{"id":635,"date":"2012-05-02T19:58:06","date_gmt":"2012-05-03T00:58:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vgheaven.com\/?p=635"},"modified":"2012-05-02T19:58:06","modified_gmt":"2012-05-03T00:58:06","slug":"48-things-that-you-should-know-about-call-of-duty-black-ops-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.vgheaven.com\/?p=635","title":{"rendered":"48 Things That You Should Know About Call of Duty: Black Ops II"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"yiv178481829byline\">By Kirk Hamilton<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div id=\"yiv178481829posttext\">\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/kotaku.us1.list-manage.com\/track\/click?u=251e609e1dba3888b86c21cc8&amp;id=fef075785a&amp;e=3b2ef73617\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" title=\"48 Things That You Should Know About Call of Duty: Black Ops II\" src=\"http:\/\/img.gawkerassets.com\/img\/17lca7kisgdrfjpg\/xlarge.jpg\" alt=\"48 Things That You Should Know About Call of Duty: Black Ops II\" width=\"300\" \/><\/a>Last week, I headed down to visit with Treyarch in Santa Monica to get an extended look at <em>Call of Duty: Black Ops II<\/em>. Our visit was entirely hands-off, and consisted mostly of a series of in-game demos of missions from the single-player campaign, as well as a new open-ended single-player mode called &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/kotaku.us1.list-manage.com\/track\/click?u=251e609e1dba3888b86c21cc8&amp;id=e5beea4a18&amp;e=3b2ef73617\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Strike Force<\/a>.&#8221; The in-game missions were mostly set during a drone attack of Los Angeles, but we caught a few glimpses of other sections, as well.<\/p>\n<p>Rather than write a huge narrative preview, I thought I&#8217;d just cut right to the chase and list as many facts about the game as I could.<\/p>\n<p>I almost hit Stephen&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/kotaku.us1.list-manage.com\/track\/click?u=251e609e1dba3888b86c21cc8&amp;id=5e1e29e4eb&amp;e=3b2ef73617\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">standing record of 50<\/a>, but fell just short. Oh well! There&#8217;s a reason he&#8217;s the boss.<\/p>\n<p>Here now, 48 facts about <em>Call of Duty: Black Ops II<\/em>. From single-player to Strike Force all the way to Multiplayer and Zombies. (Less info on those last two, unfortunately.) Buckle up. Let&#8217;s start with&#8230;<\/p>\n<h2>The Story<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The game&#8217;s story will jump between two timelines, with the primary one set in 2025. &#8220;Most&#8221; of the game will be set in 2025.<\/li>\n<li>It is a direct sequel to <em>Black Ops<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>We will find out definitively what happened at the end of <em>Black Ops<\/em>\u2014presumably, Mason didn&#8217;t actually kill JFK, given that he&#8217;s out in the field in <em>Black Ops II<\/em>. But who knows?<\/li>\n<li>The second timeline will be set in the late 80&#8217;s near the end of the Cold War.<\/li>\n<li>The story will be narrated by <em>Black Ops<\/em> character Frank Woods, now an old man. Apparently he didn&#8217;t die at the end of <em>Black Ops<\/em> after all.<\/li>\n<li>In the 80&#8217;s timeline, players will take on the role of <em>Black Ops<\/em> protagonist Alex Mason.<\/li>\n<li>In 2025, players will take on the role of David Mason, who is the son of Alex Mason. The father\/son relationship will play a part in the story. Hello <a href=\"http:\/\/kotaku.us1.list-manage.com\/track\/click?u=251e609e1dba3888b86c21cc8&amp;id=21a27ca074&amp;e=3b2ef73617\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">daddening of video games<\/a>!<\/li>\n<li>In the game&#8217;s fiction, there is a second Cold War happening between China and the US due to the scarcity of Rare Earth Elements used to make tech devices and military weapons.<\/li>\n<li>The story is based on a real-world possibility, as China (according to the folks at Treyarch) currently controls 95% of the <a href=\"http:\/\/kotaku.us1.list-manage.com\/track\/click?u=251e609e1dba3888b86c21cc8&amp;id=81d637d7c3&amp;e=3b2ef73617\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">rare earth elements<\/a> in the world. Topical!