110°

Destructoid - Black Ops II reinvents the multiplayer experience

Destructoid - Call of Duty: Black Ops II broke retail records a mere 24 hours after the public debut of the single-player campaign. An impressive feat, considering that multiplayer, the franchise's bread and butter, wasn't even shown off until just a week ago.

It's a good thing for fans that Treyarch isn't a studio who would just settle for minor refinements, then. They very well could have, but instead, the team has rebuilt the multiplayer system so much that you would be forgiven for thinking they're insane.

The Create-a-Class system as you've known it from past Call of Duty games -- and pretty much all first-person shooters these days -- is dead. Treyarch challenged the assumptions of what multiplayer in an FPS should be and has created something that makes the Call of Duty experience feel fresh again.

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destructoid.com
r1sh124271d ago

If they havent changed the engine, nothing has actually changed.
Picking perks and classes may differ, but the fundamental part of the game is the engine and they just want to be lazy.

AsheXII4271d ago

The engine is fine, has nothing to do with the gameplay changes they made.

4271d ago
grahf4271d ago

Sorry, the engine argument is getting old.

To create a brand new engine from the ground up that will output 60 FPS (which is an absolute requirement) this late in the console generation is not a good business decision. Smart money would develop for the better hardware which will be coming out soon.

I love what DICE did with Frostbite 2, but their market of choice is the PC crowd that can output 60 FPS & 1080p. The console versions of BF3 were "dummed down" graphically.

IW / Trey's target market is consoles, and there is no other engine on the market that can handle the number of players and maintain a steady 60 FPS rate.

Did a lot change from Mass Effect 1 to 3? Graphics? Gameplay? You bet. A lot can be done within engines, and BlOps2 looks to show that.

r1sh124271d ago

@grahf...
I know the engine argument is getting old but some changes are required, and they could use this as a stepping stone for the next gen could they not?
Building an engine from the ground up really is not as hard as it used to be.
As far as the 'good business decision' how much money are they going to make from this game?
Also activision/Tw/IW do not spend money on developing hardware.

grahf4271d ago (Edited 4271d ago )

You don't work with software developers, do you. I do, very closely, in an industry that is changing faster than our guys can push new software out. Even minor tweeks take a lot of time.

It is VERY difficult to create anything new from the ground up, that is why most so many games run on iD/Quake tech a la John Carmack... its fast, stable, its modular, and it can be adjusted and improved, like what IW/Trey have been doing with their 2 year cycles.

Hell, I don't even know if they are building a new engine, and why would they have to? They might strip it down to bare bones and work up for the next gen, and use the hardware muscle to push 1080p/60 FPS.

They have a formula that is making them tons of money, and until they put out a BAD PRODUCT that millions of people don't buy, they will continue.

To counter your last point... I said they are programming "for the better hardware that is coming out soon." Its out there. Check Ebay... $20k could net you a Xbox 720 Durango kit. You don't think Activision, one of Microsoft's biggest partners, hasn't had the new hardware in house some time now?

Finally... they are going to make a shit ton of money off this game. Thats the American dream, afterall!

r1sh124271d ago

@grahf.
Im a tech consultant with accenture.
I manage teams of software devs on many many projects.

Gaetano4271d ago

What a load of garbage. Why change an "engine" that looks and run fine? How many games have you developed?

+ Show (4) more repliesLast reply 4271d ago
4271d ago
ddurand14271d ago

did you read the article?

granted the core gameplay and mechanics will be the same but there are alot of different, appealing characteristics of this multiplayer.

dazzrazz4271d ago (Edited 4271d ago )

Wait... "reinvents the multiplayer" I've heard that already somewhere. O yeah ! It wwas Nov. 10th 2009 when MW2 came out !

MRHARDON4271d ago

Actually, I heard "reinvents the mutiplayer" for every COD game after W@W.

neutralgamer194271d ago

As usual with every and any COD release similar articles are released claiming the next COD is fresh and new. Do i really have to read the article after seeing countless videos and reading up on the game? Ppl so easily forget and are easily deceived but i dont forget. I know what to expect because ive been seeing it since MW2. Black ops if anything was a step back in many regards to me compared to mw2 yet they claimed the same things about black ops.

4271d ago
DARK WITNESS4271d ago

I know one thing... if at the very least I do decide to give it a try, I will be renting it first and I will wait for a few updates.

Does not matter what changes they make to gameplay, if they can't overhaul the network code and it's got the same S1^T bullet lag that blackops and MW3 have, all those wonderful improvements will mean F!^k all to me.

