There’s been a lot of talk the last couple of weeks about the newest Battlefield and Call of Duty games. Now there can be a little talk about the oldest Call of Duty: Black Ops game, considering Xbox One users can now download the original game on their current generation consoles thanks to backwards compatibility.

The original Call of Duty: Black Ops went live in the backwards compatible service earlier this week and as a special treat it’s being offered for a deep discount for those who have an Xbox Live Gold account.

The fact that the game is offered on the service shouldn’t be that much of a surprise considering Microsoft first announced it would be coming six months ago. It seems like the timing was meant to coincide with the news of the newest Call of Duty game. You can also get a free copy of the game if you digitally order Call of Duty: Black Ops 3.

Apocalypse is the fourth and final map pack for Treyarch’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 before Infinity Ward’s Call of Duty: Ghosts takes over later this year. This new map pack, the capper to the game, will feature two all new multiplayer maps, two re-imagined ‘fan favorite’ maps, as well as a new take on the famous Zombies mode, allowing you to fight off waves of zombies in World War I trenches. Sounds like a pretty hefty addition, actually (unlike so many Call of Duty map packs and much of its DLC, which struggles to justify the asking price).

The four maps included in this map pack are Frost, Dig, Takeoff, and Pod. Call of Duty: Black Ops 2: Apocalypse will be made available on Xbox Live August 27, with release on the PlayStation 3’s PlayStation Network and PC to follow about a month afterwards. Stay tuned to GamingBolt for more coverage.

Ubisoft has revealed some interesting NPD numbers. You know which game sold the most this year in the US, right? Yup, Black Ops. But you know what’s funny? It’s so far ahead of anything else with Just Dance 2 coming second with a measly 5 million sold.

Black Ops did 15 million in the US. That’s right 15 million. Halo Reach sells 4.5 million units, but it has a long way to go to catch Halo 3, which is sitting at 8 million units sold.

You can see all the 10 highest selling games in the chart below. Tell us what you think about these figures.

Gears of War 3 has made a pretty strong debut in terms of sales, topping the all formats and Xbox 360 charts in UK and selling 3 million units in its first week worldwide, and even managing to sell strongly in Japan. It was even the biggest launch of 2011 in UK. And now, it has performed strongly on the Xbox Live Activity Charts as well.

Held off only by Call of Duty: Black Ops, Gears of War 3 debuted at the 2nd spot, followed by Modern Warfare 2, Halo: Reach, FIFA 11 and more. Here’s the full list:

1. Call of Duty: Black Ops
2. Gears of War 3
3. Modern Warfare 2
4. Halo: Reach
5. FIFA Soccer 11
6. Madden NFL 12
7. Dead Island
8. FIFA 12 Demo
9. GTA IV
10. Battlefield: Bad Co. 2
11. Gears of War 2
12. Call of Duty 4
13. NHL12
14. Halo 3
15. NBA 2K11
16. NCAA Football 12
17. Fallout: New Vegas
18. Forza Motorsport 3
19. Red Dead Redemption
20. Call of Duty: WaW

First off the video below shows zombies.. just are not meant to be in Space.  However the new Rezurrection Map Pack for Call of Duty – Black Ops proves this theory wrong, including all of the COD – World at War Zombie Maps and a new map called the ‘Moon’ which takes place in Space.  Astronaut suits and all, plus if you got the Hardened Edition of Black Ops, the Map is free considering it came will all the World at War maps anyway.  Above you can check out an Inside Xbox special with Major Nelson explaining some more details about ‘Moon’.  More the the ‘Rezurrection Map Pack‘.

Major Nelson has released the charts for Xbox Live for the week of July 25. Call of Duty: Black Ops, as expected, is leading the activity charts, with Modern Warfare 2 and Halo: Reach and FIFA 11 behind. Old timers like Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Halo 3, Gears of War 2, Call of Duty 4 and World at War also made appearances.

From Dust was the most purchased arcade title, with Bastion (which we absolutely loved, by the way) and Warhammer 40K: Kill Team coming in next. Even Battlefield 1943 and Limbo made it to the Top 20.

Total Miner: Forge and GTA IV topped the indie game charts and Games for Windows charts.

The full charts can be found here.

This may be the final DLC before the juggernaut Modern Warfare 3 comes out. Activision announced it at an investor call today along with rosy earnings, obviously on the back of phenomenal sales of Black Ops.

The DLC will hit first on Xbox Live in a few months due to a timed exclusivity deal between Microsoft and Activision. The last DLC pack for Black Ops was called Annihilation and it was released on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. Activision net revenues hit $1.1 billion and they fared slightly better than last year.

Activision CEO, Bobby Kotick said, “Our better-than-expected second-quarter performance was driven by record digital sales of our online-enabled franchises. For the six month period, net revenues from digital channels grew more than 20 per cent, driving record operating margin and EPS growth of more than 50 per cent.”

“Looking to the balance of the year, while we have numerous releases we believe our audiences will be especially excited by three key properties – Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, our new online service Call of Duty Elite and Skylanders Spyro’s Adventure – all of which are shaping up to be incredible.”

“To date, pre-orders for Modern Warfare 3 have significantly exceeded the pre-orders for Black Ops at this time last year. In addition, we believe that Call of Duty Elite, which was built for Modern Warfare 3 and is expected to launch with the game on November 8, should redefine social connectivity for multiplayer gaming.

“Additionally, we expect that Skylanders Spyro’s Adventure will change the way we look at toys and video games by bringing the world of toys, video games and the Internet together in an unprecedented way.”

Modern Warfare 3 will released on November 8th for the PC, PS3, Xbox 360 and the Wii.

Source

Cowen & Company analyst Doug Creutz says Battlefield 3’s pre-orders match those of Call of Duty: Black Ops’ last year- the game broke a shitload of records, and went on to sell over 20 million units, so I suppose EA would be pretty happy right now.

Figures “”indicate that pre-orders are roughly comparable to those of Call of Duty: Black Ops last year, which has gone on to sell over 20 million units,” says the analyst.

As I said, Ea would be pretty happy, since Black Ops went on to sell like hot cakes.

Call of Duty: Black Ops is T-minus 13 days away from launching its latest content pack on the PlayStation3 entertainment system and Windows PC with the worldwide release of Annihilation, the third DLC for the blockbuster title from Activision and Treyarch.

“With Annihilation, the team at Treyarch and Activision has shown its continued commitment to bringing new and unique content to our fans,” said Treyarch Studio Head, Mark Lamia.  “Players are getting four of the best multiplayer maps to date with Hangar 18, Drive-In, Silo and Hazard.  They also get a brand new dose of thrills in Shangri-La, our latest Zombies offering, packed with deadly traps and dark secrets buried within the shifting walls of an ancient and mysterious temple.”

Stay tuned to GB for more info.

Danny Trejo, Robert Englund, Michael Rooker and the beautiful Sarah Michelle Gellar sit down and talk about their experiences working on the zombie map ‘Call of the Dead’. The map is part of the second installment of down-loadable content for Call of Duty: Black Ops entitled ‘Escalation‘ currently available exclusively for the Xbox 360 right now for 1600 Microsoft Points. Kind of pricey but well worth it in my opinion with four multiplayer maps as well as the infamous, unique zombie map ‘Call of the Dead’ which will soon be available for the PC and Playstation 3.  Here is our review of the ‘Escalation’ map pack and enjoy the videos of the All Star celebrity cast for ‘Call of the Dead’.

Sarah Michelle Gellar

Danny Trejo

Michael Rooker

Robert Englund