Another week, another grandstanding Call of Duty: Black Ops announcement. Last Wednesday, there was final confirmation that the latest title in the shooter series would indeed contain a co-op zombie mode. Now, Activision has revealed that the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game will support stereoscopic 3D from launch. Owners will of course need a 3D-compatible HDTV and a pair of active shutter glasses, while PC gamers will need a machine equipped with an NVIDIA GeForce GPU. The 3D effect will be available in single-player, multiplayer and the zombie co-op.
"Development of stereoscopic 3D began as an R&D project," explains studio head, Mark Lamia. "But once we saw what the technology brought to the Call of Duty experience, what a great fit and how immersive it was, we knew that we had to develop it for Black Ops. Aiming down the sights of your weapons, flying in helicopters, rappelling down mountains, and moving through highly detailed environments are just some of the awesome experiences you will have in 3D with Black Ops."
It seems that developers of high-end shooters are extremely keen to embrace this new technology. Killzone 3, SOCOM 4 and Crysis 2 will all be compatible with 3D set-ups, while Ubisoft has hinted that it is prototyping a 3D shooter for PlayStation Move and Xbox Kinect. Combat games are seen as particularly benefitting from 3D visuals, allowing gamers to more quickly pick out distant targets from background scenery, as well as judge spatial elements like jumping and flying more accurately. Combined with motion systems like Kinect and Move, developers are also looking into head-tracking, so gamers can strafe, or look round corners, by simply tilting their heads left or right.
What we can certainly expect from the famously explosive and cinematic Call of Duty series is a lot of involuntary ducks and flinches as tons of bullets, shrapnel and wounded comrades fly out of the screen, seemingly straight at our soft heads.
Call of Duty: Black Ops is released on November 9.
