83 days away, November 9th 2010 is the day Activision release of the latest Call of Duty series, Black Ops. As the usual call of duty series, players get to experience the cold war happened during Vietnam War. This time there is not much of fancy weapons, like what we get from COD4:MW and COD6:MW2 as Treyarch prefer to adapt the history and imply into their game play. But before we go any further, let us go through the history of Call of Duty.

Time line for Call of Duty title release and developers;

Call of Duty, 2003, developed by Infinity Ward

Call of Duty 2, 2005, developed by Infinity Ward

Call of Duty 3, unknown, developed by Treyarch

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, 2007, developed by Infinity Ward

Call of Duty 5: World at War, 2008, developed by Treyarch

Call of Duty 6: Modern Warfare 2, 2009, developed by Infinity Ward

Call of Duty 7: Black Ops, Unknown, developed by Treyarch (Still under process)

Call of Duty has become franchise, following similar steps like Fifa or Need for Speed, announce a new title annually. It is good for the fame and business but they totally forget about the gamers’ point of view. They develop the game too fast to the point where the gamers cannot settle down to one game. Take Counter-Strike as example. They release expansion for it throughout the years since 1999 until today, 2010 they settled down on version 1.6. Throughout the years the developers had tried to balance the game, thus the credibility of a game and increment of players every year and then. But what Activision did was just publish the game, made a couple million out of it, then move on to the next title. This really screws up the entire gaming community, separates them into smaller groups.

But what concerns me is that will players from Call of Duty series move to Black Ops? In Malaysia, the only active communities for Call of Duty series are Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare 2. However, Modern Warfare 2 is a little hard to turn the game play into competitive level as the console bar is not available for the modders to do their job. Besides that, the lack of dedication servers could also be the stumble block for the pro gamers who wanted to play MW2 competitively. On the other hand, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is pretty much alive, after years in the market and two additional Call of Duty series came out. Competitions are going on monthly in Europe, being organized by sponsors. But that is not happening in Malaysia, where competitions are being organized by the community itself due to lack of sponsors. But let’s move back to the original topic. Will the players who other Call of Duty series eventually move to Black Ops? Will there be competitive level for Black Ops? Will there sponsors willing to inject cash and prizes into competitive scene? Only time will tell.

There is something I want to share with you guys about Call of Duty history.

Call of Duty series used past history as their platform to build a game, whereas only COD4 and COD6, famously known as Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare 2 are the only Call of Duty titles with future warfare background.

Before everything ends, here's the trailer for Black Ops. Enjoy!