I am going to try to keep these reviews as simple and laymen as I can. Many guys and gals are “gamers,” but not every gamer takes even more time out of his day of fantasy to educate himself on the technological vocabulary involved. Also, I will mention that these reviews written by myself are purely my opinion, then again, what review isn’t. I do not work as a developer, or designer, or programmer of any games, I’m just another fanatic of leaving the everyday boring realities of life. My only background in the matter is having played video games for about 20 or so years of my 25 year existence on our earth. Take my opinions and rants as you will. In the end, the only way to really understand or make a decision on a specific game and the experience it MAY provide is to just check it out for yourself. (Try renting though. It will save money, heartbreak, and regret from time to time.) The ratings I give will be on a traditional scale of 1 to 10, ten of course being perfect. All introductions aside, here is the first installment of “Christ Addams’ Gaming Review.”
Call of Duty: Black Ops
Platform: XBOX 360, PS3, and PC.
Developer/Publisher: Treyarch/Activision
Classification: First Person Shooter (FPS)
Release Date: November 9th, 2010.
Christ’s Rating: 7.0 out of 10
My sole love when it comes to games and gaming is First Person Shooters and/or shooters in general that is. It’s the killing without consequence I believe, psychologically speaking. Truthfully 007: Goldeneye for the Nintendo 64 was the beginning of that addiction. There were 2D shooters like Contra for the original Nintendo that deserve honorable mention as a shooter but none exceed the realism we are being provided on our modern home consoles today. The latest installment of the insanely popular Call of Duty series is Call of Duty: Black Ops. It need be mentioned that the series has changed developers again, returning to Treyarch (COD 3, and COD: World at War) since Infinity Ward (COD, COD 2, and both Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare 2) and the franchise publisher Activision had a “falling out.” Personally I have never been a big Call of Duty buff but always play them to feed my virtual-murdering needs. From the COD’s I have played, I prefer Infinity Ward as a developer. To me they just seem to have done a more exceptional job.
Single Player Campaign
Lets talk a little about Black Ops’ single player campaign. In general it is a well written and interesting story. Being full of your now common twists, turns, and bloody betrayals that every war-based game uses to keep our ADHD ridden attention, I can’t say I didn’t enjoy it. There are plenty of variety for your gameplay experience ranging from daring vehicle rides to violent land operations. Graphics are solid as expected and if anything was noticeably improved in that area it was SOME of the environments. The characters and enemies still look to me like shiny porcelain puppets superficially and in their anatomical movements all-together. This is no different than when it was in the hands of Infinity Ward though. Adding to that thought, Treyarch did not reinvent the wheel with Black Ops. They just took what they thought worked with Modern Warfare 2, plugged it right in, and it shows. Although based in the cold war era (surprise, surprise) instead of modern day/future periods, the campaign still tends to feel almost identical at times to it’s predecessor. You just may be riding on an older vehicle or using an older weapon this time around. Very inaccurate weapons as well if I might add. Either that or there are some errors that need patching. At times I could unload an entire clip into an enemy with no response. This proves to be a major problem for a FPS overall. Mainly because it makes every aspect of the game much more difficult including unnecessary reloading and an overly difficult campaign on any setting above Normal. Not in a challenging way but in more of a frustrating destroy my controller way.
The AI (artificial intelligence) of the enemies/allies also lacked terribly. I felt like I was playing a well polished Super-Nintendo shooter at certain points throughout the campaign. Its fine when enemies re-spawn but is a little lame when they run to the exact same spot and perform the exact same actions over and over and over AND OVER! As I said, your allies’(squad) IQ doesn’t operate any better, sometimes standing until you cross a certain line before any action is taken and other times shooting/moving with no noticeable purpose. Luckily for Treyarch they keep the story moving at a good pace in conjunction with the variety of gameplay I mentioned earlier. That would be the only aspect of this campaign saving it from being a complete failure, in my opinion of course.
Multiplayer
For most COD players, from what I have gathered, the multiplayer is the core reason for buying/playing the game. I for one find the Call of Duty multiplayer to be extremely unrealistic but will try to keep my review as un-biased as possible. In comparison to Modern Warfare 2 there have been a few additions to the multiplayer experience; mostly in the customization arena. Treyarch also adapted a new (new for them) way of upgrading your soldier and his personal armory, providing credits for purchasing on top of traditionally receiving points to increase your rank. Credits allow you to put your money where your mouth is in a new “Wager” mode as well. One can also hustle for even more credits by challenging themselves with “Contracts.” Another addition to the multiplayer experience of COD. The hit detection when trying to kill someone on the opposing team is just as bad, if not worse (given networking problems), as the single player experience. When I say hit detection I am referring to the fact of having to fire round after round after round to kill an enemy, sometimes with the result only being your death. Ridiculous and stressful. Movement feels too slow at times and your enemies seem to move in fast motion at other times. A bit too cartoony for lack of a better word(I know its not a word). With a few downloadable updates and patches though, the game could be improved dramatically and assuredly there will be updates. There is also a zombie mode you can delve into fighting off hordes of the dead with your buddies if your into that (everybody else seems to be). Treyarch is known for adding this dynamic game mode just as they did in World at War.
To say the least, I was glad I did not buy this game. BUT, for all the hardcore COD fans out there, I believe you will be very pleased. For those that want to step the realism up a notch I highly suggest you hop on the Battlefield. 
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