Call of Duty: Black Ops

Date Acquired: Rented 11/11/2010

Date Completed: 11/25/2010

Thoughts: While Activision releases a Call of Duty game every year, they don't overload one studio with this assignment, they divide the work between two studios, and allow them to make every other game. For years Inifity Ward has set the standard. The best-received and best-reviewed games in the series such as 1, 2, 4 and Modern Warfare 2 were all developed by them. The other games in the series: 3, World at War, and now Black Ops were made by Treyarch. Their first offering, Call of Duty 3 was not met with much acclaim, but they have bettered themselves with each sequal, and review-score-wise, Black Ops is their best work to date. I never played 3, and I barelyl played World at War, so I can't really judge those games. I did play Modern Warfare 1 and 2 extensively, and if I'm being honest, Black Ops still falls way short.

I am, and remain primarily a single player guy. If I play a game in muliplayer it's always with friends and usually co-op, so when I review a Call of Duty game, I'm just playing it for the single player. Black Ops is like a ride at Disney Land. It feels very staged, the action pops up as you walk near it. It's in no way a sandbox with a whole world to walk around like you can in Halo. It feels like you're on rails. It strives to present a movie experience, but it offers a plot that I don't care much about that is supposed to be compelling me to play the game. The game has it's moments, and it got my heart pumping a few times, but when the dust settled and I had finished the game, I was done. With Modern warfare 1 I went back through some of the game on the hardest difficulty setting. With MW2, I finished the game on the hardest setting, I was really into it. But with Black Ops, I didn't even want to go back and try to get achievements I missed. I just had no desire to play it any more.

For some reason, Treyarch introduced Zombies to the game with World at War, and they're back in Black Ops. You can play a zombie mission from the begining, and when you beat the game it drops you straight into a new zombie mission you've apparently just unlocked. You're playing as John F Kennedy and the whitehouse is overrun by zombies. Unusual doesn't begin to describe it. I played through it a few times, never getting very far annd eventually lost interest.

Pros: The game clearly has high production values. A lot of time, money and effort was put into making thig thing and it shows. It's polished. There are a lot of 'holy shit' moments in the game and I did find myself smiling at a lot of the ideas they put into it. Also since the game is set in the cold war era, you're not fighting with blunderbusses and bayonets here, you get pretty modern weaponry. One of my guns even had the red dot laser site, I had guided missiles.

Cons: The game just felt shallow to me. It wasn't compelling to play through or to come back for. Now for these games, the multiplayer is king, and it's what gets people coming back again and again, but Modern Warfare 2 I blew through in 2 days, then immediately went through again on veteran difficulty. That game compelled me. This game? Eh, it was a fun ride, I liked seeing what it had to offer, but I'm not ready to settle down. It was a solid rental.

To Do: I've already sent it back to gamefly, and canceled my membership. Ther e probably isn't much more of this game in my future. I finished with my pathetic 220 or so achievement points and move on to the next game.