I used to think I could recognise all the correct symptoms of a rainbow - a bright afternoon peppered by showers, a black cat crossing the path of a lain-down cow - but too many conspicuously empty skies have blackened my reputation as a soothsayer. Now I only predict Black Ops 2 double XP weekends - much easier, as they’re far more frequent. And on a week that also sees the PC release of the new Uprising DLC? Inevitable.
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Echo, beta, paid alpha, early access! Alright soldiermen, it’s time for your briefing. At eighteen-hundred hours yesterday evening, while each of us was engaged in an Approved Appropriately Patriotic Pastime with our heterosexual nuclear families, Johnny Treyarch was busy whipping up an Uprising. He stirred things up with that Alcatraz business in the Xbox Isles and PlayStonia last month, and now he’s set on doing the same here.
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After two weeks of going steady with the Xbox, Black Ops’ latest map pack tires of monogamy and begins looking about itself. Mark my words - in two-and-a-half weeks’ time, it’ll be whispering sweet new maps into the hard drives of our PCs.
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It might be easier if we start reporting the days when Black Ops isn’t buckling under the influence of an extended double-something holiday. It’s been only two days since the last extra XP free-for-all came to a close, and already Treyarch have announced that you’ll get twice the virtual buck for your bang over this weekend.
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Mob of the Dead is one of five maps found in Black Ops 2’s imminent Uprising map pack, but I can’t imagine any of the others are nearly so star-splattered as this. Welcome to Alcatraz, where you’ll be recast as the spitting image of one of four Hollywood gangsters: Ray Liotta, Joe Pantoliano, Chazz Palmentiri, or Michael Madsen.
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Black Ops 2: Uprising is yet to be the beneficiary of an official announcement, let alone a laggy PC release date. But we already know where its risings will emerge - either from the graves of a new Zombies level, or the throats of enthusiastic players across four PvP maps.
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Trawling website source code is the new bin-rummaging - the cleaner, warmer, and ethically sleep-better-at-nightier hallmark of contemporary sort-of-journalism. Call of Duty YouTube regular MrDarlekJD knows this, having had a root about in the organs of the official Black Ops 2 DLC page and come up trumps from the comfort of his own home. Black Ops 2 will continue its mystifying propensity for Bolshevik monitors with Uprising, he discovered, a map pack with a new Zombies level in tow.
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Xbox Live players have been inhaling the meaty delights of ham camo for two weeks now thanks to new Black Ops 2 ‘micro items’ - optional purchases that variously yield themed calling cards, extra create-a-class slots and some very silly aesthetic weapon upgrades. In another two, we’ll be able to join them.
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This weekend saw Cologne play host to the finals of the Electronic Sports League, which was also acting as the European qualifier for the Call of Duty Championship 2013. Epsilon emerged the winners of the contest, narrowly defeating Fariko.Dragons for first place.
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Treyarch have been working to improve CODcast, Black Ops 2’s in-game tool for shouting over the top of matches. In sparsely-populated matches, for instance, the CODcast control panel can now be made to show the overhead map in the player list, which should allow commentators a more holistic view of events. So that’s good. Most of the rest of this week’s patch is given over to fixing issues with the recent Revolution DLC. See what’s changed below.
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Gosh, that’s a tabloid headline and a half, isn’t it? In a future Black Ops 2 update, Treyarch will introduce optional in-game ‘Micro Item’ purchases. Among the items will be calling cards, extra create-a-class slots and aesthetic weapon upgrades, including something called a ‘Bacon Personalisation Pack’.
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Gosh, verbs are tricky, aren’t they? ‘Rises up’ was supposed to sound more Les Mis than stomach bug, but you can never be quite sure.
Anyway. Black Ops 2: Revolution is home to five new maps, including a zombie level which sees China interpreted as a “dilapidated and dangerous MC Escher painting", and it’s out on PC today. As per tradition, Treyarch have deigned to offer us double weapon XP over the weekend in celebration.Read and Comment
While we still have another eight days till Black Ops 2's Revolution DLC releases for the PC, today we get our own download which is slightly less exciting, unless I write in bold: a patch. There, isn't that just as rewarding as new maps, weapons, and all the other so-called perks of new content?
I've pasted the full details in below but essentially the patch fixes bugs in the games multiplayer and zombie mode. There are two new feature improvements too but I won't spoil those before the break (one is, however, in the headline).Read and Comment
Activision have laid off a small portion of Treyarch’s staff in a move to refocus the company’s efforts on Black Ops 2 DLC development. The publisher has been quick to reassure that the “minimal reduction" at the studio won’t derail the release of future Black Ops updates.Read and Comment
After its earlier release on the Xbox (Grrr.) we now finally have a release date for the Nuketown zombies map which was granted to buyers of the special edition and season pass.
That release date (Thursday) is a secret that I shall (it's Thursday) keep hidden till after (It's Thursday, you fools) the break.Read and Comment
Black Ops 2's first DLC release is going to be full of firsts, first time a weapon's been included with DLC, first time you'll be able to play as the zombies, and (likely the) first time MC Escher has been uttered in a Black Ops 2 video. Though, some of the firsts do seem a little more tenuous.Read and Comment
Descriptions of all the maps appearing in the upcoming Revolution DLC for Black Ops 2 have been mistakenly released by Amazon. The details were pulled but not before a wily shopper noted them down.
More below.Read and Comment
Something odd’s happened to Activision’s catalogue of middling-to-good James Bond games. Apropos of nothing, the three most recent Bond games have been removed from both Steam and Activision’s own online store.Read and Comment
What on earth did I miss? I took the liberty of having a Christmas, and in the meantime the definition of revolution seems to have deteriorated to the point of absurdity. In 2013, it seems revolution is spelled ‘map pack’.Read and Comment
Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 has been patched o'er the weekend, remedying a slew of niggles with Treyarch's record-breaking online guns-and-shouts game. The PC edition of the patch follows the release of the same patch on consoles weeks ago, which addressed issues as far reaching as weapon balancing, zombie modes and ghost perks. You want some patch notes? We got your patch notes.
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