Black Ops is the seventh game in the Call of Duty franchise. It was designed by Treyarch and published by Activision and was released in November 2010. It is set during the Cold War era and beigns in 1961 and finishes in 1968. There are a variety of missions which take place in Russia, Cuba, Loas and Vietnam.

Single Player Campaign

The story revolves around a former US Soldier named Alex Mason. He was part of an elite group which carried out secret missions behind enemy lines. The campaign begins in 1968 with Mason strapped to a chair and being asked questions by unseen voices and the story is then told through flashbacks. The campaign is based around 15 missions which take place in locations all around the world and they begin to unravel the story and explain why Mason is in the situation he is in. I'm not going to say any more than this otherwise it would ruin your experience of the game if you knew what happened.

Graphics

The graphics featured in Modern Warfare 2 were exceptional and were some of the best graphics I've ever seen on a PS3 game, but sadly the graphics in Black Ops do not match up to this. The screen seems to be quite hazy and the colours are bland and boring - nothing compared with the sharpness and clarity of MW2. I thought that this was rather a shame as Black Ops was built around the same engine as MW2 so should have had the same, if not better, graphics but sadly it failed to and seems to have been a step backwards on the graphics front.

Gameplay

The gameplay is pretty much the same as every other Call of Duty game - you run around, shoot people, get told what to do, your team mates do nothing and just get shot at/killed, drive a few vehicles and blow stuff up. So from this point of view the gameplay is fun and enjoyable if you enjoy this type of stuff. I do think though that it does become rather repetitive in places as several missions are basically, run around and shoot people with few other things involved. There are the usual cut scenes and movie style loading screens which help to explain and move the story along. The game can be played on the usual four difficulty settings: recruit, regular, hardened and veteran. Veteran is certainly a difficult challenge!

Sound and Music

The gun sounds are quite realistic and if you are wearing a headset then in some places it does feel as though you are on a battlefield. Members of your squad also shout out orders which adds to this effect. The voice who is questioning Mason is quite an intimdating voice and the voice actor is impressive. Mason, who is voiced by Sam Worthington (the guy who played Jake Sully in Avatar) is perfect for the role as his voice seems to match up to the macho expectations of an elite soldier. There are some duds when it comes to the voice acting and in some parts it is pretty obvious that the actor is just reading it of a sheet of paper with a deadpan, expressionless voice, but this is quite rare and for the most part the voice acting is quite strong. There is the usual music which plays over the main menu, during the loading screens, throughout the dramatic and tense parts and during the final credits. The score was composed by Sean Murray who also composed the music for World at War. Music from The Rolling Stones and Eminem features as well.

Rating

The game is rated as an 18 as it "contains strong, bloody violence and strong language" and I think that this is a suitable rating as some parts of the campaign are quite graphic. There is however an option to turn off the blood and gore if you so wish to, but I personally feel that this detracts the game from its gritty nature.

Multiplayer

The multiplayer is very similar to the previous COD games - you rank up and unlock new weapons but several new features have been introduced. One such introduction is COD points. You earn these points by playing games through to the end and by completing contracts - contracts can include anything from winning a game to getting a certain number of headshots with a particular gun, and wager matches. With these COD points you are able to purchase new weapons, perks and attachments. Instead of levelling up to unlock perks you are now able to buy them. Guns are still unlocked by rank but you have to use COD points to buy them once they have been unlocked and now instead of unlocking attachments by completing challenges, you can purchase any attachment you want. There is also now the option to choose the colour and shape of the lens on your gun sight as well as the camo.

There is a large variety of guns, with assault rifles, sub machine guns, light machine guns, shotguns, sniper rifles, pistols, launchers and special weapons such as the explosive crossbow and ballistic knife all featuring.

New gamemodes have been added including Wager matches. In these you gamble your COD points - either 10, 1,000 or 10,000 - against other players and the higher you gamble the bigger the prize. There are four different game modes in the wager match category and all test out your different skills against players around the world.

There are 15 prestige levels, and you have to reach level 50 before you can prestige and like World at War and MW2 you unlock new custom classes when you enter a certain prestige.

Golden guns make a return (having not been seen since COD 4) and when you reach 14th Prestige you are able to make any gun gold, but at the cost of 50,000 COD points.