I do admire them for trying to make gameplay changes, but as said above, they seem to always say this anyway and then when the final game actually comes out... 90% of the "changes" have actually made the game worse.

lets see, but it will be a rental for me first.

grahf4271d ago (Edited 4271d ago )

Not sure why you got the disagree...

Renting has swayed my decision on a number of games that I would have either never taken a $60 risk on (DARK SOULS!), or games where I had a pre-order down but bailed at the last minute because it was just SO BAD (*cough* BRINK).

Good luck!

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130°

These Call of Duty games are officially dead as servers go offline

Following the Wii U and 3DS servers being taken offline, Call of Duty Black Ops 2 and Ghosts are officially dead.

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videogamer.com
90°

Call of Duty players are playing this game for the last time before it's taken offline

Call of Duty players are jumping into Black Ops 2 for the final time before its Wii U servers go offline for good.

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videogamer.com
250°

Xbox backwards compatibility sends old Call of Duty games back into the Top Five | UK Monthly Charts

GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2 leap up due to summer sales

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gamesindustry.biz
shadowT254d ago

Xbox $70 billion bet paid out

fr0sty254d ago

Guess that's what happens when there's no good new games to play...

4Sh0w254d ago (Edited 254d ago )

Well regardless of exclusives, or whatever else there is to play on Xbox or ps, CoD has has still been the top selling game on ps platform since forever also.....so no surprise that the most popular game franchise on any console could easily have a revival due to servers coming back online...this is just credit to xbox backwards compatibility & thats good thing for Xbox gamers.

wiz7191254d ago

@Frosty orrrr maybe it’s a breath of fresh air to be able to go back to the peak of the series .. and it’s beem great lol

mkis007254d ago

It's going to take 10 years for xbox to generate that much profit...

Rhythmattic253d ago

Why worry when they have OS, Server and Background Data in their hands...
Gaming is just the small piece, at the top left in a few K piece jigsaw.

EasilyTheBest253d ago

If you buy a house with cash for 1 million dollars you still own the house. Microsoft don't need to make the money back.

Rhythmattic251d ago

But its not money back, its about how it goes missing.

jznrpg254d ago

Shooters is what Xbox people play most of the time and that’s about it by the numbers and sales of games.

shinoff2183254d ago

Atkeast older gamers nostalgia is good. Jeez.

Jin_Sakai254d ago

Mostly because the new CoD games are garbage. The old games were much better.

Rutaprkl253d ago

Agree 100%. Cod 4, WaW, Black ops 1 & 2, those were the days.

Rhythmattic253d ago

For MP, Unreal tournament , QIII Arena (loved the UT mod) FTW!

RaidenBlack253d ago

Unreal Tournament and Quake III were simply amazing ... CoD's and CoD-likes' rise killed the arena shooter popularity ...
Unreal Tournament 2004 is my favorite in the series.
Didn't enjoy Unreal Tournament III, Quake Champions that much.
Too bad Epic cancelled Unreal Tournament 2014 becoz of Fortnite

Rhythmattic253d ago (Edited 253d ago )

I got hooked on the QIII Urban Terror mod (and my work colleagues I introduced them to)... LAN Sessions at the closing of the doors at work, into the night , sinking beers and eating pizza..... Good times.

thesoftware730254d ago

Wow, good games never get old I guess.

CoD will always be a beast of a franchise, and how awesome is it that you can just boot it up or pop it into your Xbox and play, MS BC is really a neat feature.

CrimsonWing69254d ago

Shows you that backwards compatibility is a worthwhile feature.

1Victor253d ago

@crimson:” Shows you that backwards compatibility is a worthwhile feature.”
I agree it’s worthy at the start of the generation when there’s few new generation games but halfway through the generation it’s not a feature.
Now it’s good that this game is finding a renewed life for its fan but it shows a mayor flaw in new games release when a close decade old game is toppling the charts

CrimsonWing69253d ago

I don't know if I understand what you mean. It's a feature regardless of the time into the generation.

Let's take Armored Core 6 for example. Let's say I'm interested in checking out the previous Armored Core games, sure would be nice if I could play them on my current-gen console.

We're about 3 years into current-gen and old games are hitting in the top 5 for sales charts in the month.

I do get where you're coming from with older games possibly being better than the newer games, but the feature stays the feature. I can only speak for myself, but when there's a lull in game releases or nothing great is out, I like to go back to old titles. It's just nice to not have to have a bunch of consoles out to do so.

I think moving forward it'll be less and less of an issue as like with the PS5 you can access most all of the PS4 games, but I like going back to PS1 and PS2. Would be awesome to kind of make backwards compatibility a prioritized feature moving forward. Hell, Sony was the first to implement it.

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