More Black Ops Coming in May

An accidental flyer was posted this morning on Game Australia’s website revealing the next map pack for Activision and Treyarch’s Call of Duty: Black Ops. Titled Escalation, the map pack will be released on May 3 according to the flyer. An Xbox Live banner is also shown, hinting that it will be hitting Microsoft’s platform first, similar to the first map pack, First Strike. The flyer has since been pulled from the website, but you can see a picture of it below.

Today in Gaming

The Worst Game in the World

Fox News posted an article yesterday asking, “Is Bulletstorm the Worst Video Game in the World?” They quoted several psychologists talking about the game’s violence and its effect on younger audiences, even though clinical studies have been inconclusive. One psychologist was even quoted as saying, “The increase in rapes can be attributed in large part to the playing out of [sexual] scenes in video games.” However, according to the National Crime Victimization Survey, the per-capita victimization rate of rape has declined from about 2.4 per 1000 people in 1980 to about 0.4 per 1000 people, a decline of about 85%. Beyond the fact that their statements are false, Rock, Paper, Shotgun reached out to the three psychologists for follow-up statements, but only heard back from one. Billy Pidgeon, a video game analyst with M2 Research, was quoted as saying, “Games without sufficient quality of gameplay -- games that include highly objectionable violent or sexual content -- often pump up the level of this kind of content to gain media attention. This tactic typically fails, as can be seen in the poor sales performance of titles such as BMX XXX and Postal,” but that’s only about a quarter of what was actually said, check out the rest here. Bulletstorm follows all of the ESRB’s guidelines for both gameplay and marketing and to be labeled as worst game in the world by Fox will only help in its promotion. Keep up the good work Electronic Arts, Epic Games, and People Can Fly. Bulletstorm will be available for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC on February 22.

They’re Coming Out of the Walls

This whole Infinity Ward v. Activision suit is really getting out of hand. New information seems to be coming from everywhere about who schemed with who. After filing a motion last month to amend its countersuit against Vince Zampella and Jason Wast, former heads of Infinity Ward and now founders of Respawn Entertainment, Activision let loose a bevy of documents today that could prove EA’s indirect involvement in the whole debacle.