New Website!!!

WE HAVE OUR OWN WEBSITE!!

well, maybe?

It is a .webs domain. We are getting a .com domain but we are having issues....

So in the meantime, please ignore the .webs after the domain

www.giochu.webs.com

Call Of Duty Civil War

I heard a discussion on a podcast today about why the American Civil War rarely gets used as a setting for FPS war games (in the context of joking about the next Call of Duty). A couple of points I thought would make for interesting discussion:

1. Call of Duty games generally "pick a side" in a conflict. Is it an absolute certainty that the Yankees would be the side picked? Would it be to un-PC to play on the confederates side?

2. Would the ingame dialogue be to un-PC? In the latest COD games, there is a lot of questionable dialogue using racial slurs (no doubt accurate to the time / setting), could it be done if a game was set in the Civil War?

3. (Recalling the Iraqi kid who got internet famous for whinging about COD4), would you be up

Ezio Trilogy For Ps3

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Today, Sony and Ubisoft revealed that Assassin’s Creed: Ezio Trilogy will be released for PlayStation 3 this November. It's a PS3 exclusive.

The trilogy combines Assassin’s Creed II, Assassin’s Creed: Revelations and Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood into one collection, and will be released in North America on November 13th. It will cost $39.99. Its release timing and price in other territories remains to be seen.
While the Ezio Trilogy won’t quite make it to stores in time for Assassin’s Creed III (which launches Stateside on October 30th), it appears that Ubisoft is still cognizant of trying to catch folks up on the AC games they might have missed.

