Call of Duty: Black Ops - Jon the VGNerd's Review

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Jon the VGNerd

Call of Duty: Black Ops - Jon the VGNerd's Review

Post by Jon the VGNerd »

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Today, I shall review Activision's recent game, Call of Duty: Black Ops. Boy, do they love making one Call of Duty game after the next, as if they're trying to prove that Call of Duty franchise is a legend, much like finding the legendary shrine. The Call of Duty franchise is getting overly exaggerated, I can understand that, but hey, if you're a fan of shooters, then it's a great game, but even so, it caters the fact that even an excellent shooting game has flaws to it, so don't expect this game to be pretty perfect. Without further ado, here it goes!

So after Modern Warfare 2's perfection gone awry, be it having a lot of lag due to having no dedicated servers and cheating players running rampant throughout the servers, Black Ops comes along int he battlefield. So it's basically like World at War, only different this time, with a lot of new features Black Ops can throw at us. You play as Mason, being held in an interrogation room by a mysterious interrogator (a.k.a. Weaver *hint hint*) while many flashback plays to the very beginning where you must hint and kill Castro (a.k.a. the body double *hint hint again*) and later hunt down Dragovich, the sadistic soldier, who is planning to use the NOVA6, a biologically deadly weapon, as well as his evil second-in-command, Kravchenko, whilst fending off enemies with your weapons, especially with your allies by your side to assist the fight.

Now, the gameplay is pretty interesting, be it having realistic gunfire sounds and the massive shootouts going on about and environment destruction, like objects flying and windows shattering, but there's more where that came from. Black Ops features a wide array of weapons, me it at the Campaign, Multiplayer, and the critically acclaimed Zombies. The weapons range from simple handguns to powerful LMGs and assault rifles, including the beautifully explosive weapons, like rocket launchers and grenades to annihilate your enemies. And for humorous results, you can blow a guy's arms or legs off with a shotgun.

The multiplayer and zombies are really excellent, especially with the new Combat Training feature where you can take on against bots that contains names based on your friends, depending on which difficulty you will select, whereas zombies, you and your friends must fight off endless wave of zombies, like blowing them away with your ThunderGun or gunning them down with your Ray Gun while staying alive. If Multiplayer is not your thing, then both Combat Training and Zombies are best suited for you to play with. Although the flaws of multiplayer are both the consistent lagging (due to having no dedicated servers) and the broken hit detection, even though you were shooting directly at your enemy player. Since it wasn't remedied, expect multiplayer to have some problems as you try and win against other players.

Although the campaign is pretty good, it has a generic side to it in terms of difficulty, and that's the unforgiving, rage-quitting and throw-your-controller-at-the-TV-or-window-because-you-get-killed-a-lot-of-times Veteran mode, where your allies will still help you at the start, but as the story progresses, your allies help you less and less as they want you to take the bullet instead of having them doing it for you. And that's not the worst part, get shot three times and you die instantly, but then there's the infinite amount of enemies respawning, so no matter how well you shoot at them, they'll keep on coming as if a cloning machine malfunctioned, which forces you to move on carefully or face instant death. Now, there are three levels that results in enemies respawning ridiculously just to piss you off and make you want to go "f**k this level!" in a rage-like manner, which includes Executive Order, where enemies spawn endlessly in a tunnel and the allies do nothing except stay behind cover as if they don't want anyone but you to take the bullet, SOG, where your ally wants you to "shoot" the barrels (you have to stab them instead. Pretty legit, don't you think?) and Rebirth, where the MG tank provides you with no cover at all, which isn't even considered as a mission if you can't get to cover from being shot in any way at all.

I know what you guys are thinking "Call of Duty sucks, they need to stop making it because it's getting stupid, we like Battlefield 3 better!". Well, good luck trying to reason with Activision because they're just as desperate as EA would with their endless amount of Need for Speed franchise or SEGA's Sonic franchise (no offense to Sonic fans), but nevertheless, it's a really great game if you want Multiplayer's Combat Training or Zombies mode over the nerve-wracking Campaign mode, each with the wide array of weapons for you to dominate your foes, and the undead hoard.

The Good:

Nice array of weapons, awesome graphics, great selection of maps of both multiplayer (both multiplayer and zombies), great multiplayer mechanics, good campaign mode (if you're not choosing Veteran mode, that is), nice bit of dialogue from the characters, destructible environment.

The Bad:

Veteran mode is highly frustrating, multiplayer can have problems at times (e.g. sudden lags, broken hit detection), no Special Ops mission, the storyline is a tad short (unless you're already stuck in Veteran mode), you are unable to commandeer vehicles (even though you CAN pilot a chopper in one mission, as well as the boat, but that's about it)

Worth Playing?

If you're a long-time fan of Call of Duty and a fan of zombies from World at War, then this is the right and reasonable game for you. However, if you hate Campaign, then Multiplayer is there for you, although be mindful that even the best servers might encounter problems, such as sudden lagging and broken hit detection when you're engaging a gunfight against another player. The overall gameplay and quality is pretty good, so if you want a good shooting game, then Black Ops is a good game for you to play, or if you're tired of Activision's non-stop sequels of the Call of Duty franchise, then you should either buy Battlefield 3 or buy another shooting game that's right for you.
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ozzypt
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Post by ozzypt »

Another Great review Jon, what are you planing on reviewing next?
Jon the VGNerd

Post by Jon the VGNerd »

ozzypt wrote:Another Great review Jon, what are you planing on reviewing next?
Whichever games I feel like reviewing. ;)
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