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We told you yesterday that a big Call of Duty: Black Ops reveal was due later this month, via our UK sister magazines Official PlayStation and Official Xbox. Well details have come through a bit sooner than that, through a series of reports by USA today. Visiting CoD studio Treyarch, USA Today has been demoed certain parts of Cold War-set game, and revealed some pretty exciting factoids. We\'ve collated all the most exciting and important ones for you, and created a great big list of Everything You Need To Know.[list=a]Four-player co-op is confirmed.You\'ll play at least two characters in multiple international conflicts.American and Russian black operatives have been consulted. Given the above points, we reckon that means you might play on both sides of the conflictExact setting dates haven\'t been revealed, but the game will play out over a long period of history.As black ops teams were privy to superior intelligence and had free access to any equipmenent they wanted, weapons and ammo will be more varied this time around. A military crossbow has been confirmed so far, but it\'s not just for sniping. CoD:BO (unfortunately aromatic acronym) allows on-the-fly ammo changes for some of its weapons, so the bow can also be fitted out with exploding arrows.There\'s also an AUG assault rifle that will take multiple attachments. The SR-71 Blackbird is the new AC-130. During one level, the recon plane is used to observe terrain from above, with the player directing the squad below with a pointer in order to help them avoid enemy Russian convoys. Immediately after this, you\'ll take control of the squad on the ground.Treyarch head Mark Lamia has said that the game is \'epic in scope\', being focused around a story that \'has meaning and character and will be multi-threaded\'. Perhaps more of an indication that Treyarch will be giving the Cold War an ambiguous, mutli-sided treatment?CoD: BO is using the same full-actor motion-capture technology as Avatar. That means that not just gestures, but whole performances are captured, right down to facial expressions and line delivery. Expect some serious emoting this time around.It looks like Treyarch is following Modern Warfare\'s lead in terms of big action movie set-pieces. Cliff-diving and rappelling through windows are already in.
First things first, before we post any of these scans, a huge thanks to boyle111 of Twitter who kindly made the scans. They were subsequently posted to WePlayCoD – thanks also to them for a great write-up.These images are scans of the latest issue of the Official Xbox Magazine, who got an exclusive hands-on with Call of Duty: Black Ops over at Treyarch’s HQ, and delivered a huge feature on it. Without further ado:[size=+1]General[/size]OXM reckons, unsurprisingly, that this will be ‘one of this year’s very biggest, and best’ games The graphics, as we saw in the teaser trailer, are amazing – in particular building are demolished brilliantly and ‘dynamic shadows’ that build tension ‘Black Ops has a different, grubbier vibe to MW2′ Treyarch are approaching the game as ‘3 games in one’ – single player, co-op, and multiplayer There’s ‘dedicated co-op’, suggesting a departure from WaW – Treyarch ‘changed the subject’ when asked about zombies Treyarch have taken ‘creative risks’ There are more than 200 people working on Black Ops The difference between World at War and Black Ops is like the difference between CoD2 and CoD4 [size=+1]Campaign[/size]You’re a member of SOG (Studies and Operations Group) working in deniable ops during the Cold War – we knew that. There’s fighting in ‘Vietnam, the frosty Russian mountains, the Laotian undergrounds and everything in between’ Naturally, you’ll be fighting the North Vietnamese Army In ‘WMD’, the mission USA Today played, you are indeed controlling the SR-71, and you issue orders to soliders down below In ‘Victor Charlie’, you start off in a crashed helicopter in the Huong River, and make your way upstream, swimming, with only a knife In ‘Payback, you’re in a fully-controllable helicopter – you drive it and shoot it [size=+1]Gameplay[/size]‘Stealth plays a big part’ Rapelling: you’ll be able to feel ‘each crash back into the cliffside with a bone-jarring thud’ You can call in air support to decimate NVA buildings Your player has a voice, unlike other CoD games