Black Ops: The Future is Bright

Millions of people play Call of Duty every year, but many of them don’t experience everything the games have to offer. For some, Call of Duty games have become campaign-only experiences with multiplayer being looked at as “too unapproachable” or “intimidating.” Even some of the players killing one another online every day never do things like Prestige or use the film systems, often because they don’t want to lose their progress or it’s too overwhelming, respectively. Rather than just rehashing the same multiplayer modes and other tools, developer Treyarch is attempting to employ a number of smart tweaks to known systems in an effort to make Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 the most approachable Call of Duty to date. They want you, person-who-only-plays campaign, to jump into multiplayer and learn the ropes with people who make you feel competitive. They want everyone to create films with as little or as much effort as they want. They just want you to feel like Black Ops 2 was made for you, whether you’re a headshot master or the type of person who can’t seem to keep your gun straight. Any of the millions of people who have gotten into Call of Duty over the years have probably experienced the hardships of starting out. You come into the game after the franchise has been out for years, or maybe even jump back in to the new game after it’s been out for a few months, and you get your ass handed to you. You just can’t compete with a legion of hardcore fans that have way more hours than you to hone their skills, and thus some of you put down the controller in frustration, never to return. To combat this, Treyarch is first and foremost introducing Combat Training, a series of special takes on team deathmatch and Black Ops 2’s objective-based modes. Here players can level from 1-10, facing off against teams that have a mix of human and AI opponents. When they hit level 10 they’re no longer allowed to participate, though anyone can still do “Bot Stomps,” teaming up with five of their friends and just murdering AI opponents for no experience. The hope is that the Combat Training modes will ease new players into the game’s multiplayer in a less-harsh environment, and that things like Bot Stomps will allow them to fight easier enemies and experience some of the game’s cooler things, like the Kill Streak-replacing Score Streaks. Even skilled players could find something to enjoy in Bot Stomps, as Treyarch views this as an excellent way for clans to plan out tactics and practice them in private before taking them out in real matches. Call of Duty for the yeoman. Of course once you get a bit of multiplayer experience under your belt you get to build a class, and Treyarch is completely redoing Black Ops 2’s loadout system to make it intuitive for all users and still feel like something new for longtime fans. Referred to as the “Pick 10 system” (which you can read about more in our previous coverage), this is where you get the most flexible loadout system ever implemented in a CoD title. Every gun, attachment and perk has a value of one, and in the Pick 10 system you get to choose a loadout of your own devising that combines most any combination of them. For instance you could take a primary weapon with two attachments, a secondary weapon with the same, then two perks and two grenades. Or you could use Wild Cards, which take up a precious slot but in turn allow you to break a game rule, to go all out on a primary weapon and give it three attachments and then use another Wildcard to take four perks instead of three. The sheer number of combinations you can do is pretty incredible, and should give even seasoned fans a lot to think about and fun ways to experiment with their loadouts. Snake Eyes cosplay optional. If the Pick 10 system sounds too overwhelming for new players they can also use pre-made loadouts or tweak these to suit your personal playstyle. Additionally, you won’t have everything unlocked at once, but instead will have to hit the right level to unlock the option to use tokens (earned through leveling) to permanently unlock the gear. Maybe you don’t think the Pick 10 system lets you take enough gear, or maybe you wish that you could play multiplayer with just your friends. Well, for you Treyarch’s including a robust Custom Games mode in Black Ops 2. You can choose between any of the modes, add bots, restrict content, modify the Pick 10 system so you can choose as few as three or as many as 17 items, and more. If you want to create your own take on Capture the Flag or Kill Confirmed and then play with your buddies then Treyarch wants you to do so. With Custom Games it’s like Treyarch is trying to tell you that they don’t care how you play, just that you’re playing. If all you want to do is play team deathmatch you can do that, but for people looking for something new you can check out the new Hardpoint mode, as well as multi-team battles. Hardpoint is essentially Halo’s Crazy King, with capture points that bounce around the level, forcing each team to see who can hold it the longest before it up and moves again. It’s nothing revolutionary, but it’s a great addition to Black Ops 2’s multiplayer suite. The multi-team battles, though, they really change up the dynamic of a multiplayer match. You can play three teams of four or four teams of three, with up to 18 players in a Custom Game match. The only modes currently available in multi-team battles are team deathmatch, Hardpoint and the returning Kill Confirmed, but even with the limited list this mode makes for a great alternative to standard matches. Each team essentially turns into a roving pack, with teamplay and communication becoming crucial. Multi-team battles end up having the frantic pacing of a free-for-all match with the teamplay of TDM. It’s a weird mix that just works, and is a hell of a lot of fun. If you decide to spend the time to level up you’ll have the option to Prestige in Black Ops 2, only now you don’t lose your Challenge and weapon progress. Let me restate that, because it’s a big deal: You don’t lose your progress when you Prestige in Black Ops 2. Instead, Prestiging earns you a token you can use to ignore level requirements and unlock an item permanently, as well as one of three additional options: an extra slot for Custom Class slot; reset your stats just like you would in previous versions of Prestige; a refund that you can use at any point during your Prestige level allowing you to get all your unlock tokens back and spend them how you see fit. The reset option is there for the hardcore players who liked the challenge of starting over, but the other choices exist because they want more people to participate in Prestiging, which previously the studio found people avoided. With 10 levels of Prestige available, and emblems available for each that showcase just how much of a badass you are, the hope is that Black Ops 2 Prestige system will draw people in like never before. Once Treyarch has all of us playing hours and hours of Black Ops 2 multiplayer, they want us to get involved with the community. One part of this strategy is the built-in shout cast capabilities, which Treyarch hopes will build up a whole new wave of Call of Duty personalities. The other part of this is improved Theater. Just like before you can cut together your games, editing short films that showcase your skills or maybe show a hilarious failure. For some people, though, the system was too complicated and time consuming, thus they avoided it altogether. To better serve these parts of the audience, Treyarch has created a one-button system where you can take any match you’ve played and have the editor pick out the highlights and cut it together in seconds. After that it’s easy to upload it to the internet and spread it around, or go in with the editing tools and tweak it to your liking. On the flipside the Theater mode also has even more tools to let ambitious film makers create elaborate scenes, such as the “attach to object” tool that lets you stick the camera to parts of the world, including things like rockets as they fly out of an RPG. The goal is to cater to both extremes: the lazy or less-interested players who don’t want to take the time to create a film, as well as the future Martin Scorceses of the world. Call of Duty: Black Ops 2’s multiplayer probably won’t change your mind if you dislike the franchise already, but with so many smart changes to previously established systems it just might manage to win over a few new fans, as well as surprise the hardcore with it's twists on the formula. The tagline for Black Ops 2 is “The future is black,” but with what I’ve seen so far I’d say it’s better written as “The future is brigh

Blizzard Has A New MMO?

