The Glade 4.0

I was really excited until I realized it was only the multiplayer mode, and the real game will be conventional black ops wankery.

Still... what the hell? Does anyone else think this was an awesome April fools joke or a dare that went way too far?

I would like to play that game. Maybe they can spin it off into it's own "Call of Duty: Lovecraftian enchanter edition".

I'm an, uh, unabashed lover of all things Jeff Goldblum. I adore his turns as a brilliant mathematician with a strange laugh, an expert on artisan knots, the confident spokesman for Waitmate, a neurosurgeon named New Jersey, and a straightforward educator on how to pronounce his last name. Now, courtesy of the Shadows of Evil co-op mode for Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, the fine actor will have another inimitable role to add to the list: knife-juggling magician with a rocket-powered shield. And just like that, I suddenly feel the need to buy the next game in a series I thought I was done with for good.

Watching the above trailer simply invigorates me, in a way no Call of Duty trailer ever has before. It's all so delightfully different, from the 1940s metropolis setting lit up with neon signs, to the Cthulhu-like creatures that seem to be in cahoots with the typical zombie hordes. Even though I'm fatigued by gaming's most done-to-death, endlessly reanimated enemy type, the undead can still be made palatable when they're dressed like gumshoes and gunned down to the tune of a jazzy number, complete with a faux-Frank Sinatra crooning about "snakeskin boots on a Saturday night".

Shadows of Evil's flair for the wonderfully weird goes so far beyond the things I typically associate with CoD, besides snappy FPS gunplay: predictable plots set in gritty worlds populated by uninteresting characters who are constantly yelling at me to get moving. That structure has paid monstrous dividends thus far, so there's really no reason for Activision and Treyarch to veer away from the proven CoD experience of cinematic campaigns and gripping multiplayer. But the Lovecraftian elements in Shadows of Evil feel worlds apart from modern or advanced warfare, with a magical gumball machine that provides the mode's trademark powerups (vending machines: not much of a thing in the '40s), some poor sap getting liquefied and sucked into a dark altar, and a hulking, otherworldly beast sporting spiny tentacles and three heads full of piranha-like teeth.

And of course, you've got my man Jeff going Full Goldblum, with the bizarre inflection of lines like "Ah, it appears that the shield is quicker than the EYEEEEEEEEE!" and "If it imbues me with power, mmmthen CHEW I WILLLL!" (I had to rewatch that bit about eight times to understand what the heck he was saying, and I still get a kick out of it). In fact, the whole cast of Shadows of Evil has a history with geeky weirdness I can't help but love. Heather Graham had a breakout role on Twin Peaks, Ron Perlman made for a stellar Hellboy, and Neal McDonough got to wear a ridiculous fake mustache as Dum Dum Dugan in Captain America and Agent Carter (though I'll always think of him as M. Bison in the abysmal Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li). To see them as a flapper-chic burlesque dancer, down-and-out boxer, and foul-mouthed PI, respectively, is almost as enticing as the greatness of Goldblum. You've even got Robert Picardo - The Doctor from Star Trek: Voyager - playing some kind of supernatural broker. What's not to love?