Today, for anyone who cares about computer games at all, I'm doing a two part review of two games I've recently... ...played. I would say enjoyed, but I'm not entirely sold on that. These games are Call of Duty: Black Ops and Fable III.
Black Operations: def. A medical procedure carried out in near-darkness.
The CoD francise really took off after Modern Warfare, an almost too realistic FPS involving a bunch of semi-likable characters killing Arabs and Russians in places much like Iraq and Chechnya but most definately not them specifically. While Modern Warfare II managed to get a bit silly, it hasn't diminished teenage enthusasim for shooting foreign people since the release of Black Ops has been intensely successful. So here's the deal.
Gameplay:
The game plays like any other CoD game with which we are all painfully familiar. You point the crosshair over an enemies face and unleash a stream of violent lead into his skull before he can do the same to you. You travel to exotic locations and kill enemies in a variety of unimaginative ways usually involving but-not-limited-to a bewildering array of firearms. You can run, jump, crouch, play dead and salmon flop. Unfortunately you cannot roll over.
There's really not much to say for the gameplay of Black Ops. The people at CoD know how to make a simple and addictive shooter and stick to the reciepe like cats stick to ceilings - provided you've used enough glue and duct tape they can stay up indefinately. You kill people. That's the entire point of the game. Wandering around massacring your way through legions of baddies, usually the popular hate figures: commies, terrorists, nazi's and anyone who looks at you funny.
Depending on just how many people with guns you are facing, the difficulty varies and in the name of realism, you've got to put some effort into not getting shot. This is somewhat diminished by the healing mechanic that involves waiting for all red stuff to leak out of your eyes so you can see again, which by any medical definition "waiting for all the red stuff to leak out" is probably not fantastic. But it had to have one, otherwise it would be a little *too* realistic. The player would be butchered in seconds by a hail of machinegun fire that turns you into a lead statue faster than you can say "duck and cover". So over all, its not too bad.
Graphics:
The graphics are, by the large, really really good. Lighting and water are done very well, as is the occassional smoke/gas that's flying around. You can blow off people's limbs and stare into lifeless dead eyes in a very Gears of Waresque way, but without it ever being comedic. The overall effect is perhaps a little chilling, but credit to them, well animated.
Plot:
Now, CoD Black Ops tries very hard to have a plot. Some other games do without such frivolities - Gears of War for example. Some other games are so entirely dependant on an interesting plot, that without one the game would just be about power-armoured grasshoppers shooting each other at point blank range from twenty feet in the air like every Halo Game. But the plot in CoD is somewhat confusing. It tries hard to tie the Cold War and Vietnam into an engrossing game, which I suppose is a step forward for games previously reliant on Nazi's as villains*. But really, CoD struggles for anything to make sense. There is an attempt at a clever convoluted plot twisting through a variety of different mind-crushing conclusions to a final big "Oh my!" reveal, but it isn't done well. It's comes across as clunky, silly, and over-dramatic. For all the hype, Black Ops hasn't managed to escape the notion that a plot in most FPS games consists of a series of half-baked excuses to travel the world leaving a trail of twitching corpses in your wake.
Multiplayer:
I haven't managed to play CoD online, although judging by the frequent profanity from upstairs - occasionally puncuated by explosions - someone in the flat has. Either that, or they're juggling hand-grenades. I can talk about the offline multiplayer - the Zombie mode. And so I will.
It's bad.
The zombies are hard, and get progressively harder. It cannot be played recreationally alone, because you never get anywhere. After awhile, some guns become completely pointless. A full clip of pistol ammo to the face usually deters anyone from trying things, but not zombies. It does get easier with two people, but only because you have two guns firing. Nothing really changes apart from that. I'd like to say it'd be enjoyable online with four of you, but really that's not the point if you want a two player split screen gorefest, CoD isn't really going to cut it ffor you. There isn't even an end-point. The zombie game continues ad nasuem until you're so fed up you'd rather get eaten than play anymore. There is no end in sight. And above all, it isn't done well. It's kind of silly.
The first map sees you fighting Nazi-zombies in a mansion, and every 6 waves you are attacked by dogs that are also on fire.
Are you still reading this? Then you've reached the end, thank god.
Black Ops is not a *bad* game. I just don't think it is a good game. It has nothing that particularly separates it from Modern Warfare I and II, unless the pointless zombie fest and the reduced quality plot are qualifiers. It is a successful game of a pedigree francise, and playing matches online I expect can be quite entertaining. Online experience is now an important part of any decent game but really, it should be able to stand alone without it. And it can't. Unfortunately, Black Ops is so over-hyped now that it just isn't special anymore.
Black Ops is to Modern Warfare what ODST was to Halo 3. Essentially the same game only more confusing and repetative. Realistically, the best way to enjoy Black Ops is to hope your brain has an ejector seat, which if it were Gears of War, it would probably get away with because it becomes a ridiculous gore-soaked parody of any violent computer game. As it stands, Black Ops is just a subpar action movie with a fancy remote. In theory, it works, but it isn't really fulfilling.
Stay tuned for my totally uneducated opinion on Fable III to follow either on Tuesday or Wednesday.
*And yes, Nazi's feature in Black Ops.
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