Call of Duty: Black Ops

Another year, another Call of Duty.  I'm starting to fear that the Call of Duty series is going to be put on the same page as Tony Hawk and Guitar Hero as games we all grow tired of.  But what shocked me about Black Ops, this year's entry in the long running military fps series, is that it doesn't flat out suck. 

 
I was very vocal and flat out against 2008's "World at War", which I felt was a cheap cash in to capitalize on the popularity of the series revitalization with "Modern Warfare".  It was a step back from that game, returning to world war II, and bringing no good plot to the table, I was disappointed with the title.  This year's Treyarch COD is more then just a copy and paste job.  Well, at least the single player campaign isn't a copy and paste job.

I have to say, and I'll openly admit it, but Black Ops single player campaign is the best single player Call of Duty campaign I've played. There, I've said it. The campaign just flat out rocks, and mixes the best of badass, slow motion shootouts, vehicle sections, and stealth sections to make the most immerse Call of Duty experience. Unlike a lot of people, I play Call of Duty for the single player campaign first, before I jump into Multiplayer. This year you play as Alex Mason (voiced by Sam Worthington), whose story is told through flashbacks as he's strapped into a torture chair and being questioned. The plot of the game is immersve, and for once I actually cared about the characters quite a bit in this story. Yes, Modern Warfare and it's sequel have Price and Soap, and they are awesome characters, but I found the plot here to be more engaging. Some of the other notable voice talent here is Ed Harris, Ice Cube, and a show stopping performance from Gary Oldman, whose Russian accent for his character is so damn good, I didn't even realize it was him. However, Sam Worthington's voice acting is shoddy. At times he does good, but at times his Australian accent comes through crystal clear and throws off the pace of the story. The mix and variety of missions this year is also a welcome change. The stand out mission though has to be the stealth Vietnam level. I found it to be one of the most intense experiences in a game this year.

The campaign will take you anywhere from ten to twelve hours, depending on difficulty.

With single player set aside as the shining part of Black Ops, you'll find two other modes available, Multiplayer (which is basically a re-hash of Modern Warfare's mutiplayer) and Zombie mode makes a return. The reason I am put down on multiplayer is that instead of improving the mutiplayer, or making something original of their own, Treyarch does what it does best, and copy and pastes the code. This is so noticeable, that the same care package glitch was in this game for two weeks after launch. Zombies is a fun distraction, but a distraction is all it is still. I mean, yeah zombies is cool, but with so many games adding zombies these days (Red Dead Redemption) and so many other zombies games like Left 4 Dead and the Resident Evil series, what's the point here? It's just a distraction.

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised that Black Ops isn't the gigantic failure that I assumed it would be going into it, but at the same time I am more then happy to load up my copy of Modern Warfare 2 for some good multiplayer action. And I've also got some Halo: Reach for that as well. Black Ops is a competent Call of Duty game, but Treyarch still shows that they are the B team.