The Best FPS available for the Wii
The current generation of gaming has become known for some less savory trends. Tacked on multiplayer, offensive in-game advertising, and of course, "let's make every license into a shooter" all point to disappointing design decisions made by corporate number crunchers simply looking to maximize profits by hitting the lowest common denominator, rather than focusing on well made, thoughtful, meaningful games. The Call of Duty series began as a primarily PC focused series, and then quietly became an alternative to the Medal of Honor franchise with a small but rabid fan following. Recently, the series has simply exploded, becoming one of the biggest franchises of all time.
Unfortunately, the Wii has not fared quite so well. Despite having a controller setup so perfectly intuitive for FPS style games, the Wii generally gets left out in the cold when it comes to Call of Duty. World at War came to the system, but featured only a handful of multi-player maps, a limit of 8 players per game, and some truly game breaking glitches that could not (or maybe just were not) patched. On the single player side, much was intact, except for some cut vehicle sequences and irritating AI bugs. A final insult was the inclusion of only Free for All and Team Deathmatch modes. Then, nearly alongside the release of Modern Warfare 2, Infinity Ward decided to throw the WIi a bone and released the first Modern Warfare for the WIi. This featured more or less the full campaign, alongside well implemented multi-player, now with up to 10 players per match, all the game modes, and the full maps from the original PS3/360/PC release. Still, the online play lacked voice chat and the party system was a mess, even if you remove the cumbersome friend codes from the equation. Additionally, the frame rate was slowed to the point where some scoped weapons were almost completely useless. And, of course, Wii fans were supposed to get excited for a game that was, at the time, three years old.
Black Ops, the latest Call of Duty game, has received much mainstream support, including a full ad campaign (even showcasing Kobe Bryant) and setting all kind of sales records. This, however, again refers only to the PS3 and 360, and to some extent the PC. The Wii, however, was not completely ignored! Black Ops arrived for the system, but how did it fare? Is it squeezed onto a system that cannot handle it? Is it stripped beyond all recognizability? Is it a cartoony spin-off?
The short answer is No. Call of Duty: Black Ops for the Wii, is, for all intents and purposes, the full BlackOps experience. The single player campaign is there. The multi-player is there. Even Zombie mode is there. And the game, for the most part, works as intended. Everything is not perfect, and truly, some things were cut, but this is the best FPS for the Wii currently available.
The Single Player Campaign
Let's start with the single player campaign. First of all, it is all there. Even the attack helicopter sequence shown in early trailers is intact. And, surprisingly enough, you have full control. The other vehicle sequences are all included as well. The graphics have been significantly simplified from other Black Ops versions, but they are entirely passable. As cliche has the expression has become, it looks like a late cycle PS2 game. Fortunately, Treyarch was smart and focused on playability. Very rarely do the low-res graphics get in the way of seeing what you need to. Also, single player pop-in is nearly eliminated. Modern Warfare: Reflex was famous for enemy soldiers popping in only after the player was dead. Additionally, the frame rate is steady, and sniping with scoped weapons works. Grenade indicators, which worked about 25% of the time in MW:R seem to be functioning fine here. Intel pieces are still available, as is the Zork easter egg game, but it appears as though Black Ops Arcade game is too much for the Wii to handle.As far as the single player goes on its own merits, the story is interesting, to say the least. First of all, this is NOT a Viet-Nam game. The Cold War figures in much more heavily, and there is plenty of intrigue. Black Ops gets away from the nameless soldier in the crowd style of earlier games such as CoD:2 and CoD:3. You are clearly a super-soldier taking down an entire enemy army, although you usually have one or two AI teammates. They function well enough, and you are not tasked with keeping them alive, fortunately. You can expect to take down your share of helicopters as well as entire bases. The first portion of the game is remains rooted in reality. Sure, you have regenerating health and always seem to be in the center of world changing events, but for the most part, it is skeptically believable. The last half hour or so, however, goes completely off the rails. Nonetheless, it does not ruin an entirely compelling story.
