Every time you think its about to change, it stays the same.
It’s a fact of life for a Call of Duty fan, and as evident by it’s record-breaking commercial success, one that most are content with. But for others, the state of the franchise is a little more bittersweet… and sometimes just flat-out bitter.
And in the end, your appreciation for Call of Duty: Black Ops II will depend on which of the said categories you fit in. Your preexisting disposition will be the real review score.
With every new Call of Duty comes an unwavering checklist of good, bad and ugly that will persist, and Black Ops II is no exception. You’ll bloviate over its shades of brilliance, only to be grounded by its detriments before eventually teetering on the edge of frustration. But, does Black Ops II’s improvements and new features worth the mood swings?
The answer is as tricky as one would suspect.
No setting — not even an imaginative ‘future warfare’ backdrop — can eradicate the familiarity of the Black Ops II experience. The backbone of the series is ever present, as the same engine, controls, pacing and high-octane moments mimic past installments to a tee.
To an extent, the signature Call of Duty formula belittles Black Ops II’s futuristic premise by virtue of redundancy alone. While the new backdrop is an interesting twist for the series, it behaves more as an cloak to hide what still lies underneath.
For that, wielding a cutting-edge gun or using an ultramodern vehicle, aircraft or piece of technology doesn’t feel terribly unique, and many of the locales you’ll wage war in — when not painfully contrived depictions of the future — are indistinguishable in form and function. The problem worsens when the campaign jumps to flashback missions that set the stage for the crisis in 2025. It isn’t until the latter stages of the campaign that Treyarch finally commits to their ‘calling card’ setting.
The storyline in Black Ops II, when compared to the memorability and cohesion of the first game, reverts to the more traditionally hollow Call of Duty approach, with the culprits being the new characters and conflicts that glue the narrative together — both of which are achingly vanilla compared to the first game.
Alex Mason had the numbers. Viktor Reznov had the Tyler Durden-like appeal. Frank Woods had the mouth. Jason Hudson had the shades. All of which iconic compared to the protagonists in 2025, who merely have a gun and a gung-ho attitude. So, despite Treyarch’s big “Black to the Future” billing, Black Ops II’s story shines brightest when it goes back to the past.
On the antagonistic end of the spectrum, Raul Menendez’s performance as the lead villain is trite in nature. He’s essentially another brash, yet charismatic leader with a ‘one step ahead’ clutch over the campaign. He has a certain degree of depth, through his backstory and subsequent cause, but the attempt at creating a meaningful antihero is smeared with his cliché ideology to destroy the world to start anew.
There are, however,a few new things in the world of Black Ops II worth mentioning, though.
One of which is customizable loadouts for each mission in the campaign. Similar in function to the ‘Create a Class’ feature in multiplayer, players can select weapons, attachments, grenades and perks before each level. While this inclusion would have worked better in a less linear experience, providing a little more player choice is still a good thing for the series.
The element of player choice extends to the storyline, too. Discreet decisions throughout the campaign offer branching paths to the plot, which will lead players to one of six possible endings. It’s surprisingly well-executed, considering that it’s Call of Duty’s first foray into something that intricate. Another nice touch is the ability to rewind to the decision-based portions of the campaign (after completing it first) to see the alternate endings without starting from scratch.
A sizable chunk of the endings hinge on Black Ops II’s new Strike Force missions — strategic, top-down missions to defend or attack key areas of a map, with the success or failure impacting the outcome of future main quest missions. However, instead of merely directing foot soldiers to go here or there like what we’ve seen from prior Call of Duty missions of that ilk, players are able to jump in and take over any character, vehicle or turret to assist.
Strike Force missions are extremely challenging in some positive and negative ways. Players are given a limited number of tries at completing each mission, which adds a healthy dose of tension to the frantic chess matches. Run out of attempts and your campaign will reflect your failure; accomplish the missions and Raul Menendez’s camp will suffer the consequences later on.
The drawback to Strike Force isn’t in its principal, but in its execution. Boneheaded artificial intelligence gimps your squad’s chances for survival, as several of your soldiers end up becoming bullet sponges. That, in turn, forces players to spend most of their time fighting the war on ground level, simply to avoid losing more men. And without that time to spend on delegating who goes where, losses will be frequent… and unfair. Overall, it’s a great idea in theory, but in theory only.
Still, Treyarch should be praised for experimenting with new ventures like Strike Force; unlike Infinity Ward, who takes no issue with monotony.
Speaking of experimentation, Black Ops II’s multiplayer had a little R&D of its own. Call of Duty’s tried and true Create a Class feature underwent a massive overhaul, thanks to the new Pick 10 system. Players will no longer be shackled with choosing something from every category, meaning you don’t have to equip a secondary weapon, grenades or all three perks if you don’t need them.
Instead, everything is point-based, and you’re allotted ten of them to spend on virtually any kind of loadout your heart desires. Want two primary weapons instead of one? Go for it. Would you like more than three perks? No problem. The Pick 10 system provides greater freedom to accentuate your personal play style without compromising the balance of the multiplayer.
Other than Pick 10, COD TV and a few smaller additions, Black Ops II’s multiplayer is essentially the same, but does a better job at getting the basics right.
The vast majority of the maps included on-disc are great. Connection quality, while still not at the level it needs to be, is considerably better than past installments by way of connection preferences, which helps players find a local host in order to prevent latency issues from affecting every match. In other words, you’ll still have those “I unloaded a full clip into that guy and he killed me with two shots” moments, just not as frequently.
Treyarch’s infamous Zombies mode makes an encore in Black Ops II, but many players will take issue with its new form.
In some ways, this expanded take on the Zombies mode is almost too fleshed out, as asinine as that sounds. There’s nothing wrong with a game being bigger and better, but it’s missing the straightforward simplicity that made World at War’s and Black Ops’ take so endearing and addictive.
Now, there’s weapon crafting, lava pits, blistering difficulty, bus rides and several other elements equally as fluffy, making the charming little mode we had tucked in our back pockets just as commercialized as everything else Call of Duty does.
It’s that affinity for commercial appeal that serves as the biggest detriment to Black Ops II. Occasionally, you’ll ponder how much better Treyarch’s game could have been if they omitted the term “mainstream” from their internal vocabulary.
Did Black Ops II really need a slo-mo gunfight with Dubstep music blaring? Did it really need a popular metal band to put on an embarrassing digital performance in a post-credits cutscene? Did it really need the likenesses and voices of real television and film stars, including Jimmy Kimmel? Treyarch’s message of intent contradicts itself — they want Black Ops II to be a serious game, but at the same time, they don’t.
But, there’s only so much dirt one can kick on a Call of Duty that finally took a stab at being different. Some of Treyarch’s ideas missed the mark, but some of them will help the Call of Duty series a great deal. “Effort” might not be proper review criteria, but in this case, it should be. It’s great to see Call of Duty show a pulse of creativity again, even if the core experience remains untouched.