Unless you’ve been living under a rock or on a remote island somewhere, you likely know about the Call of Duty video game franchise. It’s been, to say the least, amazingly successful with the last installment, Black Ops II, being on of the most successful games of all time.

Naturally, when there’s been succes of this magnitude, you can expect another game in the franchise to come along in shor order. Said game has now been announced and it’s called Call of Duty: Ghosts.

And as if that wasn’t enough, the guys who created the game in the first place and were responsible for my favorite installment, Modern Warfare, are back on board for Ghosts. That’s right, Infinity Ward is on the case.

We’ve got a few things to share with you today about the new game. Among them are a video and some box art, just to start things off on the right foot. Check all of that out after the break.

Obviously, as huge fans of this franchise, we’ll be following developments on this one very closely. So, stay tuned.

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Sometimes those XBox 360 users have all the fun, right? That may be what you’re thinking if you’re a user of the PS3 or a Windows PC to get your gaming on and are waiting patiently for some great DLC content like Call of Duty: Black Ops II Uprising.

Well, fear not, as your wait has ended. That’s right, beginning May 16, you PS3 and Windows PC users will have the opportunity to play Uprising, Activision and Treyarch’s DLC Map Pack for Call of Duty: Black Ops II. This rather cool map pack includes four new multiplayer maps as well as the “Mob of the Dead”, which takes players to Alcatraz island and pits you against hordes of flesh-eating zombies.

But that’s not all, the “Mob of the Dead” also features a cool twist: you take on said zombies in the shoes of one of four Prohibition-era mobsters, which are voiced by some major Hollywood actors: Billy Handsome (Ray Liotta), Al “The Weasel” Arlington (Joe Pantoliano), Salvatore “Sal” DeLuca (Chaz Palminteri), and Michael “Finn” O’Leary (Michael Madsen). All four are serving time in Alcatraz Prison, only to discover that being behind bars is the least of their problems.

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If you’re close to my age, one of your favorite video game memories is most likely being in the arcade playing the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game in all its side scrolling, beat-em-up glory. With the upcoming downloadable title Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, we may get to relive our past glory while a whole new generation gets to experience it for the first time (without pumping the arcade machine full of $27 in quarters.

In the latest trailer, we get to take a look at Michelangelo in action. The first thing you’ll notice is that the combat doesn’t resemble that of a simple brawler as the moves done by Mikey more closely mimic that of the Batman: Arkham franchise. Combat looks to have a dynamic feel, and though there are bound to be some canned animations (like Mikey’s head spin) it appears as though there will be a plethora of different moves happening during a fight as opposed to a few basic swinging animations from the classic arcade series.

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After the recent sad news with layoffs happening at High Moon Studios following the completion of the Deadpool game which is set for June 25th release for the XBox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC, there was a PR blip that went out late yesterday getting into detail with the Deadpool preorder incentives. Obviously, the team behind the Deadpool PR is still working hard at keeping Deadpool at bay when he gets his hands on their press releases.

Below, you’ll be able to check out the list of presale incentives from GameSpot and Amazon for those who are picking up this Marvel merc at the budget price of $49.99. Make sure to check out all the new screens below as well!

intimidated invited Activision Publishing, Inc. and High Moon Studios to make a video game starring Marvel’s most Marvel-ous character, me. And you being a gamer of unquestionable good taste wish to pre-order that game. Well I say bravo – you deserve some awesome rewards for putting your trust in Deadpool.

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Earlier this week, we touched upon the Mob of the Dead portion of the Uprising DLC pack coming to XBox 360 on April 16th for Call of Duty: Black Ops II. In it, mobster movie icons Chazz Palminteri, Joe Pantoliano, Michael Madsen, and Ray Liotta take on the roles of four Alcatraz inmates getting ready to bust out only to find out an undead, demonic horde has broken in to the tightest security prison in the world.

In the trailer below, you’ll get some back-story on the fictional mobsters modeled after these stars and find out just where they fall into the prison hierarchy before everything starts going south. As with other new versions of the infamous Zombie mode, you’ll also see new zombies to deal with and traps to hatch. There is also a brief look at the new purgatory game mode as well.

