Call of Duty Black Ops - Or Call of Duty That Flops?

For me to fit this topic into an average sized blog post whilst covering all the main points will be an epic achievement, seeing as I've been a gamer and fan of Call of Duty since the first game came out around 7 years ago, I could make a list as long as my arm, but I won't.

Trey or Ney?

I'm gunna get the biggest point out there straight away, the battle between Treyarch and Infinity Ward. Everyone has their favourites, and some people favour all of the companies and games! But you do get the bitter fans who won't buy a Treyarch game... for example, they released CoD 3, completely ignored the PC platform which instantly got people hating them, i.e me (but I got over it when they did a good job with World at War) and the fact they completely botched it - It wasn't really that much of a success in terms of how many people actually liked the game. It was nothing compared to what it was trying to follow on from - Call of Duty 1 and Call of Duty: United Offensive. People just haven't forgiven them for it. 

So despite Black Ops being a highly anticipated game with much hype surrounding it, there are still a lot of people saying No to the game, or just being campers and sitting on the fence - all because it's made by Treyarch. 

Image Courtesy of Devicemag.com

As I've said, I was a big fan of World at War, not just because it's my sort of genre, but because I thought it was actually a really fun game to play both Single Player and Multiplayer, so needless to say, I was looking forward to Black Ops. When I got my hands on the game on release day I stepped off my usual beaten path routine and played Single Player before I did Multiplayer. 
So... My impressions of singleplayer? Let's just get the gameplay out the way first. Nothing has changed massively from the previous installments, It feels more or less the same as all of the other Call of Duty games. In my opinion, this is both a good thing and a bad thing. Good because it feels comfortably familiar, and you feel like you can dive straight back into the action whilst having the same amount of skill you had in games prior. Although, they haven't made much of an effort to try and tweak the controls to make it fresh, but I think it's a risky thing for them to do anyway, as they could actually screw it up, big time! You really just have the varied recoil on the new weapons and that is basically it. However, you can lean around cover again! Win! They also input this cool little feature that when you are running and then press the prone key, you dive into the prone position! Totally awesome if you wanna do a heroic flag capture on CTF.
I loved the story line! It was such a breath of fresh air, and an entirely different take on a CoD campaign. I would compare it to an interactive, psychological thriller movie. It was a pretty decent campaign length too, I didn't even get bored at any point in the game, helped especially by the motorbike race being thrown into the mix! Much like the snow mobile race on MW2 - it was fun! Flying the chopper? Not so much, sadly. I was expecting it to be at least similar to the flying mechanics that are featured in the Battlefield series, but I was let down. It felt a little too ridgid. 

Image Courtesy if IGN.com

The weapons in the game are pretty awesome, I enjoyed them all. Especially the Grim Reapers and the Death Machines, they're imba. Even with the standard weapons though, they did a good job - although I would have liked to have maybe seen a few more weapons in the game, I still felt hungry for more equipment.



But then here comes the horrible stuff. The A.I are still so dumb that if you gave them a fork to eat their soup with, they wouldn't challenge you, instead they'd attempt to catch the pools of soup on each prong of the fork, wondering why when they put the fork in their mouths, the soup tasted like metal. They don't help you much... they help you get killed... but nothing else, they just get in the way! As per usual, the opposing A.I have eyes only for you, and as soon as you pop your head up, 5 grenades and 20 rounds in one second come flying at your face. Unfair?
I wasn't overall impressed by the graphics either, especially when I'm somewhat of a graphics snob. I did expect something a little more breath taking. Don't get me wrong, there were some scenes that were pretty good, the graphics are still kind of acceptable for the year we're in, but there were a lot of points in the game where I felt really disappointed and let down by Treyarch for being so lazy with their textures and skins. At times I would stop to reload and see parts of the terrain or surrounding objects around me masked with a horrible, pixelated and stretched skin. *shudder*

Image Courtesy of IGN.com

That's enough for you fine people to read right now, so I'm gunna wrap it up. I will do a separate Multiplayer-dedicated review for y'all tomorrow - that includes Zombies of course! 


So to conclude, Single Player really is a must play if you're a CoD fan in general, even if you hate Treyarch's guts. If you can look past the small graphical glitches, stiff vehicle controls and AI that have the IQ of a crayon, then it's game on! I personally really enjoyed the campaign and would recommend it to anyone willing to give it a shot. 

Please leave your thoughts, opinions and gameplay experiences in the comment section below, I feel like a debate - although I'm not looking like one right now. *I apologise, the joke had to be made*


As I said, stay tuned and come back tomorrow where I will be taking Black Ops Multiplayer apart and sharing the good, the bad and the nubly about the game. 


Thanks for reading folks, and hit 'follow' !


TTFN


Jayhmmz    (''')(O.o)(''')

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