Rezurrection arrives for Call of Duty Black Ops

The fourth and final downloadable content for Call of Duty Black Ops, Rezurrection, is now available for the Xbox 360, expanding the amount of zombie-based mayhem you can enjoy.

Included in Rezurrection are the new Moon level, and remakes of ‘Nacht der Untoten’, ‘Verruckt’, ‘Shi No Numa’ and ‘Der Riese’. Plus you also get a free Zombies soundtrack with three new tracks (Avenged Sevenfold make another appearance with ‘Nightmare’) and a Moon theme. If you own the Hardened or Prestige edition of Black Ops, and you’ve downloaded the Classic Zombie pack, you can redownload to get the lot for free. For everyone else, it’s the usual 1200 MS points, and PC or PS3 owners will have to wait the usual delay of around a month before getting access.

In addition, to celebrate the map pack and the Call of Duty fan event, Call of Duty XP, there’s a double XP weekend from September 2nd until September 5th.

Black Ops Playlist Update removes perks and adds features

Coinciding with the release of the final Rezurrection Zombie Maps DLC, an update has been released for Call of Duty: Black Ops multiplayer, focusing mainly on a new Express playlist.

In Express, there is a 30 second lobby timer, and both the Ghost and Second Chance perks have been removed, presumably to speed things up, although we’d have probably stopped at removing Second Chance.

The Annihilation list has now been removed, and replaced by a DLC playlist featuring all the downloaded map packs, and the choice of DLC Moshpit orDLC  Hardcore game types.

And within Hardcore, Bombs and Flags have been removed and replaced with Headquarters and Capture the Flag playlists.

Not exactly a revolution in Black Ops multiplayer, but some variation is never a bad thing, and the express option could be appreciated by a number of people. The changes are live for Xbox 360, and are being rolled out on PS3 shortly.

Black Ops: PS3 & PC Annihilation due 28th July

Annihilation, Call of Duty Black Ops’ third downloadable content map pack, is finally due to hit PlayStation 3s and PCs after a month of being exclusive content for the Xbox 360.

To make it’s release even more worthy for PlayStation owners, there is rumour the weekend of its release could bring you delights in the form of double experience points.

With the Annihilation map pack downloadable content, released on July 28th, an additional four standard multiplayer maps are at your disposal and also packaged is another new zombies map. These standard maps go by the names: Drive-In, Hangar 18, Hazard and Silo. The lonesome zombie map is Shangri-La.

For a break down of all maps, check out our first impressions post from last month.

Call of Duty: Black Ops map pack 3, Annihilation, is available on July 28th via the PlayStation Network and Steam’s Store for PC gamers. No official price has been stated, but it can be assumed to float around the £10 mark. Plus save 10% if you pre-order on Steam.

So what do you think… Is the current steady rate of new DLC a nice addition or are the maps, and more importantly the game, becoming a little old or just fed up with the online multiplayer? Are these map packs worth it too? Leave your thoughts below.

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Call of Duty Black Ops update out for Xbox 360 with security upgrades

A new title update has been released and is available to download for Call of Duty: Black Ops on the Xbox 360, with two changes. The first are a number of security updates – as a result, there isn’t much in the way of details available, as that would kind of remove the point of a security update!

The second change is that Search and Destroy mode has had some audio tweaks for planting and defusing.

It’s the 11th Title update for Black Ops.

Black Ops Annihilation DLC adds 5 new Shangri-La Zombie Achievements

The new Annihilation DLC Map Pack for Call of Duty: Black Ops is released on June 28th, and details of five new Xbox Live Achievements have bee confirmed, adding up to an extra 150 Gamerscore points to complete.

As always, the achievements focus on the Zombie addition to the game, with all five achievements being given for tasks in the new Shanri-La map:

• Time Travel Will Tell (75G) – In Shangri-La, acquire the focusing stone.
• Blinded By the Fright (30G) – In Shangri-La, kill a Shrieker zombie while blinded by it.
• Zomb Disposal (30G) – In Shangri-La, dispose of a Napalm zombie without it harming any players.
• Monkey See, Monkey Don’t (5G) – In Shangri-La, get something from the monkeys.
• Small Consolation (10G) – In Shangri-La, use the 31-79 JGb215 on each type of zombie.

So if you want to have completed rinsed Black Ops, it’ll be time to get back to zombie killing on June 28th!

Call of Duty Black Ops – Annihilation DLC Map Pack Multiplayer Trailer

3rd Black Ops Map Pack ‘Annihilation’ confirmed for June 28

The Annihilation map pack has been confirmed for Call of Duty: Black Ops and will arrive first for Xbox Live on June 28th, 2011. A leaked image of a Gamestop promo turns out to have been authentic, with the new maps Hangar 18, Silo, Drive-In and Hazard.

