Call of Duty is Still a Threat. Black Ops 3 Review
Rest assured this year’s Call of Duty release is still packed full of shooting guys in the face. It may not be as polished as last year’s Advanced Warfare but it’s still a lot of fun, providing its share of set-piece moments, additions to the combat and movement mechanics and cameos from big name actors. I can’t say that I’m as thrilled with Black Ops 3 as I was Advanced Warfare, but if you’re looking for a solid and fully featured first person shooter, then you’ll be hard pressed to find one as packed with content as Call of Duty: Black Ops 3.
This time around, the game’s campaign has you playing as a custom soldier. That is, you’ll be controlling a character that you “create.” Basically this just means that you’ll be picking from a list of prefab faces. It has no real impact on the game other than leaving it feeling devoid of some of the personality Troy Baker brought to the table last year. This is a minor complaint being that I’ve never felt player characters were all that important in prior Call of Duty campaigns, but it felt like somewhat of a backpedal. Outside of this the narrative is fine. Not spectacular by any means, but it’s a fun ride and offers up an excuse to fight both enemy humans and machines.
The dynamic of fighting both humans and robots is basis of the special abilities that you’ll use throughout the single player as well. Unlock tokens gained by playing through the campaign either solo or with a friend (the entire campaign can now be played co-operatively) can be used to purchase abilities in one of three trees between missions. One mostly lets you hack machines, one lets you deal damage mostly to humans and one lets you add buffs to yourself. It’s fun to mess around with the different ability types and make guys explode with your mind, and once you’ve reached a high enough level you’re able to switch between ability trees on the fly. The only problem with this feature is that I was about 10 levels behind the unlock threshold for this ability, and the campaign isn’t something so spectacular that I felt like I’d be heading back to it any time soon.
On top of this, you’re given the ability to run on walls (something that must be purchased with unlock tokens as well which is not made abundantly clear up front). Again, this is a fun addition to the traditional Call of Duty formula, I just never really found myself using it, as most of the levels didn’t appear to be designed with that type of movement in mind. Still this is by no means a bad campaign. It’s still chock full of Call of Duty’s brand of action with some fun additions to mess around with, and a stellar performance by Christopher Meloni. It just lacks some of the impact that last years’ Advanced Warfare carried.
The multiplayer this time around does take some steps to differentiate itself from previous entries in the series, though not large enough ones to lure you in if you’re not already a fan of Call of Duty’s style of twitchy, fast-paced first-person action. Black Ops 3’s multiplayer features classes, each of which with two special abilities like a bow with explosive arrows, or major damage dealing ground spikes. These abilities build up over time and are accelerated as you get kills and acquire points. They’re fun to use, and because they only require time to execute you’re still treated to some special items and abilities if you’re like me and won’t be reliably building up enough points to use some of the higher-tier score streaks. Everybody has the ability to run on walls in multiplayer, and are equipped with jump jets which are less thrust-y than Advanced Warfare and feel more like a floaty jet pack. The maps in multiplayer seem much more conducive to the movement in the game than the single player and it’s fun to get around. Outside of this multiplayer feels largely similar to Call of Duty’s past.
Zombies mode makes a return in Black Ops 3 featuring actors like Jeff Goldblum and Ron Pearlman. As someone who hasn’t kept up on Call of Duty’s Zombie modes over the years, let me just say, they got weird. At its core Zombies retains the wave based survival gameplay introduced in World at War, but this one has it’s own encapsulated narrative. Something to do with a failed magician and, again, Ron Pearlman is there so I supposed I’m alright with it. Touching some sort of mystical cauldron with transform you into an Eldritch nightmare with a tentacle attack and lightning. I didn’t spend a huge amount of time in the zombies mode, but it seems like its fairly deep and will extend the life of the game after you’re finished with the campaign. Oddly enough, zombies have actually penetrated the story this time around as one underwhelming sequence has you hold up in a cabin while zombies attack it and a full zombies version of the campaign will even unlock after you complete the main story.
You probably don’t need me to tell you whether or not you want to play another Call of Duty. These games come out every year and are always of a certain level of quality. The teams developing the games don’t need to deviate much from the formula because that formula is a lot of fun, and feels really good. I’m totally fine with Activision attempting to science-fiction up their previously grounded in realism shooter since bombing around with a jet pack and hacking robots with your mind is dumb in a great way. However with two of these “not-too-distant-future sci-fi” shooters under their belt, I’m hoping that they’ll try something new with the next Call of Duty. Still though I had a good time with Black Ops 3. There’s enough new in this one that its noticeable while not being so different that it will turn fans of the series away. It might not have the level of sheen that Advanced Warfare brought to the table, but Black Ops 3 still offers up a fun campaign with some interesting changes and plenty of content to keep you going for a good while.
