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The first title to come out of the newly-formed mobile division at Activision is not a Call of Duty game. Instead, the group will produce a mobile version of the Activision classic, Pitfall.

"We've been working on Pitfall since earlier in the year when we set up and it has been really good to revisit that and bring it to a modern audience," Martyn Brown, Team 17 co-founder and Activision Mobile head honcho told MCV. "Being able to call upon a wide portfolio of properties is really good for us and we are looking forward to finally showing it to more people."

Activision announced the studio back in May, which employs former Rockstar talent and the co-founder of Team 17. Pitfall celebrates its 30th anniversary this year.

Picture this: you’re moving through an abandoned convenience store in the middle of the day, and light is pouring in through the front windows. The shelves have been ransacked and only a few items remain. You stop to investigate a roll of bandages on the shelf and, feeling these will come in handy later, you grab them and turn to leave.

A Walker grabs you and leans in for a taste of flesh! You struggle against his weight but can’t quite fight him off. His rancid breath is thick in the air between you as his mouth opens for a bite. Mustering all of your strength you push just hard enough to get a few inches of separation and then… You jam the blade of your knife through his temple and he slumps to the ground at your feet amid an explosion of blood and brain! After taking a final look around, you see that no others Walkers realize you’re there. You slip out of the store and continue toward your destination.

This is the world of The Walking Dead, a world where you can never feel safe because any moment may be your last. This is life, dealing with the constant threat of the Walker invasion.

When Activision approached us to help them make The Walking Dead game based off the AMC’s TV series, the whole team went crazy. We are all fans of the show and couldn’t wait to get our hands on it. Immediately the team knew that an FPS game based on The Walking Dead was something we wanted to help bring the fans.

What we love about the show is how people must learn to survive in this new world while still trying to keep a sense of normalcy. Some people are prepared to keep holding onto the values that society has taught them while others are prepared to do whatever it takes to survive. There are even characters that are changing for what is perceived to be the better and we are excited to try and bring that into our game and let players experience it firsthand.

Fans of the TV show will immediately connect with our The Walking Dead video game. You will get the opportunity to put yourself into the shoes of Daryl Dixon himself and be shown how he first experienced this new world changing around him. The journey will show how he and his brother survived those early weeks and ended up with Dale’s group in the show. The Dixons are survivors and Daryl is one of the best. Through FPS gameplay and resource management the players will assist Daryl in making the right decisions to help guarantee he and his brother survive.

When referencing the show, one of the things that stood out to us was how the Walkers reacted to sound; they were suspicious of gunfire. Seeming to know that only humans were able to wield weapons, the Walkers instinctively moved toward the sounds people made. They are also attracted to other sounds, so someone moving through that world needs to be aware of the amount and type of noise they make at all times.

We’re crafting our Walkers to react the same way. In the game, you’ll need to carefully sneak into and out of some dangerous situations and you may meet a few Walkers along the way. If you show up with guns blazing, you’ll quickly find yourself dealing with a much larger crowd and you could easily become overwhelmed.

Walkers also have the ability to tell the living from the dead by their sense of smell. Humans give off a scent that the Walkers can detect, and the longer we stand still (like when we are looking at a shelf for supplies) the larger the radius of that scent becomes. Stand still for too long and a Walker shambling down the street looking for a meal might just discover you standing inside a store.

Our goal in creating our Walkers is to make them as living (or, actually, as undead) as they are portrayed in the series. They see you, smell you, and hear you, and they won’t stop until they find you.

We hope you enjoyed this first peek at The Walking Dead Video Game; we’ll return with more insights on this new take on the series before it shambles onto PlayStation 3 systems in 2013.

#pitfall You spent hours playing Pitfall on an Intellivision or an Atari 2600 back in the day, imprinting your impressionable brain with a fear of crocodiles that not even delicious Choco-diles snacks can't conquer. Also you love gold. A lot. More »

Like, literally. As in, "Here's a necklace of zombie ears," which might be a bit less disgusting if it weren't a necklace of human ears. San Diego Comic-Con attendees can snag the gruesome jewelry by rushing over to Activision's booth and (ugh) pre-ordering the upcoming Terminal Reality-developed Walking Dead FPS.

Only the first 100 on-site pre-orders get the "extremely limited edition version of Daryl's 'walker ears' necklace," so, uh, don't rush if you don't want the super creepy necklace. We're kinda leaning toward that option, actually.

