Call of Duty Black Ops 3’s campaign is a bizarre ride. The beginning of this attraction doesn’t really capture any excitement or reason to continue the rest of the experience… but if you stay for the long haul, you are compensated for your patience. Whether or not this reward is negative or positive, I cannot currently tell you. I am currently writing this as a post reflection, letting my brain’s opinion of the campaign endlessly go back and forth like a pendulum while I type words. Join me in this recap adventure of an outright psychotic script put into a video game with an immense budget.
SO THERE IS A LOOOOOOT OF DEATH. I mean… A LOT. This is the most death that has probably ever existed in a Call of Duty campaign. Do you remember the message that first pops up when you launch a Call of Duty game, informing us that there will be disturbing content included in the next five hours of our lives? That warning has a lot more relevance this time around. You look to the left, your friendly NPC explodes into pieces by a grenade. You look to your right, a giant heatseaking robot ball with spikes attached is constantly running over another friend, continually puncturing his body until the eventual gibfest that happens. You look up, an enormous futuristic jet crashes considerably close to your location. (Don’t worry, it still ends with friendly AI exploding into pieces!) If you were to look down… well, you would see your finely animated legs wading through all the body parts you’ve previously seen fly through the air. Let’s not forget the entire flowing stream of human blood filled with dead bodies that you have to swim through! This basically means that there is absolutely no limits to how anyone or anything can die in this story. The main characters are usually suspects of the worst possible way to go… which then continually changes your opinion on which character died the most unfavorable.
So why exactly is all of this death happening in the first place? Well… that’s a long story. That’s a VERY long story. This campaign felt like one of those movie theater experiences where the film you’re watching never ends. There are so many different characters and plot points that keep constantly changing. While I was able to keep track of every character they introduced, my brain was still baffled by all of the varied situations they kept getting into. Around the fifth chapter of the game is where the main structure of a generic Infinity Ward campaign is completely thrown out the window. The beginning does have some impressive visuals related to the simulation that the unnamed main character is forcefully put into. Due to the injury of having a robot rip off every single limb the main character has, the simulation is used as a way to keep him/her training while new mechanical body parts are attached. Time pauses during the most chaotic moments, letting the player take in all of the death being displayed in intricate detail. While this is quite interesting, these moments have absolutely nothing on what’s to come in the future.
The only way to explain forthcoming set pieces without completely spoiling the surprise is… by... YOU JUST SEE SOME CRAZY SHIT. Nonstop, you’re inserted into places you couldn’t even predict being in a Call of Duty campaign. This is not necessarily a bad reoccurring theme. These moments were immensely entertaining and kept me playing to see the next wacky situation the main character and loyal buddy Hendricks would go through. It was in chapter 7 that I came to a realization of how much the writers of this game gave absolutely NO care to what people would think. Combine that mindset with a budget of… how much money? Millions… billions? Whatever it may be, Treyarch had a LOT of potential directions to take this story into. This type of mindset has helped create extensively loved art pieces. Amazing examples of this would be the movie Drive, The Beatles album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and the video game Spec Ops: The Line. In Call of Duty: Black Ops 3’s case, does this type of writer’s mentality help benefit the story?
No. I’m currently putting my brain away for this next paragraph and will let my heart type its most opinionated desires. These set pieces are confusing as actual fuck. If the player stopped caring about the story in the first four chapters, they would be completely lost until the very last chapter of the game. The player may still be entertained, but will be completely detached from the experience itself. This is the main issue with the story. While the ideas that are displayed are brilliant concepts, there is just too much of everything going on to appreciate the most recent mindfuck that previously happen. There is a certain point in the last chapter of the game that made me giggle with an included cringe sent through my entire spinal column. The line that the main character repetitively kept saying felt so much like part of a freshman college screenwriting assignment that only took two hours to create. It’s just… completely baffling. The entire package is just one explosively gore filled digital simulation that only ends when it wants to.
So I’ve come to my final opinion… my final goodbye to this one thousand and forty seven word article. Call of Duty: Black Ops 3’s campaign has heart. It has an obvious amount of effort and new ideas put into the game to intentionally make a different experience compared to the previous installments. Not only that… it’s fun! The solid shooting and movement is still there with the addition of some new rad futuristic abilities that make you feel like a badass. If anything in this article has peaked your curiosity, I would recommend giving the campaign a try. No, it isn’t the most revolutionary or finest story ever written in video game history… but it is one of the most obscure and baffling experiences you can currently receive from something with such a high budget. Sit down, turn off your brain and let the wacky world of digital homicide wash through you.
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