While Treyarch is considered the weaker of the two Call of Duty developers at the moment that doesn’t mean that they don’t put effort into their games. In a recent interview with Game Hunters, Treyarch studio head Mark Lamia said that the developer was getting advised by two former black ops operatives from both sides of the Cold War for the upcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops.
Lamia first noted that the team was talking with Maj. John Plaster, a veteran of the Studies and Observations Group (SOG), a multi-force black operations unit led by the Central Intelligence Agency during the Vietnam War. “(Plaster) was able to talk through what it was like being in the SOG and in particular his experiences during the Vietnam War era and the kind of, at the time, classified and sort of black operations that he was a part of,” Lamia explained. “He talked about everything from his training to missions to tactics.”
The team also spoke with Sonny Puzikas, a former Soviet special forces operative. “He has come into studio as well,” Lamia said, “and offered his advice and expertise on how Soviet special forces trained, the weaponry they used and what it was like to be in that force. When you meet with these people you can’t help but feel inspired about what they are telling you and it opens up new avenues of gameplay.”
Military advisers aren’t really anything new for war games these days. If this wasn’t a slow weekend I’d probably pass this up. But now you know, and as the greatest of all military advisers once said, “Knowing is half the battle.”
More on ‘Call of Duty: Black Ops’ with Treyarch studio head Mark Lamia [Game Hunters, via TVGB]
