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UK Charts: CoD Advanced Warfare dethrones FIFA
After six weeks unchallenged, even FIFA 15 can't stop Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare from taking top spot in the UK. EA's latest sterling factory falls to No. 2, while according to Chart Track, Sledgehammer's shooter outsells the combined first week sales of Titanfall, Destiny and Wolfenstein: The New Order - by 14 percent. Of course it helps when you're on all platforms and, oh we don't know, a Call of Duty. It might be more revealing to contrast and compare Advanced Warfare against Ghosts, and the 2014 game did beat its annual predecessor's first week in the UK. However, Advanced Warfare debuted on PS4, Xbox One, Xbox 360, PS3 and PC, while Ghosts launched on PS4, Xbox 360, PS3, PC and Wii U. The Xbox One version of Ghosts arrived the following week, and for that matter the game's PS4 and Xbox One copies launched before the respective consoles did... For more on this week's UK charts including the full top ten and the music video (yes it's still going), advance beyond the break.
Joystiq Weekly: Free Radical's Haze, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, Tony Hawk and more
Welcome to Joystiq Weekly, a "too long; didn't read" of each week's biggest stories, reviews and original content. Each category's top story is introduced with a reactionary gif, because moving pictures aren't just for The Daily Prophet. Yes okay, BlizzCon 2014 was full of announcements. A new team-based shooter called Overwatch, a Hearthstone expansion, Warcraft movie details, the next StarCraft 2 expansion ... Blizzard fans have plenty to look forward to. Thanks to an unexpected announcement however, Tony Hawk fans also have something to look forward to (or dread, depending on cynicism) in the form of a 2015 console game. Sure, the Skate series was a cool take on realistic tricks, but we wouldn't mind getting back to the outlandish challenges, yellow-text specials and SKATE letters of the original killer skateboarding series. If you've never enjoyed injury-supplementing planks of wood with wheels, there's still plenty of good stuff from this week. News of Grand Theft Auto 5's first person mode, reviews for Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare and Lords of the Fallen, a feature exploring the development of the unfortunate PS3-exclusive Haze, and more is all waiting for you after the break!
Console Madness: Joystiq is giving away an Xbox One Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare bundle
Last year, the new consoles came but the new games for them were more of a promise than a reality. Now the games are here. Sunset Overdrive, Halo: The Master Chief Collection, Forza Horizon 2; the Xbox One has itself a seriously tempting library that's only continuing to grow. Know what would be really nice, though? If that console was absolutely free. Knowing this to be true, Joystiq and Microsoft are going to go ahead and hook our readers up with a free limited edition Xbox One Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare bundle. That's the one with the 1TB hard drive. How do you get your hands on this beauty? Just enter using the Rafflecopter widget below between Friday, November 7 and Friday, November 14. One randomly selected winner will get the Xbox One. Want another chance to win an Xbox One? Between now and the end of December, we'll be giving away another limited edition Xbox One, a limited edition white Destiny PlayStation 4, and a Super Smash Bros. Nintendo 3DS XL. We have gone console mad! Full rules and restrictions after the break. Xbox One Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare bundle giveaway [Images: Microsoft/Activision]
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare PS4 has no Share Play, here's why
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare doesn't include the new Share Play functionality on PS4 that allows players to have a friend play through their games via an online connection, one hour at a time, regardless of whether the friend owns the games. Share Play launched on October 28 with PS4 update 2.0, and in a statement to Joystiq, Activision says its team didn't have access to the feature while developing Advanced Warfare: "Delivering a great gaming experience for fans is our top priority. We're focused on launching Advanced Warfare and ensuring that people have a great time playing it, which our fans seem to be. Share Play is a new feature that was introduced as part of the recent PS4 firmware 2.00 update. Our engineers didn't have access to it before it launched, so we haven't had a chance to evaluate it to see how it will impact the experience across all modes of play. Of course we wouldn't include a feature in our game without having the chance to test it. Once we've fully analyzed its performance, we'll determine how to support it going forward."
PSN Store Update: Digital Pros and CoDs
We're knee-deep in silly season, so it was already a stuffed-enough PlayStation Store update. Factor in that we've just had the first Tuesday of November and therefore the PlayStation Plus slew of games, well, we've got a fair bit to get through here. First off, there are the retail releases that get their downloadable accompaniments. That's MotoGP 14 (PS4 $60, PS3 $40 and Vita $30), The Wolf Among Us ($25 on PS4 and Vita), the standalone Toy Box download for Disney Infinity 2.0 ($20 on PS4 and PS3 for a limited time, regular price $30), Rocksmith 2014 ($60 on PS4), and finally the small matter of Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare ($60 on PS4 and PS3.) If you've got $100 to burn, you qualify to be a Digital Pro thanks to CoD: Advanced Warfare - Digital Pro Edition. Earning this prestigious title comes with the added benefits of the season pass, a bonus multiplayer map and other in-game goodies.
