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However, I'll brave it. I'm going to not order the jets. Or buy the flag, or the megaphone. Sadly, I'm a bit disappointed. Hold it! I'm a huge fan of Modern Warfare 1 and 2, and Call Of Duty 2 - the games in the series that were developed by Infinity Ward. However, Black Ops is the latest in the series developed by Treyarch. This is the same software house that brought you such unforgettable disappointments as CoD2: Big Red One, CoD3 and (he says digging his own grave) CoD: World at War.
I fear I'm making them sound like idiots. Do I hate Treyarch? Like nuts in brownies; but they don't technically make bad Call Of Duty games, just marred, slightly grating ones. Ones not on par with Infinity Ward's original shining effort. In comparison to Modern Warfare 2 it's shallow, clichéd, linear, and feels like playing in a series of shooting galleries, and just trying too damn hard.
Yes, the levels are well designed, beautiful and physically large, but they don't feel big. There are “flash forwards” that skip actual playtime amounting to about a minute in an effort to keep the action coming – but it ruins the immersion. It doesn't build up into a sense of unity. The levels really just seem to come and go because “that's where you went next”. It's not unlike just playing the disconnected Special Ops from Modern Warfare 2 and then making up some crazy connection between the successive levels in your head.
It's like Treyarch had a sheet of genuinely great ideas. So great that they wrote the plot around them, like a 12 year old boy writing his first story. This may sound great but it means the story comes second to the spectacle. The series has never had a problem shoehorning in beautifully scripted plot moments en mass, which makes them so pant-wettingly epic on the first play through. The story feels patchy, at best confusing; almost an afterthought.
The story in Modern Warfare 2 tied the excellent, missions together. The ludicrous objectives set in the Cold War means that Black Ops is simply implausible. In the first three levels – spoiler alert – you kill Fidel Castro, liberate an entire Russian internment camp, ride a motorbike while firing a shotgun and blow up a launching nuclear missile – IN THE FIRST 3 MISSIONS. Black Ops sets the premise of being a gritty and realistic shooter, so when that's coupled with moments I'd expect in cut scenes from the Command and Conquer series it’s so cartoonish. Yes they all generated so much testosterone my muscles swelled up like melons, but it’s ultimately pointless.
Is it a bad game? No, a near miss, but it’s not Modern Warfare 2. This is if you want a gaming experience akin to watching Transformers 2 (film on, brain firmly off) or something to play with the boys on a Friday with a Carling. If you do, then saunter to town, put it on easy and charge through the game feeling like Rambo. But if you want a game then play KillZone (PS2, 2004) instead. In fact, I'm going to play that right now.
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