FPS General

Earlier this morning, Treyarch released the live action trailer for Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, after teasing the release over the weekend. As expected, the trailer continues on with the 'There's a Soldier in all of Us' campaign and features several high-profile cameo appearances.

Most of the trailer is basically real-life versions of some of the neat things we've seen in Black Ops 2 trailers, including the CLAW mech, horses and high-tech wrist band thingies.

As for the cameos, we haven't yet pinned down every single one, but we know that we spotted Robert Downey, Jr, Omar Sy, FPSRussia, and iJustine. Activision wasn't kidding with this one, bringing in some top celebrity personalities to endorse the game. Check it out above! Did you see anyone that we missed?

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 is due to hit shelves on Tuesday, November 13th, 2012.

Saturday morning, Treyarch posted an update on Twitter announcing that a live action trailer for Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 was in the works and will be debuting on Monday, October 29th in the morning.

Also teased in the announcement are potential cameos. While nobody is mentioned specifically, Treyarch asks if we're, 'Expecting any cameo appearances?' Previous Call of Duty live-action trailers have featured the likes of Jonah Hill and Sam Worthington (who also does the voice of Black Ops protagonist Alex Mason). Other cameos have included Dwight Howard of the Los Angeles Lakers.

We're also curious if Black Ops 2 will continue the 'There's a Soldier in all of us' campaign that actually started with the original Call of Duty: Black Ops and continued with Modern Warfare 3. Our bet is that the campaign will continue with Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. It's memorable, it's catchy and it's very handily associated with the Call of Duty brand. We wouldn't pass up that opportunity if it was us.

Who do you think will show up in the live action trailer for Black Ops 2 on Monday? The trailer is set to debut at 7:00AM (PDT) on Monday morning. We'll see you there!

If you've been dying to see Call of Duty: Black Ops 2's coveted pre-order bonus map, Nuketown 2025, in action, than today is your lucky day!

Kind of.

Activision has released a trailer for Nuketown 2025, offering 5 seconds of Nuketown 2025 in action. It's not actually multiplayer gameplay or any sort of gameplay at all, but rather 5 seconds of a nuclear detonation before just ending. Astute Call of Duty players will remember that Nuketown was actually a 50's era town built in the middle of nowhere for the United States government to test nuclear weapons on.

Littered with mannequins, retro cars and sporting two model homes on either sides of the tiny play area, Nuketown was quite the experience. With Nuketown 2025, we've been curious if this is simply a straight rehash of the original map or if it was a brand new nuclear test site, rebuilt in the year 2025. Well, we still don't know! You didn't think it would be that easy, did you?

Stay tuned for more on Nuketown 2025, presumably to be released at a point in the future.

The days of Doritos and Mt. Dew tie-ins are long gone for Call of Duty; the franchise has moved on to bigger and better things, like high-definition 3D television sets. In their recently announced promotional partnership with LG, the duo is showing off how amazing Black Ops 2 will look in 3D with a brand new 2D trailer.

The trailer itself features a lot of Black Ops 2 footage from the campaign, some of which we have already seen and some of which is brand new. At any rate, the trailer can be viewed by clicking the image above.

Black Ops 2 is only a few weeks away, now, so expect Treyarch and Activision to step up the marketing campaign with (hopefully) new trailers and behind-the-scenes features. Stay tuned! 

When Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 launches on Nintendo's upcoming Wii U console, Call of Duty Elite won't be along for the ride.

Activision revealed to Kotaku this morning that they have no immediate plans for Call of Duty Elite to support the Nintendo Wii U. Whether this is due to online issues with Nintendo's upcoming console, or whether Activision simply isn't able to dedicate the man-hours to a console on which Call of Duty will be played by fewer consumers, we don't know. In the email to Kotaku, Activion said that, "we are currently evaluating options for Call of Duty Elite to support Nintendo's Wii U game system, however Call of Duty Elite for Call of Duty: Black Ops II will not support this platform when the game launches on November 13th."

As is always the case with these things, Activision is certainly not ruling out the potential for Black Ops 2 to support Call of Duty Elite on the Nintendo Wii U in the future, it just isn't going to do so at launch. When Modern Warfare 3 launched last year, Activision revealed that Call of Duty Elite was not going to be available on PC. As of early 2012, Activision was maintaining the assertion that they were working on bringing Elite functionality for PC online but no further details were released at that time.

Unfortunately, with Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, PC is once again being left in the dust. Activision has revealed that they are working diligently to get Elite working on PC but it isn't in the cards for launch.

For what it's worth, PC and Nintendo Wii make up roughly 4% of the market share for Call of Duty games.

It's become something of a tradition for publishers to release the 'launch trailer' for a game in the week preceding the actual launch, but this...this is something special.

