Review: COD Black Ops (PS3)

Rating: M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language
Genre: First-Person Shooter
Developer: Treyarch
Publisher: Activision
Release Date: November 9th, 2010

BUY

Black Ops is a game that exposes America’s seldom spoken of dirty little secrets. It’s the darker side of wars that generation Z might not know about, having missed growing up during Vietnam. And it is definitely not for kids. Parents should always take the M for Mature ESRB rating seriously. This is provocative content even for seasoned adult gamers. The game has been banned, stirred a maelstrom of controversy, and outsold all other games. Again. So what is the noise about?

Black Ops uniquely points to the paradox of war. You begin playing as a captive who is being tortured into remembering events during a mission in Cuba in 1961 called the “Bay of Pigs”. The brutal interrogation process provides a hypnotic background as your character’s brainwashing is becoming unravelled. The slick looking interface that the FBI agent used in Heavy Rain, the cool clinical think tank in Assassin’s Creed that prefaces each game, can’t compare to the impact and the explosiveness of the way that COD Black Ops exposition graphics burst across the screen. Through some sort of electro-shock brain zapper your character is sent back to re-live those events creating an Enter the Void type of eye experience.

Story elements are woven in seamlessly. Flash backs quickly inform you. A multimedia storm of photos, numbers, graphs, and maps all flicker quickly past your eyes. The first person perspective camera shakes while your character is running, crawling and scrambling. Additionally the Dualshock 3 enabled controller vibrates like crazy along with the action, or rhythmically as a heart beat.

These have to be the best cutscenes ever. Left to comprehend the story from the mass of information thrown at you, it ends almost before you feel it should finish. The scene moves fast without giving you all of the backstory. Quick lightening fast jolts make it intriguing, and tense, evoking the cold war era.

In the sixties during the dark years of the Vietnam war, our country was finding itself. After the way that WW2 ended, those that took up the fighting forty years later were not signed on for business as usual. They questioned authority, they didn’t always follow orders, and some of them did drugs.

This isn’t the way to learn history of course, but it unfolds like one of the best action thriller movies. Reznov’s character is complex, and as an NPC he does much more than provide a tutorial or a mentor the way you see vacant characters in many games. His surrealistically red etched eyes exclude him from the uncanny valley and his humble Russian dignity manages to make you empathize with him.

Your character jumps from mission to mission in Cambodia, Laos, and Viet Nam. At times your character is allies or enemies with Germans, British and Russians. At the crux of it is the biological weapon Alpha 6 and those associated with its development.

Black Ops has the most amazingly put together level design. There is a delightfully extensive variety of game play and weapons. Without being superficial many different types of gameplay unfolds in well planned levels. They interplay depending on the circumstances. In each of these levels you are guided to use certain weapons. There is swimming underwater and stealth killing with a knife, another time you are given a sweet crossbow with a scope and exploding bolts, or shooting from a motorcycle. Game play is so varied, that you can end up rappelling or having to jump down a musty hole with only a pistol.

Although it may seem that every time that you’ve finally collected the most awesome weapons, the scenario changes again and you are left with nothing or something crappy to start making your way with. Changing it up so much does make it challenging. Sometimes you will have explosives or RPG’s and grenade launchers. Or a boat with a mounted gun in a sort of Apocalypse Now type thing.

Nothing is perfect ever, and there are some flaws. The L3 sprint jump button combination is annoying. The Par Coeur aspect of the game would be better with a toggle for third person view. It is difficult to do some of the roof jumps with the awkward sequence of pressing L3 down and forward to sprint and X to jump with it. Jumps don’t function well and are a common Achilles heel in shooters. The camera should sweep back so that jumps can be placed better. When you die on a jump, your character is sent back too far.

Having checkpoints only and no save points is irritating and does not add to the challenge. Checkpoint only systems only take into account in – game functions. In the real world you need to be able to Save Game anywhere so that you can get up and go walk your dog or answer your phone.

An inconsistency was that if the main character Mason, was a soldier back then, he’d be almost seventy years old now. So when does this take place? Our character looks in his thirties possibly. Another character is shown as an old man, it makes the time line unclear.

