Call of Duty: Black Ops - Storyline, Multiplayer, Zombies, Online Gameplay Review - Play Flaws/Fails

If you have ever considered yourself a gamer, you have spent countless hours playing one of the many Call of Duty games. Call of Duty has taken the spotlight for creating the most epic war-style video games. From the world wars to modern warfare, Infinity Ward and Activision have continued to demonstrate warfare at its finest.

The time gap between the Call of Duty games went from every few years, to every year. The studios producing the games switch off every game, which allows new Call of Duty titles almost every year now. Modern Warfare 2, the sequel to the first Modern Warfare, shocked gamers with its amazing graphics and gametypes. With Modern Warfare 2 being the best selling game of all time, the next title was anticipated to be even better.

Call of Duty: Black Ops follows the story of Alex Mason reliving his duty served during the cold war. Mason, which is the voice of Sam Worthington from Avatar, is being tortured in an electric chair as he relives missions by force. Activision did a spectacular job at creating a Hollywood storyline. The storyline is so smooth and unique that it could easily be transformed into a movie. As Mason is in the electric chair, an interrogator is forcing him to relive his experiences from his special operations missions. As Mason is recalling the events, you play them. The amazing part about the missions is that as you play, you can occasionally hear Mason and his interrogator discussing the mission. Mason’s past and present blend together in a unique way demonstrated in the game. Call of Duty games never focus on a single character, but in Black Ops the tradition changes. You pretty much follow Alex Mason’s past throughout the whole game, but also unveil memories of his allies.

The final few missions in the campaign are presented in a way most games aren’t. The style that Activision used was similar to George Clooney’s notorious casino robbery in Oceans Eleven. There isn’t really a robbing mission, but they way it is presented to the gamer. You complete the mission in the view of Mason, but then complete the same mission as Hudson to unravel the unexpected twist in the storyline. This mission gives different view points during the same mission. While you play the mission as Mason, Hudson is essentially in the “background” on the same missison, trying to communicate with Mason. The communication foreshadows to the same mission when the view changes to Hudson. While playing as Hudson, Mason is in the “background,” but you’ll be familiar with what Hudson is doing. Without spoiling the storyline all I can say is that the campaign is one of the best i’ve ever played. The storyline in games isn’t usually very interesting, but Black Ops is filled with interesting missions and an unexpected twist to the conclusion.

The multiplayer has once again improved with this new title in the Call of Duty franchise. You can do combat training, which is basically like playing online versus, but you’re playing computer players. The combat training works like regular online play, but it doesn’t transfer over. Combat training takes gamers on your friends lists, but makes them into computer players. Almost all features can be unlocked in training, but they once again don’t transfer to online play.

With great success from Nazi Zombies in Call of Duty: World at War, Activision has included a Zombies gametype. Zombies can be played solo or multiplayer, even online. Zombies features several massive levels and upgrades as you play a single game. In the Zombies mode you can play as a variety of characters that become unlocked through campaign completion. This includes presidents like Nixon and Kennedy.

When you play online, you now earn yourself Call of Duty Points, also known as CODPoints. Instead of the way Modern Warfare 2 unlocked weapons and perks as you leveled, Black Ops moved towards the Halo: Reach style of an armory. CODPoints are used to purchase weapons and other items to be used in-game. However, there are still level requirements to purchase certain items.

Activision introduced “Contracts” to Black Ops. Contracts are virtual agreements to complete certain tasks in the online multiplayer. Completing contracts earns you the currency of CODPoints. Points aren’t only earned from contracts, but also from regular gameplay.

Another new multiplayer feature in Black Ops is the addition of Playercards. Playercards is like a service record of statistics for a given player online. The playercard keeps count how how many times a perk has been used, kill/death ratio, killstreak rewards, and more. Your playercard also lets you edit your emblem and tag shown in-game. Along with the new additions to the game series, Theatre has been introduced. Once again, theatre is similar to the feature in Halo 3 and Halo: Reach. Theatre stores your last 100 games played and allows you to upload short 30 second clips online and to the new fileshare system incorporated into Black Ops. More than one player can now play on the same console as well. The split-screen feature lets multiple players on a single console play together online.