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This past weekend, 32 teams of four took up arms in the ultimate XBox Call of Duty Championship. In the end, it was the team Fariko Impact that took home the gold and $400,000 cash prize. Damon “Karma” Barlow, Adam “Killa” Sloss, Marcus “MiRx,” and team captain Chris “Parasite” Duarte (collectively known as Fariko Impact) faced off against EnVyUs in the final round Sunday after the three day tournament.

Fariko Impact would emerge victorious with the winner’s share of the $1,000,000 total pot. But don’t feel too bad for EnVyUs as the second place team would walk home with $200,000 themselves and third place team OpTic Gaming taking $120,000 with them.

Also revealed this past weekend alongside the images of the new Uprising DLC Map Pack was the latest Replacer trailer. After the original Replacer was revealed, it would only be a matter of time before more Call of Duty: Black Ops II players would need to call upon the services of these men in black.

This time, original Replacer Peter Stormare is joined by J.B. Smoove. This time, as you’ll see in the trailer below, the Replacers find themselves in even more awkward scenarios, the kind it takes two people to tackle.

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With Skylanders Swap Force already on the horizon for this upcoming holiday season, the final Giant figure is being released for Skylanders Giants with Ninjini. Ninjini is the 8th Giant, representing the Magic element and is the only female of the Giants. Our bank accounts are happy that Ninjini has finally seen the light of day as this is the last of the $15 Giants to complete our collections (totaling a cool $105 on just Giants if not counting Tree Rex who comes with the Skylanders Giants game.)

Make sure to check out Ninjini’s trailer and screen shots after the break and stick to The Flickcast for more on Skylanders Swap Force and the 32 new Skylanders coming out for it as it becomes available.

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If you were born after 1980, the names Leonardo, Donatello, Rafael and Michelangelo aren’t just a bunch of names you ignored in fine arts class. For almost three decades, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have been a part of the lives of so many different generations with some of their iterations being better than others and their history in video games is no exception.

While the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game is renowned as being one of the most difficult games on the NES (even though its key audience was kids), the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles four player arcade cabinet is one that hordes of us pushed quarter after quarter into and did so happily.

With the most recent version of TMNT hitting big on Nickelodeon and a Michael Bay (shudders…) feature film in the works, it’s no surprise that a new game would be making its way to consoles. Thankfully it isn’t based off the Michael Bay film but instead off the Nickelodeon franchise in TMNT: Out of the Shadows.

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When the creators of the top XBox exclusive Halo franchise teams up with the publishing behemoth behind the Call of Duty franchise, at least on paper it is a recipe for success. After months of only hearing the project’s name Destiny, Bungie was finally ready to reveal just what it was during an event this weekend.

Below check out the first developer diary featuring the first concept art for Destiny. After spending a decade with Halo, Bungie looks to spend the next ten years working on Destiny. In the trailer, you’ll hear the start of the Destiny mythos. Unlike Halo where mankind was fighting back against an invading force, Destiny takes place in the aftermath of an invading force. Saved only by a figure known as the Traveler, the remnants of humanity struggle to survive.

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On Tuesday, Activision announced the third installment of Skylanders with Skylanders SWAP Force. You can check out the trailer here. Skylanders SWAP Force uses new dual “brain” technology to enable swapability between 16 special SWAP force figures. The top and bottle pieces can be reconfigured to create 256 unique combinations of characters and like all other Skylanders can be swapped on the fly during gameplay to accommodate for whatever the current gameplay situation calls for.

Take an exclusive look at the first live gameplay footage from the reveal event from New York city on Tuesday. We apologize for the quality but this was the only way to capture a first look at the new Skylanders SWAP Force in action. Also check out CEO of Activision Eric Hirshberg and CEO of Toys R Us Gerald Storch talking about the power of the Skylanders franchise.

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Yesterday, we got to head into New York City for the worldwide reveal of Skylanders SWAP Force. The third installment in the Skylanders franchise, the game will be backwards compatible with all current Skylanders figures, be releasing a horde of new Skylanders and new gameplay mechanics including swapability. For the first time, the team at Vicarious Visions will be heading the production of a Skylanders title.

