Review: Call of Duty: Black Ops (Xbox 360)

The most recent game in the Call of Duty series, Black Ops, developed by Treyarch,  lands right between previous Duties' World War 2 setting and the Modern Warfare series' present day setting. Want to know  my thoughts about it? Read ahead, and if you're lazy, scroll to the bottom for the major points.

Call of Duty: Black Ops (360)
Developer:Treyarch
Publisher: Activision
Released: November 9, 2010

Black Ops is set during the cold war in the sixties, a tumultous time of war, hippies and global distrust.  The main character, Alex Mason (voiced by Sam Worthington) is a special operative doing covert missions for the CIA.
I wanted this game to pull off that "covert" feel against previous games' themes of courage and well, duty; knowing that what you were doing was very secret -even shady- of high importance and of a doubtful nature. The game does well at this.  Most of the game's success at this aspect lies in its setup.  The game is told as Mason is questioned for information needed to save America (!) while flashbacks of his previous missions that lead up to this interrogation make up the game's levels.

The game is pure action movie cliche that has characters narrowly escaping danger and always fighting against overwhelming odds. That this is cliche does not make it a bad thing, it is entertaining for the most part and the story has some interesting moments of intrigue.  Added to this, there are some crazy weapons like flamethrowers, crossbows with explosive tips, and shotguns that shoot fire. The game is also really gory and brutal at times. The more powerful guns will tear off enemies' limbs and explosives will sometimes blow them to pieces. There are also some melee kills that are really brutal and which in my opinion cross the line.  I can see how they might seem apropiate within the gritty, "unclean" context of covert operations but they quickly feel out of place and put in for shock value in what really is an arcadey shooter.  The best thing about the single player is a mission that lets you play from the perspective of two different characters. Previous Call of Duty games have had you take control of different characters in different places, an effective technique in showing the global scope of war.  Replaying the same scenario, at the same time through the viewpoints of different characters is a device that I want to see used more often.

Everyone loves this guy. I liked Hudson better. Also, Ice Cube in the background.

Unfortunately, the gameplay in this is pretty bland. Sure, there are different sequences that have you shooting from vehicles, or during intense circumstances that require you to play different, but they are not that common and the main filler of the game is plain walk some, shoot some, repeat. Firefights have you mostly shooting at enemies at longish distances while smoke, fire and flying debri obscure your view. Take damage, hide, pop out and shoot at the enemies that you are able to see. A lot of parts seem more like target practice than entertaining run and gun combat.

The way the game handles difficulty does not help either. As in previous games, there are points where enemies will spawn continuosly and fire on you with deadly accuracy until you get to a trigger point which moves the game along to the next shooting gallery.  This does not make the game challenging, it makes it annoying. Really, really annoying.  If you want to play this game to enjoy its story and feel like a Black Op badass, play it on Easy. I'm serious. While in previous games I enjoyed the challenge of playing in higher difficulties, it no longer feels worthwile to do so.

As everyone knows, the zombie mode from World at War is back. It is deliciously campy and difficult.  Not a lot of change there, but still, great fun.

You say this game has multiplayer? Well. It sure does. Here are my thoughts:

Multiplayer has some improvements over the previous games in the series, some new ideas and systems, and a couple of flaws.
The usual game modes are all here: Deathmatch, CTF, Domination, HQ etc... there are several variants of games in which one can disable perks and killstreaks for a purer shooter experience. The perks and killstreaks in the game are simpler in a good way. Instead of  letting players combine certain perks to allow a ridiculous play style, they instead give small advantages in specific situations; this cuts down majorly on the "what the hell was that" factor.  Killstreaks no longer count towards themselves, so it is more difficult to steamroll over an entire team because of a lucky sucession of kills.  The explosive RC car is really annoying, though. It only takes 3 kills to obtain it and it is a guaranteed cheap kill.

Along with that infuriating new RC car perk there are also several new pieces of equipment: remote cameras, motion sensors and distraction devices. These, if used well, will help lead a team to victory in matches of Domination or other similar games. However, they can also be used effectively by campers.

A good dose of  pwnicilline will take care of that case of nOOb condition. Not pictured: RC car killing everyone

Unlocks work different than in previous games. Instead of merely unlocking stuff as you level up, perks, items and weapons are unlocked by getting to a certain level but are unavailable for use until you purchase them with in-game currency. On the plus side, this allows players to get to what they want, quickly and with no distractions. However, there are some issues. Asides from 'Contracts' (Challenges that you buy and that then pay you back in CoD points when completed) the game doesn't tell you how many points you are earning in a match until you get paid. After consulting some outside sources, I found out that the amount of CoD points earned per match equals 10% of your XP, sans challenges or contracts. Well now I know, but I think the game should have told me this.  The other problem I see with this mechanic is how it will relate to the prestige system. When a player hits the maximum level in other games, he or she has unlocked everything and may prestige. However, in this game, being at maximum level might not mean the player has access to everything.  It also means a player will have to expend additional effort and time just to try out something new.

I liked the maps in this game. They don't feel cluttered and it is easy to catch an unsuspecting enemy scurrying away  in the distance.  There are some of them that have doors you can open for a teammate to reach an objective quicker or dangerous areas that can kill. This should have been in more maps. However, the maps are fairly open so unless you huddle down in a little corner it's hard to constantly watch your surroundings to avoid getting killed. Some people might be annoyed by this.

Wager matches are a new mode in which you put down money to compete and only the top three players get paid out.  They are fun and really, really tense, as it is very easy to leave empty handed but some of the matches that work around a set number of player lives can keep you waiting as a spectator for a while should you die quickly.  These are fun to play every now and then but if the wager matches were all the multiplayer offered, I bet not as many people would play.

Multiplayer mode has a killer stats mode that keeps track of everything you've done.  You can look up graphs showing your performance over the last couple of matches, diagrams showing you where kills took place in a map and even a paper doll showing you where you have been hitting your enemies. Online games usually get  better at stat-tracking with each release but I'd like to call Black Ops' "Combat Record" the minimum standard for the future.

However, the multiplayer looks a little more 'budgety' than the campaign.  The player models aren't as detailed and sometimes textures (especially in gun models) will look muddy.  I also had the game slow down to unplayable a couple times, this both  in campaign and multiplayer.  There were some connection problems as well; sometimes when trying to join a game as a party, we would be split up and placed in different games, and other times trying to join a game by myself took a really long time.

With all this said, my final opinion is that Black Ops has a decent story line, setup  and some good moments that get lost amongst the repetitive bang bang bang and the cheap and misused gore.  Slight connection problems aside,  the multiplayer is fun for a while (because it is more of the same), streamlined and mostly balanced with every perk, killstreak and piece of equipment serving a purpose. Time will tell if people learn to abuse them but there doesn't seem to be  much potential for that.  Also, while I'm sure the game has plenty of staying power with it's robust multiplayer, for me it began to feel like a chore after playing enough to write this review.  Call it fatigue but I don't think Black Ops is a game that I will be coming back to as often as other online shooters.

Score: 70 out of 100

(70-79%: Solid - A solid title that has a few major issues.)