'Call of Duty' leads charge at gaming fair

MEGA-selling first-person shooter franchise Call of Duty was expected blow open the Gamescom video games trade fair yesterday, headlining a wave of new releases as the industry weathers a rough patch.

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Around 5 000 people, including game publishers, developers and fans, will attend the evening launch ceremony, before hundreds of thousands of gamers descend on the western German city of Cologne later in the week.

Canadian TV presenter Geoff Keighley was expected to introduce titles including Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, one of two dozen installments in the long-running series, as part of a two-hour showreel of the industry's upcoming blockbuster productions.