Call of Duty: Black Ops – another late review..

Call of Duty: Black Ops came out last November, which means its pretty late for it to be reviewed with any real purpose other than just to talk about it, but that’s what we’re all about here on BcR anyway, so why the hell not, eh?

Matt:
So yeah, Black Ops came out a while ago, and we played it on launch day, finished in two sittings. It kinda became the biggest selling game ever made, so I guess it deserves a review…..

Paul:
Even though it’s about 3 months late, yeah, it does.

Matt:
I liked it.

Paul:
Me too. A lot more than I expected, actually. I thought it was going to be a dud, for some reason, but it surprisingly turned out to be a pretty solid shooter, right up to the graphical and gameplay standards of Modern Warfare 2. With it not being an Infinity Ward game, I was expecting a crock.

Matt:
It’s Treyarch’s best game to date, I reckon. Which is a good thing, since Infinity Ward are all but dead now, it’ll be them who has to carry the CoD-shaped torch now. Black Ops is the same old formula albeit with a slightly different approach to the storytelling – the flashbacks giving a good excuse to travel to a whole load of places and time-lines kept it engaging and fun.

Paul:
Yeah you certainly never catch a break in Black Ops. The pacing is non-existent, because the flashes make sure to keep you in the heat of combat 99% of the time. Kind of takes a bit of the excitement out of the huge combat set-peices a bit though, if you ask me.

This guy is like your best friend for the whole game. He's pretty bad ass. Or is he? We can't remember...

Matt:
CoD has always been that way, but its now getting a bit stale, that’s the problem. They’ll need to start doing something drastically different eventually, but until the mammoth sales figures start to dwindle, they have no reason to take any risks. Still, I can’t knock it too much because there aren’t many other big-budget blockbuster FPS’s out there any more.

Paul:
If it wasn’t for CoD though, I guess the others might actually stand more of a chance.  You already commented on Activision’s neglect of the awesome Singularity, and in my experience of it so far, it’s a bloody fantastic and pretty unique game, but nobody fucking heard of it, so it practically died a lonely death.  Can’t blame the publishers for backing their strongest games though, can you.  I just hope that with the breakdown of Infinity Ward, Modern Warfare 3 (inevitable) isn’t going to end up a steaming mound of badger feces.

Matt:
The Call of Duty name is so strong these days, Activision could make a game about badger turd soldiers and it’d still sell millions. So long as it has the standard-but-solid multiplayer component, that is. CODBLOPS didn’t add much to the Modern Warfare multiplayer template, but I found it enjoyable enough to put in about 20 hours. Remote control car-bombs are amusing…

'Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!'

Paul:
Is it just me, or is Call of Duty: Badger Turd starting to sound intriguing? It’s probably just me.. Anyway, the game itself, regardless off the background with Activision and who bought what and why this is that or how pigs taste great in bacon form doesn’t matter. The most important thing is I really enjoyed CODBLOPS (still not keen on this abbreviation, it sounds too much like an STD of some kind) and I found the multiplayer mode in it far more enjoyable than I did with Modern Warfare 2, and the inclusion of the Halo ‘Theater’ esc. match recording tool was a brilliant idea. Endless fun to be had watching that completely fluke kill you got by hitting someone in the head with a grenade, regardless of whether it explodes or not.

Matt:
I did enjoy Black Ops, though I regret paying the full £35 or whatever for it. The singleplayer story was great fun blasting through it back at i41, and we had a laugh in the multiplayer. The people reading this probably don’t even need us to tell them if its any good or not, coz chances are they’ve already played it.

Paul:
£39.99.. It certainly wasn’t worth that on release day, but we had the added pressure of needing something new to play at i41 about a week later. I certainly made the most of it, so I don’t feel too bad for paying full price. But yeah, if you’re reading this, you likely played the game already, so this is almost entirely pointless. However, it felt like there was a void on BcR where CODBLOPS was meant to be, so it’s about time we filled it.

Matt:
Yeah, now go buy Singularity.

The trenches were a blast. And a flamethrower to the face. And a bayonet to the chin.