Call of Duty: Black Ops

I'm pondering giving it a rental just to see if the zombie maps are carryovers from World at War or if they're new maps. If it's the former, then why bother buying it? I suck at online and the campaign is, lately, not long enough to warrant a full purchase.

I bought because I had more Amazon gift cards than I originally thought. Plus, I roll over the gift card from buying it on there for Assassin's Creed next week.

Haven't even played the game yet. Spending 60 bucks to fuck around with a DOS prompt is kind of genius, reminds me a bit of Enter The Matrix. Now if they took it further, and you could escape that room - and play a game not even resembling Call of Duty - say 50 Cent Blood on the Sand...would be inspired.

I'm enjoying the missions so far. Although I encountered a weird bug on the Escape from Kowloon mission. The third member of my party got stuck earlier in the mission or something so I just faced wave after wave of enemy near the end. I got a little annoyed so I'll play again tomorrow. Haven't tried Zombie mode but will in the next day or so when other people here are up for it. I have no interest in the traditional MP though.

The premise intrigued me enough to pull the trigger.

15 minutes of online play made me realize how much I missed Bad Company 2.

I ended up getting Black Ops yesterday, and I played several campaign levels last night. I really like it so far, and there have already been several awesome moments. I also like the whole "redacted text" thing the menus and loading screens have going on.

I picked it up for the PS3, and the first thing I did was fuss on the computer in the beginning and open up the hidden Dead Ops game I had read about. It's a pretty neat little addition and feels much like Smash TV.

I did one round of multiplayer and am digging it so far and then I left off after the first main chunk of the 2nd level in the campaign. Pretty solid package for the most part.

I'm pretty impressed. I never play the Treyarch games, but I will say I'm enjoying the hell out of campaign. Multiplayer is just more CoD, which isn't bad.

It was pretty great, first game, I got on the final kill cam.

Used to love these games, until the campaigns took a back seat to the multiplayer. What's the length of the single-player on this one?

Six to eight hours, so I've heard. And, yeah, I'm with you re: the multiplayer focus so many of these games have taken. I think Uncharted 2 is the last game in recent memory that had decent online play, but actually gave two shits about the campaign.

6 hours on Normal difficulty is about what it took me to complete the game today. Sat down at about 2pm and finished it at 7pm (I'd already played the first 2 levels) Good story even if I did figure some of it out pretty early in the game. MP is good but I don't know if that's because it's new COD or because it's actually good. I'm not so convinced in having to purchase everything though as some of the weapons I'd like to try before I waste money on them but oh well.

I'll probably grab this in a week or two and then try and catch up to the goofs who already triple prestiged by playing nothing but this from now until then for 20hrs a day.

Fuck, this game sucked.

They should bring back the original director and writer.

This is the video game equivalent of M. Night's "The Last Airbender" mixed with "The Happening." Shit mixed with piss.

Does this have spec ops or somefing similar? Because spec ops was gold.

Nope.

Played through the PC version yesterday, despite the horrible framerate problems that most PC players seem to be experiencing. This game manages to prove that either Infinity Ward was staffed by wizards, or Treyarch is staffed by apes. In truth, it's probably a little from column A and a whole lot from column B.

I'm in two minds whether to get this or not.

Love COD: MW2 multiplayer to death but COD:WaW left me cold - and seeing as this is made by Treyarch and not Infinity Ward I'm waiting to see if anyone thinks the multiplayer is better than COD: MW2.

It's either buy this or buy Halo:Reach - any thoughts???

Fuck it, I actually reall enjoyed the campaign on this one. I'm liking the alternate-history thing a lot more than I liked the campagin in MW2 (Which comprised mainly of moments like "Hey you remember that thing that happened in MW? Well here it is again!").

My only peeve is Sam Fucking Worthington being as talentless as usual.