As you’ll see in the trailer below, the new SWAP Force Skylanders will be two pieces, a top and bottom half. These pieces can be split and recombined with any other SWAP Force Skylander. When reconfigured, a new Skylander is created. For example, take the top of Wash Buckler, a pirate squid, and combine it with the bottom half of Blast Zone, a flaming robot, and you get Wash Zone who has all the combative powers of a pirate with the jet boots of a robot. With this new release, there will be 16 SWAP Force Skylanders released, which leaves 256 possible top and bottom combinations for players to explore.

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As much as we have enjoyed some of the new Skylanders introduced in Skylanders Giants, there is nothing cooler than adding one of the eight new Giants to your shelf. Up until now, only five of them have become available. That changes with the release of the Undead and Water Giants, Eye-Brawl and Thumpback.

Not only have the Giants been the focus of the latest Skylanders game between the title and the focus on putting the lightcore technology in all of the Giants figures, they have also been given some of the coolest concept design and detailed crafting towards the actual toys.

Eye-Brawl touts itself as being one of the most powerful Skylander in addition to being one of the most visually impressive. Thumpback looks to be a huge powerhouse and will likely become a favorite for players with a preference for Water Skylanders as well.

Check out the full character bios, trailers, screen shots and toy gallery for both Eye-Brawl and Thumpback after the jump.

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Call of Duty: Black Ops II is addicting. Between the standard competitive multiplayer and the Zombie mode, thousands of lifetimes of game hours have already been played online. Now while the game doesn’t exactly go into a slump over time after its release, there is definitely a renewed spike in gameplay with the release of new maps.

Things may have been a little different last year with the early access that Elite members received in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 but with Call of Duty: Black Ops II Season Pass holders and the general public gaining access to the new maps at the same time, expect servers to fill up and social lives to diminish. But how do you help salvage social relationships with friends, family, work and significant others? Activision says it’s time to call in a Replacer.

In the video below, you’ll check out the real benefit of taking on a Replacer. For those moments that you don’t really need to be there for like putting together furniture or the first few annoying hours of labor, a Replacer is the ideal substitute.

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In under two months, more than 427 million hours have been logged into Call of Duty: Black Ops II multiplayer and zombie modes. At this point, it is reasonable for players to be clamoring for some new content. Treyarch has responded with a resounding, “It’s coming!” with the the Revolution DLC pack (which had some tidbits leaked late last week). The Revloution DLC pack will be coming out first to XBox 360 on January 29.

The Revolution DLC pack will include four new multiplayer maps, a new zombie map, the first new zombie DLC mode and the first ever DLC weapon. Check out the level descriptions below as well as the full preview trailer after the jump.

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As you probably noticed last week that 2012 was a momentous year in gaming, it is time we take a step back to let it all sink in. (momentary pause) Well now that that’s over, it’s 2013 and everything is ready and rearing to kick off.

The early part of 2013 is packed with huge games like Bioshock Infinite, Aliens: Colonial Marines, Lost Planet 3 and of course the juggernaut of Grand Theft Auto V. But there is a lot we don’t know about 2013 still, especially with an uncommonly light release schedule for the last few months of the year. So, here are The Flickcast Five top gaming predictions for the year, 2013.

1. Cliffy B Will Open a New Development Studio

In late 2012, Cliff Bleszinski announced that he was leaving Epic Games. During the revival of Epic Games, Cliffy B would become a figurehead for the company, making one of the most memorable E3 entrances when he cut through a wall to make his way onto stage using a Lancer. Having been with the company for so long though, Ciiff decided it was time to part ways to explore future endeavors. While we don’t think there was any bad blood between Cliff and his old team, he would have most likely been pigeonholed into working on titles that Epic wanted him to as opposed to being given the freedom to start his own new ones. While he might remain quiet for the early part of the year, before 2013 ends we think Cliff will be gathering a new team to launch his own studio. Think of it as the same scenario as the guys from Infinity Ward creating Respawn… minus all the lawsuits. With a creative genius like Ciffy at the helm, don’t expect just a Gears of War clone. But it is probably safe to expect things to be a little bloody.

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