Being within the first 10,000 people to reach Prestige 1, I find myself accomplished, and well versed in the Black Ops universe before the first week of its release is up. If you haven’t bought it, and were considering it, I’m going to give you a short list of reasons why you should buy it, even if it isn’t what you wanted out of the sequel to the best-selling game of all time.
As the game loads, before entering your first mode of choice – Single Player, Multiplayer, or Zombies – You will be pleased to find yourself strapped down an electric chair, if you use your joysticks to look around. Let this be a hint to how ridiculously crazy this game is going to be, in the coming hours. With the story throughout, you will find yourself experiencing flashback after flashback, having explanations of situations sprinkled within, all to which you are the live narration. This narration being your action, strutting about in every level completing all the combat therein, while your teammates usually laze about, waiting for you to run along ahead. Now as I expect you all have and will do, I compared this Treyarch title very much against Infinity Ward’s Modern Warfare 2 title while playing, and it is safe to say that the AI of your teammates is not better, nor worse than MW2.
When compared against MW2, the story itself feels a bit confusing, if not wasted in the “memories” of you, the crazy main character who has been strapped to the electric chair for interrogation. In Modern Warfare, even when you jumped about from continent to continent, the storyline still tied in with itself, making for a compelling, possibly realistic thread of events. In Black Ops, the storyline will fall apart near the end, all to be sewn in together by a thread of your sanity in the final mission. It is in this way that I felt that the game became dull around the three-quarters mark, but was exceptionally amazing and compelling at the conclusion. I found myself thinking, “Yeah, Treyarch, you messed up this time…” then slapping down the cool win and not putting the game down for another 6 hours after. The campaign can be beaten in 5 hours by someone who is a veteran [playing normal difficulty] of the Call of Duty franchise. This seems to be alright to me, as the ultimate purchase is going to be for the multiplayer to most people, rather than renting it for the storyline.
In speaking of the Multiplayer side of the game, were you hoping to know what REALLY changed this time around? I thought you were. Let’s explore the depths of this FPS from the side you’ll use for the greater part of your coming days. I played Team Death Match for the extent of my first Prestige, so you should assume to vary your tactics based on this notion, as I will be dropping in a few tips along the way.
The Maps: Traditionally, when it comes to Multiplayer, Treyarch’s map style has always been that of a honeycomb, where Infinity Ward makes their maps like a system of “pick your style” gameplay. Maps in Black Ops will not vary themselves from this style, as in nearly every map there can be two to six ways to get into every nook and cranny of the map, in any area. This design style promotes two things – teamwork and movement. Without teamwork, there is certainly no way that an individual could cover all of the given inlets to any area, when walking into the room. A truly effective team will win based on the buddy system to help solve this problem. Unfortunately, one of the biggest drawbacks to the maps in this particular game is that Treyarch wanted campers nullified. “Why is that a drawback,” you say? People will almost consistently spawn within 15 feet of you in certain areas, regardless of which team they are on!
The Perks: Perks are perks, where I’m concerned, and most of them make a comeback from the Modern Warfare series. Something I noted early however would be that the Stopping Power perk did not make it over to this Call of Duty game. Some perks have been renamed, changed around a bit, and tweaked to level gameplay; however this seemed odd to me to be losing out on such a valuable perk. I believe that all of the changes that have been made in the perks however do not affect the gameplay itself, as I frequently found myself with the same average Kill-to-Death ratio as in my Modern Warfare 2 charts. Most of these changes will benefit those individuals who are not great at the Multiplayer side, without having to include the MW2 exclusive “Perk” of Death Streaks in the game.
The Sense of Achievement: In this Call of Duty title, by now I am sure you are well aware, “COD Points” have been introduced as a part of currency toward purchasing guns, perks, camouflage, face paint, and the load of other customizations that are available. All customization is well and good, however this game did something to me that I expected to happen. Black Ops replaced my sense of achievement with a sense of “Oh, that’s pretty.” On the earlier Call of Duty games, in order to get a certain gun/title/camouflage/other, it was expected that you would have to attain a certain number of kills, or do a certain task such as stick a friend with a grenade and have him run in kamikaze style and take out a group of enemies. This always gave me a certain sense of pride in Modern Warfare 2, and with that pride, I was able to show off that I achieved that title to the world. As it seems now, with COD Points, all one would have to do is play the game a great deal of time and eventually you would be rich enough to earn everything that anyone else has in the game, including all customization options; Sad for me, as I like distinguishing myself from the crowd. At the first prestige I am currently set apart from the crowd, along with ten thousand other people, but for how long; I assume, not very.
Overall Gameplay: With the addition of Theater Mode, a Map which tells you who is online in the world, [and where the Sun is hitting the Earth] and the random acts of spawning with a shorter lifespan, Call of Duty: Black Ops is shaping up to feel as if Halo: Reach of Call of Duty has a baby, and named it Black Ops. I feel sometimes that I have been cheap shot from behind, when an enemy nails me without effort at his spawn. I feel that occasionally the game needs polish, when the client seizes up and I have the restart my console to continue online. I feel that I am strangely addicted to this FPS, much like the series before it, and I feel like I won’t be putting this game down for a year or so, at least. This game is well worth buying, even though it’s strange changed left me all a mess when I first logged in. Invest a few hours, and you’ll quickly find yourself back in the flow of things, and just to get you started, here are a few Pro Tips after my first prestiege.
1. 1. Most equipment is useless. Use the Claymore or C4 in this slot, as the camera and motion sensors are a waste.
2. 2. The game has been out for less than a week, and most people have the default kill streaks setup right now. Get out that SAM Turret and clear the skies, to keep your team alive.
3. 3. Like Assault Rifles way too much? Buying out an entire set of one type of weapon will unlock a classified weapon, which is usually the best in class.
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