<\/li>\n<li>Many of the real-world hooks are inspired by P.W. Singer&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/kotaku.us1.list-manage1.com\/track\/click?u=251e609e1dba3888b86c21cc8&amp;id=ef89bd87d8&amp;e=3b2ef73617\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century<\/em><\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>A good deal of the 1980&#8217;s action will take place during proxy wars in Central America. Tropical!<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/kotaku.us1.list-manage.com\/track\/click?u=251e609e1dba3888b86c21cc8&amp;id=3a20bfefce&amp;e=3b2ef73617\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" title=\"48 Things That You Should Know About Call of Duty: Black Ops II\" src=\"http:\/\/img.gawkerassets.com\/img\/17lbnhkar9q63jpg\/medium.jpg\" alt=\"48 Things That You Should Know About Call of Duty: Black Ops II\" width=\"640\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<li>Game Director Dave Anthony hinted that we may find out more about &#8220;imaginary&#8221; Viktor Reznov. &#8220;He was essentially a figment of the player&#8217;s imagination,&#8221; Anthony said.<em>&#8220;Or was he?&#8221;<\/em> Studio Director Mark Lamia chimed in, playfully. &#8220;Will we find out more about that?&#8221; asked Anthony with a smirk.<\/li>\n<li>David Mason (the son)&#8217;s callsign is &#8220;Section.&#8221; Which is kind of a cool callsign.<\/li>\n<li>The villain will be a man named Raul Menendez, who in 2025 is pitting the Chinese and US governments against each other by hacking into their drones and other robotic weapons.<\/li>\n<li>The 1980&#8217;s missions will chronicle what started Menendez on setting his current-day plans in motion.<\/li>\n<li>The story is was written from the ground up by <em>Dark Knight<\/em> and <em>Batman Begins<\/em> co-writer David Goyer. Goyer joined the first <em>Black Ops<\/em> part of the way through. He wanted to &#8220;create a memorable villain&#8221; with Menendez.<\/li>\n<li>Menendez has hacked into the US&#8217;s unmanned drones and unleashed an attack on Los Angeles. In the mission we saw, a fleet of drones were destroying buildings in downtown LA.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/kotaku.us1.list-manage.com\/track\/click?u=251e609e1dba3888b86c21cc8&amp;id=d0227b5d74&amp;e=3b2ef73617\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" title=\"48 Things That You Should Know About Call of Duty: Black Ops II\" src=\"http:\/\/img.gawkerassets.com\/img\/17lbnjfdne0tujpg\/medium.jpg\" alt=\"48 Things That You Should Know About Call of Duty: Black Ops II\" width=\"640\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<li>\n<hr \/>\n<\/li>\n<li>There will be at least one female soldier in the game, a pilot named Anderson. She laid quite a bit of waste during the entire LA mission.<\/li>\n<li>The president in 2025 is also a woman, and appeared in the LA mission.<\/li>\n<li>David Mason&#8217;s sidekick is a soldier named Nelson who appears to be played by Michael Rooker of <em>Mallrats<\/em> and <em>The Walking Dead<\/em> fame.<\/li>\n<li>The game will be using full-body performance capture to place its actors in the game; the tech demo I saw demonstrated both male and female actors captured with the sort of clarity we&#8217;ve come to expect from games using full-performance capture. James Burns will be reprising his role as Frank Woods, of course.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/kotaku.us1.list-manage.com\/track\/click?u=251e609e1dba3888b86c21cc8&amp;id=1291a1d5c7&amp;e=3b2ef73617\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"48 Things That You Should Know About Call of Duty: Black Ops II\" src=\"http:\/\/img.gawkerassets.com\/img\/17lbnivnhc9g5jpg\/medium.jpg\" alt=\"48 Things That You Should Know About Call of Duty: Black Ops II\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<hr \/>\n<h2>The Gameplay<\/h2>\n<\/li>\n<li>From what I saw in several demo sections set in a burning, futuristic LA, drones are controllable in combat and will play a large part in the game. Players have a drone-controller on their wrist in the game, and can use it to assign targets and waypoints.