Down through the years, there has always been that game series that seems to succeed due to its loyal fanbase. Now I admire these people, they never lose faith in what they follow. Despite shortcomings, a series loved by a loyal army of individuals always has an amazing backing no matter what. And then there came CoD: BO.
Don’t get me wrong, I know people love this game and have played it to death, but there are more than a few defectors from their camp, rearing their heads in anger and disappointment at this latest title from Acivision’s nearly dead, flogged horse. Now I’ve always liked the CoD franchise…until, and I know this will sound very hipster of me, the games following Modern Warfare. Its direct sequel and the games handled by Treyarch have been far below expectations so far, delivering nothing but the same experience time and time again. Unfortunatly, all CoD games cannot ride from the famed and somewhat mythical MW game, that set in motion one of the most disgraceful and burnt out series ever invented. This series can be held up to Sonic the Hedgehog standards of stagnation, and that saddens and frustrates me. To rehash an old point, redressing an old game in fancy new clothing and sticking a price tag on it does not warrant a good game.
Anyway, let us dive into Black Ops, before I lose the plot entirely.
As far as the Singleplayer in Black Ops goes, it’s a pretty solid piece of storytelling, focused around Alex Mason, a member of an elite SOG team, and an overall character of dull. He has been strapped to a chair and grilled for his so-called knowledge of a particular number sequence. No spoilers shall be here, so feel free to read on.
So we walk with Alex through the major hits of his life: Cuba, Russia, Vietnam and some other locations, in order to discover just what is going on involving these numbers. The setting is Cold-War era, because, you know, ‘Cold War’ was just a name, really things were getting heavy because of…plot points that really don’t make much sense. I found that every other character but Mason was memorable. His SOG squadmates were some of the best characters the series has brought us, and the villains and plot twists involved really keep you guessing as to what is really going on. However, despite some rather fun missions, I kept getting a sense of déjà vu. This seemed to be because most, if not all of the missions, were an almost copy/paste of previous game’s missions. There were only a few missions I actually liked, like the throwback mission to the end of WWII, with some nods to previous CoD titles. This was a nice touch, and something that has been missing from the series for a long time.
Alex’s character is not so lucky as to get the high praise given to the story. He is basically the viewer of every event that goes on, yet holds some greater role in every event seen. This was amazing, as he was a fully voiced character, with a history that we were digging through. And my use of amazing is not actually in praise of this, I was disappointed with the manner in which he was handled. In a game that was focused on a single character’s life, with a few deviations to some much cooler, more interesting characters, with real motivations, I would have expected the actual character of Alex Mason to be more likeable. He just doesn’t do it for me. Give me a mute character any day of the week, and I’ll accept him, but this idea just seemed half-baked, like they wanted this to be more interesting but hadn’t the time nor the want to develop the idea past what we seen.
The gameplay
is classic call of duty, with fast paced action sequences, followed by some
stealthy parts, because they were in CoD 4 and people liked that game. The
array of weapons isn’t really staggering; there are some nice guns, and some
not so nice guns, equipped with some attachments or others that you’ll use
throughout the level. Yet the game suffers from a massive drawback…the scripted
events. They are just awful. In several levels, because I chose to take a
different approach to an attack, the game actually shut down. This scripted
combat system is one of the most constricting and unnecessary pieces of coding
ever made. CoD used to, back in even the CoD 2 days, give you the ability to
approach certain scenarios in the way you wished to handle them. In this game,
set-piece combat becomes the norm, and more redundant as time goes on. I found
myself at one stage repeating the same corridor section four times, as I became
impatient with the slow crawl of the level, and I believed I could take a room
and use it to my advantage. Good idea yes? Wrong, in the CoD world, you get
your head taken clean off by a shotgun wielding, armour-clad soldier who appears
out of nowhere. This is a serious problem with this series; an infinite respawn
of enemies unless you do the mission in the exact way the game demands,
otherwise you get overwhelmed and have to start from scratch. The friendly AI
is some of the worst I’ve ever seen, dying in manner that should not be
possible in this day and age, with a publisher willing to throw cash hand over
fist at…oh wait…no they like MAKING money hand over fist, so why fix these
problems? I found large parts of this game to be unenjoyable, with some of the
more brown-ish missions making it impossible to see enemies, or distinguishing
them from friends. Some mission-continuing objectives are also obscured by the
muddy graphics, throwing all manner of monotone colour at you. Overall, this
game is both technically and graphically underwhelming, using the same engine
from Modern Warfare, and not really adding to it in any way, shape or form.