The Walking Dead first-person shooter is getting its first big showing at SDCC 2012, but it won't be playable. Take a look at the 2013 title in a new trailer below the break.

#thewalkingdead There was no doubt in my mind that the first-person shooter based on AMC's The Walking Dead television series would generate some truly horrific swag. I just didn't think it would show up so soon. Activision gives fans four earfuls at San Diego Comic-Con this week. More »

#bungie Back in January, Paul McCartney—yes, the former Beatle—said he was working on music for an unnamed video game. It now appears that video game is being made by Bungie, the original studio behind the Halo franchise. More »

So, those comic-based Walking Dead games from Telltale are pretty great, huh? Well, if you’re worried about some “There ain’t enough room in this town for the two of uuuuuuh [jaw falls off]” showdown, don’t be. Activision’s take on the one zombie franchise to rule them all is an entirely different animal – by which I mean it’s the same animal as a lot of other animals: a first-person shooter. Also, it’s based on AMC’s Walking Dead television show instead of the comics. Terminal Reality, they of the recent Ghost Busters game and, er, Kinect Star Wars, is on development duty, promising an emphasis on scarce supplies and survival over all-out action.

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Activision has announced a new game based on AMCs The Walking Dead TV show.

#snailmail Thirty-two years ago, Dad came home with what could only be described as the Holy Grail of my childhood—Boba Fett. Dad was the kind of guy who once called Kenner, under the auspices of a local newspaperman, to ask if they were making a Yoda action figure and when it would arrive. In secret, he also raked together four proofs of purchase and sent off a check to Kenner and gobsmacked me and my brother with Boba's surprise delivery. More »

The latest trailer for Transformers: Fall Of Cybertron is the one most likely to set giddy hearts racing, for it shows both dinobots and the enormous Metroplex in action, fighting and punching. There’s an inspirational voice-over from Optimus Prime, too, which is something everyone needs to listen to when they’re eating their wheaty breakfast. No illusions about this game being a big dumb firework display, but sometimes exploding robots of updated nostalgia is enough.

The game arrives in August.(more…)

Amazingly, ‘Call of Duty Online’ didn’t actually exist before now. They’re surely the most inevitable word-sequence in the world, after all. Even so, “free to play micro transaction first person action game” CODO isn’t for us. It’s one of those bally China-only games that exist to cater towards a community that is even more steeped in internetiness than Western gamers are, and more to the point is also steeped in rampant piracy. A multiplayer shooter that only exists online is, then, a logical step towards capturing the sprinting money-goliath that is China’s immense population. I guess it’s not impossible it’ll walk this way eventually, though for now I believe CoD: Elite is the spearhead of Activision’s Western fortune-hunting interests.(more…)

Activision and Transformers: Fall of Cybertron developer High Moon Studios are making an announcement at the "Marvel Video Games" panel during San Diego Comic-Con, the con's schedule builder reveals. It doesn't mention if Activision and High Moon's announcement is a game, DLC or a Broadway show, but it "is sure to be a hit," according to the panel description. We hope that's a hint, and not just something that people think is still all right to say.

Gazillion will discuss its Marvel Heroes MM, and Ubisoft will showcase Avengers: Battle for Earth (not to be confused with the battle for Middle-earth that's also about to break out) at the Marvel Video Games panel.

According to Bloomberg, Vivendi is itching to unload its 61 percent stake in Actvision Blizzard. If it cannot find a buyer, it will sell some of its US$8.1 billion worth of stocks. [Hollywood Reporter] More »

Activision has confirmed "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" as another playable chunk of Bond history in the upcoming 007 Legends, which will consist of five different missions inspired by various James Bond movies (but with Daniel Craig voicing Bond throughout, apparently). "Moonraker" was the first title announced. The addition of "OHMSS" means players will get to jump into a film widely considered one of the best in the series.

007 Legends will also have a sixth mission based on "Skyfall," the new Bond movie due out next summer. The game will be out on October 16 of this year, and odds are that we'll get to see it in more detail in two weeks at Comic-Con.

Prototype developer Radical Entertainment saw a "significant reduction" in staff today and will no longer develop its own games.

