A new title update is now available for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of Call of Duty: Black Ops, while the PC version continues along a separate patching pathway.

The update can be grabbed on the PS3 or 360 simply by launching the game while connected to the PlayStation Network or Xbox Live. The patch includes the following fixes and tweaks. Read more »

While November is usually a month for strong hardware and software sales--thanks in part to Black Friday and the upcoming holiday season--this past November featured one of the best ever, in terms of "new physical retail sales."

According to the monthly (slimmer) NPD Group report, sales in November 2010 trampled that of November 2008--the "height" of the music/dance genre's popularity--by "roughly $30 million." Read more »

Call of Duty: Black Ops is getting a few more multiplayer-focused patches, according to the game's official forum. Patches for the PC, Xbox 360, and PS3 versions are all inbound to attack issues like a rabid pack of dogs after an eleven-man killstreak.

On the PC side, the notorious care package glitch is said to be disabled in the new wave of fixes. Using the glitch, players have been able to spawn an infinite number of care package, SAM turret, and sentry gun killstreak rewards--making the online experience understandably unbearable at times. Also on the menu is the correction of map specific clipping tricks players have been able to utilize to shoot through surfaces, improvements to spawning, and more. Read more »

Although some hints have pointed at the idea that Activision could eventually begin to charge for multiplayer access to Call of Duty--presumably in the form of a subscription model--one executive at the publishing giant says that plan is not in the cards.

"Are we going to be charging for multiplayer? The answer is no," recently appointed Activision CEO of its publishing division, Eric Hirshberg, told IndustryGamers. According to Hirshberg, the online community of the Call of Duty franchise is "absolutely integral" to the experience and Activision will "never charge for that." Hirshberg also noted that multiplayer is "not going to be something we'll attempt to monetize; it's part of the package." Read more »

When last I left Call of Duty: Black Ops, I had just gotten my hands on the necessary hardware that enabled me to play the game in 3D. Refereed to by some as the future.Although there was a little discomfort when tweaking the default settings--specific to my experience with Black Ops--overall the experience was impressive as a bonus but did not stand out as the "must play" way to experience the game. However, that feature focused on the game's single-player component.

Call of Duty: Black Ops

Call of Duty: Black Ops developer Treyarch has bested series creator Infinity Ward, IGN reports Activision parent company Vivendi declared last week. IW will get to fire back, though, as it has finished restructing after its major staffing losses this year.

"The Treyarch studio, which made this year's game, has done better than what the Infinity Ward studio could achieve a year ago," said CEO Jean-Bernard Levy at the Morgan Stanley TMT Conference on Friday. He's certainly right sales-wise, as Cod Blops broke the entertainment industry-wide launch day and five-day sales records set by Infinity Ward's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 last year. Cold Blops sold-through over $650 million in five days after launching on November 9. Read more »

Another patch was deployaed for the PC edition of Treyarch's record-breaking shooter Call of Duty: Black Ops on Saturday via Steam, bringing more much-awaited performance tweaks and fixes for a handful of other issues. Read more »

While Call of Duty: Black Ops broke the mold (for the franchise) by offering an option to play in 3D on console, the PC versions of past Call of Duty games already had that capability. With the necessary PC tech freshly in my hands, I wanted to offer my brief impressions of the game from the 3D perspective.

Call of Duty: Black Ops

Like other high-profile, multiplayer shooters, Call of Duty: Black Ops is insanely competitive online. The battlefield is so frantic and fast-paced that it's easy to get overwhelmed and decide to retire from really exploring the game's online offerings.

Call of Duty: Black Ops tries to alleviate some of that by offering players "Combat Training," a single-player experience where players can face off against A.I. controlled bots. The hope, according to Treyarch, is that players will become comfortable with the basics of the multiplayer mode and take their new-found knowledge to the online space. Read more »

Treyarch has released a title update to the Xbox 360 and PS3 version of Call of Duty: Black Ops, which contains a large amount of fixes for matchmaking and other issues. The full patch notes of this title update can be found at the bottom of the post.

Additionally, Treyarch's community manager Josh Olin has also detailed the various live updates that have been made to the game since release in the same forum post. Most of the live fixes dealt with some map problems, but others quickly fixed bugs like the infamous "care package glitch," which evidently decided to migrate over from Modern Warfare 2. Read more »

Having declared last week that Call of Duty: Black Ops was "the biggest entertainment launch ever" after raking in an estimated $360 million on launch day in North America and the UK alone, publisher Activision today announced Treyarch's Cold War-era shooter has broken another record--for "five-day worldwide sell-through in dollars"

Read more »

Although it has sold a record amount of units since launching on November 9, Treyarch's latest stab at the Call of Duty franchise came with its fair share of technical complications.

Of particular note was the game's performance on PC. As our review was focused on the console version of Call of Duty: Black Ops, we felt it was important to examine the PC version and note any issues with the game. Read more »

Call of Duty: Black Ops dropped this week and we've been playing it along with, oh, a few million other folks around the Net. It hoards the spotlight in Whatcha Been Playin? and fair warning, there are some spoilers in the discussion but with a clear disclaimer beforehand. Battlefield Play4Free and the Vietnam DLC for Bad Company 2 also come up as shooters rule this week's show. In the Warning your counter-points to the idea floated last week of 2-3 hour games get us started and we also open the question of how susceptible to fatigue Call of Duty looks to be? News of Rock Band developer Harmonix hitting the sales block, a handful of new game announcements, and more wrap it all up in the Front Page.

Weekend Confirmed Ep. 34 - 11/12/2010 Read more »

A patch launched on Steam last night for the PC edition of Call of Duty: Black Ops, which will hopefully alleviate some of the woes felt by many players on PC.

The patch brought two changes--"Performance improvement for dual and quad core systems" and "Friends fix for join in progress and Friends tab in server browser." A quick browse of the Steam forum finds that some are reporting Cod Blops is now running peachy for them, while others are less lucky. Read more »

I've been playing Call of Duty: Black Ops multiplayer for a few days now on both the Xbox 360 and PC (with varying degrees of success) and while casual fans won't find many differences between Treyarch's latest and Modern Warfare 2, there are a lot of changes at play here.

First and foremost, the fact that killstreaks do not chain together greatly reduces the chaos and, at least for myself, puts more emphasis on just playing the game instead of aiming for the next killstreak. The exploding RC car is quite common as it only takes three kills to earn, but it's pretty easy to hear coming. The few times I've been subject to going up against the dogs or a chopper gunner, it's been tough to deal with, but it's incredibly rare so far. Read more »