futures” in a game which we know will include branching storylines. Branching storylines within branching storylines? This adds yet another dimension to the upcoming game. Don’t forget to pre-order while there’s still time left; Black Ops 2 is coming out in less than a month on November 13th!

David Vonderhaar, Treyarch game designer, recently stated the obvious about Black Ops 2, but since so many people balk at the prices of video games these days, we thought we’d reiterate.  “You get into the multiplayer and there’s a huge stretch, from combat training for the new player all the way up to league play,” Vonderhaar stated.  “There’s all sorts of stuff in between.  And Zombies is now almost a game by itself. There’s more value here than you’re going to find anywhere else. I think we’re doing all the right things to ensure that there’s a huge range of experience. I think it has immense value for a game.”

Why do video games cost so much these days?  Usually game designers point toward the technology as the main constraint.  Games are simply so advanced now with graphics and performance that they cost a lot to develop.  That’s not to say that they don’t pull in a healthy bottom line, but can we really fault them for that?  Maybe we could if they were offering less, but Treyarch has gone above and beyond the call of duty (yes, pun very intended) to try and provide gamers with something which is actually worth the $60.00 Activision is charging.

Black Ops 2 seeks to satisfy every type of FPS gamer who could possibly pick it up.  If you love single-player campaigns but in the past have been annoyed at how short they typically are, you have a single-player mode with branching storylines which gives you hours more single-player game time than you’d usually experience.  If multiplayer is your thing, you’ll find a ton of game modes and hugely enhanced game mechanics offering more balanced game play than past COD titles.  And now the zombies mode (which is actually three modes) is like another separate, huge component.  TranZit is practically a whole other game.  You could feasibly charge a lot more for it by simply making it a separate Activision title, but instead it’s simply thrown into the Black Ops 2 package.  Since Black Ops 2 doesn’t cost any more than some of its predecessors, this is actually very generous.

From the sound of things, Black Ops 2 could probably keep most gamers entertained forever.  While we still haven’t heard any news of Modern Warfare 4, odds are that most of us will still be exploring the features of Black Ops 2 when the next COD game comes out in another year!

The first image of the Nuketown 2025 bonus map included with pre-orders of Black Ops 2 has been released. The map is one of the most exciting bonuses which fans can look forward to, and is a reboot of the old Nuketown map from the first Black Ops. This map will be a retro-futurist update, though from the first image we can see that it will indeed be in the same vain as the original map. The image takes the form of a postcard which says “Greetings From 2025,” and includes a Nuketown sign in the backdrop, and a bus and a female character in the foreground. You can view the image below:

How do you get the Nuketown 2025 map? Just make sure to pre-order the game. Black Ops 2 is coming out on November 13th. No matter what venue you pre-order the game from, the Nuketown 2025 map will be included as a bonus, so that makes it easy. Don’t wait until the last minute; time is running out fast. We’re almost down to the one-month countdown until release day! See you in Nuketown!

Some series depend on you having actually played all their previous installments before the next installments make proper sense.  This can pertain to developing skills, understanding storyline, or both.  Call of Duty really isn’t that type of series though.  While Black Ops 2 will have strong plot threads connecting it to the first Black Ops, the game will still tell a complete story of its own.  Many of the games in the Call of Duty series aren’t directly related to each other in terms of story, and the skills of FPS combat can be picked up pretty easily no matter where you step into the series.

Treyarch has also taken some extra steps to try and make Black Ops 2 accessible to newbies, especially newbies who are intimidated by online multiplayer gameplay.  The first step is the inclusion of a “Bootcamp” mode which allows new players to go up against bots and new players in a newbie-friendly environment.  This tutorial method will help players to learn the ropes and also to level up to level 10.  Then you play the “Objective” mode which is also part of the bootcamp, and this helps you to learn how to play all the objective type modes.  “Bot Stomp” allows you to play with a human team against AI players.  You can continue playing these modes past level 10, but you’ll earn less experience than you would in the normal multiplayer mode.

The other thing which makes Black Ops 2 newbie friendly is the league system with matchmaking.  This ensures that if you’re a new player with a relatively low skill level, you’ll be playing with and against other players who are comparably skilled, and not against vastly superior players.  Then as you improve against people who give you a reasonable amount of competition, you will climb up in the rankings and face off against more challenging opponents, who like yourself have attained a higher skill level.  This ensures that you’ll build confidence and enjoy yourself, rather than get discouraged because you’re in the wrong place.

So if you’re interested in Black Ops 2 but you’re new to the series, or even new to first person shooter games altogether, this is a great game to start out playing.  Not many other FPS developers have put so much work into making newbies feel comfortable.  You can pre-order the game now to ensure you receive your copy on November 13^th.

