Black Ops 2 will “surprise and innovate every area” says game’s boss

According to Treyarch studio head Mark Lamia, Black Ops 2 will “surprise and innovate in every area”. Speaking to Official PlayStation Magazine UK he the team had “really ambitious goals” adding “I’m very proud of [the team] wanting to take on the challenge of not just iterating on BLOPs but coming up with great new innovative gameplay on every front.”

[Angels3785]

...except for the technology powering the game......forgot that I guess....

[OneAboveAll]

Took the words right out of my mouth. I bet the players end up hacking their way to the top of the leader-boards on the first day also.

Why even have leader boards if people are going to cheat to begin with?

[thrasherv3]

To see where you stack up against your friends.

[decrypt]

@angels3785

They are making the game for 6 year old hardware and they want it to run at 60fps. If they bring new tech, like a new engine and upgrade the graphics the game will no longer be able to run at a smooth 60fps on consoles.

Activision has hit a jackpot with COD series as there hardly is any other option for console gamers looking to play a Smooth 60fps MP Shooter. Since console gamers dont have an option, Activision is taking advantage of the situation. Why would they want to invest in making a new engine and lose their competitve advantage. Specially when MS and Sony also dont feel new hardware is required yet.

Activision dont want to risk dissapointing their fans by making the game look better but then having poor fps and ppl should understand this. If you do think it is Activisions fault, then go on name me one First person shooter on console that actually has good graphics and runs at 60fps while having a 9v9 MP mode. Dont take a lame name such as Rage, that game doesnt have a proper MP mode to begin with. You wanna blame someone for Activision not progressing graphics blame Sony, Ms or blame yourself for sticking on to old hardware 6 years later.

[Zynga]

"If you do think it is Activisions fault, then go on name me one First person shooter on console that actually has good graphics and runs at 60fps while having a 9v9 MP mode. Dont take a lame name such as Rage, that game doesnt have a proper MP mode to begin with."

Took the words out of my mouth. Fanboys don't seem to understand and jealous that none of their precious games run like that. I bet you if GG made killzone run at 60fps and lowered their resolution, they would give COD a run for their money even if DICE did it too. The 60 frames matters and that's why COD is best selling game on the 360 and PS3 year after year. The majority of the ppl here on N4G are graphic whores. While the rest of world will just go buy and play it because they enjoy it.

[Angels3785]

COD is no innovator in the game department either (far from it since COD4). Infinity Ward and treyarch have been caught time and time again using IDENTICAL code textures, map layouts,buildings etc. And ye other games to reuse textures, but whole map layouts???and buildings???? No. Also when I say they aren't innovating in the game engine I don't mean that graphics are the most important thing...but to say that game engines aren't innovative is completely absurd. If game engines aren't an innovation we'd be with pong still...or Mario LOL. Plus the story is worse than a Michael bay movie. So essentially the only things you guys are pointing out are a good story (apperently) whichever is a total joke. Graphics not smattering (LOL, they may not be the most important, but it's part of the presentation, in peoples minds if it looks shit it shows a lazy effort and therefore is shit. And lastly the "innovative" gameplay, granted WAS innovative in COD 4, but now its the same old boring mundane repetative shit, with small additions here and there....nothing more. So graphics aside....its no longer good....and horribly easy...and catered to moods.

[fermcr]

"...except for the technology powering the game......forgot that I guess.... "

The most important thing that keeps a gamer interested in a game is game-play and story, not graphics. How many games have we seen this generation that have great graphics but are lacking in game-play and story, automaticly becoming crap games. As for this call of Duty i don't expect much from the story, but everybody plays call of duty for it's multi-player game-play.

[awi5951]

I was so over COD years ago. These guys have copied dice since the company was created. 1942 was a awesome multiplayer WW2 game then cod copied it. BF2 was a awesome multiplayer game set in a modern setting with unlocks, jets, tanks, gunboats, choppers, in a massive maps that was unlike anyother game out. Then console noobs ripped them off and brought their game play to the masses as modern warfare. It drives me nuts that infinity ward gets so much credit for a Gen that dice clearly made and they just ripped it off and brought it to the masses it makes me crazy.

[TekoIie]

Game engines count as innovation now?!?! Your so desperate to bash COD.

[GraveLord]

Why are you trolls so obsessed with graphics and game engines? If you knew what Call of Duty is, and the limitations of current consoles, you would know why the engine hasn't been upgraded.