Advanced Warfare console comparison drops a few frames on PS4
Sledgehammer Games recently confirmed that the Xbox One version of Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare automatically scales its resolution up to 1080p on a frame-by-frame basis. By comparison, the PS4 version consistently maintains a high resolution, but performance analysis tests from Digital Foundry show that it comes at a price. In a video (seen after the break) of Advanced Warfare version 1.04 running on both systems, the testers found that the Xbox One version held up at a mostly steady 60fps. As for the PS4 version, it had more frequent dips in frame rate, dropping as low as the mid-40s during some scenes. The tests were primarily focused on the game's campaign; initial looks at Advanced Warfare's multiplayer performance bore similar results, though the Xbox One version did not scale up from its 1360x1080 resolution during multiplayer sessions. [Image: Activision]
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare community not toxic, dev says
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare lead designer Michael Condrey defended the franchise's community in a recent chat with BBC Newsbeat, asserting that the development team has a "low tolerance for toxic behavior" among its fanbase. "I certainly wouldn't characterize the community of fans I know and had the pleasure to engage with as toxic or misogynistic," Condrey said. "The community as a whole is very healthy, engaged and thoughtful and probably like anything anywhere well outside of gaming." Condrey's statement follows up on a recent drive to end online harassment in the games industry, which frequently targets women in particular. Condrey dismissed abusive behavior among Call of Duty players, saying, "In the fringes of a lot of areas of society there are examples of people behaving poorly." Condrey continued: "Come to the game to have fun, come to be social, come to enjoy and build a community and have a positive energy. [...] Toxic behaviors, abusive language, inappropriate emblems, I don't want that around. [...] So for our community, Sledgehammer Games and Advanced Warfare we have pretty low tolerance for toxic behavior." [Image: Activision]
Activision CEO optimistic despite Call of Duty pre-order dip
Though numerous analysts believe that Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare will continue the franchise's trend of declining sales, Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg sees things differently. "We see purchase intent well above last year and we see engagement with the brand in social media channels all being markedly up, so I'm still optimistic," Hirshberg told Games Industry. "Preorders are a good barometer for day one, but I don't think they reflect the overall demand for the product," he adds. "[They] don't represent what they used to - because of the move to digital and all the ways people can buy the game." Despite Hirshberg's optimism, as recently as last week analysts who had examined the Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare pre-order tallies reported that the game was "pacing almost 40 percent behind last year's [Call of Duty: Ghosts] and almost 70 percent behind 2012's [Call of Duty: Black Ops 2]." Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare makes its international debut today. [Image: Activision]
Hold X to watch Conan O'Brien play Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare
If your game has a "Hold X to Pay Respects" button and you ask Conan O'Brien to play it - well, you know what's going to happen. Conan's vid does have a few early spoilers for Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, but it's worth watching the self-proclaimed Clueless Gamer go crazy over turrets, crossing a street and Kevin Spacey's eyes. [Image: Activision-Blizzard]
Joystiq Streams: Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare pays it forward [CANCELED]
After 11 years, Call of Duty has followed an unexpected evolutionary path. The road to Advanced Warfare – which we awarded 4 stars in our review – looks more like the one stretching between entries in '80s horror franchises. Friday the 13th was about a slasher attacking teenagers and it ended with a 9-foot tall Jason Vorhees killing people on a spaceship. Call of Duty went from straight faced aping of Saving Private Ryan to an annually updated sport married to Roland Emmerich-ian spectacle. From storming Normandy to rocket packs and Kevin Spacey. How did we get here? Starting at 4:00PM EST on Joystiq.com/Twitch, we'll be checking out the Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare campaign, discussing the evolution of the series over the past decade and wondering aloud if this game is actually a sequel to K-PAX. Joystiq.com/Twitch broadcasts every Tuesday and Thursday at 4:00PM EST, but streams like these happen all the time throughout the week so make sure to follow us on Twitch to know when we go live. [Images: Activision]
Metareview: Call of Duty - Advanced Warfare
I had always heard your entire life flashes in front of your eyes the second before you die. As it turns out, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare isn't advanced enough to feature pre-frag life-flashing, but at least you get to respawn and run and bounce around its futuristic world, over and over and over. It stretches on forever, like an ocean of time... According to our four-star review, Sledgehammer's Call of Duty is an American beauty. As EIC Ludwig Kietzmann put it, "Despite the familiarity, it's been years since a Call of Duty campaign was as coherent and fast-paced as this one. Within the confines of its franchise, which has yet to make much room for a mature look at the subject matter, Advanced Warfare works with aplomb and, at the very least, plays its Big Dumb Movie card wisely. If you're running out of bad guys, borrow some from Hollywood." But what about the rest of the review universe - the reviewniverse if you will - was Advanced Warfare advanced enough for them, or did it just get lost in Spacey? Head below the break for a sampling of the early reviews.
