Call of Duty Black Ops has landed. It was easily my most anticipated game of 2010. I stood in line at the midnight release and bought the Prestige Edition. I unlike a lot of haters, enjoyed Modern Warfare 2 more than the games before it, and think it was a step in the right direction. Yes weapons were overpowered and unbalanced in many areas, with the noob tube decimating everything in it’s path, but overall it was a very fun, fast paced and addictive game. Treyarch set out to capitalize on the success and insane fan base of the Modern Warfare games and move the Call of Duty franchise out of World War II and into a more modern setting.
Black Ops takes place during the Cold War Era. A time when relationships between the US, Russia, Cuba & Vietnam were teetering on the brink of total annihilation. I cannot believe how close the world came to all out nuclear war during this time, hell a lot of us would never have been born. Anyway, the player takes control of Alex Mason a special cloak and dagger operative in the Black Ops squad, a group that goes in does what needs to be done, and gets erased from the record books. The most elite and secretive task force, assigned to assassinate Fidel Castro during the Bay of Pigs invasion, destroying Russian space craft to prevent them winning the space race and other covert shadowy business.
The game begins with Alex strapped to a chair in an interrogation room, and is being questioned about his involvement in these previous events. The game is told through a series of Alex Mason flashbacks that allow the player to play through all of these different events.
I thought the story of Black Ops was really good, I loved how it was brought together with historical events, and figures. The game play throughout the campaign was the most varied it has been in a Call of Duty game, with the only serious omission being the lack of a Sniper inspired level, something like “All Ghilled Up” from CoD4. The player drives boats, motorcycles, airplanes, choppers and more throughout the missions and handles a ton of different weapons ranging from pistols, to crossbows with exploding arrows, to huge chain guns, to 4 barrel rocket launchers. The campaign is fast paced, exciting and hugely cinematic like you would expect from a Hollywood Blockbuster.
Upon completing the campaign on Normal, I decided to replay it on Veteran (CoD’s hardest setting) in order to earn the level based achievements. To my disappointment, I feel the game slips up huge here. While Infinity Ward crafted Modern Warfare 2’s Veteran difficulty to challenge the player, never did it feel haphazard, thrown together and cheap. The gamer would progress through the level, often dying a ton, but once all of the enemies were wiped out the player could progress and grab that much needed checkpoint. Unfortunately, Treyarch have once again decided to go back to the antiquated, old school methodology of the monster closet (infinitely re spawning enemies out of a small confined area, forcing the player to push through to a checkpoint to advance). Matters are made much worse by a completely inept friendly A.I. that will stand around getting shot, cross in front of the player while shooting, allow enemies to stand right beside them and not shoot, and just generally get in the way and be useless. Honestly, the player would be better going at it alone, without these terrible squad mates. Suffice it to say after being stuck on the same 3 corridors for the better part of 4 hours (?!) I decided to throw in the towel, and declare Black Ops veteran mode to be cheap, unfair, lazy game design. I’m not sure what thought process made Treyarch decide to create these infinite respawn portions of the game, because it really removes the immersion when enemies just keep appearing out of thin air and follow the same movement and attack patterns over and over again. While I absolutely love Black Ops as a package, I’m disappointed to say that Infinity Ward have created a far more enjoyable and rewarding single player experience, on Veteran difficulty anyway. I really hope Treyarch receive enough complaints about this bone-headed move, and patch these issues out.
Had I not encountered the monster closets and the friendly A.I. was given some A.I. instead of being target dummies, the single player experience would have been much more enjoyable on harder difficulty levels and would have received a near perfect score.
Because of these blatant design issues I can regrettably only give Black Ops Single Player:
While the single player is a fun, albeit flawed experience, the Multiplayer offering is an entirely different beast all together. Check back soon for our full review of the Call of Duty: Black Ops’ Multiplayer Modes.