Aside from the new online features, the usual Call of Duty features are still included. Perks, grenades, and class creation are still in the tactics of playing online. Choosing what killstreak rewards you get has also continued on to Black Ops.

When it comes to videogames, spending $60.00 on a newly released game needs to be worth it. Im not saying that Black Ops isn’t worth the money, but there are some flaws that might upset enthusiasts. The first thing noticed was the lack of rendering, bad physics, and repetition in the game.

• Throughout the campaign, I noticed several areas that seemed unrendered. Parts of the campaign levels are essentially “blacked out.” This means that you know its a boundary, but there are no graphics to the boundary. I like exploring while playing games and Black Ops proved lack of perfection in Activision’s developers. If you gaze beyond some of the level boundaries, you will notice these rendering flaws. I hopped up on different objects and noticed blank spaces where there should be walls, ground, or something that distinguishes a boundary. It isn’t the angle at which the camera is facing, but flaws in the rendering. The render flaw isn’t very noticeable unless you tend to wonder around on the levels.
• Bad physics means that the game doesn’t do a very good job at making realistic situations. Everything in life deals with physics which means to make a realistic game, the physics need to be accurate. I first noticed physics faws about halfway through the campaign. There are a number of buildings and objects in these buildings on most levels. These random objects vary from fruit to dishes. Activision failed to add effects to destroying these objects. When you shoot or melee items, only some of them actual have realistic results. Sure there are bullet-proof windows, but I came across TV’s, lamps, cups, china cabinets, and much more that are indestructible in the game. Another physics flaw is the event of a death. When someone dies, gravity pulls them down in real life. On different occasions I noticed bodies that were floating midair or standing up still. Some bodies are stuck in a position that makes it look like they are slightly lower than a crouch. I also came across bodies that were standing in doorways, which looked as if they were alive, but they did not move or drop when introduced to conflict. The last physics flaw I noticed is the explosions. Explosions should destroy wooden crates, but I won’t complain about that. Many of times I would explode barrels or vehicles, but enemies near them would get back up. The explosions give the illusion that they are fairly large, but the destruction radius is small.
• I play countless videogames, but I have never had a problem with offline lagging. I didn’t only get quick lags, but lags that caused glitches so bad that the mission was not possible to do. In one of the missions, you are required to get into a Jeep and fire guided missiles to blow up tanks. You are in the back, and an NPC drives you around. The first two times I got into the Jeep, the driver never drove. I was simply stuck. Since I didn’t know he was supposed to drive, I shot all of my rounds before realizing that he was probably supposed to drive me around. I had to restart the level and the same thing happened. This time I betrayed one of my teammates and it reverted to the last checkpoint causing the driver to finally drive me around.
• The last flaw I would like to point out is the amount of repetition. When I say repetition, I don’t mean repeat of scenarios or mission tasks. On some of the levels in campaign, enemies are in an infinite loop until you complete a certain task. On one level I noticed that no matter how many times I killed the enemies in the trenches and bunkers, there would always be a replacement within seconds. I was unaware of what to do, so I spent probably 40 minutes on a task that would’ve taken a few seconds to complete. The enemies would literally go right to the exact spot where I just killed someone. Like I said, this would’ve gone on even longer if I hadn’t figured it out.

I know that the flaws seemed to make me a “Call of Duty Hater,” but I was just pointing out what I noticed while playing. I highly recommend getting the game and there is no doubt people will love it. A majority of gamers could careless about the campaign and mainly focus on the online play. I haven’t come across any flaws online, but im sure there bounds to be some. In conclusion, the game and storyline are fantastic and I highly recommend the game. The little things are the only turnoffs to this incredible franchise.