Call of Duty: Black Ops (Single-player) review

The original Modern Warfare was an exciting addition to the Call of Duty series. Whilst not quite matching up to the excellence of the first two games, the move to the present from World War II was a largely successful one. Developers Treyarch took the baton from Infinity Ward for the next installment, World at War. Fair enough, I thought. A decent, if not outstanding campaign and familiar but solid enough multiplayer. By the time Modern Warfare 2 was released, the excitement surrounding the series had grown to incredible proportions. Looking past the hype, we were left with a slightly dodgy and underwhelming single-player campaign and multiplayer that was starting to feel dull and outdated, especially when going up against the vastly superior Battlefield Bad Company 2.

Now we arrive at Black Ops, which for hardcore gamers with a true eye for quality has turned out to be pretty much an irrelevant title. With the enormous sums of money Activision must be making from the series, using the same tired engine for the fourth time in a row is an indicator of their blatant greed and agenda for quantity over quality. Not only that, Black Ops somehow manages to be worse than it's predecessors both graphically and performance-wise!

First impressions then are that I'm playing a game from 2004, but I can see past that. You only have to look as far back as Amnesia: The Dark Descent to see that a game can use old tech but be brilliant. It's after about 15 minutes of play, however, that I begin to realise that Call of Duty Black Ops is not only severely flawed, but fundamentally broken. I'm referring to the fact that I had to restart the game three times as the shaky set piece system failed to initiate the next sequence, even after I reloaded from the last checkpoint. When a game relies so much on this kind of scripting, the minimum requirement is that it works. Fortunately it didn't happen again after the nightmare start. What I did experience consistently however was such nonsense as having to progress a certain distance before enemies stopped respawning, an inexcusable flaw that completely shatters any illusion that could have otherwise been built up with better coding.

While the old school run-and-gun gameplay is generally uninspired, there are some enjoyable moments. Rappelling down a building before smashing through a window and unleashing hell in super-slow motion is an example of the more engaging moments that are all too rare. For the most part, you'll be blasting your way through the levels with a feeling that you're wasting your time. I will mention however that Black Ops possesses the almost unheard of attribute of gradual improvement as the game progresses.

The feel of the weaponry has to be the worst I have ever come across in a shooter. The guns have absolutely no recoil - try emptying a clip from an assault rifle and you'll see almost no movement. They all sound like pea shooters and there is little to distinguish them. The AI is rudimentary, with no real improvement evident over even the first Call of Duty from 2003. All of which of course makes for extremely dull shootouts.

Black Ops' soundtrack is a varied and strange mixture of the cringe worthy, brave and excellent. Sometimes a godawful dance beat is introduced that does its best to detract from any semblance of enjoyment you might be having. The game's finale, however, is enhanced by a well-fitting track and when the Rolling Stones' Sympathy For The Devil creeps in during a boat level, you'll forget for a couple of minutes how dull the combat is.

There's a story in there too. It's actually slightly more interesting than you'd expect from a game of this type, though I never found myself at all engrossed. Killing Fidel Castro is this edition's Daily Mail-baiting version of the 'airport level', which again had about as much emotional impact on me as your average soap opera.

If you're wondering why I've not accounted for the multiplayer in this review, it's because I don't see the point in playing it, and didn't. There are plenty of better ways to get your kicks online, with the previously mentioned Bad Company 2 currently leading the way. Call of Duty is however a much more accessible series that is now designed for casual gamers and console kids. Be warned; this will be reflected by the depressingly low maturity levels of the community.

Despite all this, most journos have been inexplicably generous in their reviews, with many handing out scores well into the 90s. With the game's Metacritic score currently at 85/100 for critic reviews with a user score of 3.8/10, we at least know where a chunk of the development budget went...

4/10