Recently the Black Ops 2 achievement list was leaked, hinting to players how they can get achievements in all of the game modes.  Part of the achievements list pertained to the zombies mode, and also seems to hint at Easter eggs.  Hidden content was a major part of the zombies mode in the past.  For example, in World at War in Der Riese, you had to shoot a glowing item in a hidden alley in order to activate the Fly Trap which unlocked a whole hidden minigame.  Oftentimes plot threads are hidden away in these Easter egg scenarios.  Treyarch has already stated that we’re going to learn more about the background of the zombies and how they came to exist in the Call of Duty universe in Black Ops 2, so maybe Easter eggs will lead us there.

Here are several achievements listed for the zombies mode.  Notice the format for each is a title followed by a brief description (SPOILER ALERT: do not read ahead if you don’t want to know what’s coming).

• Dance On My Grave:  In Green Run, acquire yourTombstone.
• Standard Equipment May Vary:  In TranZit, acquire 4 different equippable items in 1 game.
• You Have No Power Over Me:  You Have No Power Over Me.

Notice how the third achievement has no actual description.  The description in the entry is a repeat of the title.  It seems like the only reason that there would be no description is that the nature of the achievement is hidden, another Easter egg in the zombies mode of Black Ops 2.  Perhaps this will  help us to unlock the mystery of the zombies’ existence.  With a huge open world map like TranZit, which is really more like many maps in one, there are sure to be a lot of hidden puzzles and excitement to explore.  Treyarch has said that part of their intention in creating the new game mode was to encourage that kind of exploration, so we can only expect that there will be much to discover.  Building on this puzzle-solving aspect is a brilliant move on their part; anyone who played the Half Life games remembers how well mystery and puzzles can integrate into a FPS game.  Taking some of those cues and working in an open world is definitely going to give Call of Duty a new edge.

Treyarch studio game designer David Vonderhaar has recently shed some light on the gun design process for Black Ops 2.  With the game coming out next month, it’s in the finalization stages, and that means finalizing weapon designs as well.  Treyarch receives a ton of feedback from alpha and beta testers and fans about how well they think weapons handle and how they could or should be improved.  While Treyarch takes the feedback into account, they can’t take every suggestion or they’d create weapons that are unbalanced.

“In Black Ops 2 right now, people are saying that the millimetre wave scanner isn’t strong enough,” Vonderhaar explains, providing an example.  “Again, we’re in alpha, we’re still tuning, that’s important – but if you walk around the emotional reactor, some people think the scanner needs to pulse faster. ‘I need to see guys through walls better.’  There’s always a balance between your emotional and visceral reaction for how something feels, and the truth about how much it helps you or not.”

This is certainly very true.  There are always guns that feel satisfying in any first-person shooter but don’t necessarily provide you with nearly the tactical advantage of other guns that may seem less exciting on the surface but are actually quite useful.  Usually we learn this as we go when we play.

Plus, if you overpower weapons too much, you can drive bad behavior from players.  If you can see through walls too well, you might never come out from behind those walls.  That could drive up camping behavior, something else that Treyarch receives a lot of feedback about.  That’s why the concept of balance is a critical one.  It keeps the game fun for everyone.  Eliminating camping is a huge priority for the development team, which is why Treyarch has also revised the Kill Confirmed mode to try and drive even more improvements in team play.

“All these are things we can tweak and tune, and they’re telling me this, and I’m looking at them, saying: ‘I appreciate your feedback young man, but the data shows the truth about this.’ And that’s game design and part of being a game designer, and it’s fucking hard.”

Black Ops 2 is currently undergoing a closed, private beta test leading up to its release on November 13^th.  Recently a poster named “MoederPoeder” on the Black Ops 2 community over at Reddit posted a photo showing the download invite he received for Black Ops 2 on Xbox 360.  The codename for the game is “Phoenix,” and in the photograph we see that the game download is 1.32 GB.  While this doesn’t seem like a lot, the beta download may not be for the entire game, so it’s hard to say how big the actual game is going to be.  The beta is probably for the multiplayer mode of the game.

The description for the game is an excerpt for a poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.  It reads:

“He clasps the crag with crooked hands; Close to the sun in lonely lands, Ring’d with azure world, he stands. The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls; He watches from his mountain walls, And like a thunderbolt he falls.”

Whether this is a random description or not is not obvious at this point, although it seems unlikely that anything relating to Black Ops 2 would be random.  Perhaps at some point in the single player campaign, some of the more literary among us will be able to make sense of this passage and how it relates to the next Call of Duty game.  Sadly we don’t know how to get a hold of any of these beta invites, so if anyone knows, please drop us a line.