<\/li>\n<li>There will be horses, and horseback-riding, during at least one sequence in the 1980&#8217;s. They even went so far as to bring a horse into the motion capture studio.<\/li>\n<li>At one point in the demo, the player jumped into a futuristic anti-aircraft gun and shot down enemy drones.<\/li>\n<li>Vehicle segments will be back, including one piloting a futuristic VTOL airship. Part of the VTOL mission was mostly on-rails, but the second part involved free-flying and dogfighting with drones.<\/li>\n<li>The <em>Black Ops II<\/em> story will be branching\u2014it will feature choices and variable outcomes. Wait, what? Yep.<\/li>\n<li>At one point, players had an option to either grab a sniper rifle and cover their squad, or rappel down to join up with them. Presumably that choice leads to a slightly different gameplay experience\u2014this looks like one of the smaller of the choices offered in the game.<\/li>\n<li>A large part of the branching will be due to Strike Force, which is a brand-new game mode featuring tactical, open-ended gameplay in sandbox-style levels.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/kotaku.us1.list-manage2.com\/track\/click?u=251e609e1dba3888b86c21cc8&amp;id=5f8c9fde56&amp;e=3b2ef73617\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"48 Things That You Should Know About Call of Duty: Black Ops II\" src=\"http:\/\/img.gawkerassets.com\/img\/17lbnlgdqzli1jpg\/medium.jpg\" alt=\"48 Things That You Should Know About Call of Duty: Black Ops II\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<li>\n<hr \/>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>The New Game Mode: &#8220;Strike Force&#8221;<\/h2>\n<p><em><a href=\"http:\/\/kotaku.us1.list-manage.com\/track\/click?u=251e609e1dba3888b86c21cc8&amp;id=c79c6b6ea9&amp;e=3b2ef73617\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">An in-depth look at Strike Force can be found here.<\/a><\/em><\/li>\n<li>Strike Force missions will be woven into the core single-player campaign, and will present themselves as various black ops missions available around the globe.<\/li>\n<li>Players won&#8217;t be able to play all of the strike force missions in a single playthrough.<\/li>\n<li>Strike Force is currently only included in the campaign and isn&#8217;t a separate mode. It won&#8217;t allow for multiplayer but, at some point down the road, could be fleshed out. &#8220;Things like Zombies originally started as unlocks,&#8221; said an Activision representative after we followed up to make sure. &#8220;We&#8217;re not taking the option off the table.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Depending on the outcome of a given strike force mission, the story will change. &#8220;You&#8217;re going to choose a mission,&#8221; said Lamia, &#8220;and that&#8217;s a branch for the story. Say there&#8217;s three missions out there\u2014you&#8217;re not going to go back and play all of them; the story goes on. If you die on a strike force mission, you die in the story.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Going on that, it would seem that the playable characters don&#8217;t feature in the Strike Force missions.<\/li>\n<li>Strike Force allows players to control squads of troops, giving follow\/hold commands with the shoulder buttons.<\/li>\n<li>Strike Force also allows a zoomed-out command view via an unmanned aerial drone that lets you to set waypoints for your units to achieve shifting goals.<\/li>\n<li>Strike Force will allow you to control (at the very least) armed aerial drones, armed land-drones, and unarmed aerial drones in addition to being able to hop to the viewpoint of any of the soldiers in your squad.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/kotaku.us1.list-manage.com\/track\/click?u=251e609e1dba3888b86c21cc8&amp;id=50ebc63865&amp;e=3b2ef73617\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"48 Things That You Should Know About Call of Duty: Black Ops II\" src=\"http:\/\/img.gawkerassets.com\/img\/17lbnmjug4ut0jpg\/medium.jpg\" alt=\"48 Things That You Should Know About Call of Duty: Black Ops II\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<li>\n<hr \/>\n<\/li>\n<li>The strike force missions will unfold organically but will be written into the story\u2014in that way, they&#8217;ll function somewhat like a single-player version of the multiplayer in <em>Mass Effect 3<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>I <em>think<\/em> I heard Kiefer Sutherland voicing one of the squad members in Strike Force, but I&#8217;m not sure. Consider this a <strong>Kiefer! Rumor!