Maybe Play This: Black Ops

In case you are in the dark when it comes to Video Games, the sequel to 2010's major first person shooter hit is coming out this November. For those that care, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 will premier in stores November 13th. But while there is still some time between the next game releasing and now, I thought I would finish up the single player campaign and finally give a review on the original Call of Duty: Black Ops. As of last night, I finally finished the campaign on the hardest difficulty.

Call of Duty: Black Ops [2010]

So to perform a review for a game of this caliber, there is no way I can just say one part of it without splitting it up. As such, I've divide this review into three sections, each of which relate to a different part of the gameplay. The single player section will focus on the campaign and story telling that Treyarch has provided, the zombies mode will focus on cooperative play, and finally multiplayer will focus on how the internet and global gameplay comes together. So if there is a specific section you would like to look at, then please jump to that section.

Single Player

I would like to start out by simply saying that I have a mixed feeling about this games single player. But before I get into that, let me start by saying that I always beat these games through the first time on the hardest difficulty. I do not see a point in playing through them twice, so I always try to finish up the hardest difficulty on the first time through to score the maximum amount of achievements and then I move on. And this might actually affect my review, because in the harder difficulties it is sometimes also a bit more challenging to catch what is going on in the story (and why I am a little bit fuzzy).

Anyway, the game starts out with an opening that shows the main character being interrogated. He is in a room with televisions surrounding him and he is wired into the chair, unable to move. A voice comes over the speakers and starts asking questions, the rather bulky televisions start flashing to help visualize what is being said, and we learn they want to know what happened to him. So then it is off into the main character's head to play, which is when the player learns it is not in modern day (if the bulky televisions where not a big enough hint), but rather back a couple decades during the Cold War, and more specifically it starts during Cuban Missile Crisis.

Trailer for Black Ops Single Player

So the main character starts off during the Bay of Pigs fiasco and he gets caught. He ends up in a prison, escapes, continues on to helping his friend kill off these crucial leaders while he is touring other places such as Vietnam. I hope I am not giving away the story, that is not really my intent, but I am trying to get the point across of where you will go and what will happen. If this seems lacking in details, that is probably way.

Anyway, the story portion of the single player was actually a pretty good tale. It has a really good plot twist that gets you thinking about what you just played through and really brings out the best in all of the characters. And I have to say that I did enjoy the path that you take to get to the plot twist. But with that comes probably the most annoying part of the game, the interrogation room. Between each level the player is brought back to that same room with the televisions playing and an unidentifiable voice speaking over speakers to you. I hated this room with a passion and I think it honestly ruined the story because it was so obnoxious. So with that I am left confused about how I like the story, and if they could have cut that room I might have been happier.

Now the gameplay for the single player I will downright say I hated. The team at Treyarch really fails at making the single player fun, and I mean that with all respects. I felt like half the time they would block me off with countless numbers of artificially controlled characters that would not move and the other half I was just walking down hallways. So no matter what you are forced to take these very tight, poorly designed paths that were just annoying. I wish game designers would get it into their heads that you can design fluid, open, and very person-based option controlled maps without ruining the story. The problem is that a lot of single player gameplay designers do not think that is possible.

But wait, I can deal with tight paths as long as the computer controlled characters act like real people. They don't. Instead, you have a team of people that are supposed to be the best of the best, but cannot even manage to kill the enemies that walk out into the middle of the map and turn to fire at you. I can recount hundreds of times when an enemy would just walk out into the open and my guys would miss every shot onto them. If they want to know what I am looking for, I want my AI to try and protect my back and kill the obvious, easy to spot guys. Then, I want the team to script the enemy AI to not try and go out into the center of the map to kill me, but rather work their way like a real player to catch me off guard from behind while not being in the middle of nowhere. And on top of that, please remove the perfect accuracy thing that the computer controlled characters have and please make them not just fire at me. It is annoying when there are six or seven of my allies in front of me and much easier targets when the enemies suddenly shoot me perfectly in the head with a light machine gun.

