Digital Trends
What will the company that brought you the legendary Guitar Hero, Tony Hawk and Call of Duty franchises have on tap for E3 this year? More from each, of course. And a few surprises as well.
In a press release earlier this week, Activision outline all the titles it will have on display at this year’s E3, including:
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare 2
DJ Hero
Guitar Hero 5
Blur
Tony Hawk: RIDE
Marvel(TM): Ultimate Alliance 2
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Wolfenstein
Singularity
PROTOTYPE
VoIP provider Vonage has announced Vonage Pro, a new service that enables customers to use their home telephone number when making calls using any high-speed Internet connection when they’re away from home. So, Vongae Pro customers can place a VoIP call anywhere they have sufficient Internet connectivity, and call recipients will see the call come through just as if it had been placed from the Vonage customer’s home phone—handy for call screening and Caller ID.
You can bet that the people at Activision, the people who publish the first-person shooter game Call of Duty 4, arerubbing their hands with glee. A map extension pack they produced for the game Call of Duty 4 has been downloaded over a million times in just nine days through the Xbox Live service. That’s a record for the Xbox Live Marketplace. Between April 4 and 12users racked up a spectacular 30 million sessions with more than 32 million hours of gameplay on the maps. According to figures, the game was already the best-seller of last year, with morethan nine million units paid for over the counter. Will Kassoy, senior vice president of global brand management at Activision Publishing, said, "Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfaredelivers one of the best online multiplayer experiences ever. We are excited to be able to expand that experience and deliver a new variety of locations and environments which have all the intensityfans have come to expect with Call of Duty."
Glu Mobile announced today that it has entered into an exclusive agreement with game publisher Activision to bring the Call of Duty video game franchise to mobile phones.
The Call of Duty first-person combat franchise is based around World War II European theatre scenarios; in various editions of the game, players take on the roles of a member of The Big Red One infantry division, a gunner on a B-17 bomber, soldiers in the Normandy Breakout campaign, and many more scenarios. The Call of Duty franchise has always prided itself on presenting intense, realistic combat scenarios and multiplayer capabilities to PC and console gamers.
If you’ve been honing your skills on first-person shooters and strategy games, waiting for your one big break when you just know you’ll be able to make it big…Activision, Best Buy, and Spike TV want to hear from you. The three companies have announced an online casting call for Game Head: Call of Duty 3 Challenge where 16 participants will get a chance to compete against each other in Activision’s forthcoming World War II actioner Call of Duty 3 as well as take part in real-life boot-camp style challenges. The competition will be filmed for broadcast on Spike TV’s Game Head program on November 10, 2006, with the winner earning a grand prize package with an estimated $10,000 to $15,000, including VIP access to Spike’s Video Game Awards, a complete home entertainment system from Best Buy, and trip for two to Normandy, France, site of the WWII D-Day invasion.
Mac gamers now have another reason to spend more time at the screen: Aspyr has shipped Activision’s Call of Duty 2 for both Intel- and PowerPC-based Macintosh systems.
Call of Duty 2 is an in-the-action shooter game based in World War II and places players in the role of typical soldiers in the conflicts most epic European theater battles. Call of Duty 2 adds more tanks, troops, onscreen explosions, and a much wider scope with bigger battles and a wider range of environments. And, of course, it wouldn’t be an action game without graphics improvements: Aspyr says its new COD2 engine offers stunning visuals and smoother gameplay than ever before. The game also includes a new battle chatter system, so members of your squad can alert you to changing battle conditions, and COD2 supports multiplayer online gaming.
Actiontec Electronics was on hand at CES in Las Vegas in early January showing off their new VoSky Call Center, a device designed to bring mobility to users of the Skype VoIP service. The VoSky Call Center is available now for $69.95.
The VoSky Call Center plugs into a USB port on any Internet connected computer and also a stationary or cell phone with which it will be used. Users can then use that phone to call a phone number to which the Call Center is connected and follow the voice prompts to initiate the call. Calls can received via Skype due to an incoming call forwarding feature and notification can be had on any phone when Skype contacts come online via a call return feature.
Tekkeon, a maker of mobile electronic products accessories, yesterday announced the pending availability of a new Bluetooth headset. The ezTalker digital ET3000 is priced at $119.95. TheezTalker digital, said Tekkeon, uses Bluetooth standard v1.2 to get a cleaner sound when talking with people on a mobile phone. The overthe ear design features a 64 x 48 OLED which provides an incoming caller’s number as well as a list of the last 15 incoming calls for redialing purposes. Also available on the display is informationsuch as headset status, connection status, battery level and volume level. Other features of the ET3000 include a rechargeable battery which provides up to five hours of talk time and 120hours of standby, a weight of just under an ounce and a multi-function button which provides access to pairing, call answer, call end, call reject, power and voice dialing. “ezTalker digitalhas been designed to enable users to virtually cut the ties with the mobile phone,” said Jerry Yang, president of Tekkeon. “By taking advantage of incoming caller ID, a stored call list, and a longlist of advanced features, users can answer and make calls directly from the headset, without having to juggle the headset and the mobile phone.”
Video game publisher Activision today said they had begun shipping Call of Duty 2, the sequel to the run away WII game Call of Duty. Developed by Infinity Ward, Call of Duty 2 is priced at $49.99 and rated T for Teen. It is available for the PC now, with an Xbox 360 version expected Nov. 15.
Call of Duty 2, Activision said, is powered by a new Infinity Ward gaming engine. It is set across three Allied campaigns: Russian, British and American. The game offers a character-driven experience, as gamers can play through each storyline to its completion, or choose to engage the enemy in historic battles chronologically from 1941 through 1945. Players, for example,
Call of Duty: United Offensive allows gamers to experience more of WWII’s most legendary conflicts through the eyes of Allied soldiers fighting for the liberation of Europe through 13 intense new single player missions. Featuring three all-new campaigns, the game lets players join the U.S. 101st Airborne during the Battle of the Bulge, the British campaign as an airman shooting down German ME-109s from a B-17 bomber, and the Russian frontlines as a conscript in the crucial eight-day Battle of Kursk.
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