“RIP Radical Entertainment 1991-2012,” tweeted audio designer Rob Bridgett earlier today. Moments later, the Internet was abuzz with reports that Activision had used its maniacal death tendrils to choke the life right out of Prototype 2 developer Radical Entertainment. That, however, isn’t entirely true. But, while not a full-on closure, Activision explained in an official statement that “some employees will remain working for Radical Entertainment supporting other existing Activision Publishing projects, but the studio will cease development of its own games going forward.” Which is, of course, horrendously depressing. There is one infinitesimally small bright spot to all this, though: Prototype 2′s PC version is escaping unscathed.

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The folks at Newegg have made Blizzard's latest trip to hell slightly cheaper, offering Diablo 3 for $50. That's ten extra bucks you could spend in the auction house, or on a bag of tacos to sustain you on those late night inferno runs (or create some inferno runs, amirite?). It's all up to you.

The employees at your local brick-and-mortar apparently jumped the gun and revealed an exclusive map for Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. IGN posted an image of a poster supposedly from GameStop; another image from GAME shows the same pre-order bonus. Nuketown 2025 is apparently a remodeled version of the popular Black Ops 2 map, Nuketown.

Each image suggests there will be a "limited edition pack" of Black Ops 2, which we assume is akin to the first pressing limited edition runs we've seen for games like Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit and Twisted Metal. We've inquired with Activision and will update accordingly.

Activision has treated itself to 17 domain names, all related to Call of Duty and China; in Black Ops 2, set to drop in November, part of the storyline spans a future cold war between the United States and China. It may be that these domains are related to that facet, as the registrations include blackopschina.com, bochina.com and callofdutychina.com, Fusible reports.

The other domains span from modernwarfarechina.com to heisexingdong.com, and include a few other Chinese phrases. This could be Activision protecting its brand, or it could even have something to do with Activision's online, free-to-play Call of Duty title in China. Activision secured the names, as it generally does, through brand-protection service MarkMonitor.

As surely as it’s going to rain all summer long here in Blighty, so there’s surely going to be a new super-hero movie with game tie-ins. This time it’s The Amazing Spider-Man, who will be slinging webs as only a tidy young actor – not a nightmarish twitchy arachnid half-breed – can. It’s a fancy-looking open-world type thing, and it really does look moderately entertaining. The men at Strategy Informer have used their release date-confirming powers to ascertain that the PC version will arrive on August 10th, a healthy month-and-a-bit later than its console cousins. So that’s great news. Just great.

Amiable developer-narrated trailer below, if you’re into that sort of thing. (You so are.)(more…)

Hello True Believers and PlayStation.Blog readers! Good news — The Amazing Spider-Man video game comes to PS3 today with PlayStation Move support. The game’s story picks up right where this summer’s blockbuster movie, The Amazing Spider-Man, leaves off in a new tale crafted by acclaimed Hollywood writer Seamus Kevin Fahey and voiced by veteran talent such as Nolan North, Sam Riegel, and Bruce Campbell (and even Stan Lee, for those of you who pre-ordered the game from Amazon!)

The Amazing Spider-Man has been developed by the veteran webheads over at Beenox (creators of Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions) and the team has been hard at work over the last two years to bring Spider-Man back home to an open-world Manhattan teeming with side missions and playable content. In addition to bringing back free-roaming gameplay, the team has dramatically improved the combat system and added an entirely new feature called Web Rush. Stick with me and I will explain why this is the best Spider-Man game yet!

In The Amazing Spider-Man, you’ll swing all over Manhattan stopping car chases, subduing armed thugs, and protecting the innocent. But now, the camera provides a much more visceral swinging experience: As you plummet from the rooftops, descending on the denizens of Manhattan, you will get a true sense of vertigo and a real rush as you swing out of your fall at the last nanosecond.

You can also find and collect many suits throughout the game. For the PS3 folks, we are offering up the exclusive Vigilante Spider-Man suit from the upcoming movie that you can win by participating in the Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s sweepstakes. You just need to purchase a super large beverage (i.e. the one with the game on the front of the cup), peel back the tab, and input the code online for the chance to win a PSN download code. You can also win other prizes such as the game itself, a PS3, and a PlayStation Move.

Speaking of PlayStation Move, The Amazing Spider-Man fully supports the PlayStation Move in all its glory for everything from Web Rushing around the city to engaging in frenetic combat. For motion control fans this implementation really brings a lot to the table.

Beenox has even added in one of the coolest collectibles in gaming for you Marvel fans out there. As you collect comic pages scattered throughout Manhattan, you will progressively unlock full Spider-Man digital comics that you can read through an in-game viewer!

