Duty Calls: Black Ops

I hope Treyarch puts in stuff that they put in World At War, Like Co-Op campain or Nazi Zombies. That's what made me enjoy World At War more than MW2.

It DOES have a separate campaign for co-op, according to Wikipedia.

Personally, I'm quite tired with Call of Duty and the like. I feel the genre has been kind of used up. I'll probably still check it out though. Also, you came back Carlos?

If they've finally realized that their multiplayer isn't going to replace MW2, they might make a good single player experience once again. If they make a good single player, i'll buy this game. And nazi zombies was really creative, hopefully they can one-up themselves.

CoD 4 = Good, solid gameplay with good multiplayer setup and support and an interesting, provocative story, the zenith of which being the moment where one of the player characters wakes up in the shell of a crashed helicopter, only to die moments later after seeing that he is surrounded by a wasteland tainted with nuclear fallout.

CoD 4 2 = Good, solid gameplay with good multiplayer setup and support, but a story that decided that the cold war needed to be revived so that America could get the shit kicked out of it by Russia, who only attacked the USA because of a huge misunderstanding involving a CIA double agent and a Russian terrorist group. Tried to pull the same shit with the helicopter death by allowing the player to help terrorists kill Russian civvies, which ultimately fell flat because it was blatantly obvious that they only did it to make it seem like the game had a point instead of just being another hollow, albeit well-designed FPS.

Black Ops = "We live in a world where seeing is not believing. Where only a few know what really happened." Really, Treyarch? Seems to me this franchise has a rather serious case of viral pretentiousness. Symptoms include bullshitty "morals" and a blatant desire to make the game seem more "important" or "artistic" than it really is, instead of it just being fun. Unfortunately, there is no cure, unless you count euthanasia.

I think it DOES look like everything they could have cut out of MW2 and put into another game, but I happen to not have a problem with that at all. I loved MW2 and I predict I will love this game as well.

At this point I think it's hard to get truly excited ever again for a Call of Duty game, what with the market now being saturated with modern/near future war games and all the shit thats gone down with IW and Activision. Unless they do something REALLY creative or say,"fuck it" and go the complete future route (Again, they'll just be doing catch up with DICE/EA. Battlefield 2142 anyone?), I really don't see critics giving the series much acclaim anymore. I say critics, because we know fans and frat boys are going to buy the hell out of it regardless.

Its a shame that Treyarch still gets shit from everybody though. People seem to think that compared to IW they're a third rate developer that can't match the quality of them, but just look at how MW2 compares to IW's last efforts. It's not like they're more holy than water anymore. Infact, people have always seemed to want a covert ops kind of game set in the Vietnam/Cold War era, and now here comes one.

The CoD franchise has pretty much gone the full Jerry Bruckheimer path now, so I don't think anyone can really criticise the over-the-top nature of exploding crossbow bolts, SR-71 Blackbirds and, well...

http://tinyurl.com/38646ev

Thats all I have to say.

On the bright side, looks like developers have finally moved on from making all shooters take place in WW2. The bad side, now they're all making them modern/near future. Developers need to learn to mix it up a little otherwise it just gets stale after a while.

It honestly seems that Treyarch doesn't have any creative control over their own game. I just get an overwhelming feeling that they're being pushed by Activision into packing this game with explosions, dramatic jumps, and plot instead of making it a war game.

The thing that I loved about the original Call of Duty was feeling as if I were just a foot soldier in this huge war, clawing your way to every small victory you could get. the entire Russian campaign was a horrific experience. It really dragged you into the depths of despair as you were being marched into a death-trap. German machine guns in front and Russian officers prepared to shoot retreating soldiers from behind. There were many times in that campaign that I just had to stop and look at the destruction around me. That sense of awe is what's missing from Call of Duty. There was a flash of it in Modern Warfare with the nuke sequence, but nothing recently has come close.

In the first two Call of Duty games you got the feeling that if you lived, the war continued, and if you died, the war continued. Its so hollywood and over-the-top now that I can't take a CoD game seriously now.

I just want to be a soldier in a war again. Not a hero.

It's a shame how few people remember Call of Duty for single player and the beginning of the series as it's heyday. BWoods, my sentiments exactly.

Call of Duty games have never had stellar stories. They've always been there merely to propel the player into those chaotic war moments the series is known for. With Modern Warfare 2 it seems like Infinity Ward tried to model their narrative around a Hollywood Blockbuster, but it just came off as too ridiculous and over-the-top.

This looks to be more of that. It bugs me that they're trying to make the player characters bonafide badasses now instead of the run-of-the-mill grunts that really set the CoD franchise apart from other FPSes in the first place.

Hopefully the action will be good, but unless the multiplayer offers something unique that MW2 didn't have, I might have to pass.

Game over man, game over!!

If it actually does pull off that covert feel, that'll be awesome. But really, it isn't shaping up to look all that awe inspiring. Oh well, it's a Call of Duty game. It'll sell anyway.