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While the franchise’s rapidly-record-breaking success has generated a love-hate relationship between gamers and Call of Duty no one can deny the impact each game has in the industry every fall.
no one can deny the impact each game has in the industry every fall. The pop-cultural acceptance and mainstreaming of Call of Duty owes much thanks to the marketing folks at Activision, especially in recent years with the smart use of live-action trailers to add buzz to each annualized release.
Call of Duty: Black Ops made waves when it featured the likes of Kobe Bryant and Jimmy Kimmel in a live-action TV ad, and its followup, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 is continuing the tradition, this time throwing Hollywood A-lister Robert Downey Jr. into the cockpit of a jet fighter.
Highlighting the Call of Duty tagline “There’s a soldier in all of us,” the latest creative live-action venture (directed by Guy Ritchie) follows an everyday guy (with a fro and a mustache) nonchalantly calling in a tactical strike while being sniped, while the sniper has a tomahawk thrown at them, and so on and so forth. From there, the commercial goes tech-heavy, highlighting the future-setting of Black Ops 2 .
There are drones, armored mechs, hovering jets and more. Watch the video up top, also featuring FPSRussia, who helped launch the marketing campaign for the title with a video on the Quadrotor.
In addition to the obvious Iron Man nod with the AC/DC music and the “gunfight” line, there’s even a little love for the zombies thrown in. For more COD zombies fun, check out the live-action trailer for zombie Rezurrection DLCfor Black Ops 1 . Zombies of course returnagain after first appearing in World at War , this time getting their own story campaign.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 releases November 13, 2012 for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360, and November 18th for the Wii U. Iron Man 3 hits theaters on May 3, 2013.
Follow Rob on Twitter @ rob_keyes.