The single player gameplay will not surprise anyone who has played any other CoD game, and will be very familiar to anyone with FPS experience. The set pieces mostly work, although a few places are poorly directed. There is one particularly memorable one where you have half a second to make a difficult jump before dying. The problem is that this comes after a cut scene, so you must re-orient yourself as well. This game adds some quick time events, but they are so unobtrusive as to be not worth mentioning. Also, most of them are nearly impossible to fail. There are a few stealth pieces, fortunately all but one are forgivable. The last is a great example of why FPS games do not lend themselves to stealth without the addition of something like a radar or detection meter.
All in all, the single player is, for the first time in a long while, worthy of the price of admission on its own. As a final note, many complain that Sam Worthington of Avatar, doing voice acting for the main character, is a poor choice. People tend to remark that his Alaskan sounds more like Australian. Even after being primed to look for this, I noticed only two or three lines that sounded Australian. Having said that, the other voices are much better. Reznov is particularly enjoyable.
Online Multi-Player
The real question for the vast majority of Call of Duty fans is not the single player campaign but the online multi-player. The Wii is notoriously terrible for online gaming, with obnoxious friend codes standing in the way of even the simplest interactions. Friend codes are in full effect, but fortunately you can also add friends simply by finding them in your recent players list! Finally! Also, getting together parties, or just jumping into games, works most of the time. When a player cannot connect, the game now reports if it is because the server is full, it is a private match, or if there is simply an error.Also hugely important is the addition of voice chat. Although some Wii games have used Wii-speak, BlackOps supports full headset voice chat for online games. Yes, now even the family friendly Wii supports swearing racist 12 year olds. Surprisingly, at this point the chatting seems to be used more for simply talking about which guns different players prefer.
The Wii also gets full custom class support, all the playlists, and all the maps. The most notable changes are that the Wii maxes out at ten players per match, so no large scale ground war games. Some of the larger maps, such as Launch, can get a little quiet at times, but for the most part 5v5 is enough. Some of the player controlled kill streaks, such as the piloted Attack Chopper and the Chopper Gunner are missing, but all the others ones appear intact, including the Attack Dogs, SR-71, and, of course, the Care Packages. The Wii version also removes the custom logo creation, although that is probably a good thing.
Amazingly, Treyarch has somehow gotten around Nintendo's "No Patching Wii Games" rule (Activision reverse engineered it in MW:R) and has already offered a few to fix connection bugs. Now, the game seems to connect perfectly, as long as you are using a wireless router. Unfortunately, having a lot of friends can add to lag due to the game's habit of updating you on their achievements during gameplay, and large parties can, at times, produce their own lag spikes. The biggest issue facing the Wii is problems with the system hardware. At times, images of guns simply will not load in time. When using the Last Stand perk, which gives players a change to pull out their sidearm just prior to dying, the game frequently will not load the image of the handgun. This means aiming down the sites just shows an empty screen. This can also happen when picking up a new weapon off a dead player. Until the gun loads, you simply have to use the on-screen reticle for all aiming. The gun usually loads within 15 seconds, but when playing online, you are probably dead within 3. This also happens on spawns. The mini-map sometimes takes a full minute to load, and there are times when you will be dead before the game has loaded the level around you. While frustrating, and seemingly game-breaking, the game evidently has an internal caching system, because as you play more matches, this decreases significantly.
Fortunately, the Wii continues to have the best FPS controls. Black Ops supports either the Wii-pointer with Nunchuck or the Classic Controller. The Pointer-Nunchuck combo is by far the best option. The pointer gives precision aiming, and the Nunchuck gives the controller enough useful buttons. The game does have some minor motion controls, but they are all easily disabled. Also, all they involve is shaking the controllers, no fancy arm swings here. The Classic Controller is a passable setup as well. I was not able to try the new Classic that came with Goldeneye Limited Editions, but it is purportedly slightly better than the "classic" Classic. The only problem with the pointer is sniping. You can set scoped weapons to either follow the pointer or the control stick, but neither really feels right. What the game does get right is the vast amount of adjustable control settings. You can adjust quite literally every aspect of how the pointer interacts with the screen. This means you are sure to find something comfortable. Having said that, it took me a solid 45 minutes of adjustments to find something I liked. A few presets would have been nice.