Gone are the past ‘dial-a-combo’ combat systems, because The Amazing Spider-Man employs an entirely new free-flowing combat style that plays to Spider-Man’s strengths as an agile and dexterous combatant. His attack style is easy to learn but hard to master, and will enable you to build combo streaks while countering and dodging incoming blows. As the combo streaks build, you’ll unleash new and more powerful moves upon your foes, culminating with jaw-dropping signature moves. Of course, there are also Spidey’s all-important web shooters that you can use to bind enemies, blast them onto walls, or grab and twirl them into their companions like a morning star.

Players will be rewarded with experience and tech pieces based on how well they perform in combat. These experience points can then be used to purchase upgrades to Spidey’s suit, web shooters, and attacks, and can even unlock entirely new abilities.

Possibly the most innovative addition in The Amazing Spider-Man is the entirely new Web Rush feature. Meant to capture and convey the speed at which Spider-Man perceives the world around him, Web Rush allows the player to momentarily slow time to a crawl. While time is dilated, you can choose what you want to do: zip towards an enemy to open combat, for instance, or grab a dumpster and hurl it into your opponents. You could use Web Rush to drop from the ceiling and stealthily cocoon an unwitting foe, or just use it to precisely target where you want to move within the environment.

You don’t always have to slow down time, either. You can simply tap the button to Web Rush at whatever you are currently looking at. As you get better at using Web Rush you’ll find that it seamlessly integrates into the new combat system allowing you to zip from opponent to opponent, use objects in the environment, and perform stealth takedowns all without breaking your combo streak. Web Rush is immensely satisfying to use and really helps cement the feeling of being Spider-Man.

Thanks for sticking around, and I hope you enjoyed learning more about The Amazing Spider-Man, free-roam, combat, collectibles, and Web Rush. Beenox have really outdone themselves with this game and words just do not do it justice. Swing on down to your local game store or go online so you can experience it for yourself! Excelsior!

For more information, videos, bios, and other awesome assets on the game, visit the official website here.

No, for real! See? Amazing, right? Activision’s indie competition, I think, follows a similar pattern – except with slightly fewer kittens and tremendously less publicity. I mean, I hear about the winners (and their $175,000 prizes) and think “Wow, good on Activision for setting such a cool thing into motion.” Then I remember that, no, this isn’t new. And finally, I remember why I didn’t remember: because Activision does a horrific job of giving these things any promotion. I suppose, though, that some is better than none, and so let’s have a look at the winner’s podium, shall we?

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Wreck-It Ralph, an animated film coming November 2 from Disney, features classic characters sure to induce nostalgia in bomb-like proportions for its 20-55 demographic -- which is why it's strange that the game based on the movie based on video games will come only to Nintendo's Wii, 3DS and DS.

With the film, Disney is focused on introducing a younger audience to arcade-style side-scrollers, and it seems Activision is keeping that trend with a launch on the market's most "family-friendly" set of platforms.

"Wreck-It Ralph, as a brand entity, is perfectly suited for video game stardom," Activision Executive Vice President David Oxford says. "With the fantastic characters and creative atmosphere envisioned by Walt Disney Animation Studios, we know fans are going to love seeing their newfound favorite characters embark on an all-new side-scrolling adventure."

The game will have players switch between Ralph and Fix-It Felix to defeat the Cy-Bugs, with a story campaign and two-player co-op for the Wii.

“We already have such brand awareness with our target demographic that we’re basically building off the back of that. What’s nice about this is we have the ground work in there as far as kids are talking about it on the playground. So I think we’ve got the buzz going and we think Skylanders: Giants will be a greater success than Spyro’s Adventure, which is obviously not an easy task considering how successful it was. But we’ve got the frenzy out there and we’re giving our fans more Skylanders action.” - Activision’s Product Specialist Noah Kircher-Allen

I'm sure Activision is going to put some big marketing muscle behind this one, so I wouldn't be surprised to see the sequel do even bigger business.

