That’s right, it’s that time of year again and the almighty Call of Duty franchise has released its latest creation on the world. As many of you will already be aware Call of Duty Black Ops is the 7th instalment of series to hit the current generation of consoles, this time Treyarch are at the helm of development. After the mixed feelings for Modern Warfare 2 could Treyarch pull the fans back in with their newly revised multiplayer and critically acclaimed Zombie mode?
Solo
I won’t go into too much detail of the story as I know some people may not have finished the game so I will just briefly go over my experiences with it.
The single player portion of Black Ops has you taking the role of Alex Mason, voiced by Sam Worthington of Avatar and Terminator Salvation fame. Mason awakes in a mysterious torture chamber where he is persistently questioned by a masked voice about a series of numbers. Unfortunately Mason is suffering from amnesia and is unable to recall what the numbers mean. Most of the missions in the single player campaign play out as flashbacks from Mason’s point of view while he struggles to piece back together the memories that he has lost.
This design choice has allowed the developers to create segmented missions in a wide variety of locations to give the game is grandiose scale. However when playing through the campaign I felt that due to this layout you are constantly breaking the connection with the characters that you meet on each mission, and as only a few of them will appear throughout the entire story this disconnection is only detrimental to the players involvement with the game. It felt that just as you were learning something interesting about a character in one of the flashbacks the game would yank you back to the present never giving you the time to form a bond with any of the other integral characters.
Overall the game runs in at about the 7-8 hour mark depending on how skilled you are at first person shooters. One word of advice to players though, if you are with a squad use them to your advantage. Running out of cover all guns blazing will NOT work on higher difficulty levels.
Multiplayer
Now then onto the elephant in the room, the online portion of Black Ops. After the mass outcry from the fans regarding the glitches, cheats and game breaking perks from Modern Warfare 2, Treyarch set out to fix many of the problems whilst still retaining the fast frantic game play that we have all come to know and love from the franchise.
You are still able to level up your online avatar and unlock new weapons, perks and equipment, however all these are no longer linked to the levelling mechanic. Instead there is now a monetary system in place called CoD points. As you play games online you earn CoD points which you can then spend on the items that you have unlocked that you wish to use. Meaning if you don’t want a grenade launcher on your AUG then you simply don’t buy it. This is great as it allows players full control over whatever items they wish to use and gets rid of the need to go through unnecessary challenges just so you can unlock that ACOG scope that you so desperately want.
Another improvement was to get rid of game breaking perks like Stopping Power and Juggernaut. These 2 perks overruled nearly every configuration in Modern Warfare 2 making the online game unplayable unless you used them.
Of course Black Ops still has its fair share of problems, Grenade launchers (noob tubes) and Last Stand are still present in the game and are still as annoying as ever, however I have not ran into them nearly as often as I did whilst playing MW2. Quick scoping as also been nerfed by forcing players to come to a standstill and delaying the held breath by a few milliseconds to stop people running around the maps with over powered sniper rifles and getting quicker and more accurate shots at close range than a SMG. Drop shots have also been fixed with a new simple dive animation. If a player is sprinting and then presses the button to go prone, rather than simply dropping to the floor the avatar will now perform a Matrix style dive to the ground before readying his weapon.
Now to the main problem with Black Ops online.....the spawn points. These are the areas that you appear into on a map when the game begins or just after you die. The problem with the spawn points in Black Ops is that they are used far too close together. Throughout many of the games I have played too many times I have spawned into a match and then been shot in the back by another enemy who just happens to spawn directly behind me. THIS SHOULD NOT BE HAPPENING!!
I understand that it needs hundreds of hours of testing to get things like spawn areas correct and I can only hope that Treyarch are working on a fix as we speak but for now this element truly breaks the online gaming experience. I will say in its favour it doesn’t happen ALL the time but it does happen FAR too often.
So is the online game play better than MW2?.........If Treyarch is able to fix the broken spawn points and tweak a few of the guns power then yes, Black Ops online is better than Modern Warfare 2. Due to its high level of customisation its varied game types and the ability to save your game play movies to share with friends. Then yes I would have to fall on the side of preferring Black Ops.
Zombie Mode
Finally but by no means least the amazing Zombie Mode from World at War has returned. This game mode can be played solo or online co-op with up to 3 friends and is by far the greatest part of Black Ops. Trying to survive an endless wave of the groaning undead is always entertaining. Throw in the fact that you can now do so as a former president of the United States and you’re in for some fun times. One of the greatest moments I have experienced in Black Ops was while I was playing Zombie mode with friends. We had barricaded ourselves at the bottom of some stairs with a zombie horde slowly making its way down to us. We decided that one of us should stand at the bottom of the stair case and fire up to take down as many as we could. As he hit the prone button his character dived head first into a rampant pack of zombies and was instantly killed. Due to the laughter that ensued from the rest of us we didn’t survive for very long after that.
Overall Black Ops has its fair share of problems but it does have some redeeming features. Now I know that nothing that I say will really sway you as you will have already made up your mind whether or not you will be purchasing this game, but for what it’s worth Black Ops is an enjoyable first person shooter. The online portion will gain some longevity thanks to its huge fan base, and Zombie mode is simply a MUST for anyone’s game collection.
Due to the fact that there is so much crammed into the Black Ops disc I have to give this game 8.5 out of 10. (If Treyarch fix the spawn points I’ll bump it to a 9)
Right that’s your lot for this week, hope you enjoyed the read and I shall be back next week with more gaming news to keep you satisfied.
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