Previous Next

Another fun multiplayer experience even without that Infinity Ward touch.

A day that I imagine a lot of console shooter fans have been waiting for has finally arrived with the release of Treyarch's newest Call of Duty entry, Black Ops. How does it stack up to the series that Infinity Ward left behind? Well, it's actually pretty good to be honest. I'd venture to say the transition between developers is far better than original Modern Warfare to World at War for instance, and while it still has some issues, mostly in the single player side of things, it's definitely worth checking out.

I'll get the single player stuff out of the way first. In Black Ops you'll mostly take control of a single man across different scenarios in the mid to late 60's, covering quite a bit of ground in notable Cold War entries during the United States battle against the ever-growing threat of Communism. More notable locales come from Cuba and Russia, the biggest proponents of Communism in that particular era, and then you'll move on to Vietnam for a bit as well. All of these era's are rendered well, and while there's been some details released on people that pay attention to resolution noting that the game runs at a lower resolution than before, for the layman graphics guy like myself, I thought everything looked pretty decent.

Another gripe is the constantly respawning enemy issue, which has been brought up plenty of times in the past, and is still an issue here. It's less annoying when your checkpoints are clear and precise, and when they offer up enough cover and pathways that you can advance without worry of respawning enemies coming in from behind or from the sides. But there are plenty of areas in this particular game, and one mission that springs to mind in particular, where the respawn effect will annoy you to no end. It's even worse on higher difficulties than the default, because then you'll get a noticeable amount of grenade spam, something that was notably toned down in Modern Warfare 2 but seems to make an aggravating return here. I'm not sure that I even have any interest in attempting to tackle this title on Veteran at this point, as I'm sure it would just result in me tossing my controller through the TV screen.

Besides those complaints though, there were plenty of things that I did enjoy in the single player side. One was a segment where you're piloting a boat down a small river with "Sympathy for the Devil" playing as background music, which I thought was pretty neat and fitting for the scenario you were in. Another was the previously shown helicopter piloting sequence, which allows you to wreck quite a bit of havoc on the area around you. I will say that the game does tend to lack some of the really notable sequences that were there in the original Modern Warfare, like Ghillies in the Mist for instance, and I would have loved to see something that would have made me go "oh wow", but at the same time I'll settle for some of the neat action sequences the game does offer.

On the actual playing side of things, map selection is pretty solid, outside of a couple maps that seem a bit too small for the standard Call of Duty set-up. One, Nuketown, just becomes an excuse to toss grenades into the middle of the map, and sneak along the borders in order to get a few cheap kills. These smaller maps also compound one of my bigger current issues, which is the way respawning works. It seems like respawns need to be tweaked a bit, as I often find myself spawning in enemy occupied territory for a few rounds before the game realizes that it's not really a safe spot for me to come back into, and then finally switches me to somewhere else on the map that's not over-running with the opposite side. Another issue I have at the moment comes from bullet lag, which can either be non-existent or frequently annoying, with no real way to tell when it's going to pop up until you get into a couple 1 on 1 firefights and realize that there's no way in hell you should have lost, and then realizing what happened via the Killcam. This isn't super frequent, but I feel that it's a bit more prevalent currently than it ever was in Modern Warfare 2.

Still, I can't deny that I'm having fun with the game, even after I finish this review. I'll be playing the multiplayer for months to come, and I'm sure quite a few folks will as well. I'm a little burned out on the single player experience though, and while I feel like it's a decent enough romp for a FPS title, the storyline did little to grab my attention, and the whole Call of Duty formula is starting to feel a little tired at this point. I'd still suggest checking it out if you've been enjoying the series up to this point, there's little that's changed that'll make you upset or disappointed. That said, don't go into this expecting huge strides or major improvements to be made, just expect to have a few new fun maps to play and the addition of another zombie mode to check out.