#rumor This rumor has bubbled on enthusiast sites and message boards since about April, but an official-looking PowerPoint floating out there in the wild suggests a promotion this July will combine Mike Fahey's two greatest loves: Skylanders and snack foods. More »

#spiderman Since his role as the ring announcer in the first Spider-Man movie, B-movie and television star Bruce "Ash" Campbell has been a fixture in the webslinger's video games. Next week's The Amazing Spider-Man is no exception. More »

Hey Call of Duty fans, we have new downloadable content heading your way on PSN today! Collection 2 is the latest addition to Modern Warfare 3, and we want to give you a quick rundown of what you’ll receive: three new multiplayer maps (also usable in Survival mode), two Special Ops missions, and two Face Off maps. You can grab Collection 2 now for $14.99.

Face Off

Face Off is a new multiplayer experience that challenges even the most talented Call of Duty players. It distills all the fun and intensity of multiplayer into a new breed of 1v1, 2v2, and 3v3 close combat. Partner up with a few friends and challenge your team skills, or go head-to-head against your most challenging opponent. With the inclusion of two additional maps for free on PSN, Call of Duty veterans can get even more of this new experience.

Getaway
Close to the shore, this place once was a tropical beach getaway boasting exotic aquariums and oversized pools, but is now a haven for ruthless run-and-gun violence. The best method of attack is to throw down a portable radar in the middle of the house, and maneuver around your opponents. Alternatively, you can kick back behind the pool and pick off heads when they pop out of doorways and windows.

Lookout
Carved into a combat-worn mountainside, this new “Face Off” map pits you against your opposition in a forward observation base littered with chokepoints and tight corridors. There are several methods of attack for you and your partner(s). Stick to high ground, whether that’s on a hill or above a base, or run guns blazing through the bases to grab that quick kill.

Erosion: Free
Make your way through Mediterranean ruins and ancient aqueducts, using leftover Roman masonry for thousand-year-old cover. As my personal favorite Face Off map, I get a kick out of leveraging the SMGs’s rapid firing rate and maneuvering as fast as I can under the archways. Taking the low ground is one way to go, or you can be the first to take the center tower and snipe opponents from above.

Aground: Free

Head to Scotland’s Orkney Islands where treacherous cliff faces, cave networks, and the rusted and ruined remains of a grounded transport ship provide for constant combat. This is definitely a map where you’ll want to pick off enemies using long range weapons — I also suggest using the Marksman perk.

Multiplayer / Survival Maps

Sanctuary
Suspended a thousand feet in the air, you’ll find yourself battling on towering sandstone monasteries in Central Greece. There are plenty of windy paths and hidden locations in which to station yourself, or you can move quickly to flank the opposition.

Foundation
This decommissioned concrete factory is located in the heart of South Korea. After decades of constructing roads and buildings, the towering facility is now a perfectly-constructed combat zone for sniping, as well as fast-paced shootouts.

Oasis
Though once a picturesque escape for vacationers, the sprawling Hotel Oasis is now a multiplayer paradise, with multiple lanes of combat built atop an ancient fortress.

Special Ops

Iron Clad
With one player manning a tank and the other escorting it on foot, you’ll clear beaches and take cover in plane wreckage as you escape Hamburg from behind enemy lines in this all-new Special Ops Mission.

Kill Switch
Cripple a Russian carrier by detonating an electromagnetic pulse. Be the soldier on the ground, making your way to the detonation site, or play the sniper providing vital cover fire from a vantage point high above the city.

#activision Activision may be heralded/hated as one of the world's biggest video game companies today, but in 1981, it was a much smaller company. A very different company, in a very different time. More »

Has it been a great 24 hours for revolutionary new tech developments or what? First Minecraft revealed “LAN” – named, of course, after LAN parties, which paradoxically didn’t exist until just a few moments ago – and now Activision’s pointing its scope at longer-range latency with a new addition to Black Ops 2′s scary future war arsenal: dedicated servers. Unlike Modern Warfare 3′s, however, these are ranked and everything. ”Confirmed: Ranked Dedicated Servers for ‪#BlackOps2,” tweeted director of technology Cesar Stastny. See?

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Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 will feature ranked dedicated PC servers, according to Treyarch's tech director.

In a brief tweet (even for tweeting standards), Cesar Stastny of Treyarch wrote: "Confirmed: Ranked Dedicated Servers for #BlackOps2."

The Call of Duty series has gone back and forth on the server issue, seemingly dependent on what developer in Activision's arsenal was in charge of the project. Infinity Ward's Modern Warfare 2 was MIA on support, Black Ops by Treyarch brought it, then Modern Warfare 3 got waffly. Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 will engage retail on several platforms November 13.