Black Ops’ Enhancements

After what seems like a whole summer dominated by Medal Of Honor’s Taliban shenanigans, (anyone would think they did it on purpose) the info surrounding Call Of Duty: Black Ops is finally coming thick and fast.

In the past week alone we’ve had a look behind the scenes at the multiplayer balancing that Treyarch has carried out, then came the news that Treyarch’s self-moderation had kicked in when the bog standard violence turned into lashings of the old ultra-violence. Before that, we heard how Blacks Ops will be the biggest gaming release ever, before an analyst said that the press surrounding the title could scupper this.

In a posting on the official blog, Treyarch’s community manager Josh Olin has talked about some enhancements in the PS3 version of Black Ops.

Custom Games Editor.
Gives hosts the ability to customise every single aspect of the game right down to the mode, score and time limits to the weapons or perks available. This can be saved in your File Share so your friends or the community can browse and download it.

Friends List Enhancements.
The PS3 fiends list has been integrated in to the Black Ops user interface, so rather than a simple list of fiends appearing as is the norm, within Black Ops you’ll be able to browse Recent Players, Friends, navigate their File Shares, Recent Games, Combat Records – all within this in-game menu system designed to streamline the social process within the game. Sending game invites and joining Friends’ games has never been simpler.

Regional Matchmaking & Party Privacy.
As you’d expect from such a customisable experience, it’s possible to add filters to matchmaking for global, regional and local games. In addition, it will now be possible to join games in progress via the new friends list interface rather than having to sit it out in the lobby. The party leaders will also be able to lock down games to invite only, friends only or even closed.

The big win for the PS3, is obviously the friends list enhancements, this builds on the work done in Modern Warfare 2 which was the first (and still one of the few) PS3 games to use cross-game invites. The manipulation of your friends and recently played list along with being able to browse their stats and file shares is a pretty nifty feature that we look forward to trying out when the game is released on November 9th.

Note: The headline on this article has been changed to reflect the fact that a lot of this info also relates to the Xbox 360 version of the game. The fact that this article was sourced from the PS blog is reflected in its leaning towards that console. Apologies for any confusion!