Call of Duty: Black Ops Review

It was time for Treyarch to redeem themselves. All they had to do was choose a better setting, make a story that didn't make you want to gargle nails and a multiplayer that wasn't as one sided as an arm wrestling match between a silver back gorilla and a stick insect. So, they pinned their hopes on Black Ops, a game based in the Cold War, especially the Vietnam War, were you play an American soldier, which is quite a bold move seeing as the Americans lost that war. So, worry about setting yourself up for a fall Treyarch.

As ever I delved straight into the Story mode of the game, and was pleasantly surprised that the story was not only original but showed off characters with depth and a plot line that would make Christopher Nolan organise a suicide pact with James Cameron. However, Treyarch seemed to forget that this was a GAME, and threw in gameplay as an after thought. It seemed to suffer from Metal Gear Solid Syndrome and you couldn't walk two paces without jumping into an un-skippable cut-scene were the protagonist has to rant and groan in the macho way possibly in order to over compensate. I didn't feel so much as I was playing a game as I was watching a movie with interactive parts. In fact they should have just released the story as that. It would have still done exceptionally well.

The multiplayer added new weapons and attachments as ever, but this time solved the issue of 'noobtubes' by adding in a currency system, which actually works. It adds in a new thing to help you feel accomplished about. Along with this they upped the health and lower gun damage and finally removed stopping power, however the game can not be called balanced because they decided that sniper should be about as effective at throwing a damp towel at the enemy. The shot is randomised, even when scoping for a certain time and then the hit box is the size of a fly's wing. But generally I didn't run sniper anyway so this didn't bother me as much. The game is still a fun to play online, but with MW3 dropping later this year I doubt it will be played for much longer. Unless IW rely mess up.

Out of 10 this gets an 8. Not as good as COD4, but would have been with some gameplay in the campaign.

J Stanley