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare scales up to 1080p on Xbox One
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare runs at 60 frames per second on both Xbox One and PlayStation 4, Sledgehammer Games confirmed. The first-person shooter is also locked in at 1080p on PS4, though it "runs at 1080 scalable," according to the developer's co-founder, Michael Condrey. The resolution of the Xbox One version of the game will change "on a frame by frame basis" in real-time, according to the developer. Condrey told Metro that the game "will scale from 1360 all the way up to true 1080," shifting from resolutions of "1360×1080 up to 1920×1080" on the Microsoft console. It's an improvement on the series' efforts last year on the console, as Call of Duty: Ghosts trotted out an upscaled 720p version on Xbox One. Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is out now and received positive marks in our review. [Image: Activision]
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare review: House of CoDs
PC, Xbox One, PS4, Xbox 360, PS3 You get just a novel snippet of peace in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. In this shooter's future, technology has trumped terrorism, rooted out the last evil masterminds and flexed its bionic muscles in total defiance of lead-footed politicians who'd rather talk than get things done. "The world is running out of bad guys," your partner says, hopeful but tragically unaware that he's basically describing a video game glitch. Call of Duty never runs out of bad guys. This one gets points for honesty, though, in that there is no pretentious cover-up of why the good guys beat the bad guys (or why the plot finds them easily interchangeable). In Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, you win because you have better guns, stronger sights, super abilities and superior movement. Whether it's in the rich and varied multiplayer mode, or the frantic, thrill-a-minute single-player campaign, you're constantly relying on cool weapons and combat data to make taking lives easier. Advanced Warfare front-loads the benefits of power in a franchise that has always made technology the exalted, almost fetishized solution to every problem. And you know what? It's more fun when it admits as much.
PSA: Xbox One is now $50 cheaper until January 3
The previously-announced holiday promotion that shaves $50 off the standalone Xbox One and all Xbox One bundles is now live, Xbox spokesman Larry Hryb (aka "Major Nelson") announced on his blog. The limited-time sale will last until January 3, and only applies to systems and bundles sold in the US. On a related note, the Xbox One Assassin's Creed bundle, which combines a 500GB Xbox One with digital copies of Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag and Assassin's Creed: Unity, is on store shelves starting today as well. The 1TB, Kinect-less Xbox One bundled with Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare will be out tomorrow. [Image: Microsoft]
Zombies are in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare DLC
As a leak suggested earlier this week, zombies will gather once more to crowd around soldiers in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, according to a press release from GameStop. The mode will be "part of" Advanced Warfare's season pass, a $49.99 purchase that includes four packs of multiplayer maps as well as the bonus Atlas Gorge map. For those who purchase the Day Zero Edition of Advanced Warfare, double XP will be granted for the entirety of Monday, November 3, the game's launch day for those who pre-order. Early buyers will also get the "Advanced Arsenal bullet brass exoskeleton and EM1 Quantum directed energy weapon, plus the AK-12G Assault Rifle and Crossbow-B2 custom weapons." If you were planning on upgrading to a PS4 for Advanced Warfare's release, GameStop is offering $125 in store credit from today until November 9 in exchange of a PS3 (20 GB or higher) or an Xbox 360 (250 GB or higher) traded toward the purchase of a PS4. If you purchase a PS4 along with a matching copy of Advanced Warfare, GameStop will also throw in a year of PlayStation Plus for free. If an Xbox One is more your speed, you might to consider the recently-announced holiday bundles. GameStop's press release does not give a sense of when season pass holders can expect to fend off the undead. Advanced Warfare's leading piece of DLC, the Havok map pack, is due to reach Xbox One first in January, with arrivals on other platforms following. Update: An Activision representative has clarified that the zombies mode is part of the downloadable content map packs and does not require the purchase of the full season pass. The map packs containing zombies will be available a la carte. [Image: Activision]
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare kisses goats, leaks zombies
