The Call of Duty franchise is a massive name in the video game industry. The war-time first person shooter has made massive waves with World War II games, and their Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare 2 titles were juggernauts in the industry.

The Call of Duty franchise has been split between two developers: Infinity Ward, who created the original title and also handled the two Modern Warfare games, and Treyarch, who made Call of Duty 2: Big Red One, Call of Duty 3, and Call of Duty: World At War. The next game set for release comes from Treyarch, and it is called Call of Duty: Black Ops.

To help add a little more buzz to the game, two top-tier actors have been announced as voice talents in Black Ops. One is Gary Oldman, who will be reprising the role of Viktor Reznov, which he played in World At War. The other is four-time Academy Award nominee Ed Harris, who will be one of the main characters in the game, a CIA Operative named Jason Hudson.

Gamers have been in an uproar ever since Blizzard, developer of popular MMORPG World of Warcraft and the upcoming Starcraft II, decided to switch their forums over to a Real-ID system, which forces players to be identified by both their first and last name when they comment.

Most gamers argue that this switch is unnecessary and invites unintended invasion of privacy to the user if they chose to participate in forum discussion — and I’m hard pressed to agree. [NOTE: Having retired my pen name TechGOnzo almost a year ago, World of Warcraft is pretty much the only place I don’t use my real name on the Internet. The thought that immature gamer-rage comments could theoretically pop up in Google results when people search for me just never seemed all that appealing.]

At least one irate gamer is retaliating against the Real-ID change by publishing the personal information of Robert Kotick, CEO of Activision, of which Blizzard is a part.

**UPDATED BELOW**

Some strange and interesting breaking news being reported by G4 tonight. Apparently right this moment as you read this, Infinity Ward has been taken over by a bunch of “bouncer-type” security sorts who refused to disclose who they were or why they were there.

None of the employees of Infinity Ward seem to have any clue why this is happening or who’s behind it, but everyone there is naturally concerned and worried about what is actually going on. To make matters even worse for the employees, apparently studio heads Vince Zampella and Jason West had a meeting with Activision earlier this morning, but have not been seen or heard from since then.

Call of Duty: World at War
Genre: First Person Shooter
ESRB: M for Mature
Developer: ACTIVISION/Treyarch Studios
Platform: PlayStation 3
Release Date: November 11, 2008

Just another WWII shooter right? Well, in this case, yes and no. The name Call of Duty has become synonymous with quality first-person shooters and sequels continue to improve upon their predecessors. That was until now, as the fifth installment seems to have hit a few bumps along the way and fails to really improve on some of more innovative aspects introduced in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. It is worth noting that this game was produced by Treyarch Studios, who were responsible for part 3, but not part 4, which was produced by Infinity Ward. Even ignoring the WWII/Modern aspects, the contrast in styles is obvious, with some aspects not really helping the new version.

The story mode is entertaining, though at this point you have to wonder how creative people can get with yet another WWII first-person shooter. Even though Call of Duty: World at War lives up to its name by showing both the Asian and European fronts, I think the game could have done fine on its own focusing on the U.S.-Japanese conflict. The game jumps back and forth between the two fronts every two missions, which can be a bit annoying as it breaks the storyline for the sake of breaking it. Supporting this notion is the fact that a majority of the Asian front levels take place nearly a year after the fall of Berlin. You will play two levels in the spring of 1945 only to be sent back to the battle of Stalingrad immediately after. It seems unnecessary. While the Japanese campaign story would have been fine on its own, I have to admit some of the Russian/German levels were my favorite ones to play. Though it seems like a direct rip-off of Enemy at the Gate, one level has you taking over for a wounded sniper in Stalingrad, stalking your prey throughout a ravaged city. There is plenty to enjoy from the solo gameplay here, even if it isn’t all that original.

There are two things in this world I love: Zombies and Video Games. If you figure out a way to put those two things together then you might as well alert my employer to deduct the money directly from my paycheck and send it to you.

On that note, with today marking the release of Call of Duty: World at War (CoD 5 to those in the know), the good people out there who send us good things that tickle out geek fancy (you know who you are) decided to tease me with video of an unlockable zombie mode that pits you and up to three of your CoD buddies against an army of the undead. Genius, I tell you! Yeah, yeah. Go ahead and call me biased, but since I already wanted this game huge strong-bad, news of this Zombie mode does nothing but make the saliva glands go into Pavlovian overdrive.

Check out the official word and video linkage here after the jump.