Activision just posted the official Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 launch trailer for public consumption a full month ahead of the game's release date. Unless they're going to pull a Gearbox and slip Black Ops 2 out ahead of schedule (hint: this will never happen), it seems like they got a bit ahead of themselves here.

Either way, the trailer is released and, as you might have expected, boasts some licensed classic rock. The first Black Ops boasted a couple tracks from The Rolling Stones and, not to be outdone, Black Ops 2's launch trailer is set to 'Back in Black' by AC/DC.

Do you get it? Back in Black. Black Ops 2?

Activision has announced that when Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 hits shelves next month, Call of Duty Elite will make the jump from paid-subscription service to completely free.

Previously, players were able to use a portion of the stat-tracking social media network for free but if you wanted to experience the service to its fullest capacity, you were required to shell out $50 a year for Call of Duty Elite Premium. With Black Ops 2, Activision is shedding the Premium portion of Elite and will be offering the entire service for free to all users.

Eric Hirshberg

"We've learned a lot in our first year of Call of Duty Elite, and we're very proud that we over delivered on our commitment of playable content to our premium members. What we have realized is that several of the Call of Duty Elite services which are currently only available to our premium members for Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare® 3 are things that would further unite, engage and delight our player community.

So we are going to make them free for Call of Duty: Black Ops II."

In addition to the Elite announcement, Activision revealed that Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 will receive four DLC map packs throughout the next year. These map packs will be available individually or all together as part of the Black Ops 2 Season Pass. Priced at $49.99, the Season Pass will guarantee you all four DLC packs for a discounted individual price. 

Separately, the map packs will run you $15 each. Multiply that by four, and you can expect to unload $60 on DLC. Going the Season Pass route will save you around $10 on the year.

Check out the video above to see how Call of Duty Elite will be integrated into Call of Duty: Black Ops 2.

In our continued coverage of Treyarch's upcoming first-person shooter, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, we're taking a look at how the game is expected to play on PC.

PC and Call of Duty have a fateful history together, an epic tale of greatness from small beginnings, fraught with all of the joy and heartbreak that one would expect from nearly a decade's worth of games. When Call of Duty launched back in 2003, it was exclusively available for computers. For you younger readers out there, just take a minute to digest that. There was once a time where Call of Duty on console didn't exist. The very thought was laughable.

The franchise debuted on PC and promptly began carving its path to greatness. In current day, Call of Duty is synonymous with Xbox 360 and home gaming consoles, but the plain truth is; without the PC, Call of Duty as we know it would not exist today. Therein lies the heartbreak in this story: as the franchise continues to grow, it seems to be moving further and further away from the platform from whence it came, rather than refining and taking advantage of the power that PC's offer.

Right around this time each year, PC players around the world are wondering if this is the Call of Duty title that will return the franchise to greatness on their platform. Will Black Ops 2 be that game?

To take a look at what we know about Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 on PC, we turn to Crazy Penguin; long-time Call of Duty player and PC aficionado.

Check out the video above and be sure to subscribe to our channel on YouTube. Do you have any Black Ops 2 details on PC that we missed? Share them in the replies or over on YouTube.

Treyarch has released a fresh batch of Black Ops 2 screenshots to brighten your Friday afternoon, featuring some new shots of multiplayer as well as a couple Zombies images as well.

The screenshots primarily feature multiplayer on Overflow, a map that looks reminiscent of previous urban maps set in the war-torn Middle East. Some of the screenshots suggest that Overflow will have some tight areas of close quarters fighting in what appears to be a marketplace.

Other images take place on Express and Hijack, the latter of which we actually previewed in our multiplayer video last month.

Check out the screenshots in the gallery below.

Activision has announced a partnership with LG to reveal that Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 will be playable in 3D, presumably on all platforms that support it.

Players who want to enjoy 3D gameplay on their home gaming console will have to own a 3D TV but if you don't own one already, LG is hoping to entice you with a special offer for Black Ops 2. If you buy an LG CINEMA 3D TV at the same time that you pick up a copy of Black Ops 2, LG will be offering a special discount. No word yet on how much that discount will be, but something is better than nothing, right?

In addition to the 3D announcement, which came as no real surprise, LG and Treyarch revealed a pretty amazing feature called LG Dual Play.

This technology actually allows two players to play local split-screen in multiplayer or Zombies, except both players will be able to see a fullscreen image on the TV rather than splitting the screen space in half. LG accomplishes this by projecting two 2D images on the TV at the same time. One player will use a pair of glasses with two left-side lenses while the other player will use a pair with two right-side lenses. 

With these glasses, both players see completely different images on the TV, removing the inevitability of your opponent screen-peaking to get cheap kills. 

Check out http://www.lg.com/us/callofduty for more information on LG's involvement with Call of Duty: Black Ops 2.