Friday, November 12, 2010

Call of Duty: Black Ops First Impressions


Hello everyone,

I didn't attend the midnight launch for this game, but I did go to gamestop the next day.  When I got home I popped the game in and I had about 4 hours to play.  I'll try to put this into perspective, but in that 4 hours I played two rounds of multiplayer, one round of Nazi Zombies, and about 3 campaign missions on normal difficulty.  I'll be posting a full review of the game next week, but right now I'll share my initial thoughts.

Campaign:  As of right now I have finished the campaign, on normal difficulty, and I'm not impressed.  There were definitely some interesting levels, some really innovative, but the majority were very repetitive and tried too hard to be Modern Warfare 2.  In every single level you can count on two things:  Some kind of quick time event and at least one moment in which you will need to draw your pistol, that you don't even have as a weapon, and save someones life.  In these aspects, Black Ops isn't innovative at all and it overdoes what Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare 2 did so incredibly well.  What Black Ops's story does well, however, is the actual "Black Ops" levels.  I can tell you, the first two levels, and maybe three more in the entire game of 15 levels.  I really only enjoyed 1/3rd of the game, which doesn't sit well with me.  However, the levels that I did enjoy were incredibly innovative and fun.  I don't want to spoil anything, but all of these levels shared a feeling of being behind enemy lines and fighting, not only to complete your mission, but to survive.  Unfortunately though, I felt the same way about Call of Duty: World at War.  Treyarch does develop games really well without any outside influences, but when they try to live up to Modern Warfare, they fail, which is unfortunately about 2/3rds of the game.

Multiplayer:  I haven't played many matches of multiplayer, but from what I've played I think the maps are a little too big.  Most of the maps in Modern Warfare 2 were close to medium range maps, which really worked well, but Black Ops's maps really encourage you to snipe and camp.  Also, the pre loaded classes are really under powered.  I feel like I can get several kills with the weapons they provide, but no where close to someone who has unlocked the custom classes. 

Nazi Zombies:  Nazi Zombies hasn't changed much from the final map pack in Call of Duty: World at War.  You are initially trapped in a facility and need to turn the power on to access different rooms to get back to your own time period.  There's not much to say about this map, but there are three total maps that come with the game.  The second map is really crazy; you play as Nixon, Castro, JFK, and JFK's advisor to defend the Pentagon from invading zombies that happen to be Nazi's.  This map is much more like the original map that came with World at War because the map is much smaller and there are only a few doors to open.  I could easily see spending a lot of time in this map, but not necessarily the first.  I haven't unlocked the final map, but I'd like to see what it is. 

A full review will be posted some time next week after I've had some more time with the game's story and multiplayer modes. 

Thanks
Cheif Goku C

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