You can now also create your own emblem which can be viewed by almost everyone. You build your own emblem by purchasing different objects/shapes with your COD points and then design what you want. This can lead to a lot of creativity with some people creating pretty impressive designs, but sadly, the more immature members of the COD community decide to have male genitalia as their emblem so when playing expect to see quite a few of these!

Finally, there are the usual leaderboards but these have been adapted and now each game mode has its own type of leaderboard with your score per minute being a new added feature. You can now also see how you compare with other players in the lobby.

Now the bad parts of the multiplayer...

If anyone has played the multiplayer then they will know what I mean when I say it feels like it was near completion but was never quite finished. The online is fun to a certain extent, but feels nowhere near as fast paced or exciting as previous COD games. There is a great deal of 'lag' in many lobbies and what happens on your screen can be entirely different to that of other player's - ie on your screen you might be around the corner but on the other player's you are still out in the open. Sadly this issue has never been address by Treyarch which is a real shame as it removes a lot of the enjoyment from the game. As everyone who has played COD before knows that stopping power (a perk which gives your gun more power) is the most popular perk and it was removed from this game to give players more choice. This means that it takes more bullets to kill players which can be very frustrating as you run out of ammo very quickly. Also, there are two very annoying perks which ruin most games - they are ghost and second chance. Ghost is a tier one perk and is basically the same as Cold Blooded, but it is incredibly annoying as most people seem to use it so if you call in a UAV, chances are that only one or two players will show up on your map. Second Chance is a third tier perk and is the same as Last Stand and is incredibly annoying and glitchy - basically when you are shot at you fall to the ground and take out your pistol - cue annoying invincibility glitches where the person is able to kill you as they fall into Second Chance - again very annoying!

New killstreaks have been introduced but they no longer count towards each other so it is very difficult to get the higher end killstreaks such as the chopper gunner or dogs. If you are able to get the chopper gunner or gunship killstreak, the chances are that there will be someone sitting in a corner with ghost who will destroy it before it even reaches the map. Also there is an incredibly annoying 3 killstreak known as an RC XD car which is a remote controlled car with explosives. This is very, very annoying and so many people love to use it so again it slows down the gameplay and makes it very boring.

Nazi Zombies

Nazi Zombies returns and is even better and far more enjoyable than the previous edition. It is still the same concept - kill endless hoards of the undead and get points to purchase new weapons and perks. Two full zombie maps are included on the disc (more can be downloaded but I'll get onto that in a bit) and a classic zombie arcade style game mode. This game mode alone definitely makes it worth purchasing this game as it will provide hours of fun and entertainment.

The only negative aspects of Zombies is that it can be quite repetitive and can take a while for you to be put into a game.

Downloadable Content (DLC)

There are four map packs which have been released on Xbox 360, three for the PS3 with the fourth coming out on 22/09/2011. I cannot comment on these map packs as I refuse to purchase them for two reasons: firstly, I find it completely unfair that PS3 users have to wait an extra month for the release, I know that Microsoft made a deal with Activison, but I think this is ridiculous to expect PS3 players to wait an additional month and secondly because of the price, they are in the region of £10.49 - £11.49 each for just four new multiplayer maps and a new zombie map - I think this is a total rip off!

Summary

POSITIVES: the game is good fun with decent graphics which are still more impressive than most games, the online can be fun but the best part is definitely zombies.

NEGATIVES: the campaign does become repetitive and is very confusing to follow, the multiplayer is glitchy, laggy and slow paced and the DLC is very expensive for what you get.

On the whole the game is good fun and will keep you entertained for several hours. Sadly though, I do think that it is one of the weaker entries for the series and had this been a stand alone game it would not have fared very well at all and it only had such great sales because it was a Call of Duty game. I hope that in the future, what's left of Infinity Ward will make the rest of the Call of Duty games whilst Treyarch focuses on zombies.

The game can still be purchased in any high street shop that sells games and is usually still in the top 20. It can also be purchased online from most shops as well as Amazon and ebay. The price can vary from £20 - £40 depending on whether it is bought new or pre owned, but I think its worth the price just for the zombies.

Thank you for reading my review.