Tag: Call of Duty

Fire Up The BBQ!

Redfall, the co-op first person shooter that has you fighting off legions of vampires, has teamed up with Smokey Q, an Australian business that specialises in all things BBQ seasoning, to bring the ‘Bite Back Spice Rub’, a unique blend of spices and seasonings to celebrate the game’s release.

The spice rub is supposed to capture the taste of slain vampires, with ingredients such as charcoal powder for added smoke, paprika, and a touch of heat from chipotle. It is gluten-free and vegan-friendly.

The founder of Smokey Q, Paul Lange, described the challenge of making vampire ash sound delicious as exciting, so if you have a very specific craving, it may be worth checking out. In addition, all net proceeds will be going towards Cure Cancer’s blood cancer research. Very appropriate!

Vampire Survivors!

In more vampire news, Vampire Survivors, a game that is heavily influenced by the choices you make, has an animated show on the way! The studio will be teaming up with Story Kitchen, who has members that have worked on John Wick, and the Sonic movies.

The studio has said “… the most important thing in Vampire Survivors has always been the story, so we are very excited for this and we hope you are too! It’s still early days for the show, but I can already say that we will be involved so that we can ensure it doesn’t have any vampires (probably)… This won’t affect game development in any way.”

FIFA’s Iffy Body Scans

Sydney Leroux, an olympic gold medalist, and a member of the United States women’s national soccer team, isn’t thrilled with her character’s appearance in the newest FIFA release.

She’s not alone, in that many other footballers are criticising their characters’ appearance in FIFA ‘23.

“Please tell me I did not do an entire body scan for that…” Leroux tweeted, before looking back at FIFA ‘16 where her appearance was significantly more accurate. “They had the headband, the braid, the neck tattoo, the overly plucked brows… deflate my boobs a bit and put a different jersey on. I’ll keep the brows at this point.”

Introducing to the Court of Duty…

Rumor has it that Kevin Durant, NBA champion and a former MVP, will be slam-dunking into the operators lineup for Warzone 2 and Modern Warfare. The official Call of Duty twitter posted a little clip showing an operator parachuting down, mid-dunk, with ‘Easy Money Sniper’ spray painted on the side of a building in the image, notable for being Kevin Durant’s Instagram handle.

Nothing is confirmed yet, but internet sleuths have dissected the few details and the profile of the operator, and it would hardly be the first time an NBA crossover happened.

And now for some upcoming games!

May 4

• Jected – Rivals (PC)
• Mia and the Dragon Princess (PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO, Switch)
• Propagation: Paradise Hotel (PC VR, Quest)
• Space Gladiators (PS4, XBO, Switch)

May 5

• Duru – About Mole Rats and Depression (PC)
• Hometopia (PC)
• These Doomed Isles: The First God (PC)
• Another Fisherman’s Tale (PC VR, PSVR 2, Quest 2)
• TT Isle of Man – Ride on the Edge 3 (PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO, Switch)

May 12

• The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (Switch)

That’s it this week in gaming news!

Record VR Sales Across The Holidays

The 2021 holiday season was a big one in terms of virtual reality systems and games, with the Oculus app topping the Apple App Store on Christmas, beating TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram.

Meta doesn’t release sales numbers for Quest headsets, so we can only piece together how popular it is through unofficial data points. So the Oculus app being at the top indicates a strong uptick in new headset usage. But that’s not all, Rec Room, a free social virtual reality experience has reported record numbers over the holidays, with over 1 million VR players logging in over a 60 hour period.

Apps such as Hand Physics Lab, Golf+, Eleven Table Tennis, and Loco Dojo Unleashed, have also reported a similar spike in new users.

PS5 Explains Their New VR2 System

PlayStation have announced the names for their new virtual reality system for the PlayStation 5 console. PlayStation VR2, and the new virtual reality controller, PlayStation V2 Sense controller.

PlayStation VR2 promises to take virtual reality gaming to a new level of presence and escapism, with new hardware features, greater depth of immersion, and new worlds being built. PS5 VR2 offers the following:

4K HDR 110-degree field of view, combined with an OLED display, means a display resolution of 2000×2040 per eye and smoother frame rates.

Inside-out tracking, with the player and their controller being tracked through cameras embedded in the VR headset, eliminating the need for an external camera.

Brand new sensory features, combining eye tracking, headset feedback, 3D audio, and the VR2 Sense controller to pull you deeper than ever into virtual reality. The most significant hardware feature being the motor in the VR headset that can vibrate to offer tactile feedback.

VR2 will detect the motion of your eyes, allowing the player to interact more intuitively with their environment.

PlayStation has announced that Horizon Call of the Mountain will be coming to the PlayStation VR2, making it one of the biggest franchises for the potential lineup available for the VR2.

Activision Sues Call of Duty Cheat Maker

Activision has asked a court to take action against EngineOwning, a cheat maker selling cheats to Call of Duty: Warzone players. This latest case is another battle in Activision’s war against hackers in their online battle royale, accusing EngineOwning for causing “irreparable damage to its goodwill and reputation”.

