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Written by Oliver on Monday 15 Nov 2010
This is Call of Duty: Black Ops? The game that has broken sales records and conquered the entire entertainment industry? This is the game that has managed to whip gamers into a frenzy, and lead retail giant GameStop to hold more midnight launches on release than any time in its history?
Because the singleplayer game I played seemed a little at odds with these industry-dominating achievements. Dated gameplay and graphics? The reappearance of heavily scripted sequences and scenarios, and arbitrary death for when you don’t follow that script? Linear levels? Infinite enemy respawning again?
Although… what about that intriguing and daring story, and that interesting delivery method?
And how about that multiplayer portion of Call of Duty: Black Ops? As fully featured and deep as you like, with more customisation options and game modes than most any other online competitive game!
No, this is Call of Duty: Black Ops.
Call of Duty: Black Ops singleplayer kicks off with you, as protagonist Alex Mason, strapped to a chair in a dark room while facing a collection of monitors and imposing amounts of equipment. Meters away, two dark figures peer down at you through a window in-between bouts of pacing back and forth:
“Alex Mason,” booms a distorted voice, belonging to one of these figures. “Tell us what the numbers mean!”
And so begins the story of Black Ops, as Mason is interrogated and tortured, forced into revealing events that have lead up to this point in history all in an effort to avoid a possible terrorist attack, while a series of mysterious numbers lie at the heart of a worldwide conflict involving the United States, Cuba and Russia during the historical Cold War stand-off.
Players will experience the story through a series of flashbacks to prior events, mostly filling the role of Mason himself as he recalls these events, but with stints as various other key characters, too. There’s a distinct ‘secret operations’ feel about every mission you take on (which would explain the game’s name, I guess) as every new scenario is stylishly revealed with live action footage, accompanied by text and records that are slowly blacked out leaving only the most vital pieces of information.
Of course, these flashbacks are an excuse for the inclusion of a wide array of activities, a good amount of location hopping, and instantaneous appearances in different time periods, be they two weeks or five years later than the event previous - before the end of the game, you’ll have stealthily (and noisily) made your way through a Vietnamese jungle and village, chased an enemy through claustrophobic tunnels, and been chased over rooftops in Hong Kong.
Also on your way towards the conclusion of Black Ops, you’ll escape an oppressive prison facility, explore and assault the interior of at least two naval vessels, destroy a space shuttle, direct troops from a sub-orbital plane, clear out secret facilities and compounds, and run riot by controlling helicopters on two different occasions.
There’s definitely no shortage of activities and scenarios to partake in during the course of Call of Duty: Black Ops, and no shortage of weaponry, either – everything from shotguns and rifles, guided rocket launchers and dual-wielded Uzis, and flamethrowers and sniper rifles are accounted for, with the added ability to pull off vicious melee attacks for up-close and personal combat, and lob explosive and flashbang grenades.
As you would expect with all of these missions and available weaponry, ‘things’ can get a little violent and gory, with heavy language to match, but you can actually turn the more offensive material off at the beginning of the game if you wish to.
What you can’t turn off (even if you wish to) are tropes that have become associated with Call of Duty since the very first entry to the series, but have somehow become more restrictive, visible and offensive with every subsequent game.
For one, there’s still infinite enemy respawning in certain sections of the game - a tactic used to force players to move forward and progress through a given level lest they be shredded with limitless ammunition fired by this limitless army of foes. This can lead to high amounts of frustration, but also comical sequences where dozens of people will stream out of a single area, like clowns out of a clown car.
Heavily scripted events will also push and pull you through the game, requiring you to be in an exact place at an exact time, and if you don’t follow the meticulously crafted script set out by the developers, you’ll simply be killed for arbitrary reasons, or be given (literally) a few split-seconds to react to incoming danger. Sometimes you’ll simply be told that you failed a mission without enough warning, sending you back to your previous checkpoint.
More often than not, this checkpoint will be placed at the beginning of a series of script triggers, meaning you’ll have to fight and fumble your way through exactly the same sequences, with exactly the same enemy placement, with exactly the same voice overs until you finally do what you’re supposed to do… and not what you want to do.
Restrictions like these are no good for videogames - I’ve railed against it before, and I’ll do it again. Videogames are about freedom of play, and expressing your own playstyle and choices in a virtual world. Videogames, to my mind, are not about carrying out someone else’s planned actions to the letter with the threat of punishment if you don’t, even if those actions are deemed to be ‘blockbuster’ in scope and quality.
I know scripted events and a carefully constructed narrative are hallmarks of the Call of Duty franchise to afford the developers a chance to deliver that Holy Grail ‘Hollywood’ experience in a videogame (a poor dream to chase in the first place), but it’s time to move on. This style of game is outdated.
The visuals of Black Ops, too, are outdated. Those who’ve read any of my previous reviews will know that I only mention the graphics element of a game if it’s exceedingly spectacular, or exceedingly poor, and Black Ops doesn’t stack up against anything I would call ‘blockbuster’ or ‘triple-A.’ And what’s up with the underwhelming combat feedback? Visual and audio elements simply provide little to no reward, while running through levels feels like you’re simply floating around the place with a gun attached to your screen (yes, yes, I know!). Other first-person shooters this year have refined the feel and movement of combat to a point far beyond what’s available in Black Ops.
