Gamescom 2012

[Dan]

Gamescom has begun, anyone following?

EA Presentation here @ 3PM UK Time

CoD Blops II Stuff:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1BN-Fw2FkE&feature=player_embedded

Black Ops 2: Official perks & gun list revealed, new Create-a-class explained

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 multiplayer was playable in Cologne at a pre-show event hosted by Activision. VG247 was at the scene to play a full two hours, and to make note of the games exhaustive new create-a-class system, as well as perks, attachments, gadgets and more.

Before the carnage began, Treyarch studio head Mark Lamia took to the stage to talk us through Black Ops 2′s overhauled create-a-class system, which the developer dubbed internally as 'Pick 10′.

Why 'Pick 10′? Because you are free to choose any ten items from a Black Ops 2 arsenal of over 100 separate pieces of kit, rewards, modifiers and perks. You can choose anything – even sacrifice your primary weapon in favour of another perk if you wish.

Fancy three perks and three score streak rewards in your class? That'll be six of you ten points. Want a shotgun with reduced recoil and a sight? That'll be three points. It's entirely up to you how you tailor your load-out.

You can even spend one of your ten points on a 'Wildcard' – a modifer that allows you to bent the ten point rule slightly, such as taking a third attachment for your gun, or a second perk from one of the three perk tiers.

Another Wildcard lets you set your weapon's fire mode, so you can turn your fully automatic Type 25 rifle into a burst or single shot if you fancy some more control. It's a massive system with a hue number of possibilities.

Bets of all this doesn't let people break the rules, because your ten points are spend quicker than you realise. You can then swap items in and out to get some of your allowance back, and to really hone your custom class.

You can't unlock everything in one playthrough either. Each time you level up by gaining experience, you get one unlock token and a choice of seven new pieces of kit. You can only pick one. The only way to get everything is to Prestige.

So, here is a complete rundown of every 'Pick 10′ item in the Black Ops 2 build we played. This isn't everything the game has to offer, but it's a decent-sized wedge.

Guns

Assault rifles

Type 25

M8A1

SA-58

SIG556

SCAR-H

AN-94

SMR

Shotguns

M1216

Saiga-12

R-870 MCS

LMG

LSAT

QBB LSW

Mk 48

Sniper Rifles

DSR 50

SVU-AS

Ballista

SMG

MP7

Chicom CQB

PDW-57

Skorpio EVO III

MSMC

Specials

Assault Shield (Metal riot shield that can be planted into the ground as makeshift cover)

Secondary

Launchers

FHJ-18 AA (Vehicle lock-on, two rockets)

RPG

SMAW

Pistols

KAP-40

Tac-45

Executioner

B23R

Lethal Slot

Grenade

Semtex

Combat axe

Claymore

C4

Bouncing Betty

Attachments

Reflex sight

ACOG sight

Target Finder (Paints red squares around hostiles)

Hybrid Optic

Suppressor

Fast Mag

Fore Grip

Laser Sight

Adjustable Stock

Quickdraw

Millimetre Scanner

Grenade Launcher

Select Fire Mode

FMJ Rounds

Extended Clip

Tactical slot

Black Hat PDA (Get close to enemy equipment and point this data pad at it to hack it and turn it against enemies. Takes ages to hack though!)

Smoke grenade

Sensor grenade

Flashbang

Concussion grenade

Shock charge (a throwable stick that emits an electric shock across a surface, rooting targets to the spot)

Tactical Insertion

Wildcards (Bend the rules of the 'Pick 10′ system slightly)

Perk 1 Greed (Lets you choose a second perk from tier 1)

Perk 2 Greed

Perk 3 Greed

Primary Gunfighter

Secondary Gunfighter

Overkill

Danger Close

Tactician

Perks (Note: Perks can no longer go pro)

Tier 1

Ghost (Now only hides you from UAVs when you are moving)

Lightweight

Flak Jacket

Blind Eye

Hardline

Lightweight

Tier 2

Cold Blooded

Hard Wired

Scavenger

Toughness

Fast Hands

Tier 3

Dead Silence

Engineer

Tactical Mask

Extreme Conditioning

Awareness

Dexterity

Black Ops 2 replaces killstreaks with "score streaks"

Black Ops 2′s multiplayer will utilise a new system of score streaks in place of the more familiar killstreaks of previous Call of Duty games, with some terrific rewards available to high-scoring players.

As detailed behind closed doors at gamescom, score streaks allow players to rack up bonuses for completing objectives and activities as well as making kills. While kills will add to a player's score streak meter, securing objectives, capturing flags, defending team mates with turrets and heat shields, and earning assist points will raise the meter significantly faster.

Score streaks unlock bonuses such as being able to call in the RX-XD, UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle), VTOL Warship, Lodestar and X9 Unit.

The Guardian, seen in an early trailer, is another score streak reward option. This Humvee-powered unit exists in the real world, and is good for play modes with objectives, as it has strong crowd control thanks to the ability to microwave enemies.

Another example is the AGR, a small tank unit. For the first time, players can summon an AGR by throwing a smoke canister, and have it break out of its air-dropped crate independently, saving a mad dash across the map to activate the bonus. Players can control the mech by holding X or let it wreak destruction on its own.

The Hellstorm Missile is yet another reward. Piloted from the ground, the missile can be smacked into troops on the ground or burst in mid air like a cluster bomb.

Then there's the Escort Drone; this is an odd little beast that shouts intel at the player, including updates on your score streaks, and rampages across the battlefield making kills.

Although these sound like pretty badass bonuses, Treyarch is certain that players with correct counter-loadouts will be able to take them down; EMP grenades, for example, will drop tech fast.

