(Posted by: Harrison Milfeld)

The next Treyarch developed Call of Duty will be dropping this fall, and from the looks of it, the title won't take place in Vietnam. Call of Duty: Black Ops will arrive on November 11 of this year, but the title has a lot of people guessing as to what time period the game will take place. Kotaku reported yesterday that the new Call of Duty title would possibly take place in Vietnam, but the Black Ops surname has many believing that this will be set in modern times. The Black Ops website has already gone live, but there isn't any other information abut the game as of now. We'll just have to keep guessing whether or not this new CoD will be a Cold War setting or a Forrest Gump-esque 'Nam setting (c'mon, you'd fantasize about that). 

Stay tuned as Activision should announce more information in the next few days. 

(Posted by: Alex Deckard)

Well, it appears Valve has set the date for Steam on the Mac.  It's May 12th according to Valve.  They announced moments ago in a press release that this is when they will be releasing the platform. The company also did not give a reason for the two-week delay. No other details exist, so we'll just have to wait I suppose.

(Posted: Harrison Milfeld)

When Bungie decided to become a privately independent company (sans the Halo series) in October 2007, speculation arose as to who they would develop for in the future. Would they jump to Sony, Nintendo or a random third party publisher? Well, we've got our answer.

In what is deemed a shocker today, Bungie, the developers of the successful Halo series, have announced an "exclusive worldwide partnership" with Activision that will last for ten years. This partnership of epic proportions will include one upcoming franchise to bring to multiple platforms. 

Hit the jump to read the press release and our thoughts.

This week we talk about The Passing, StarCraft II beta, StarCraft Ghost, Chat Roulette, California's anti-violence video game laws, delays for metroid and star successor, the xbox channel, lots of Futurama references and much much more!  

Stream it from the Podcast page or Subscribe on iTunes here

(Posted by: Kyle Boedeker)

Awesome!

(Posted by: Kyle Boedeker)

Check out this video (we found it at Gamepro) the credits of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare edited to reflect the Infinity Ward employees who have left so far to work for West and Zampella's new studio; Respawn Entertainment. The count is adding up, but Activision says they aren't worried. On a brighter note, if you're looking for a job, we happen to know that Infinity Ward has some openings. 

(Posted by: Alex Deckard)

Have you ever tried to play Madden, but just said to yourself "Gee, I suck at football"?  Have you ever wanted to hear voices in your head telling you how to play better?  If so, then you're in luck, because that's exactly what EA is trying to do with the upcoming Madden game!  The system, called "Gameflow" will provide support to inexperienced players, allowing them to play the game without having to focus on silly details like picking plays or choosing a receiver.  If you have a headset, it will even speak directly through that, so as to prevent nearby opponents from predicting your moves.  This new feature comes in the wake of last years crazy neon training camp that gauged how good you were and adjusted the difficulty of the game accordingly.  Some people, myself included, found this frustrating, as it would make you a better player artificially, which sort of takes the point out of the game.  This too will have an effect on multiplayer.  What's the point of getting good if your buddy can just have the plays read to him.  Regardless, it's an interesting way to approach a common problem, and it certainly has potential.

(Posted by: Alex Deckard)

Bethesda and Interplay are still embroiled in a lawsuit over the rights to a proposed Interplay Fallout MMO.  Apparently, when Bethesda got the rights to Fallout in '07, Interplay was granted 2 years to begin full scale development on a Fallout MMO.  One day before that window closed, Interplay announced that they had reached an agreement with Masthead Studios to make such a game.  Bethesda decided that this didn't constitute full scale development, and told them to shut down the project.  Then, everyone started suing eachother.  Interplay wanted the rights to the Fallout MMO, and Bethesda wanted a court to tell Interplay that agreeing to work with a Bulgarian game company does not constitute full scale development.  There was a rumor going around recently that the suits had been dropped, and it was even reported on such sites as IGN and Gamespot.  But we here at Gameshoe didn't report it, because we were busy with other stories.  Regardless, the suit is still on, and whoever wins, someone will be making Fallout games, and that's good for gamers.

(Posted by: Kyle Boedeker)

The U.S. Supreme Court will review a California law signed by the Governator back in 2005 which prohibited the sale of violent games to people under the age of 18. A federal appeals court blocked the law soon after deeming it unconstitutional. 

The Entertainment Software Association says it's confident the law will be dismissed.

"Courts throughout the country have ruled consistently that content-based regulation of computer and video games is unconstitutional," said Michael D. Gallagher, president and CEO of the ESA. "Research shows that the public agrees, video games should be provided the same protections as books, movies and music."

The case will be decided during the court's next term, which starts in October.