Not even a sloppy, overly-moist kiss from a goat can distract Call of Duty fans from gunning down zombies, as the two most recent pieces of footage from Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare handily demonstrate. Below the break you'll find the latest, official trailer for Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. It's a live-action affair and the aforementioned amorous goat basically steals the entire thing, but otherwise it's got all the explosions, gunplay and overtly macho posturing we've come to expect from the near-future military shooter. More intriguing however, is a 52-second clip that recently appeared on the Internet that seemingly depicts previously unknown zombies in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. Though the footage is not an official release, it does appear to be legit. Zombies are a Call of Duty tradition at this point, and when asked about the leak, Sledgehammer Games head Glen Schofield made no effort to deny its authenticity. "[N]othing I can do about [the leak] now," Schofield tweeted. "But yeah it sucks. Imagine you're playing and this comes up - you'd be psyched up, right?" Our attempts to pry further information from Activision were met with no response. Whether you're psyched or not, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare brings zombies, goats and Oscar-winner Kevin Spacey to retail on November 3. [Image: Activision]
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare season pass is $50, 4 DLC packs
The season pass for Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare grants players four DLC packs, early access to DLC weapons and the bonus multiplayer map, Atlas Gorge, on day one. The season pass costs $50, a $10 savings if you were to purchase each $15 DLC pack individually. The four packs in the pass are Havok, Ascendance, Supremacy and Reckoning. Havok is due out in January on Xbox Live, with other platforms to follow – Microsoft has a deal to get Advanced Warfare DLC first, as it historically does with the Call of Duty franchise. See the Advanced Warfare season pass trailer below.
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare available at Walmart a day early
Not content to wait for Tuesday, Walmart and Activision are pushing Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare out at the big box retailer on Monday, November 3. While the Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare Day Zero Edition sold by Walmart won't have any exclusive in-game content right in the $60 package, the release events hosted at Walmart stores will yield some goodies for series devotees. Starting on Sunday, November 2 at 10:00PM local time, 2800 Walmart stores will be hosting Call of Duty tournaments that run through Advanced Warfare's official midnight release. Participants will get various pieces of swag like Call of Duty patches and posters, and anyone at the store that also happens to buy a case of Mountain Dew or Doritos will also be able to get an exclusive exoskeleton for their character in Advanced Warfare. The Day Zero event does mark one significant change to Walmart's video game business: November 3 will be the first day that the retailer officially starts selling used video games. Walmart has experimented with Gamestop-style used game sales for more than five years, but this will be the first large scale, permanent program. Anyone trading in games towards Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare will get an extra 50 percent value on the games they turn over. [Images: Activision]
Report: Call of Duty sales decline likely to continue
Analysts at Cowen And Company have examined Amazon's pre-order tallies for the upcoming Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare and have concluded that the game will probably continue the series' trend of declining returns. "Advanced Warfare is now pacing almost 40 percent behind last year's Ghosts and almost 70 percent behind 2012's Black Ops 2," the analysts note. "We continue to believe CoD will be down meaningfully vs. last year. With the franchise facing two consecutive significant year on year declines in sales, we think it is prudent to assume it has peaked." Cowen And Company preemptively argues against the idea that pre-orders are no longer a determinant of total sales by pointing out that 2014 has seen the record for most-preordered game broken twice, first by Watch Dogs then by Destiny. Clearly people are pre-ordering games, the analysts believe, but it appears that the Call of Duty series - which normally accounts for "a significant percentage of overall preorders" - is no longer attracting pre-order cash at the same rate it did even as recently as three years ago. [Image: Activision]
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare PC requirements
Turns out, your PC only needs to be a little advanced to run Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. The minimum PC requirements for Advanced Warfare call for 6GB RAM, DirectX 11 and 55GB of hard drive space. See the full minimum PC specs below. Console players can upgrade the digital version of Advanced Warfare from Xbox 360 or PS3 to Xbox One or PS4 for free through March 31, 2015. Advanced Warfare is a futuristic Call of Duty entry with jetpacks, a shiny new character exoskeleton and a vibe that recalls Titanfall, though with a punchy rhythm, as we outlined in our August preview. "Increased life expectancy isn't the only thing enmeshed with science-fiction in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare," we wrote. "The move to the future has divorced the game from some of today's real-world violence, dressing soldiers in unrecognizable power armor and granting them laser guns that seem too fun to be true."