I played several more levels of the campaign last night, and I'm having a lot of fun with it. The helicopter level that they showed in preview videos before the game came out was a hell of a lot of fun. I also played the Dead Ops Arcade mode which was a cool little diversion. I haven't tried my hand at the multiplayer yet, but I expect it will be very much typical CoD multiplayer.

Personally, I think the Infinity Ward games are better, but Black Ops is still worth playing if you like the Call of Duty flavor of FPS.

Stale Elvis, I enjoyed Reach more than this, but they are completely different styles of games. I would say that Reach did a better job of improving its particular formula than Black Ops does. Black Ops does do some things differently than its predecessors, but it still feels like more of the same. To me, Reach felt like it had more fresh ideas within the Halo formula (the armor abilities are a great addition that impacts strategy), and it had a great campaign story, firefight mode for scratching your co-op itch, and enough competitive modes to keep things fun.

Perhaps all of this comes down to the fact that it has been a lot longer between Halo games where we had the behemoth of MW2 just last fall.

Couldn't agree more about the campaign so far. While it is still quite over-the-top and very cliche in (many) spots, it has yet to reach the insanity that MW2's campaign went to. I am really liking that the campaign sticks to one character for the most part (Mason), and the few levels that have a different playable character are there to shed some light on what Mason is/was doing. Despite the "flashbacks from an interrogation chair" structure, the story feels much more coherent than MW2's did.

I haven't minded Worthington so far, but I tend to be more forgiving than most when it comes to voiceover in video games. That said, Ed Harris' voice work is aces.

Fuck yes, Ed Harris knocked it out of the park.

And motherfuckin' Ice Cube.

Thanks to amazon's wonderful cheapness, I picked this up. Been having fun. The Nuketown MP map is a great blast of insanity.

This definitely feels like Treyarch is doing it's damnedest to prove they can make good FPS CoD games, goddammit!

Anyone want to shoot some mans in faces, mediumdave up on PSN.

I've enjoyed multi so far. It occasionally takes FOREVER to find people to join a game, other times it takes right off. But once a match starts, I've found it solid. I have yet to feel like I suffered from lag, giving someone else the advantage of blowing my head off, unlike I do regularly with MW2. The sub-menus upon sub-menus just to find certain stats is far more annoying than in MW2 but that may be due to becoming so familiar with the prior version.

Tried out the new zombie map. Holy shit, they come out of the ceiling.

Is it wrong that my primary interest in these games is just the zombie maps? They're freakishly addictive.

RE: Multiplayer focus

When I fired up the multiplayer for the first time the other night, there were nearly 2 million people playing multiplayer on the 360. I'd imagine the numbers were smaller but in the same ballpark for PS3 and PC. So something like ~5 million people were jumping right into multiplayer, like I did.

I haven't beat campaign mode in a COD game since COD 2. I made it 3/4 through MW and maybe 30% through MW2. Multiplayer is just more fun, to me.

As for Black Ops, the feel of the game is just a little off in some intangible way. Infinity ward's multiplayer has a very particular rhythm and feel to it that seems elusive for other developers, even when they have access to IW's assets and codebase. It's weird. It's not as floaty and disconnected feeling as Bad Company 2, but it's not as solid as MW2.

I hate the hybrid leveling/economy system and the buried sub-menus.

I'll give it more time...maybe I'll find some guns and killstreaks that I actually like once I earn enough money to unlock it all. But it sure looks like doing Prestige will be a huge pain in the ass.

Not at all. It was the best part of World at War. I'm honestly surprised they didn't have Treyarch or another developer hard at work on a standalone Call of Duty: Zombies game.

Don't worry. I'm sure that's on Activision's list of things to do while milking the franchise to death.

I've probably read about it somewhere, but in addition to Ice Cube, I swear that I heard Ice T as the guy announcing the multiplayer match I did last night on the jungle level. I thought that was kind of great. He must be pleased as punch to be a part of this.

I find that I was a bit cold to the campaign initially, but the excitement has definitely ramped up a bit, to the point where I'm really digging it. I'm still early-ish, having left off early on in the Vietnam bit.