Unlike Assassin’s Creed which is Science Fiction, or Dead Rising 2 which is also fiction (you hope) where there was absolutely no reason not to have female avatars, Black Ops has a plausible excuse. The role of women in these underground operations is unknown or historically non existent. Women played little if any role in the secret missions at the Bay of Pigs in 1961. Nor did many American women, if any at all see front line combat action in Vietnam. However in the Zombie multiplayer, or online multiplayer the line between the game being a historical reenactment or a shooting gallery arcade game blends. It would be nice to see a female figure filling out the fatigues.

We were lead to believe with the enticing commercial that they finally “got it” about female gamers. But no. Still the double standard that video games are ‘entertainment for men’ prevails.

They did seem to acknowledge that there was a double standard in marketing towards women this time. “A little soldier in all of us.” Ok, well maybe by reincarnation, because nothing in the game spoke to the female consumer. Nothing. At all. Other than the commercial marketing. Which gives the message, “We’ll take your money but we expect you to play our game our way.” Notice the fancy bag  on the arm of the first woman shown in the commercial perhaps it is a symbol for the power of the female pocketbook at holiday time for video game spending.

With all the changing political players in the game it can be hard to keep track of who you are supposed to shoot. Or who the enemy is. Not only visually, but the context of the story leads you to believe that your character Mason should trust no one. The uniforms change from mission to mission. All of them are a rather drab combination of tan, olive and white. Camo blends in. Friendly fire is unavoidable. Enemies and allies in the same terrain wear similar colors which disappear into the background. Having scopes on the weapons helps with this. The color palate used, while realistic can make the environments dull.

The graphics are practically indistinguishable from film. Every item and texture has been modeled to exquisite perfection. Maps, interface, commands, missions, all function ergonomically. You can play the game for hours without noticing because the controls have been made effortless and convenient.

It was last Holiday Season when I was reluctantly praising COD Modern Warfare. For what it is and what it did Modern Warfare 2 was a close to perfect game. Everything in it functioned amazingly well. COD Black Ops functions well with a few minor flaws. The shooting, targeting, and wide array of guns, provides the best shooting to be had in any game this year, or perhaps any year. It is certainly worthy of every “Best Shooter” crown. It is one of the best hardcore video games you’ll play.

A circular conversation such as this metaphysical one returns to the critical element, women. Where are we? Not on the battlefield. We are in a culture that insists in its penile fashion, that our women, and not incidentally our gays, get the hell behind our big balled straight men and wait out the war.

Bringing to mind karma and the eternal warrior. When they find American weapons in places that they shouldn’t be, operated by people that shouldn’t have them – soldiers became disillusioned, and dangerous. It is a provocative, and interesting story. The espionage seems plausible. The single player mode is fairly long and keeps you engaged.

There is a two player co-op zombie mode that stole the show. The Nazi zombies presented with shooting and puzzle elements is hilarious and fun. You can play with a friend at home with a top and bottom split screen, or go online with someone to assist you in staving off the undead with up to four players. Theater Mode allows you to save movies of your gameplay which you can upload. You can edit and and manipulate the camera angles. Combat Training is an offline mode where you can play against bots. The multiplayer maps are diverse and packed with fun things to do and blow up. This time around there is a comprehensive item system for buying upgrades with in game currency, and wagering.

Call of Duty multiplayer consists of battles between players online. Different kinds of matches and challenges like Team Deathmatch, Domination, and Capture the Flag earn the experience points to get promotions and more weapons and gear. Black Ops multiplayer is similar to Modern Warfare 2.

The matches are very fun “One in the Chamber” is hard because you only get one bullet and one knife. “Sharpshooter” has you battling with a different weapon every 45 seconds. Contracts are challenges that players must complete within a certain amount of time. The types of contracts available change regularly.

Call of Duty Black Ops is a huge game, with an enormous fan base in the multiplayer. Despite its few short comings it is equally on par with or even better than Modern Warfare. There is plenty of replay-ability value, and future down loadable content for it is likely to appear at some point. Fans might be expecting something more innovative next time around, however for now COD Black Ops  is a buy, for those who don’t yet have it and can handle it.

Review copy was provided by the Publisher and does not affect the outcome of this review.