I know this section has become about a number of things, but these are gameplay issues, and I still have multiplayer to cover.
Multiplayer
is CoD standard. In other words: the same monotone colours and tech issues, but
with the added advantage of having new Perks! Oh the joy! Seriously though, the
multiplayer is one of the biggest jokes I’ve ever seen in gaming history. Most
of the customization options are locked until you unlock, or ‘buy’ them, using ‘COD
Points’; the currency of CoD gained by winning matches and unlocking ranks. It was
introduced to make multiplayer more of a fair experience for all, and fails
miserably at what it aims to achieve. Not only does every gun and attachment,
along with extra, and not to mention insane, perks cost in the region of
1000-3000 of these points, but these points can easily be accumulated by simply
completing challenges. If anything, this system just hinders people who aren’t
very good at the game, and have to gain more and more points just to unlock
simple weapons. But the greatest clusterfuck in this new system, is the ability
to spend the points on any weapon, perk of attachment, within a rank range. So
not only does it mean that you can buy almost every weapon in the game,
regardless of skill or use of a particular group of weaponry, but it means that
the whole system is rendered useless, because if anyone can buy any weapon at
any time, but only have them unlocked at a certain rank, then why have this
system at all. It does not balance the game, it just hassles newer players to
get these points, and frustrates them because they need to reach a certain
level AND obtain the rank needed in order to unlock a single gun which they
might like, i.e. an assault rifle, but they won’t get it without the points or
rank, regardless of how often or not they use a weapon from the same class.
The maps are small, and not very well designed, with large, open areas, and tight, pointless areas that are only useful if the player has a particular type of gun with a certain type of attachments. The maps are below double digits in number, and if not, it just feels like it, and don’t really add any kind of balance to gameplay. Some, like ‘Nuketown’, are just lazy, lazy levels, which give the illusion of balance while reality, leave one team with a major advantage and the other a limp when starting a game. The spawn system is also a mess, with little to no consistency for modes such as Team Death Match. While there can be some fun modes to play with the right groups of people, more often than not, the game will just frustrate and annoy, as it doesn’t really have the best array of choices for a player to take in a fight.
To put it bluntly, it doesn’t really have a lot going for it in terms of a game that attracts mainly for multiplayer.
And of course, we have the arcade zombie shooter, but I will just ignore that, as it isn’t actually part of the game, and in my mind, does not allow the game to hold up on any merits that it may have: on a quick side note; it is a boring mode, and utterly pointless and shallow as extra game modes go.
Overall, Call of Duty: Black Ops has some solid ideas that show Treyarch trying to learn from past follies. Unfortunately, the choices taken with the game’s technical and multiplayer based elements, change nothing and just release it, drag the game into the spotlight it finds itself in now, showing people that maybe, just maybe, Activision are screwing them out of their hard-earned money.
Verdict:
3/5
- Decent story
- Some fun and excellent characters
- Digressions to other characters can be interesting and fun
Cons:
- Outdated graphics
- Script and technical related issues
- Alex Mason is a boring and pointlessly voiced character
- Multiplayer is the same old song and dance, with none of the flare it promises from the title.
- COD Points system is counterproductive and half-baked, it doesn’t hold up under a magnifying glass
WTF
Moment?: The really, REALLY uncomfortable sit-down with a badly voice JFK.