Black Ops is the first FPS I've played in years that wasn't also a puzzle/thievery/RPG/farming game. And certain parts of this game are kicking my ass. Specifically parts where enemies just keep spawning until you move forward, as I've gotten so used to games like Thief and Deus Ex where my general strategy of "hang back and pick off guys one at a time until everyone is dead" actually worked.

Maybe I'll just put the game on easy or something...

@BBAlpert said:

Maybe I'll just put the game on easy or something...

This. These games tend to be absurd power fantasies anyhow so I've never looked at their single player components for challenge, there's plenty of that in multi player if you need it. Might as well just indulge in the story of being an all-powerful awesome murder machine.

Considering these are dumbed down to extremity so that even mentally challenged people(something like 60 or 70% of the COD player base) can play them I'd say you're just bad at FPS games...

@onarum said:

Considering these are dumbed down to extremity so that even mentally challenged people(something like 60 or 70% of the COD player base) can play them I'd say you're just bad at FPS games...

Really duder? Come on, have some fucking tact. This isn't the youtube comment section.

Anyway, in my past experience with Treyarch Call of Duty games, the pacing has never been "right on". One mission will be easy, the next will be pretty damn difficult, and the next will fall somewhere in between. I don't personally see it as a big problem because I'm fairly good at shooters myself, but if you're not used to playing straight shooters you might have problems with the tougher bits.

Yeah, go ahead and knock it down to Easy if that's where you have fun. Just imagine you're playing this:

Well, I remember one sequence in particular (one of the Vietnam sequences, maybe) where you're fighting an infinite spawn of enemies and the only way to end the scene is to activate these barrels of napalm or some shit, something the game doesn't inform you to do at all.

I remember Black Ops' campaign being pretty tedious. It's probably not all you.

I thought this was going to be about the multiplayer and I was about to say "me too!". I was also gonna suggest equipping an SMG, steady aim, and infinite sprinting. I have no clue how to help you with singleplayer, sorry!

@onarum: You have no idea the imagery that you put in my head with your comment.

@HistoryInRust said:

Well, I remember one sequence in particular (one of the Vietnam sequences, maybe) where you're fighting an infinite spawn of enemies and the only way to end the scene is to activate these barrels of napalm or some shit, something the game doesn't inform you to do at all.

I remember Black Ops' campaign being pretty tedious. It's probably not all you.

That was one of the sequences I got stuck on for a while. The waypoint in that section is at the bottom of the hill, past the barrels, so I kept trying to fight my way down, only to get quickly overrun in the trenches by infinitely spawning enemies. I figured the comments the characters were making about the barrels of napalm were red herrings because bullets, grenades, and rockets do nothing to the barrels.

I guess in that case (and some of the other parts I got stuck), it wasn't as much a matter of difficulty as it was a matter of the game not being clear whether the story progression is waiting for a) you to kill all the enemies, b) interact with some object in the environment, c) kill guys until some event triggers, or d) ignore the enemies entirely and keep moving. For as linear as the game is, it can be a little frustrating when your only objective is to follow some guy, but he won't move forward and gives no indication why.

@BBAlpert:

You're not allowed to hang back in COD games. These games use 'terrorist-closets' where bad guys infinitely spawn until you move to where the game wants you to go. This is the biggest problem I have with the COD series.

@JasonR86 said:

@BBAlpert:

You're not allowed to hang back in COD games. These games use 'terrorist-closets' where bad guys infinitely spawn until you move to where the game wants you to go. This is the biggest problem I have with the COD series.

That must be the problem I've been having (or at least one of them). I've gotten too used to games that either put a set number of enemies in an area or decide "well he's killed the last 30 guys we threw at him, 3 more probably won't do any good."

The only parts that have been giving me problems are the Strike Force missions. There is way too much going on at once for you to be able to control it. I've been playing on Hardened, so I'm sure it's somewhat better on the easier difficulties, but these parts are very poorly designed. As for the rest of the campaign, it seems par for the course as far as difficulty goes in these games. If anything, I'd say it's a little easier than a lot of them. I'm not having nearly as much trouble as I did in Black Ops 1.