Black Ops Impressions...Will you answer the Call again?

Actvision has been milking this franchise for as long as I can remember. Since the birth of the Xbox, Call of Duty 2 was the first of the launch titles that helped Microsoft maintain its place among the next-gen console wars at the time. COD reached its dominance when COD4 was released and it was a viable contender against Halo. It did take a step back in my opinion with Modern Warfare 2 but that hasn't deterred its hold on consumers as Black Ops released. Treyarch, I believe, helped bring the franchise back to a memorable single player campaign, a fun co-op zombie mode, and a  more balanced MP with the occasional annoyances that you would expect in any first person shooter.

Black Ops is what you would expect as a Call of Duty game. The mechanics and gameplay is pretty much the same so if you've played one before, you'll easily get the handle of the game very early. If this is your first time to this rodeo, I have to warn you there is no tutorial at the beginning like the previous games before. The campaign is set through the many eras of history from the Cold War to the Cuban missile crisis to Vietnam. There is a throwback level as well where you use some WW2 weapons and is probably one of my favorite levels. The campaign is told through flashbacks of your character, Alex Mason with some mix of other perspectives from other characters as well. It was hard at first to follow what was going with all the images flashing throughout the cut scenes but for the most part I could decipher in what was going on. For the most part, the campaign kept me engaged to finish it as soon as possible to see what happens to all the characters. It also is a good way to get used to the weapons that you will see in MP.

Co-op zombies makes a return. You start out with 1 zombie map that takes place in a movie theater. The same formula applies as you try to outlast endless waves of zombies and hell hounds out to tear you limb from limb. I definitely recommend 4 people who have a well developed plan in order to move from one room to another. The 2nd zombie map is a favorite of mine and you get to play a diverse cast from the picture on the left. The one-liners are hilarious as you battle zombies inside the Pentagon with 3 floors. which means you need alot of cash to be using the elevator going from floor to floor. The 3rd map is a top down shooter that plays like Smash TV. Its hard picking out your guy if 4 players are going at it but fun none the less.

Multiplayer is what most people will be playing so let me just say it is far much better than Modern Warfare 2. Party chat is back for all game modes which is great in my opinion. I felt like the community for Call of Duty is probably the worst Ive ever experienced so getting into a chat of friends in the game is great. The big issue I have though is when you have a party of 4 or 5 guys, it takes forever to get into a game to play. I don't know if its because  the game is trying to find another group of 5 to play against or what, but it is time consuming to wait 10 minutes to get into a match. Maybe its just me and my group but I think they should come up with a way to just get into a lobby whether theres a party of people or not. The other issue I have is the scope of things to unlock. This version has a currency system that when I first got into it, I felt overwhelmed. The customization is a nice touch and the theater mode is not bad but I felt it could be better. It doesnt seem to record all of my matches which seems odd and you can only upload clips that are 30 seconds long. Here is one that I did below.

If you want to get to know the maps, combat training is a great addition. You can explore the maps while shooting up bots. You can also level up and experiment with guns that you have unlocked. Whatever you unlock in combat training stays in combat training and doesn't transfer over to your public profile and vice versa. There is also wager matches which lets you gamble the points you have earned in matches and for the most part it is fun when players arent camping. All in all, the maps are good enough where snipers dont dominate them and camping is alot harder to get away with.

Black Ops will probably be spinning on my 360 for awhile and I definitely like seeing the developers listening to the community and help fix issues that were present in previous Call of Duty games. It looks as well too that they will support this game as long as it takes with various fixes and patches with the known issues that are being exploited. All in all I would rate this game an 8 out of 10 stars.