MP feels pretty stale, it's the same game for the past 3 years now. Though I suspect it has to do with the game seemingly shipping with two maps, some generic city block map and nuketown...did they just hold off on shipping maps so they could sell it as dlc?

Still haven't touched the campaign yet, will probably do that this weekend.

This is how I felt with MP with COD:WaW and what I was sort of expecting from Black Ops so I think I'll give this one a miss and stick with the digital crack known as COD:MW2.

Looks like the tomahawk is the new grenade spam du jour.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUbEEaKQo5k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQYVRTOg4BY&hd=1

I have the others, and I think I like BF Bad Company better, but I'll grab this as soon as I get the cash. I always have fun on the MP, even if it's just chasing the fuckers that are boosting/cheating to fuck up their game.

RE: Halo Reach/Black Ops

Reach is the better game, but I'd be damned if I didn't say I like, maybe even love Black Ops. It does a lot very, very right and even though the markings of Treyarch are still there, they really seem to have come into their own on this title. If it's going to be their series now that Infinity Ward is busted up, then I'll welcome their next installment.

That's really saying something considering I hated 3 and WaW.

Two maps? Thats bs. Man if thats true not sure I want to buy it.

It's not. There are at least 8. It's just that sometimes the rotation seems out of whack.

The (at least) two snow levels.
The villa.
The rice paddy/vietnam villiage.
Nuketown (which is hella insane)
The one with the trailer homes.
The very CoD 4 town one...

Nuketown is my favorite of the bunch. It's small, but it seems a lot bigger.

OH man. The Thundergun. THE THUNDERGUN YOU GUYS.

Had no clue Worthingon was in this, wow. Very fitting then that the game has a 3D mode

Picked this up today as an early X Mas gift. Loving the campagn so far. Very Cold Six Thousand

To go off about the campaign a little more, I've decided that one or two niggles aside I really enjoyed it. Probably the best CoD campaign behind Modern Warfare. Sadly Worthington all too often slips into his natural accent which hampers things a little.

It almost botched the ending too (The final scene of the last mission was eye rolling) but without giving too much away there's a piece of footage that comes after it that redeemed it for me.

I have a feeling that if Infinity Ward made this game people would be praising it a lot more than they are.

Also, Gary Oldman sounds like he's having a blast.

Heh. Too true. Shoulda just got Nolan North to do it. I'm a little surprised though. He didn't seem to have been advertised too much about it, and there's hardly a reason to get Worthington to do a voice.

Definitely agree on both points. I did like the campaign missions quite a bit, more so for some of them than MW2. Some of them felt a little too modern at times though, even adjusting for fighting in Vietnam in the game.

Did they have ACOGs, red dot sights and AUGs in the late sixties?

The implementation of limb damage was pretty cool though. Nothing like blowing the legs off of some Vietcong soldier.

Edit: I kinda wonder how many people were able to predict what was going on a level or so in.

Didn't like the campaign much at all. Every CoD has that one level that you just want to replay over and over. This one doesn't. The story was blatantly obvious from the first moment the Russian re-appears. I like the voiceovers and what they were trying to do, but this is supposed to be BLACK OPS and there's not a whole lot of stealth involved, and when it is used it doesn't make much of a difference if you decide to go all COMMANDO on the level.

If you're not into the zombies or the multiplayer, I wouldn't recommend this at all. However, the zombie levels are a real blast, and I'm trying to figure the tactics out. Probably take a few days for everyone to figure out the maps.

Honestly, the campaign needed less Sam Worthington and far more Ed Harris.

So I played the SP at a friends for a short while. And the narrative, much like MW2, is like a retarded Michael Bay film. Both of the games SP campaigns are so convoluted. But, it was pretty fun. It just doesn't have deep gameplay or good AI. I have the game at home too, but I haven't even started the campaign and I may not even try it since I'm kinda busy these days. But the MP is seriously awesome, maps seems just as good as MW2s.