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    Call of Duty: Black Ops

    Game » consists of 19 releases. Released Nov 09, 2010

    The seventh installment of the long-running action franchise, Call of Duty: Black Ops puts players into the early era of the Cold War (including the Vietnam War) as a member of the United States black operations unit known as the SOG.

    dookysharpgun's Call of Duty: Black Ops (PC) review

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    CoD: BO: Because the Numbers told me to.

    Down through the years, there has always been that game series that seems to succeed due to its loyal fanbase. Now I admire these people, they never lose faith in what they follow. Despite shortcomings, a series loved by a loyal army of individuals always has an amazing backing no matter what. And then there came CoD: BO.

     Don’t get me wrong, I know people love this game and have played it to death, but there are more than a few defectors from their camp, rearing their heads in anger and disappointment at this latest title from Acivision’s nearly dead, flogged horse. Now I’ve always liked the CoD franchise…until, and I know this will sound very hipster of me, the games following Modern Warfare. Its direct sequel and the games handled by Treyarch have been far below expectations so far, delivering nothing but the same experience time and time again. Unfortunatly, all CoD games cannot ride from the famed and somewhat mythical MW game, that set in motion one of the most disgraceful and burnt out series ever invented. This series can be held up to Sonic the Hedgehog standards of stagnation, and that saddens and frustrates me. To rehash an old point, redressing an old game in fancy new clothing and sticking a price tag on it does not warrant a good game.

     

    Anyway, let us dive into Black Ops, before I lose the plot entirely.

     

    As far as the Singleplayer in Black Ops goes, it’s a pretty solid piece of storytelling, focused around Alex Mason, a member of an elite SOG team, and an overall character of dull. He has been strapped to a chair and grilled for his so-called knowledge of a particular number sequence. No spoilers shall be here, so feel free to read on.

    So we walk with Alex through the major hits of his life: Cuba, Russia, Vietnam and some other locations, in order to discover just what is going on involving these numbers. The setting is Cold-War era, because, you know, ‘Cold War’ was just a name, really things were getting heavy because of…plot points that really don’t make much sense. I found that every other character but Mason was memorable. His SOG squadmates were some of the best characters the series has brought us, and the villains and plot twists involved really keep you guessing as to what is really going on. However, despite some rather fun missions, I kept getting a sense of déjà vu. This seemed to be because most, if not all of the missions, were an almost copy/paste of previous game’s missions. There were only a few missions I actually liked, like the throwback mission to the end of WWII, with some nods to previous CoD titles. This was a nice touch, and something that has been missing from the series for a long time.

    Alex’s character is not so lucky as to get the high praise given to the story. He is basically the viewer of every event that goes on, yet holds some greater role in every event seen. This was amazing, as he was a fully voiced character, with a history that we were digging through. And my use of amazing is not actually in praise of this, I was disappointed with the manner in which he was handled. In a game that was focused on a single character’s life, with a few deviations to some much cooler, more interesting characters, with real motivations, I would have expected the actual character of Alex Mason to be more likeable. He just doesn’t do it for me. Give me a mute character any day of the week, and I’ll accept him, but this idea just seemed half-baked, like they wanted this to be more interesting but hadn’t the time nor the want to develop the idea past what we seen.

     Not Alex, but so much better.
     Not Alex, but so much better.

    The gameplay is classic call of duty, with fast paced action sequences, followed by some stealthy parts, because they were in CoD 4 and people liked that game. The array of weapons isn’t really staggering; there are some nice guns, and some not so nice guns, equipped with some attachments or others that you’ll use throughout the level. Yet the game suffers from a massive drawback…the scripted events. They are just awful. In several levels, because I chose to take a different approach to an attack, the game actually shut down. This scripted combat system is one of the most constricting and unnecessary pieces of coding ever made. CoD used to, back in even the CoD 2 days, give you the ability to approach certain scenarios in the way you wished to handle them. In this game, set-piece combat becomes the norm, and more redundant as time goes on. I found myself at one stage repeating the same corridor section four times, as I became impatient with the slow crawl of the level, and I believed I could take a room and use it to my advantage. Good idea yes? Wrong, in the CoD world, you get your head taken clean off by a shotgun wielding, armour-clad soldier who appears out of nowhere. This is a serious problem with this series; an infinite respawn of enemies unless you do the mission in the exact way the game demands, otherwise you get overwhelmed and have to start from scratch. The friendly AI is some of the worst I’ve ever seen, dying in manner that should not be possible in this day and age, with a publisher willing to throw cash hand over fist at…oh wait…no they like MAKING money hand over fist, so why fix these problems? I found large parts of this game to be unenjoyable, with some of the more brown-ish missions making it impossible to see enemies, or distinguishing them from friends. Some mission-continuing objectives are also obscured by the muddy graphics, throwing all manner of monotone colour at you. Overall, this game is both technically and graphically underwhelming, using the same engine from Modern Warfare, and not really adding to it in any way, shape or form. 