Blizzard has revealed that 100 developers are now working on its next MMO project, codenamed Titan. In an interview with Curse Entertainment, Blizzard chief creative officer Rob Pardo said “Titan’s still moving along. I don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up that it’s around the corner or anything. It’s a very big project. It’s got a long ways to go. We don’t know yet when we’re going to really start releasing more information. We’re definitely dead in the middle of development at this point. I think we’re over 100 people now on the team working on it.” When asked about rumors that Titan has been in development for six years, Pardo commented that “It depends on how you look at such things. When we first start a team, we start it really, really small. We might start with just a couple people. We talk about the concepts, we draw some concept art. It definitely has not been in core development for that long. I’d say core development is maybe closer to four-ish years, but even that was with a smaller team.” We first heard hints of Blizzard’s next MMO back in December 2007, when Blizzard said its new MMO isn’t related to World of Warcraft. Blizzard later began hiring developers and WOW lead designer Jeff Kaplan began working on the project. Blizzard said in 2010 that the project was a long way off and the codename Titan emerged later that year. Last year, rumors suggested Titan would be shown at BlizzCon, but were later debunked by Blizzard. The last time we heard the title referenced was during an Activision Blizzard earnings call last month when it was referred to as “an all-new MMORPG in the future” in reference to Blizzard’s release calendar. Little is known about Titan, and it sounds like we might still have a long time to wait before concrete details are revealed. In the meantime, Blizzard released World of Warcraft’s Mists of Pandaria expansion earlier this week. For our thoughts so far, read our Mists of Pandaria review in progress.

Microsoft Introduces Achievements On GamerScore

Microsoft has introduced MyAchievements, a new program that will offer rewards based on your Gamerscore. MyAchievements is available to Xbox Live Gold members and is broken down into three levels based upon the amount of achievements you’ve unlocked: Contender: 3,000-9,000G Champion: 10,000-24,999G Legend: 25,000+G Each tier will offer a “special gift” during your birthday month, and Champions will also receive a 1% rebate on Xbox Live Marketplace purchases every month. Legends will receive a 2% rebate. MyAchievements marks the continuation of Microsoft’s Xbox Live Rewards, which offers Microsoft Points in exchange for taking surveys and launched in 2010. You can sign up for MyAchievements right now on Microsoft’s official site by clicking here to join. Are you excited about MyAchievements? Let us know in the comments below

Black ops 2 BETA LEAKED!

A Stick Skills reader and Twitter follower, @lazer789, sent us two interesting pictures and a tidbit of information regarding what may be Black Ops 2 beta files that have somehow made their way onto the internet. In a few tweets directed toward our account, we received two images of the Black Ops 2 beta main menu, and the same main menu with the Xbox 360 guide overlayed on top.

Lazer789 also has sent us a link to the download of the beta files, however upon visiting, it brings us to a Xbox modding forum which has registrations disabled, so we cannot confirm the authenticity of the files at time. We will not be sharing the link to protect Activision and Treyarch’s game.
We will leave this story as developing if we learn any new information from our source, or if any new information spurs up on the internet. Until then, let us know your thoughts on these images, and if you think they are real or fake. Discuss in the comments below.
Update: Video of the Black Ops 2 Beta booting up has been leaked onto the internet. The video is embedded below. 
Update 2: The video has been pulled by Activision and is no longer available.