Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 game review
Playing with fire
The knives have been sharpened, the vitriol pumped, the maps cleared of bodies and the zombies starved. It can only mean one thing: Call of Duty: Black Op 2 is upon us.
Flagging the issue
It's the series where reviewers can never win, and Activision's coffers never fail to be filled. Where one wrong word can lead to talkback meltdown – just try suggesting it looks better on PS3 than Xbox 360 (I'm not, but try it). And where console owners, whose device has a layer of dust an inch thick, will inexplicably feel compelled to hit their local games store because “You know, it's Call of Duty isn't it?”
So what of Treyarch's Black Ops 2, the continuation of a brand new saga which Activision is no doubt hoping will equal its other clockwork Call of Duty series, Modern Warfare.
Ship shot
2010's Black Ops single-player campaign was something of an oddity, a mishmash of missions derived from various recent conflicts, all-threaded together by a genre-standard, over-egged plot.
Yes it had its moments, but it also relied far too much on tired principals. First there was "infinitely spawning bad guy" syndrome, where countless hostiles would harass the player until you had progressed a preordained distance. Then there were bottlenecks, where only killing "x" amount of enemies would have an area declared clear, thus enabling advancement.
On a rampage
So, in two years, what's changed? Has Treyarch learnt any new tricks with which to bamboozle players, or has the series finally run out of luck?
Next page: Wails from the script
COMMENTS
Re: Really?
You enjoy the single player on these bags of shite? What's wrong with you?
I enjoy flying helicopters upriver machine gunning people to death while listening to Jimi Hendrix. You act as if that were odd somehow. And you're not honestly going to try and tell me CoD4 had shit single-player, are you?
I'm not interested in the multiplayer, mainly because of the player base. I prefer to play solid co-op games online. Killing Floor is a good example because it forces the players to work together, rather than act like dicks and hurl obscenities at each other all night.
Not surprised
Each CoD game has been a photocopy of the one before it since IW and Treyarch started sharing the engine. This series is at death's door and even the hardened fans are growing tired of it.
A friend once referred to CoD as "Duck Hunt HD" and it seems from the review that this version is no different.
Call of Duty is well past its sell by date
Single player COD has barely advanced since the first title - linear levels, heavy amounts of scripting, retarded enemies and allies, infinite spawn points, hidden triggers, unopenable doors and windows and even more scripting. What was forgivable 10 years ago simply isn't forgivable now.
That sounds a bit hard to balance. I imagine some loadouts will be nerfed in short order.
Damn
Was hoping for a review of Mass Effect 2.
You sure those screenshots aren't photographs?