While the story of the singleplayer portion of Call of Duty: Black Ops is told in an interesting way and the narrative itself is pretty intriguing and daring (especially for a Call of Duty game), the game itself lets the side down terribly.
But… that multiplayer! One can almost forgive the singleplayer of Black Ops for the inclusion of a multiplayer component that will, for hardcore players, provide hundreds of hours of entertainment, with a wealth of game modes and variations, customisation options and extra challenges to complete, all of which feeds back into your progression within multiplayer as you earn currency to treat yourself to better, more efficient equipment and abilities.
To begin with, you’ll start out at level one in rank with a basic offering of game modes and soldier classes to choose from, but as you rank up with gained experience (awarded for performing well in online competitive matches), you’ll unlock new game modes and customisation options, as well as new weapons and weapon add-ons, new equipment, and the ability to create and customise your own class.
You’ll also unlock new Killstreaks (offensive and defensive abilities you can perform after a certain number of subsequent kills), Perks (abilities that make you more efficient and durable during combat), and the ability take on Contracts – a new option in Call of Duty where you manually choose which objectives you wish to complete during a set period of time, with money as your reward.
Also new to Call of Duty is this currency system, or the earning and spending of CoD Points. These points, like experience points, are awarded for performing well during online matches and the more enemies you kill, headshots you execute, in-game missions you complete, and Contracts you turn in, the more CoD Points you’ll earn.
But nothing comes for free. Even after unlocking weapons and equipment, you’ll still need to buy that equipment with your CoD Points. Do you want to start a new contract? Well for a nominal fee, you can buy one to initiate it. Do you fancy a certain Perk? Bring your wallet.
Even all of these options and customisation would be acceptable, but then there’s the addition of Challenges, too. Every weapon, Perk and combat ability has a certain number of Challenges associated with it, all of which need to be levelled up to complete. For example, you may be required to kill ten enemies with a specific weapon, or blow up twenty enemies using grenades, to level up those specific elements.
There are hundreds of these Challenges, and on completion, you’ll be rewarded… which feeds back into progression… which loops round back to making yourself a more lethal killing machine!
Standard game types are slowly unlocked, too, with Free-For-All (deathmatch), Team Deathmatch, Mercenary mode (Team Deathmatch variant), Domination (gain control of three flags), Sabotage (bomb an objective), Headquarters (hold HQ to gain points) and more, and enough variety between each type to warrant their inclusion.
But it’s in Wager Match, however, that ‘things’ get even more crazy. By betting a certain number of CoD Points, you’ll be allowed to participate in a variety of game modes, namely ‘One in the Chamber,’ ‘Sticks and Stones,’ ‘Gun Game’ and ‘Sharp Shooter.’ Should you finish in the top three at the end of a match, you’ll be given your Points back, plus extra.
There are even three different classes of Wager Match depending on how many CoD Points you have to spend, and how many you’re willing to lose, with ‘Ante Up’ needing the least number of Points to enter, while ‘Weekend Gambler’ and ‘High Roller’ will require many more Points (as well as more skill and reserve) to participate.
If none of these multiplayer options were enough, there’s still more! There’s an offline training mode for new players (and players wishing to learn the provided maps), as well as a Theatre mode, where you can save, edit and upload your online matches to share with the world.
Then, of course, there’s the Zombie mode. After finishing the Black Ops singleplayer campaign, you’ll have a total of two maps to run around in while trying to defend yourself and your team mates from waves of vicious walking dead. They’ll break through barriers every round in an effort to get to you, but when you have the chance, you’ll need to rebuild those barriers (simply by walking up to them and holding a button) to better protect yourself during the next round. Currency is earned for successful zombie kills, as well as rebuilding these barricades, which allows you to buy better weapons and new items (like revival juice to give you a second chance at the action).
While I haven’t spent too much time messing around in the Zombie mode, this style of gameplay can get hectic fast as everybody scrambles around the level rebuilding barricades, fending off waves of shambling horrors, and trying to protect one another simply to help themselves later! Quite novel.
Oh, and did I mention that all multiplayer modes can be played in split-screen with a friend? No? Well, you can.
Call of Duty: Black Ops is hopefully the last game of its kind in the otherwise celebrated, industry-stomping franchise. With such massive sales success, one would hope that Activision Blizzard would invest in the future of its star game and try to forward the videogame industry with new and inventive gameplay ideas, while continuing to provide one of the most exhaustive and fully-featured multiplayer offerings currently available.
Sadly, though, the “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” school of thought may be applied here – as far as an executive would be concerned, Call of Duty’s sales figures aren’t broken at all! But in order to fully deserve those sales, Treyarch, Infinity Ward and now Sledgehammer must create new franchise entries that lead innovation in gaming, rather than being content to put out titles that cling to ancient designs - designs that pale in comparison to free sandbox play found in games such as Halo and Bioshock.
It’s all well and good to deliver a rollercoaster ride of a story, but even the recent Medal of Honor made it feel as though you were absolutely the star of the show while concealing its own linear nature.
Call of Duty: Black Ops, along with Halo: Reach and Battlefield: Bad Company 2, represents the very best online competitive multiplayer offering you’re bound to find on store shelves for a very long time, and it has a neat, intriguing singleplayer campaign, too.
Come for the multiplayer, dabble in the singleplayer, and stay for the multiplayer.
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