PlayStation has dominated the headlines this week, and for good reason: Astro Bot is a triumph! Currently rated at 94 on Metacritic, the game proves that smaller-scoped titles can be massive successes if you trust the development team to deliver on its vision. Flip the record over, however, and we can’t ignore the rot on the other side. The infamous Concord, a 5-v-5 hero shooter developed by Firewalk Studios, was sentenced to death after only two weeks. As of 6th September, the shooter is offline indefinitely. Sony looked at the numbers and decided it was better to fall on the …
Tag: Call of Duty
Black Ops 6 Beta: Week One Feedback
The Black Ops 6 beta has been a lot of fun. I’ve put in about 8-10 hours, maxed rank days ago, and am still playing just for fun. It feels like a successor to Cold War and Treyarch’s classic Black Ops games while having the boldest movement changes to a Call of Duty since Advanced Warfare. It’s a fresh experience with traditional Treyarch multiplayer sensibilities, and it’s easily the most excited I’ve felt for a Call of Duty multiplayer mode in a long time. I am not a Multiplayer expert by any means. There aren’t enough enemies of the undead …
Look At This Esthtuk Zortuk
With the (excellent) Black Ops 6 beta live, bits and pieces of leaked information are making the rounds on Twitter. One thing that has caught the eye of many Zombies players is a potential “Classic Mode.” All we have is the name; we must make zero assumptions here. For all we know, this could have been toyed with and scrapped early in development. Until it’s officially confirmed, do not assume it’s coming to Black Ops 6 (and even then, wait until we get concrete information – Black Ops 4 Factions, anybody?). Classic Mode is an interesting concept, though, and there’s …
The Panic of Liberty Falls
The last three weeks were lovely while they lasted. The air of positivity around Black Ops 6 Zombies has returned to the usual nonsense. Unfortunately, I’m not surprised. Let me be clear: you are allowed not to like the game. If you have issues with it, you are free to voice them. However, there is a difference between expressing criticism and the vitriolic withering displayed by “fans” of Zombies on and off since the launch of Black Ops 4 in 2018. I’m okay with takes I disagree with, but some of the things I’ve seen on Twitter today are unhinged. …
Richtofen Returns; Liberty Falls
The word “cinema” gets thrown around a lot these days. It’s been repurposed as an adjective to signify the quality of something, commonly a scene in a movie or video game. I’m guilty of using “cinema” to describe anything I deem fit. Like most modern linguistic trends, it started as a bit of a laugh, and before I knew it, the way the postman delivered my mail was cinema. But there’s no better way to describe the Liberty Falls intro cutscene. It is pure cinema: the opening shots of West Virginia soundtracked by Vera Lynn, the way Richtofen’s dream slowly …
Into the Intel I: Project Janus, The Aether, and MWZ
One of my favourite things about the Dark Aether story has been the return of mystery to Zombies’ storytelling. As exciting (and beautiful) as the Zombies Chronicles timeline was in Black Ops 3, it ended up sucking a lot of the air out of the room. We got too many answers and not enough questions. While this made sense – the Aether saga was on its way out– it left little space for fans to speculate and theorise. Thanks to the world-building accomplished throughout Cold War, Vanguard, and MWZ, many questions plague us as we head into the Black Ops …
Black Ops 6 Zombies Reveal: First Impressions
Treyarch cooked. Succumbed to the hype, I’ve decided to share my first thoughts tonight. I’ll have more to say about several features in the buildup to Black Ops 6’s launch, but I wanted to keep the good vibes going. The blog post that anchored the Black Ops 6 Zombies reveal is titled “Intel Barrage.” This is an appropriate name, considering the reveal included raw gameplay footage, press and influencer reactions, trailers and developer insight, and a flurry of tweets. It’s the most in-depth Zombies reveal we’ve ever seen. Treyarch is a studio that is not only extremely confident in its work …
There’s a Party on Terminus Island
“I have marched six weeks in hell and certifyIt is not fire, devils, dark, or anything,But boots—boots—boots—boots—moving up and down again,And there’s no discharge in the war.” ‘Boots’ – Rudyard Kipling (1903) We finally have a cinematic intro for a round-based Zombies map. It’s been a while, but it was worth the wait! Terminus finds our heroes of the Cold War – Weaver, Grey, Carver, Strauss and Raptor-One – locked in captivity on the mystic Terminus Island. Five years in captivity has not treated them well, but luckily, the one-eyed wonder Dr William Peck and his accomplice Maya are on …
The Truth Dies: Coffee and Six-Legs
The last two channels on The Truth Dies are live, but before that, Mr Peeks had another secret for us last night. Inputting the following code on The Truth Dies revealed a video of what I assume is the Mystery Box moving animation. Is the announcer still The Forsaken? It’s hard to tell. Some think it’s him; others don’t. I want to hear more quotes before coming to a conclusion. They Did What? Again?! Channel 5 hosts a nature documentary which twists into static, with a pompous voice stating, “Watch as this arachnid-like vermin explodes from the frontal lobe of …
The Truth Dies: Terminus Island + GobbleGum
It looks like Mr Peeks has more to say. Following the excitement of The Truth Dies on Thursday, a further update to the site on Friday gave us some things to ponder over the weekend. Channel 3 published a news report stating that the CIA has declassified top-secret files. Mr Peeks then laughs and shows us snippets from documents relating to Terminus Island. Piecing it together, we can start setting the scene for one of the BO6 launch maps, appropriately named Terminus. Ernst Duffer was assigned to Terminus Island as an interrogator in 1987 by the Project Janus administration. His …