However, I will give the design this. It was frustrating and hard to complete the campaign quickly because of the poor design decisions. I just wish they would make it intelligent design over brute force design, where the difference is I have to learn how to overcome my enemies instead of I have to push through my enemies. All and all, the gameplay was pretty standard for current first person shooters, flawed in many ways but with a decent enough story.

Zombies

A lot of people think that the zombies portion of Black Ops could actually be made into a stand-alone game. I do not agree with them, but there are a few reasons why. Still, I actually highly enjoy this part of the game and I am excited for when the new version releases with Black Ops 2. The basic gameplay is this, you start out on a map and you try to survive through as many hordes of zombies as possible. As you kill them, you earn points which can be used to buy either new weapons or unlock new parts of the map. And which each wave, the zombies become harder to kill and the waves last longer. Simple as that.

Now the reason that a lot of people think that this part of the game can be done as a stand-alone is because once you start playing, you will not stop for at least an hour. I would like to point out that this is partially because each game of zombies may easily take an hour to play. So if you are going to play zombies, be sure that you have a lot of time to spend on it and you will not have to rush off at any one moment. Also, the gameplay of Zombies is actually rather addictive, which means that although you may only play one game a day, the chance that you will return the next day to try again is very high. And beyond that, the gameplay includes cooperative with up to four players, so there is a social aspect to the game. And I would like to point out that a lot of people really do enjoy this part of the game and as such a multitude of different maps have been developed for people to survive on.

However, I do not think that these points merit zombies as a stand-alone game. Other games that do zombies only not only compete with these features, but add several more that make them actually work as a single game and sell well, but zombies is just a little bit lacking that if I saw it as a game on the shelf I probably would not purchase it. The features that I think the zombies mode is missing the most is some sort of experience or level-up meter that connects each game you play. For instance, maybe on the first try I can only have one perk attached, but once I reach the next level it will allow me to have two perks at the beginning. Or maybe there is some sort of leveling that will let you move ever-so-slightly faster, so that it slowly gets easier (though not by much) over time. Some sort of external system would be great to connect each time I play through and make the hour not seem wasted. They could even make it that you get to customize the weapons to your liking, but only with money you earn for each play-through.

Another feature that is to be desired are more explorable maps with more secrets to be discovered. In more recent zombie maps this feature has becoming more prominent, but not to the level that I desire. I want maps where there is a win objective, though maybe insanely hard to reach, and maps where there are other objects to complete too. In simplicity, it would be great to create zombie maps like a game of the Elder Scrolls, something with lots of side quests to be completed (and once done they are checked off, but can be replayed) but also have a main mission. I think this would extremely make zombies more interesting to say you completed such and such campaign.

Still, the zombies mode is amazing and I recommend that everyone try it out.

Multiplayer

Many people consider this to be the best part of the Call of Duty experience, because there are things to unlock and a lot of things to do. And in honesty, this is actually the reason I continue to buy the Call of Duty franchise. There is something enriching and fulfilling about this multiplayer that keeps bringing me back to keep playing it. Just for some more reference, a lot of people actually skip the single player campaign altogether and just go straight to this part of the game. I do not blame them.

Teaser Trailer for Black Ops Multiplayer

This game's multiplayer does not impress me as much as some of the other ones have, but it is still a wonderful upgrade to the multiplayer system. Actually, let me start by saying that there is still a good chunk of people playing Call of Duty: Black Ops for the multiplayer because they believe that the Modern Warfare series has been unbalanced since the release of the second one and that Black Ops comes the closest to what the original multiplayer that revolutionized the way people play FPS games first started. They are not wrong.

The high points of the multiplayer is that everything is really well balanced, where only a few weapons are even slightly overpowered or underpowered. Treyarch did a wonderful job of making sure each gun has comparable stats when everything is considered. And beyond that, they have done an incredible job at making good maps, where as the most recent game in the series has failed to make even a decently done one. So if you are looking for that classic Call of Duty multiplayer experience while also getting a well balanced game, this is probably the closest one you can play right now.

