Call of Duty: Black Ops: Christ, this one has been tough to put an editorial finger on. It’s taken me a full month with this game before I could even begin to say that I understand it’s ins and outs enough to be publicly critical of it. The keystone to this review, and not having angry mobs of COD fans attack me in my day to day life, is understanding my background. I own two Call of Duty games; COD 2 (no, not Modern Warfare, but COD2… the one about the World War!) and now Black Ops. As a self respecting gamer, I’ve played the other Call of Duties — 3, 4, and Modern Warfare 2 — completing all of their single player components and also spending a fair amount of accumulative with the multiplayer. So please, dear reader, keep this info in the back of your consciousness as you read the following. I hope beyond hope that it will keep you from becoming murderous, if not even keep you civil.
Vitals
Game: Call of Duty: Black Ops
Developer / Publisher: Treyarch / Activision
Platform: Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, DS, PC
Available: Now
Call of Duty: Black Ops (COD:BOps) has a single player campaign. I really wish I didn’t have to say much more than that about it, but that simply isn’t the case. The story is at the crossroads of ‘psychological thriller’ lane and ‘told in memories’ drive, jumping between the reality of the interrogation room and the classified missions inside your character’s head. The interrogation room also serves as an interactive menu system, and contains a rather interesting Easter Egg, which I implore you to find.
The single player begins, and already I’m off to a bad start. It, from the very beginning, introduces to me the most annoying thing in the world: throw away game mechanics. Near the end of the first section I’m asked to steal a car and am put into the driver’s seat. “Awesome,” I think, “they’ve introduced more vehicles into this!” But no, a tutorial flashes on screen explaining that the right trigger is gas and the left is break/reverse, and then I am forced to gun the vehicle through an alleyway. It could have been a very cool section, but instead, I am forced to press buttons which have next to no affect on gameplay. The ‘steering’ of this car is nearly non-existent, and consists of the car yawing left and right for about three seconds of my life. That’s how long the entire section seems to last, pressing the right trigger for three seconds, or I die. Nothing I do really affects the game; it’s simply a cutscene with a boiled down version of a quicktime event.
There are at least a dozen of these sort of throw away sections are all over the game; they range from something like locking down your controls to nothing but ‘walking forward’, to maybe something as awful as the infinite runway takeoff of the SR-71 Blackbird, and then later to the 20 second piece of micromanage/ RTS gameplay. The departure from the regular stop and pop gameplay is welcomed, but only when it has a purpose. The rooftop getaway section, for example, was a great piece and it felt unique enough to be memorable, carrying on long enough for me to feel like there was a reason for the change in pace, while sections like car driving only serve to leave a bitter taste in my mouth.
My opinion on the story of the game is a little bit split. The grandiose, over the top plot could have been used to make up for a lack of inspired gameplay, but instead only lead to confusion and a severe lack of interest on the part of the player. Beginning the game with the attempted assassination of Mr. Castro started off with such a bang that raising the stakes any more lead to a land of secret Nazi ridiculousness, while taming the experience at all simply lead to an overshadowed trough. It doesn’t help that the whole experience feels like it’s slowly plodding along to the climax, something which would work if anyone cared at all for this main character; sadly he’s not memorable and is generally unremarkable, leading to a disappointing and uninteresting plot twist right at the end of the game centered around him. I’m not a fan of the original stories that COD games try their hands at; ironically, the games set in the Second World War were more riveting than the testosterone fueled macho Americana shit show that the last two games have tried to put on screen. From Makarov to Steiner, these past few games have tried to change history, without ever really changing it. Completely unlike Assassin’s Creed, which does this well, the franchise and this title not excluded, falls both short and flat in the plot department.
After completing the single player I headed over to the multiplayer section of the game tape. I don’t want to cut anything short here, but honestly, here’s the breakdown for you: If you’ve played COD:MW2 multiplayer, enjoyed it and want more, then this is for you. If you played the multiplayer and didn’t enjoy it, this both the campaign and multiplayer are definitely not for you. If you haven’t played COD multiplayer the last few times around, well then, give this a shot; you’ll probably enjoy it. The essence and the mechanics of the multiplayer are basically the same as its predecessor. That’s not to say that nothing has changed; there’s quite a bit of new, and all that is new is for the best. The COD Points currency system is great for extending the time of the leveling mechanic, and allows you to spend points on the weapons and upgrades that fit your playing style or spend them on cosmetic upgrades, because everyone knows how important it is to look Pimpin’ while you’re shooting dudes. The wager matches are another new addition, and an extension of the points system. The tension of losing (or winning) your hard earned blood money, combined with inventive and interesting new game modes, makes for a great and new-ish experience online. The important thing to note about the multiplayer is that they didn’t screw it up; if anything they included just that little bit of new to carry the multiplayer over onto the next step of the COD experience. I’m sure Ill find myself coming back to the multiplayer every once in a while.
Overall, the experience of Call of Duty: Black Ops was less than stellar, but not disappointing. I’ll be the first to say that this rendition is probably the best one not made by Infinity Ward, and surprisingly they managed to fix something that wasn’t broken and still come out with a marginally better product than the one before. Not surprisingly though, COD:BOps is more like the next Kids Bops than an actual iteration of a gaming franchise; there is nothing shockingly different, but its just enough that if you enjoyed the past iterations, you’ll find enough new in this one to keep you going on for another four hundred hours of profanity and online bigotry. If you are looking for a revamp of the Call of Duty IP, don’t look here, but the tried-and-true formula that we’ve all taken a part in before is back and is improved just ever so slightly better than ever.
This review was based on a copy of the game for the Xbox 360 supplied by the publisher.
4 Comments