Drive-In is apparently based on a similar experience to Nuketown, with a small open area and enclosed spaces for frantic shooting action. Hangar 18 is more of a mixed affair, whilst Silo is apparently the largest map to feature in Black Ops, but the built up areas mean plenty of oppotunities to hide and flank opponents. Finally Hazard is a reworking of a map from World at War, Cliffside. This time it’s themed as a golf course, and apparently is tailored to long distance weapons. If you don’t want to be sniped, you might want to stay off the fairway.

Finally the Annihilation map pack will also feature a new zombie map, set in Shangri-La, filled with traps and easter eggs.

“With Annihilation, Black Ops fans will get four exciting and unique multiplayer settings with Hangar 18, Drive-In, Silo and Hazard,” said Treyarch Studio Head, Mark Lamia.  “Players will also enjoy an all-new Zombies experience, Shangri-La, an exotic and mysterious map filled with deadly traps, dark secrets and innovative gameplay that will challenge even the most daring Zombie hunters.”

With the upcoming release of both Call of Duty Elite and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, this is guaranteed to be the last map pack for Black Ops, coming after First Strike in February (Which features Berlin Wall, Discovery, Kowloon and Stadium, plus Ascension zombie map), and Escalation in April (Zoo, Hotel, Convoy, Stockpile and the Call of the Dead zombie map).

It’ll cost £10 in real money, so it will be interesting to see whether the download figures are similar to the first two packs, or whether it suffers by being released after the MW3 release date and details were revealed. It also brings the DLC cost to £30, roughly the same price as you’d pay for a copy of Black Ops. There’s sure to be a double XP weekend to celebrate, but do you think it’s worth buying a new map pack for Black Ops now? And does a new map pack every 2-3 months hint that Call of Duty Elite membership might be worthwhile?

CoD: Blacks Ops First Strike – 1.4 million downloads in first 24 hours

The First Strike DLC pack for Call of Duty: Black Ops was released in February, and given the sales of Black Ops, it’s probably not surprising it proved incredibly popular, setting a new level for downloadable content for the Call of Duty series.

Figures were revealed as part of Activision Blizzard’s financial results for the first quarter of 2011, and not only did 1.4 million gamers download First Strike in the first 24 hours of release, but it also achieved a 20 percent higher digital sales figure than the preceding Stimulus Pack for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

It helped digital sales for the company increase by around $100 million year-over-year according to Activision Blizzard CEO Robert Kotick. It will be interesting to see whether the more recent Escalation Pack has achieved similar results, having become available in May.

There was no reference to sales of the First Strike pack on the Playstation Network, which would have helped to guage the financial impact of the current Playstation Network outage for publishers, but given the time-based exclusivity on Xbox, it seems that the Microsoft console is likely to remain the core platform for Call of Duty in the near future.

Black Ops: Escalation map pack revealed

Leaks are fun aren’t they?! Especially when it’s regarding a big hitting game like this one.

Well, it seems there may be some truth behind this leak which comes straight from an Australian retailer, nicely named GAME. With a slip of the tongue, a certain release date for the second map pack may have been mentioned along with it’s content.

It’s not been long since Call of Duty Black Ops had it’s first map pack content released, with that of First Strike. I mean, PC gamers have only had two weeks with it!! So one could throw out a question and ask why more maps are to be out so soon. Quite frankly, I don’t think I’ll ask. I have found, personally, the First Strike map pack a little… unfulfilling. Frustration levels reached a new high with a few of the maps.

Either way, there’s currently no confirmation from Activision regarding this leak, so the arrangement of the download may differ to what has been learnt today.

The second download map pack goes by the name Escalation and has the same map assignment as First Strike… In other words, four multiplayer maps going by the name Zoo, Hotel, Convoy and Stockpile; with a single zombie map adequately titled Survive. And at the moment, only the Xbox 360 version has been dated, with the release stated for the 3rd May.

As mentioned earlier though, this may not actually be the case because it’s not been confirmed. But lets all hope it is!! I want some new maps!!

Knowing that First Strike was 1200 Microsoft Points, would you be willing to spend another 1200 on Escalation?! Or have you given up on Black Ops altogether?! Leave you thoughts below.

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Black Ops: First Strike dated for PC

Today, Call of Duty Black Ops developers Treyarch, dated and priced the First Strike downloadable content for the PC iteration of the game.

On Friday, March 25th, the already released Xbox Live and PlayStation Network download will be available for PC gamers who want to extend their current multiplayer experience online. Four maps for your team deathmatch and capture the flags etc, and the awesome zombie map, Ascension.

To get our thoughts on the five new maps, check out our review here. Otherwise, if you knew you were going to get it, check out the offer on Steam at store.Steampowered.com, selling the download for £10.34, saving 10%.

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