Call of Duty: Black Ops Review

Treyarch has often gotten a negative reception from Call of Duty fans. Despite their games being generally solid; they often fail to match Infinity Ward's immensely popular Modern Warfare series. But the developer's latest entry in the series Black Ops is finally on par with it's rivals, creating a game full of content while adding extra innovations to the famous series.

Call of Duty: Black Ops begins with the protagonist, Alex Mason strapped in an interrogation room with shadowy figures desperate to learn of an elusive numbers system involved in an attack on the US. The missions take place via flashbacks across the many months of the cold war from Cuba to Vietnam to Russia and back again which gradually fill in the story. The story this time is probably the best in the series, providing mystery and suspense as the pieces come together. Stronger characters like Reznov from World at War also help the story take hold even more. Although it's still difficult to care about the characters and the situations they face.

The design of Black Ops remains the same as ever. You're thrust down a linear path, killing enemies and running through set piece scenarios, including spotting enemies from an SR 71 Blackbird, blowing up a massive rocket with a prototype weapon as well as some simple quick time events. Also as with many Call of Duty games, the campaign is fairly short at around six or seven hours. But of course the disc is jam packed with content. Cooperative zombies for up to four players returns with many new maps and features as well as the incredibly addictive, worldwide popular multiplayer mode. Changes and additions include currency; COD points that earn to buy weapons, perks and equipment to customise your classes with. Taking inspiration from Halo, a theatre mode and custom game making have also been introduced. It all adds up to a game that you simply won't stop playing for many months or even years.

The gameplay hasn't changed in three years. It's all about aiming down sights and swinging your knife with right stick. The fast paced action of the campaign is still but this similarity seems to be getting boring now. You still have no control over what your comrades do in campaign so they can be almost useless at times. Civilians has also been removed almost entirely from Modern Warfare 2 letting you blindly spray bullets at your leisure. Enemy AI has improved slightly over World at War with more acrobatic movements this time but unfortunately infinite enemy respawning has been brought back, making hardened and veteran incredibly frustrating. There could be at least ten enemies that roll behind the same piece of cover and only three hits can kill you. The developer has taken large steps to balance multiplayer with perks like one man army and commando thrown out and under barreled attachments, pistols and snipers being considerably weaker than past games. Despite these issues the gameplay in Black Ops remains as fast and fun as ever.

As with every game in the series since Call of Duty 4 Black Ops looks great, sporting beautiful environments, stunning effects, character models and gruesome gore. The frame rate runs smoothly at all times and the voice work fits the characters even they're basically shouting through the whole game. Dedicated servers have been added, allowing for better connections to online games. As a whole Black Ops is a good looking game held back by using the same engine as past Call of Duty games.

Black Ops stakes it's claim as the best value package in the series. It may not change up the gameplay much but when a game is packed with this much content; it's difficult to ignore. Be sure to pick this up if you're into first person shooters or the Call of Duty series in general.

Rating: 9/10