CALL OF DUTY BLACK OPS 2

Activision has confirmed that Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 will be released November 13, 2012 on the PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360. The game is also coming to the Wii and Wii U. 

Black Ops 2 is being developed by Treyarch, who previously developed Call of Duty 3, Call of Duty: World at War and Call of Duty: Black Ops. 

At its press conference at E3 2012, Microsoft confirmed that all DLC for Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 will come to Xbox 360 first as a timed exclusive as with previous iterations. 

No precise amount of time was revealed, but previous Call of Duty DLC was exclusive to Xbox Live for a period of 30 days. 

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 will be set in the near future. One of the places that was seen at E3 2012 was Los Angeles. Activision promises that the game will push "the boundaries of what fans have come to expect from the record-setting entertainment franchise" and "propels players into a near future, 21st Century Cold War, where technology and weapons have converged to create a new generation of warfare."   

Part of the campaign takes place during the '80s, where familiar faces from Black Ops return such as Frank Woods, who did not die in the orginal Black Ops, but the vast majority of the story takes place in 2025. Here you’ll assume the role of Black Ops protagonist Alex Mason’s son, David Mason. 

China has risen to prominence by 2025, and they and the United States are embroiled in a modern cold war over the most precious resource on the planet – rare earth elements. Cyber terrorism will also play a major role in the plot. In Black Ops 2 a terrorist organization gets inside America’s vast drone network, using our most powerful military asset against the US.  

Black Ops 2 will feature branching story options similar to that of an RPG. There are parts of the campaign that you can fail; where you can succeed or not in keeping Menendez from achieving his goals. Treyarch promises a non-linear campaign with plenty of replayability.

 

According to the July 2012 issue of Official Xbox Magazine, Black Ops 2 will have multiple endings. 

 

What characters are returning in Black Ops 2? 

• Frank Woods
• Alex Mason

New Characters 

• Menendez - A terrorist leader and the main antagonist.
• David Mason - Alex Mason's son.
• Harper - A new character. 

The team at Treyarch began work Black Ops 2’s story over a year ago in conjunction with script writers like David Goyer (Batman Begins) and consulting from Peter Singer of the Brookings Institution. Since that time story after story have broken in the news, corroborating the likelihood that rare earth elements are a future point of contention.

The graphics engine has been overhauled, resulting in visuals that look a bit better than what’s come before. Facial animation has also received special attention, and Black Ops 2’s characters will be more expressive than what you’ve seen before.

To help diversify the campaign experience, Treyarch’s introducing new single player “Strike Force” missions. You control a black ops group, choosing from a number of levels based on the threat each presents in the current cold war. Success isn’t guaranteed, and if all your operatives die you lose the missions, changing the course of the conflict. You also pick one mission at the cost of others, meaning that you and your friends might not experience the same battlefields. 

Each Strike Force mission acts as a small sandbox battlefield, letting you choose the order you complete objectives. You get to choose what units you play as on the fly. Flesh and blood soldiers deploy alongside walking robots and UAVs, and at any given time you can zoom out to an overwatch view of the battlefield, selecting a new unit and then shifting to its perspective. 

You can rapidly possess whatever unit suits your needs in the moment. You can also issue orders from the overwatch mode, playing through entire Strike Force missions in a real-time strategy fashion.

Multiplayer will take place in the 2025 universe, not the past. The combat training system has been revamped for new players. Treyarch's goal is to make Black Ops 2’s multiplayer fun to play and fun to watch, with plans to break into the world of EA Sports. Activision’s Call of Duty social network, Call of Duty Elite, will be integrated at launch.

 

The Create a Class system has been much improved from the original Call of Duty Series. This time, each perk, weapon, and equipment (this will not include killstreaks) will have their own amount of points. In this way, every player will create a class in their own customizable way as long as their points don't add up to be over ten when going into a match. For example, I could have nearly five perks and only a knife in a match, because they all don't add up to be over ten points. This will make players more free of how they are going play multiplayer, but also make them make wise choices when choosing their load-out. 

Black Ops 2 introduces futuristic interfaces and weapons systems somewhat based off current technology. Here is some of the tech and weapons appearing in Black Ops 2:

• Wrist-mounted Iron Man-like launchers that fire small explosives. "Quad Drones"
• A new sniper rifle that uses millimeter wave technology, the same tech that airport security scanners use to see through walls. The same rifle also uses charged shots to sling ammo at high velocity, giving you the option to shoot through different density walls depending on how long you prime the shot.
• CLAW-colossal land drone
• VTOL aircraft
• Mech with legs
• Unmanned Drones
• Kard Pistol
• The M16 Assault Rifle
• The XM8 (Rumored that it can be modified into a shotgun, submachine gun, light machine gun, and into an assualt rife)
• M249 Saw Light Machine Gun
• As seen in the Black Ops 2 trailer, a tripled barreled gun. It was not revealed to be a shotgun or just an assault rifle.
• A scope that has x-ray vision has been revealed through the Black Ops 2 trailer and gameplay shown at E3.

The single-player campaign will feature two connected storylines, one set in the 1970s through 1980s and the other in 2025. The protagonist of Black Ops, Alex Mason returns as the protagonist in the Cold War section, where he will be fighting in proxy wars for the United States in the Cold War. Known locations for this section of the game include multiple sites in Central America and in Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion. This section of the game will also see the rise to infamy of the game's primary antagonist, Raul Menendez. Mason's friend and colleague Frank Woods will also return, and narrate the story into the 2025 section of the game. The 2025 section of the game features Alex Mason's son David as a protagonist. In it, a new cold war has broken out between China and the United States after China bans the export of rare earth elements following a cyberattack that cripples the Chinese Stock Exchange. In this era, war is defined by robotics, cyber warfare, unmanned vehicles and other modern technology. Taking advantage of this stand-off, Menendez attempts to bring the two powers to a full-blown war by inciting conflicts between the two. Known locations for this section of the game include Los Angeles, Singapore and Socotra, Yemen. 

In the 2025 section of the game, the player will have access to special 'Strike Force missions', that feature permanent death and the outcome of which can affect the course of the campaign's storyline.It has been hinted at that the side-plot of Viktor Reznov and his relationship with Alex Mason, which began in Black Ops, will be continued in Black Ops II. 

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