Call of Duty: Black Ops Multiplayer Reveal

Treyarch certainly knows how to make a girl happy.

For the last couple of years, I have been an experienced Call of Duty veteran. Gaming in CoD was quite peachy until Modern Warfare 2 came in and plagued the gaming community with an infestation of bugs and glitches. I was disappoint, son. But I still had hope, because Black Ops was announced. Perhaps, I thought, Call of Duty will return to its former glory.

I had the opportunity to visit the California Science Center in Los Angeles, home to the press unveiling of Treyarch’s Call of Duty: Black Ops. Defcon 1-5 checkpoints laced the walkways from the pre-game lobby and registration to the theater. Complimented by pretty nerd-glassed girls, men in black suits, and a military DJ, the event was nothing short of classy.

In the iMAX theater, Treyarch delivered Black Ops’ new multiplayer experience. The presentation not only included footage of the gameplay, but unscripted live demos (including the upcoming Combat Training). The game built on three concentrations: competition, customization, and creation.

Compete – Learn Up, Light ‘em Up, and Get Paid

Initially created as a development tool, Combat Training took life to help noobs learn the game and veterans to tune their skills. Training fills the lobby with automated bots that tailor to the needs of the player, including customized bot difficulty and movement patterns. The mode helps the player to prepare for multiple scenarios including co-op and matchmaking.

COD credits are the new currency within Black Ops. Players unlock guns and customizable assets within the game using credits, in place of the previous challenge unlocking system. Credits may also buy contracts, challenges needed to be completed within a match. The three contract types are Mercenary (kill-based), Operational (fulfilling objectives), and Specialist (equipment-objective). Individual contracts can be completed once. All contracts reset within 24 hours.

Are you “in the money”? A new free-for-all mode called Wager Matches consists of players bidding credits to succeed in games. Wager Matches include four modes: One in the Chamber, Stick and Stones, Gun Game, and Sharp Shooter. In One in the Chamber, each player starts with three lives, a Pistol, and one bullet. Each killed player rewards another bullet. Stick and Stones uses the Tomahawk (equivalent to the throwing knife of MW2), Crossbow, and Knife. Gun Game is a weapon tier game: every player starts with a pistol and progresses in weapon tiers as their kill streaks continue. However, using a knife will send a player back a weapon tier. This mode is intended to reward those skilled in multiple guns. Sharp Shooter uses a cycle of different weapons to play – otherwise, straight deathmatch.

Customize – Two Words – Gun Love

Guns have a new set of camos, editable reticules, and personal engraving. Fourteen camo paints are official: Dusty, Ice, Red, Nevada, Sahara, ERDL, Tiger, Glen, Warsaw, Siberia, Yukon, Woodland, Flora, and one camo not release yet.

The reticule, the color of the reticule, and the lens is editable. For engraving, you can put your clan tag right onto the gun (that your enemy can visibly see in his kill-cam). They will always know you killed them.

Although in-game character models are not editable, the perks the player chooses will directly affect the suit the player wears. For example, choosing the Ghost perk within an Urban setting will make the character wear a leafy, scenic outfit to wear. All customizable assets are purchasable with CoD Credits.

Create – Pretty in Red

Montage makers rejoice! Theater has finally come to Call of Duty. Quite familiar (if not identical) to the Halo theater mode, Black Ops’ theater comes with the necessary recording and playback. First person, third person, free cam, rewind, and fast forward. Clips are able to be edited into a sequence within theater mode.

You can easily save your game by clicking “Save to my File Share” after completing a match. The file share currently offers only 18 slots.

A Player’s Perspective

Black Ops is like playing CoD4 while watching the pretty graphics from Modern Warfare 2. Switching weapons, throwing grenades, and climbing ledges feel as bulky as CoD4 performs. However, the knifing system is almost identical to MW2 with the action and response time. Yet, the MW2 animation-registration errors (where a knife will penetrate but not kill) still persist.

As of right now, I am slightly worried about camping within Black Ops. For map control, it seems that Treyarch placed more high perches to sit and snipe from. Normally for Call of Duty maps, each vantage point has two fields of vision to shoot at. On the map Cracked, I saw a couple of spots top-middle where you can watch players and shoot across the field. Launch is abnormally ridden with open windowed rooms and other spots that had enough nook and crannies to pitch a tent and light a campfire in. I may be looking too far into map detail, considering that Summit keeps long-range fire to a minimum.

As a CoD4 and Modern Warfare 2 player, I went into the event pessimistic about the game. Even after watching the presentation, as I took up the controller in the demo room, I was anxious. But with the latest changes in modes, especially on a competitively-driven scale, I am satisfied.