<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>&nbsp;<br \/>\n<h2>Multiplayer<\/h2>\n<\/li>\n<li>Multiplayer director David Vonderhaar relayed that the new approach they are taking is &#8220;One size does not fit all.&#8221; That means, he said, that there is no one way to play a <em>Call of Duty<\/em> game. So, they&#8217;re pulling back features like create-a-class, killstreaks, and other features and reexamining them, challenging their assumptions of &#8220;what cows are sacred.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Multiplayer will take place entirely in the year 2025\u2014there will be no multiplayer missions set in the 80&#8217;s.<\/li>\n<li>They are taking the E-sports community very seriously. In part, that means that they&#8217;re focusing on making the game more fun to watch as a spectator. Hopefully that means super cute, colorful uniforms!<a href=\"http:\/\/kotaku.us1.list-manage2.com\/track\/click?u=251e609e1dba3888b86c21cc8&amp;id=df6023cd7e&amp;e=3b2ef73617\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"48 Things That You Should Know About Call of Duty: Black Ops II\" src=\"http:\/\/img.gawkerassets.com\/img\/17lbnm234i8lljpg\/medium.jpg\" alt=\"48 Things That You Should Know About Call of Duty: Black Ops II\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<li>\n<hr \/>\n<\/li>\n<li>Online Director Dan Bunting took us through a tech demo of the upgraded graphics; while lighting upgrades and tech aren&#8217;t usually the most interesting topics, what they were showing looked great. As they put it, they are aiming for &#8220;PC quality graphics running at 60 FPS on a console.&#8221; The illusion was quite convincing.<\/li>\n<li>We saw two unpopulated multiplayer maps: The first map we saw was a naturalistic map located in a village in Yemen.<\/li>\n<li>The second map was called &#8220;Aftermath&#8221; and was set in a ruined downtown LA, presumably after the drone-attack that we saw in the demo.<\/li>\n<li>&nbsp;<br \/>\n<h2>Zombies<\/h2>\n<\/li>\n<li>Zombies will definitely be back in <em>Black Ops II<\/em>, and will feature all new modes that are more fleshed-out than ever.<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;There will be more zombies and more modes; just more.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>The zombies are &#8220;In the multiplayer engine.&#8221; &#8220;If you think about all of the things we can do with our multiplayer engine,&#8221; Lamia said, &#8220;You can start to think about how we might be looking at this.&#8221; Okay then!<\/li>\n<li>Zombies are the only confirmed co-op aspect of <em>Black Ops II<\/em>. The campaign and strike-force modes do not appear to feature co-op.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Kirk Hamilton Last week, I headed down to visit with Treyarch in Santa Monica to get an extended look at Call of Duty: Black Ops II. Our visit was entirely hands-off, and consisted mostly of a series of in-game demos of missions from the single-player campaign, as well as a new open-ended single-player mode [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[265,3],"tags":[367],"class_list":["post-635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-video-game-news-2","category-video-games","tag-black-ops-2-ii-call-of-duty-kotaku"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vgheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vgheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vgheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vgheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vgheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=635"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.vgheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":637,"href":"http:\/\/www.vgheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635\/revisions\/637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vgheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vgheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vgheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}