Activision alleges that the cheat maker has hurt sales through the distribution of aimbots, triggerbots, and other cheats. Other than allegedly ruining the online experience for thousands of players, Activision says that EngineOwning has infringed on their copyright, and violated its terms of service, and claims that “tens of thousands’ of players have been caught using EngineOwning’s tools over the past year.

And now for some upcoming game releases!

January 10:

• Super Sami Roll (XSX)

January 12:

• PUBG: Battlegrounds Free to Play (PC, PS4, XBO, Stadia)

January 13:

• The Anacrusis (PC, XSX, XBO)
• Mushroom Wars 2 (PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO)

Blizzard’ Entertainment CLO resigns.
Claire Hart the Chief Legal Officer of Activision Blizzard’s Entertainment announced her resignation this week posting on her LinkedIn saying “After more than three years at Blizzard Entertainment, I have decided to move on to my next adventure. The past three years have been full of unexpected twists and turns, but I feel honored to have worked with and met so many great people at Blizzard and across the Activision Blizzard businesses.” Claire Hart doesn’t make any comment about whether her resignation is anything to do with the very public and ongoing harassment lawsuit with Activision Blizzard.
An update on that lawsuit the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has reportedly launched a wide–reaching investigation into Activision Blizzard, they will be looking into how the publisher dealt with the multiple allegations of sexual harassment, abuse, and toxic behaviour. California Department of Fair Employment and Housing filed this lawsuit back in July. They also subpoenaed several of Blizzard’s higher executives including the CEO Bobby Kotick. It would appear that the SEC (Security and Exchange Commission) have started asking Blizzard to hand over various documents. These include personal files of those higher ups. A spokes person from Activision confirmed that there is indeed an ongoing investigation and that the company is cooperating with the SEC.

Gaming deals!
If you are looking for awesome deals on games now is the time with sales
rolling out before the Christmas period. Amazon have a bunch of good prices for PS4/PS5 such as;

• Deathloop – now $79 (down from $99.95)
• Death Stranding: Director’s Cut – $69 (down for $79.95)
• F1 2021 – now $56 (down from $99.95)
• Far Cry 6 – $72.90 (down from $99.95)
• Ghost of Tsushima: Director’s Cut – $99.95 (down from $124.95)

There is also a bunch of deals going for Xbox console games such as;

• Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate – now $44.98 (down for $89.95)
• NBA 2K22 – now $80.90 (down from $109.95)
• Star Wars Squadrons – now $14.98 (down from $59.95)
• Watch Dogs Legion – now $30 (down from $99.95)
  

September 23

• Diablo 2 Resurrected [PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO, Switch]
• Embr [PC, PS4, XBO, Switch]
• Flewfie’s Adventure [PC]
• Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries [PS5, PS4]
• Medieval Dynasty [PC]
• Sable [PC, XSX, XBO]
• Sea of Thieves Season 4 [PC, XSX, XBO]

September 24

• Death Stranding Director’s Cut [PS5]
• Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot [Switch]
• Lost Judgment [PS5, XSX, PS4]

September 28

• Chernobylite [PS4, XBO]
• Ghostrunner [PS5, XSX]
• In Sound Mind [PC, PS5, XSX]
• Lemnis Gate [PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO]
• New World [PC]
• Outer Wilds: Echoes of the Eye DLC [PC, PS4, XBO]

September 29

• Guardians of Hyelore [PC]
• Insurgency Sandstorm [PS4, XBO]

“The Games That Defined a Console Generation”

The crew discuss, as objectively as possible, the games that made a real mark on the last console generation. For better or for worse, these are the games that had impact, spawned clones, influenced the industry, sold systems (and peripherals) and shaped the gaming landscape.

For the purposes of this discussion, only games released on the 360, PS3 and Wii were considered. And yes, we are aware that we left out “Bioshock” (we all make mistakes).

In studio: Razor, Lee, Candi & Alanah

Aired 8 January 2014

Zed Games Podcast – Episode 201

Subscribe to the Zed Games Podcast on iTunes

An interview with a German site called KGN suggests that Borderlands developer GearBox Software have turned down an opportunity to develop a new Call of Duty game. Randy Pitchford revealed that the studio had been requested to develop the popular franchise’s next instalment, but he said no.

Pitchford commented that Gearbox will only develop a game “when we can contribute to an existing brand something new – a kind of unique perspective and a new approach,” (translation from German in Google Translate). He turned down Activision’s offer because he saw ‘no real challenge’ in taking the job, along with questioning the flexibility he might get from the publisher. Considering the franchise has achieved FPS dominance by repeating a similar formula every year, it’s reasonable to assume that Gearbox wouldn’t be allowed much creative influence over a new Call of Duty.

“You have to play by the rules of the series,” said Pitchford. “You have to do what is expected of a Call of Duty [game]. In this I see but no real challenge for us. It would not strengthen our reputation as a studio, it would not be really motivating for our team.”

It would have been a welcome change to see Gearbox develop a new Call of Duty, but Pitchford‘s refusal is neither surprising nor unreasonable.