I do want to make some shout-outs and the map design team here, things that came out so well done that everyone loves them. For instance, Nuketown is a perfectly designed, close quarters map that focuses on accounting for all types of players while still managing to keep the size small. Actually, it is impressive how well this map is made considering that it does house so many unique styles of gameplay! But the real reason I want to call-out this map from all the others is that it got the team over and Treyarch to start thinking about the map design differently, which ironically was a radical new way for all of the Call of Duty universe. In this map there are changing features, the mannequins move, the signs will change base on the players at the beginning, and the final piece being that the whole map explodes at the end in a nuclear testing. This was the first time, first map that they had ever tried to make something where it could have these changing background effects and moveable ideas. In other maps this idea became adopted and well played; for instance Radiation where the center of the map can be opened to allow players to go into the center, Launch where a huge rocket actually leaves the map after a while, burning everything below it, and Hotel which contains three working elevators on the map.

Also brand new, and amazingly well designed, in Black Ops is a theater mode. In theater mode, players can capture those moments they thought were spectacular in the game and upload them to YouTube. Now at first I thought this idea was sort of stupid, I mean how many videos of the same damn gameplay could you upload to YouTube before it gets old, but it turns out I missed something vital to why this became so large. First of all, there are crazy things that people do in the game and they wanted to record and share them, theater mode allows that. Here's an example of one of my favorite moments that was recorded: A guy took a tomahawk and threw it at a chopper. After bouncing off the chopper twice, the aircraft exploded. Instantly famous and instantly funny. The other part that I missed about understanding theater mode the first time around was that sometimes I do impressive feats that I wanted to record. For example, one game I got every single kill as a double kill and I wanted my friends to see that. So I used the theater mode and recorded that game, shipped it to YouTube, and forced many of my friends to watch it. Short conclusion, the theater mode was a great addition to multiplayer.

This is not to say that the multiplayer experience is perfect. In fact, I think Treyarch made a huge flaw by adding in Call of Duty money, a system that makes you have to purchase every weapon, perk, attachment, and even design to be used. The reason I do not like the money system is because it takes away something that was crucial in the previous games for making them successful, the try-anything procedure. Where as I might have gotten bored in previous games and tried something new, Treyarch has actually pushed me to stick with the guns I know well and not try anything new. Beyond that, I felt this system also took away from the RPG based idea of "leveling-up", which added to the whole gain a level and gain new stuff. Instead, I know I can buy something I could not before, but I might not have the money to purchase it. So what was the point in getting to the next level if I cannot use that stuff.

Last, remember how I said that this was the closest gameplay you could get since the first Call of Duty that modernized the online multiplayer. Well, in that respect it is also the biggest problem with the game. Where as the first one left me hooked for months on end, if not more than a year, this one could not hold me for so long. It just lacked that new-shine that games should have, instead feeling more old and repetitive than I would have liked. And had it not been for the amazing community that actually backed this game, I probably would not have played it for as long as I did. Yes, this game has an amazing community.

Overall Conclusion

In total I think this is a very-well put together game that just was a few flaws short of being something I would recommend. It lacked the encouragement to be something better in single player and had a computer system that is really starting to feel its age. I hope that in the next one they will fix this problem by allowing for my dynamic, larger environments with improved AI. The zombies mode, while good in its own respects, also seems to get old a little bit too fast. I hope that there is some sort of new unlock system added to this to really clean-up what I consider to be the dulling part of the gameplay. I also hope that the maps are bigger and better, allowing for larger scales of zombie combat. And finally, although the multiplayer is probably where this game shines best, it just does not have the new and addicting feel I am so accustomed to with these games. So I give it a maybe play this. If you are or have been into Call of Duty, you should own this one, but if you have never tried one of these games before, give it a thought before purchasing.

Now if you don't mind, my fingers hurt from typing this up so quickly. I think I'll go soak them in ice-water until the second game comes out and I have to review that one too.

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