Black for more

Call of Duty: Black Ops is the best selling Call of Duty so far, beating even Modern Warfare 3, so it makes sense that Activision has chosen to give it a sequel. In fact, all of the Call of Duty games have sold so astonishingly well that it would make sense to make sequels to any of them. Except maybe for Call of Duty: Big Red One, as then it would end up with an even stupider name.

Reviews of Call of Duty: Black Ops II appeared online at 8am this morning. Just like Halo 4 and Assassin’s Creed III, they have have been a little bit mixed. Now Gamer’s 7.5 review is well worth a read, as is the 8/10 from the Official PlayStation Magazine. From the looks of things they’re two of the few places to get advance review code of the PS3 version. IGN meanwhile thought it was the best Call of Duty yet, awarding it a mighty 9.3.

Supposed system seller Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified is also out on PS Vita. Although it says Activision on the box, it is to all intents and purposes and a Sony production – it was developed by one of Sony’s studios (Nihilistic, of Resistance: Burning Skies fame) and Sony are handling all the marketing for it. The current lack of reviews is very worrying. EDGE has an article on it that’s well worth reading even if you’re not planning to buy it.

Two karting games are having their own battle this week – Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed and F1 Race Stars are going head-to-head. Both are available online for less than full-price – most online retailers have F1 Race Stars for £29.99 and Sonic Racing Transformed for £24.99. The first batch of copies of the latter are marked as ‘limited edition’ and come packaged with Metal Sonic and an Outrun track DLC.

We played a bit of F1 Race Stars at Eurogamer Expo and quite enjoyed it. There’s a demo now available to make up your own mind.

Following on from last week’s LittleBigPlanet Karting, Wonderbook: Book Of Spells is another one of Sony’s big Christmas releases. J.K. Rowling has had a hand in this and Harry Potter fans will no doubt be curious – via the PS Move budding wizards can learn such spells as Incendio, Wingardium Leviosa and Expelliarmus. We don’t have a clue what these are.

The cash-strapped THQ are also releasing Saints Row: The Third – The Full Package – which has a price tag of £29.99 and contains 3 mission packs and 30 bonus weapons and outfits – while Alternative Software’s Rugby League Live 2 is out on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. They’ve made loads of rugby games in the past, so we’d image that they’ve got the knack of it by now.

There’s a couple from Ubisoft too – The Hip Hop Dance Experience on Wii and Xbox 360, which is approximately their 37th dancing game this year – and Rabbids Rumble on 3DS which we very much doubt is any worse than Rabbids 3D because that would be impossible.

Rounding the week off is a huge slew of casual games – The Cube, Monster High: Skultimate Roller Maze, Nickelodeon Team Umizoomi, Dora and Friends’: Fantastic Flight, Nintendo Presents: New Style Boutique and Raa Raa The Noisy Lion. We trust you don’t have a passing interest in any of these. Well, we hope that’s the case.

Next week: Hitman: Absolution (PS3, 360, PC), LEGO Lord Of The Rings (PS3, 360, Wii, DS, Vita, 3DS, PC), Family Guy: Back To The Multiverse (PS3, 360), Disney Epic Mickey: The Power of Two (PS3, 360, Wii, 3DS), PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale (PS3, Vita), Rise Of The Guardians: The Video Game (PS3, 360, Wii, DS, 3DS) and a belated Classics/Essentials re-release of Soul Calibur 4.

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