     The most colourful scene in this game.
     The most colourful scene in this game.


    I know this section has become about a number of things, but these are gameplay issues, and I still have multiplayer to cover.

     Multiplayer is CoD standard. In other words: the same monotone colours and tech issues, but with the added advantage of having new Perks! Oh the joy! Seriously though, the multiplayer is one of the biggest jokes I’ve ever seen in gaming history. Most of the customization options are locked until you unlock, or ‘buy’ them, using ‘COD Points’; the currency of CoD gained by winning matches and unlocking ranks. It was introduced to make multiplayer more of a fair experience for all, and fails miserably at what it aims to achieve. Not only does every gun and attachment, along with extra, and not to mention insane, perks cost in the region of 1000-3000 of these points, but these points can easily be accumulated by simply completing challenges. If anything, this system just hinders people who aren’t very good at the game, and have to gain more and more points just to unlock simple weapons. But the greatest clusterfuck in this new system, is the ability to spend the points on any weapon, perk of attachment, within a rank range. So not only does it mean that you can buy almost every weapon in the game, regardless of skill or use of a particular group of weaponry, but it means that the whole system is rendered useless, because if anyone can buy any weapon at any time, but only have them unlocked at a certain rank, then why have this system at all. It does not balance the game, it just hassles newer players to get these points, and frustrates them because they need to reach a certain level AND obtain the rank needed in order to unlock a single gun which they might like, i.e. an assault rifle, but they won’t get it without the points or rank, regardless of how often or not they use a weapon from the same class.
     


    The maps are small, and not very well designed, with large, open areas, and tight, pointless areas that are only useful if the player has a particular type of gun with a certain type of attachments. The maps are below double digits in number, and if not, it just feels like it, and don’t really add any kind of balance to gameplay. Some, like ‘Nuketown’, are just lazy, lazy levels, which give the illusion of balance while reality, leave one team with a major advantage and the other a limp when starting a game. The spawn system is also a mess, with little to no consistency for modes such as Team Death Match. While there can be some fun modes to play with the right groups of people, more often than not, the game will just frustrate and annoy, as it doesn’t really have the best array of choices for a player to take in a fight.

    To put it bluntly, it doesn’t really have a lot going for it in terms of a game that attracts mainly for multiplayer.

     

    And of course, we have the arcade zombie shooter, but I will just ignore that, as it isn’t actually part of the game, and in my mind, does not allow the game to hold up on any merits that it may have: on a quick side note; it is a boring mode, and utterly pointless and shallow as extra game modes go.

     

    Overall, Call of Duty: Black Ops has some solid ideas that show Treyarch trying to learn from past follies. Unfortunately, the choices taken with the game’s technical and multiplayer based elements, change nothing and just release it, drag the game into the spotlight it finds itself in now, showing people that maybe, just maybe, Activision are screwing them out of their hard-earned money.

     

    Verdict:

     

    3/5

     


    Pros:

     

     

    • Decent story

     

    • Some fun and excellent characters

     

    • Digressions to other characters can be interesting and fun

     

    Cons:

     

    • Outdated graphics

     

    • Script and technical related issues

     

    • Alex Mason is a boring and pointlessly voiced character

     

    • Multiplayer is the same old song and dance, with none of the flare it promises from the title.

     

    • COD Points system is counterproductive and half-baked, it doesn’t hold up under a magnifying glass
    An average game, with no real merits it can call its own, other than a weapon unlock system that shoots itself in the foot. If you're a CoD fan, you'll buy it, anybody else, skip this and buy something else, it just isn't worth the price you pay, coupled with DLC.

     
    WTF Moment?: The really, REALLY uncomfortable sit-down with a badly voice JFK.

    Other reviews for Call of Duty: Black Ops (PC)

      Black Ops, SP & MP 0

      I don't usually play multiplayer games online, and when I do it's typically short-lived, but when a mainstream franchise makes a 360 million dollar splash on the first day of sales it's hard to not take notice. Call of Duty: Black Ops is the latest game in the series and the second developed by Activision subsidiary Treyarch--who gained a lot of respect from gamers after World at War hit store shelves in 2008. Unlike WaW however, Treyarch's latest installement would borrow much of it's gameplay ...

      4 out of 5 found this review helpful.

      Liquid Looks At: Call of Duty Black Ops 0

        Liquid Looks At: Call of Duty Black Ops for the PC     The Numbers... Cant... Get them... out of my... HEad!    (Multiplayer review at the bottom)   I'll admittedly say that I am not a fan of the call of duty series.   After the disjointed storyline of the last addition I was expecting something similar.   However, I was impressed to find that my expectations were not met.   Treyarch did a damn good job with this one.   I believe that this game has potential to be one of the best of the...

      2 out of 3 found this review helpful.

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