When it comes to Call of Duty, there seems to be a part of most peoples brains that turns off when trying to review it. They proceed to type wildly on the keyboard, ignoring what they have actually just seen, and rave about it being one of the best games they've ever played. Perhaps it's more to do with their pockets being too deep, but what do I know?
A lot of people buy Call of Duty for the multiplayer, and I'll get to that, but I have to point out the vast mound of sweaty ballsack that is the single player campaign.
Call of Duty games have changed a lot since their conception in 2003. They used to make you feel like a cog in a machine, working with all the other cogs to achieve victory over the evil Nazi war machine. Now, you are the machine. You, and only you, can stop whatever menace is about to unleash such a terrible atrocity on the world. The only way you can do this is to blow up everything in sight and slaughter thousands of nameless henchmen along the way.
Call of Duty: Black Ops is boring. There, I said it. From start to end it is a processional shooting gallery from your insertion to your objective. Occasionally there will be a set piece to try and hold your attention, but these become woefully stale and repetitive. At some points I was even able to call when the player would be knocked down by an explosion mere feet from the objective. Some set pieces where even rip-offs of moments in other, better, Call of Duty games.
After playing completely through the game, I realised what I had just played. I had sat through 7 hours of Call of Duty: Black Ops - A Michael Bay production. Except it wasn't all Michael Bay, no. Someone on the writing staff clearly has a thing for conspiracy theories. The fact the story unfolds to reveal, unsurprisingly, that you have been brainwashed into killing Kennedy and the final still is of a picture of Kennedy in Dallas with the player's character, Alex Mason, in the crowd shows someone has a massive boner for grassy knolls. Tom Clancy got nothing on this horseshit.
Good moments were few and far between. The most memorable, for me, was when the player is transported back to 1945. Come to think of it, with the revelation that the character Reznov is dead the whole time and is merely in your head, that becomes a flashback within a flashback. Anyway, the player is tasked with finding a mysterious chemical weapon known as Nova 6. At this point you have no idea what it is or what it does. The setting of a large, frozen boat that has run aground lends to the spooky nature of the mission. Too bad it descends into a mindless firefight like every other mission. Oh well.
After sitting through that turgid mess of a campaign, multiplayer had to be sampled. Now, if this was any different to Modern Warfare 2, I would devote a larger section to it. The truth is, it's almost identical. Save for a few instances of better player customization and the introduction of COD Points as a form of in-game currency, it's the exact same multiplayer.
Let's focus on these COD points. Now, when I heard about it I thought "Hmm, now that sounds like a good idea, let the player buy what they want to unlock". Turns out you have to unlock the option to buy the item. What the hell? What is the point of COD points if you have to rank up to unlock them anyway?
There are some notable additions. Fileshare being the best. The game records you playing and saves it to your console. You can then review these later with other people. It's not a video either, the player can change camera angles, view from other peoples perspectives and change the play speed. Could be great for machinima.
Split screen makes a return from MW2, this time with everything unlocked offline. This has to go down as another major plus. At least someone is doing their job at Treyarch.
To be fair, I don't really care for zombies. I don't succumb to a nerdgasm when they're mentioned and I don't really feel the need for them in Call of Duty. Or at least in the way they are implemented. What I want to know is, why am I defending myself from the zombie apocalypse in a place where it looks like it already hit months ago? As an epilogue to the campaign, you can play a zombie survival map set in the Whitehouse (or was it the Pentagon, I wasn't paying attention). That works. It's a stronghold where the zombies haven't got to yet. Run down buildings with debris everywhere are boring.
As with Modern Warfare 2, this game picked up massive amounts of hype through Activision's marketing department. They know how to make a turd look like diamonds.
This game lacks story, drama, and originality in all aspects. The series has become so stale and filled with multiplayer bloat that it's irreversibly damaged. Too bad people eat it up.
A lot of people buy Call of Duty for the multiplayer, and I'll get to that, but I have to point out the vast mound of sweaty ballsack that is the single player campaign.
Call of Duty games have changed a lot since their conception in 2003. They used to make you feel like a cog in a machine, working with all the other cogs to achieve victory over the evil Nazi war machine. Now, you are the machine. You, and only you, can stop whatever menace is about to unleash such a terrible atrocity on the world. The only way you can do this is to blow up everything in sight and slaughter thousands of nameless henchmen along the way.
Call of Duty: Black Ops is boring. There, I said it. From start to end it is a processional shooting gallery from your insertion to your objective. Occasionally there will be a set piece to try and hold your attention, but these become woefully stale and repetitive. At some points I was even able to call when the player would be knocked down by an explosion mere feet from the objective. Some set pieces where even rip-offs of moments in other, better, Call of Duty games.
After playing completely through the game, I realised what I had just played. I had sat through 7 hours of Call of Duty: Black Ops - A Michael Bay production. Except it wasn't all Michael Bay, no. Someone on the writing staff clearly has a thing for conspiracy theories. The fact the story unfolds to reveal, unsurprisingly, that you have been brainwashed into killing Kennedy and the final still is of a picture of Kennedy in Dallas with the player's character, Alex Mason, in the crowd shows someone has a massive boner for grassy knolls. Tom Clancy got nothing on this horseshit.
Good moments were few and far between. The most memorable, for me, was when the player is transported back to 1945. Come to think of it, with the revelation that the character Reznov is dead the whole time and is merely in your head, that becomes a flashback within a flashback. Anyway, the player is tasked with finding a mysterious chemical weapon known as Nova 6. At this point you have no idea what it is or what it does. The setting of a large, frozen boat that has run aground lends to the spooky nature of the mission. Too bad it descends into a mindless firefight like every other mission. Oh well.
After sitting through that turgid mess of a campaign, multiplayer had to be sampled. Now, if this was any different to Modern Warfare 2, I would devote a larger section to it. The truth is, it's almost identical. Save for a few instances of better player customization and the introduction of COD Points as a form of in-game currency, it's the exact same multiplayer.
Let's focus on these COD points. Now, when I heard about it I thought "Hmm, now that sounds like a good idea, let the player buy what they want to unlock". Turns out you have to unlock the option to buy the item. What the hell? What is the point of COD points if you have to rank up to unlock them anyway?
There are some notable additions. Fileshare being the best. The game records you playing and saves it to your console. You can then review these later with other people. It's not a video either, the player can change camera angles, view from other peoples perspectives and change the play speed. Could be great for machinima.
Split screen makes a return from MW2, this time with everything unlocked offline. This has to go down as another major plus. At least someone is doing their job at Treyarch.
To be fair, I don't really care for zombies. I don't succumb to a nerdgasm when they're mentioned and I don't really feel the need for them in Call of Duty. Or at least in the way they are implemented. What I want to know is, why am I defending myself from the zombie apocalypse in a place where it looks like it already hit months ago? As an epilogue to the campaign, you can play a zombie survival map set in the Whitehouse (or was it the Pentagon, I wasn't paying attention). That works. It's a stronghold where the zombies haven't got to yet. Run down buildings with debris everywhere are boring.
As with Modern Warfare 2, this game picked up massive amounts of hype through Activision's marketing department. They know how to make a turd look like diamonds.
This game lacks story, drama, and originality in all aspects. The series has become so stale and filled with multiplayer bloat that it's irreversibly damaged. Too bad people eat it up.
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