It's time to make a choice: do you don the camouflage undies hiding in the sock drawer and re-enlist into active military (gaming) service with Call of Duty: Black Ops, or... do you wear normal underwear and do something else. Perhaps eat a sandwich. I can't make that decision for you (though I recommend the sandwich regardless), but I can scour some Black Ops reviews to help you plan your next move. Let's go.While few gamers buy CoD games solely for its singleplayer, GamePro says the Black Ops storyline is the "most cohesive CoD narrative yet."
"The core plot isn’t nearly as original or as inventive as it could have been, relying as it does on several well worn twists 'borrowed' from various movies, and it suffers from a few issues," writes GamePro. "Certain plot points are clumsily handled; there are still moments where you have to brute force your way to a checkpoint to trigger the next area; and they beat you over the head with the final reveal, as if they didn’t trust the average gamer to understand what was going on. Still, it’s a solid effort overall whose tone and spirit adequately captures the culture of paranoia that resulted from the tense 60’s era cold war between the United States and Russia, the Cuban missile crisis, and the Vietnam War."
Fortunately, gameplay is varied and pretty damn violent. "Granted, awe-inspiring set pieces have always been Call Of Duty's stock in trade as a franchise," writes the Telegraph, "but Black Ops ramps up the intensity while tossing in a lot of variation. Beyond the overwhelming, chaotic action in the game's major gun battles – during a charge up a hill in Vietnam or a frantic rooftop chase in Hong Kong – Black Ops offers a slow crawl through corpse-filled foxhole in Laos and a stealthy infiltration of a substation in the snow-capped steppes in which the slowdown in action is compensated for by nail-shredding tension and creepy atmosphere."
Yes, slowdown can and will happen. To avoid it as much as possible, IGN recommends against playing in 3D: "There are moments where textures take too long to load and a few graphical glitches (like dead bodies clipping through a wall) here and there, but it's tough to concentrate on the minor blemishes when multiple objects are exploding around you. The framerate stays strong unless you flip on the 3D abilities, in which case things take a turn. The 3D technology cuts the visual quality by quite a bit and the framerate takes a sizeable hit as well. It also doesn't help that there's no way to tune the 3D to perfectly fit your display size, so the image can break up in spots."
Multiplayer has always been the central appeal behind the Call of Duty series and Kotaku writes that Black Ops refines the Modern Warfare 2's system rather than reinvents it. "You still rank up, unlocking new abilities, weapons and looks. Instead of starting from scratch, Treyarch built on top of what came before it, giving you some new tweaks, modes and maps. The biggest change, though, is the addition of Wager Match, which allows you to bet the COD points you've earned. These points are what you use to unlock things in the game. Losing or winning them can be a pretty big deal and the added level of intensity is a welcome addition to multiplayer. There's enough here to render Modern Warfare 2's multiplayer obsolete."
Joystiq is also a fan of the new points system: "The switch to a 'CoD points' currency was a wise move as well, allowing you to choose your unlocks more freely, rather than just waiting to reach a certain rank. Ranks are still in, and you still feel them strongly -- I had to wait until level 14 to unlock my FAMAS, and even things like customizing your Playercard don't unlock until level 10, no matter how much money you earn (reticule customization doesn't start until level 25, though it is a welcome cosmetic reward when you get there). But money does allow you to go for accessories and perks that you'd rather have earlier, so you can buy the Second Chance perk or an ACOG sight right away if that's how you choose to play."
When it's all said and done, The Guardian thinks Activision could do worse than end the CoD franchise with Black Ops. "Call of Duty: Black Ops quite probably represents the pinnacle of the linear military shooter experience – and you wonder where the sub-genre can go from here."
So the question remains: what kind of underwear will you be wearing?
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