[Hovis]

The problem with saying stuff like that is that it's all good and well but we all know that the core gameplay - 2 guns, knife slash, grenades, throw grenades back etc etc will remain unchanged.

I remember seeing the MW3 reveal trailer and it looked really interesting and diverse but you would always just end up with gun in hand mowing down loads of enemies because you hadn't crossed the invisible line.

Change the core gameplay or at least develop it and then the COD franchise will become fresh and interesting again.

[Tachyon_Nova]

I completely disagree with you there. If you change the core gameplay, in what sense is it still a CoD game. Their goal shouldn't be to appeal to everyone, if you do that then you will make a good game.

I agree that they should develop and add to the core gameplay though, and if you watch the trailer then it is hard to believe that that would not be the case with Black Ops 2.

[Hovis]

And therein lies the problem.

There are 2 types of people: those that like COD and those that don't.

No matter what you do in any form of entertainment you have to make your accessible to people (even the smallest amount) because that's how you enlarge your fanbase, so to speak.

With COD you know have the situation where its becoming increasingly hard for the developers to tempt people into playing the game because its 'stale', 'copied and pasted' etc.

But the franchise still needs to do what it does seeing as it isn't a spin off. Seeing the horses, plane section, numerous mechs and apparently sandbox gameplay personally I'm looking forward to seeing how Treyarch have altered the game.

[Prcko]

yea right
they say that every year,and what we get
nothing

[RedDead]

---
http://n4g.com/news/517670/...

Serious

First comment XD, just the same as the first on this page

[duplissi]

... the trailer has me hopeful. but we shall see. treyarch has at the very least been trying to differentiate their cod offerings- which i respect, however to date it hasnt been enough. lets hope they have the balls to actually do something this time.

[Somebody]

Drive/take control of something in a game? That's innovative?

A story that is actually "Terminators : The First Week of Armageddon" (a whole army of robots hacked and then turned on their master). That's innovative?

Zombies....that's innovation?

[berndogskate]

Yeah just make sure the ps3 doesnt get a shitty port

[gazgriff2k12]

yes yes we all hate cod. not true for me imho mw3 is the only big stinking let down its not evev mw2.5 more like mw0.5. black ops was the best cod game even though cod4 has the the best mp maps. black ops 2 seems to be about innovation dont like it dont buy or go a step further dont think about it. let alone bitch on the web cods so shit but i still buy and then spend all my time on game sites bitching about it cuz i aint got a life.

[DigitalAnalog]

Haha, that's really something considering it's the franchise that is notoriously known for it's rehashed features. Let me guess, they will implement something (that is already done previously before) and the COD fans would treat it as if it was something REVOLUTIONARY!

[ChunkyLover53]

You truly cant please everyone I guess. Had the trailer looked exactly like the original Black Ops, people would have called it a cut and paste job. The original Black Ops looked worse that Modern Warfare 2, which was out a year beforehand. The reason was that Black Ops used a modified World At War Engine, while this looks to use a modified Modern Warfare Engine.

I was pretty impressed with it, new futuristic setting is a huge gamble, looks like the possibility of horse warfare, mech's and other unmanned drones. They have come out and said its non linear in the campaign and rumor is that there is a zombie campaign.

As for hackers and glitching, Treyarch are the best at keeping that out of their Call Of Duty games, I know its popular to say otherwise, but Black Ops had NO hacked lobbies, and I think there were a ton of updates right away to fix any and all issues. Don't confuse Treyarch's pretty good Call Of Duty games with the lackluster Modern Warfare's of late.

And for God's sake, will people stop with the "using a 5 year old engine" nonsense. Call Of Duty 4 was an engine that actually had Quake coding, since then, the game engines have all been modified and don't look bad, its never going to look like Battlefield on the PC, so get over it.

[mamotte]

Yeah, yeah. It'll have explosions, and destroyed environments. In the end, it'll be run, shoot, throw grenade, hide until the fairy of autorecover takes the blood away from your eyes, and see how all the amazing playable scenes from the trailers are only videos.

[OneAboveAll]

@decrypt I can name plenty of games that look better than COD and run at 60+ fps.

BF3, ARMA 2, Crysis 1 and 2, Counter-Strike etc Time to buy a PC kid. trololol