As for the actual multi-player experience, it probably deserves its own entire review. A lot of the "unbalanced" perks and kill streaks from Modern Warfare 2 have been adjusted. The biggest change is that kill streaks no longer "build" on each other to get higher rewards. Therefore, even if a player does well enough to get a 7 streak, with an Attack Helicopter, they can no longer hide and wait for the helicopter to get them 4 kills to hit the 11 Attack Dogs. This is, entirely, a good thing. It is clear, however, that a million monkeys with a million typewriters will eventually produce Shakespeare. Players have already discovered that the Hardline kill streak can be combined with the care package to swap out things such as ammo for, say, Attack Dogs, with only 4 kills in a row.
Other important balance changes include less numerous explosives and, theoretically, less powerful sniping. The explosives are a nice change, as there are many, many less launched grenades flying around. The sniping has never been a huge issue in previous Wii versions, and the jury is still out on Black Ops sniping. The spawn system has been revamped. It now simply seems random. At times, players will spawn in the line of fire, and die before they even full enter the game. On the other hand, players will also continually spawn right behind you. These types of kills, no matter if you are on the good or bad end, are not very sporting.
Otherwise, the maps and weapons are passable. The maps range from large to small, and have several levels and paths, plus a few bottlenecks. It is generally easy enough to find the action. A great edition are the "fantasy" maps. Generally, games pull multi-player maps from chunks of the single player levels. While Black Ops does this, it also has a few maps that are created just to be fun, including a nuclear test site complete with 50's style idealized American households populated with cardboard cutouts. The weapons are a nice mix. They have more recoil than those in Modern Warfare 2, but less than World at War. Shotguns are not overpowered, but also not useless. The go to guns are still Assault Rifles and the occasional SMG. The guns are unlocked by both level and "CoD points" which is the games currency.
That is right, the game has new multi-player currency in addition to the EXP based level system. The currency is awarded fairly similarly to EXP. Each level unlocks new guns available for purchase, and then once purchases, the player can equip them. Some things, such as gun attachments, are always available by level, but always cost points. This means that players who do not want to snipe are under no obligation to spend points on a sniper rifle, and can instead buy any number of special attachments for their favorite shotgun. Additionally, players can purchase "Contracts" which give specific achievement-style challenges to be completed for extra CoD cash, and can gamble points during specific Free-For-All modes.
The final note about multi-player is the new Free-for-All modes. Gun game involves 20 levels of weapons. Players must make a kill with each weapon to move onto the next, and the first to get a kill with all the weapons wins. This forces players to use a variety of weapons, and is a ton of fun. The only problem is players can get stuck if they do not move off the opening pistol quickly and other players get more powerful automatic rifles. Another mode is called gun game where the game selects a random weapon to be used by all the players, and rotates them every 45 seconds. This mode exposes you to brand new options, such as an SMG with sniper scope or a Shotgun with extra ammo. Additionally, there is a "Sticks and Stones" mode that gives players only knives, tomahawks, and crossbows. While it is fun to use the special agent weapons, they do not play well. The final new Free-for-All is called "One in the Chamber." This mode gives players a pistol with one bullet, and three lives. Score a kill, get an extra bullet, miss, and you have to use your knife. This can be intense, but unfortunately devolves into people hiding in corners. These modes all are fresh additions, and all have you gamble your CoD points as an entry fee, with the top 3 finishers earning points back. Fortunately, there are options for only using 10 points per entry, and since the average match yields at least 200, anyone can play.
Overall, the multi-player works well, and is far and away the best available for the Wii. Game updates have also been happening to crush connection bugs, so hopefully this game will be better supported than World at War, which is mostly unplayable do to glitches. It should also be noted that the multi-player is very competitive. People play this game A LOT, and get very good very fast. Having said that, there are ways to make it easier for anyone, even people who cannot use their hands, to stay competitive.
