Call of Duty: Black Ops

“If you are a Call of Duty hater, this game is more of the same, if you are a fan, it improves the series. Choose your POV.”

By launch day the franchise's hype has usually got ahead of itself, giving the game impossible expectations to live up to. The Infinity Ward developed Modern Warfare 2 was greeted with so much rapture and excitement that when the game launched it felt like a let-down. The formula worked fine and the game was a cut-above the market's other offerings, but when compared to the extortionate levels of hype, its confusing narrative detracted from the overall experience. It tried so hard to replicate the winning formula of Call Of Duty 4, but it failed to ever capture the subtle essence of what made ...

If you're into single player titles only, I would avoid grabbing Call of Duty: Black Ops II until the price drops a bit. Despite the fact the single player campaign is one of the most exhilarating single player experiences I've ever had, it does feel rather short and doesn't offer much in the form of replay-ability unless you really want to see the varied endings. However, fans of the Call of Duty franchise will be delighted to see the return of the famous multiplayer experience, as well as a more in-depth approach to the iconic zombie mode.

The single player experience is easily one of the outstanding story lines of the franchise and Treyarch pulls off the deviation from the norm surprisingly well.  Call of Duty is still the go to game when you want to have some quick and dirty multiplayer fun and the hardcore will love it if only for its Modern Warfare 3 feel.

Call of Duty: Black Ops is a great overall package that has a ton of content to enjoy. The multiplayer modes are largely based on what was established by Modern Warfare, but the twists that Treyarch throws in work well. My biggest issue with the multiplayer is that the new Wager Matches, while fun in their own right, don't compare favorably to the high-quality and addictive leveling system and game modes from Modern Warfare 1 and 2. Single-player is as exhaustingly fast-paced as ever, though the Wii version stumbles often thanks to its technical limitations. That withstanding, the story is the...

While it holds more first week sales than any other game before it, Black Ops isn’t the series’ high point. What we have here is a refined and extremely confident product from a studio that has found its feet in the FPS world. This sequel captures everything that makes the series great, and apart from the odd mishap, is engrossing throughout. If the short campaign doesn’t hold your attention past the credits, the online multiplayer almost certainly will. Right now, we’re intrigued to ...

Back when Call of Duty first launched, it would probably have come as something of a surprise to its developers and gamers alike to see what the future would have brought. With the game quickly turned into a yearly franchise, with two different developers on hand, it was only a matter of time before the controversy in the games was dwarfed by that going on behind-the-scenes. After the recent Infinity Ward shenanigans, the series is back firmly in the hands of Treyarach for another yearly outi...