Source: VG247Quote:Livestreaming and League Play Coming to 'Black Ops 2′

Along with being the first Call of Duty iteration to take the franchise into the future, Black Ops 2 will be featuring a few clever little touches on its multiplayer side in order to help it stand out from the pack. Obviously, with an annual franchise like Call of Duty it's going to be hard to set itself too far from past entries in the series, but developer Treyarch is giving it a shot.

One of the most exciting new additions to the franchise's multiplayer will be not only the ability to livestream multiplayer matches, but support for up to two outside players to act as shoutcasters (or CODcasters as they're cleverly referred to) for the match. In addition to livestreaming, players will also be able to add their own commentary to matches after they've been played through the game's theater mode. And there's even support for those CODcasters to record video of themselves, in an effort to turn Black Ops 2 into a legitimate eSport.

And then when those epic matches have been completed and shoutcasted, the player can then post them online for other gamers to check out either at the Call of Duty website, or through a mobile device (Call of Duty Elite 2.0?).

It might not be a feature that many gamers will use, but the ability to livestream matches is sure to catch the attention of many die-hard Call of Duty fans out there. There are plenty of fans that currently broadcast and record their matches for all to see, but putting together all the pieces of said production (mainly combining the audio and the video) requires a tiny bit of know how. This livestreaming and shoutcasting takes out the middleman, and brings the experience right to the gamer.

In addition to a new form of eSports broadcasting, Black Ops 2 will also be accommodating a feature common in the eSports world: league play. Gamers who so choose will be able to rank themselves along with other players and be matched accordingly.

There's a certain amount of that contained within the ranking system – and that will still be included – but now certain players can join divisions and compete in "seasons" for ultimate bragging rights. Activision will wipe the slate clean between seasons, allowing players to try and hone their skills without feeling constantly at a disadvantage.

It's a pretty clever concept, as is the idea of shoutcasting, but only time will tell whether the eSports community begins to recognize something like Black Ops 2 as a worthy contender.

To sum up:

Live Streaming is built in. One button press. You just need good bandwidth and an optional USB camera for PiP. No extra equip.

The eSports stuff is cool: @DavidVonderhaar: "We saw an opportunity to bring eSports to the masses, and #BlackOps2 is the game to do it."

4 key things for me from the #BlackOps2 MP reveal last night: 1. New 'Pick 10' Create A Class system let's you FULLY customise your loadout.

2. Killstreaks replaced with Scorestreaks - 'desirable gameplay' (not just kills) scores you points towards all new rewards. #BlackOps2

3. New weapons, attachments and equipment bring 2025 to life. Weapon perks built into attachments, ie target finders and scanners

4. League Play/Divisions and eSports features like live streaming and CoDCasting bring true competitive play to every CoD player

New Capcom game "Remember Me":

[King Ellis]

I'm not much of CoD fan but Treyarch seem to do good work. It's interesting how they've now seemingly overtaken Treyarch as the favoured producer.

You can still say the main game hasn't changed much but adding in perephirals like streaming is a very cool feature, even if it will lead to more kids streaming themselves now they don't have to spend a lot of money on a capture card and a liscence for streaming software.

Also, obligatory:

[deli]

Game Informer Australia has delayed their new cover by a day to fit in a special announcement. They are gonna reveal it at 4PM after the EA conference is over. This suggests that something big is happening at the EA conference.

[Summers]

Black Ops was the worst COD game ever.

[Dan]

Dragon Age 3 is strongly rumoured so it could be that.

[deli]

Dragon Age 3 is strongly rumoured so it could be that.

But Dragon Age 2 sucked

[King Ellis]

Yeah, I was gonna say, not sure how well a 3rd Dragon Age is gonna sit with people.

[TKz]

Black Ops was the worst COD game ever.

I thought that too, but oh man this new one seems to have a lot of potential.

[apsham]

Black Ops was the worst COD game ever.

It was the one that my friends and I got the most play out of in the end, which I never saw coming. I guess it was mostly due to stuff like the Gun Game, which was implemented for public servers far too late in MW3 for me to give a damn.

[Summers]

For all the fun things they added to the game.. the problem was gameplay was shit. So same this time, if they add plenty of good additions but it plays exactly the same it'll be a let down. The amount of trade ins/returns/complaints Black Ops garnered was insane.

[Dan]

The best thing about Black Ops was no quick scoping.

[Cymbols]

Black Ops was the worst COD game ever.

This. The only good thing was that combat training thing. Black ops 2 will either be right up there with the best fps games or it will be terrible.

[deli]

Black Ops 2 is the first COD game I'm remotely interested in since COD4.

[apsham]

I've come to grips with the idea that I should never buy another COD game - not because I won't enjoy it, but about a month in people will have figured out all of the exploits and I'll be too lazy to learn them and actually get anywhere with it, so why would I bother in the end really? That's what has happened with every game since Black Ops for me that has come out (not just COD, Battlefield series and a few other shooters as well) and Black Ops really only lasted a long time because of the Gun Game with friends. Hell, I only really got into MW2 for a long time because of playing with EWB people.

[Summers]

I've had fun playing MW3 with Dan recently. And I can still beat people who know all the little exploits. As long as a game is fun to play, I'm happy. But the fact is they made Black Ops.. not fun.

[Dan]

EA about to start.

[deli]

ANOTHER Army of Two? Didn't the last one come out last year or something?

[King Ellis]

But this is GRITTY and SERIOUS!

And 40th Day was probably 2010. Fairly standard bi-annual release.

[Summers]

I half-played the first one. I wanted to finish it, it seemed fun-ish. Was the second one good?

[deli]

Most Wanted looks like Burnout Paradise 2. I like it.