Call Of Duty Black Ops Review

Call Of Duty Black Ops is an interesting game in the storied Call Of Duty Franchise. I must admit I was disheartened with Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 2 last year, I went to the midnight launch at Gamestop and played the game and I enjoyed it for all of two days, then I got hit with people duel wielding model 1880 shotguns from across the map, super tact knifed by people holding the care package smoke and it got worse as the day's and week's went on.

I wasn't sure what to expect from Black Ops, I tried not to get my hopes up, after all Treyarch was making Black Ops as opposed to Infinity Ward, who made Call Of Duty 2, COD4 and MW2. Treyarch made COD3 and COD WaW. Now I enjoyed WaW a bit, so I was hoping it would be somewhere between COD4 and WaW.

The campaign in Black ops is solid, I really enjoyed it, short as it was I still found it really fast paced and to the point, it wasn't drawn out or anything like some games try to make their campaigns. You play as different people throughout history, mostly Cold War Era, though a WWII map comes at you with a familiar face or two.

After you beat the campaign you unlock the Zombie mode, which was a fan favorite in WaW, it's still a fun secondary game mode, it gives you more bang for your buck. Also there is a little easter egg in the title screen, if you toggle the left and right bumpers you get up from the chair and you can walk over to the computer screen and type in DOA and play a arcade style zombie shooter, it's a lot like the Indie game I M4d3 a g4m3 w1th z0mbi3s in it. It's quite fun, there are also other things you can input, like Zork and a few others you can look up on the internet.

The real meat and potatoes on Black Ops is of course the online mutiplayer. The thing I noticed right away was no Stopping Power perk, which at first I wasn't too sure about, now I've grown to like this. You see such a variety of guns being used now, unlike MW2 or COD4 or even WaW, where it was all MP40's all the time.

The other thing I really like about Black Ops is the fact that their is no "Game ending" Killstreak, also Killstreaks don't count towards other higher killstreaks. I've played around forty online matches and nobody on the other team has gotten past a 5 killstreak on us. The camping that made MW2 horrid is nowhere to be found here.

Shotguns are back to being a primary weapon instead of a secondary, which is how it should be. while there is some pistols you can duel wield , it isn't nearly as overpowering as in MW2. The maps are tight, most just the right size, there are some that have corners that are easy to camp, but it's rare to actually find people camping thus far in Black Ops.

Teamwork is needed more so in Black Ops as well, a solid team that communicates well will do much better then a group of highly skilled team that lacks communication. Also I must admit I love the credit and wager system, It's nice that you can just purchase sights and attachments to the guns you love without having to do a million different challenges with said weapon. Custom logo's and cards are also a nice touch, I've never seen so many dirty pictures in my life.

Now on to the bad parts of Black Ops. The only complaints I have are the lobby system, I'm not sure about other versions of the game, but on the Xbox 360 it can take upwards of thirty minutes to find a match, I hear Treyarch is already working on a patch for this though. To be fair there are over 3 million people on Black Ops at a time on 360 and this could be some of the issue.

Also, when we are able to find matches the other team backs out halfway through the game and for some reason, even with all the people on the game, no new people come into the lobby, so unless we get into a lobby just by ourselves, nobody else will ever join, you'll just sit there and wait until you back out and try again.

The lag is the other thing that I have a problem with, it's not "host lag" it's game lag, WaW had this issue as well, for some reason no matter the host or connection there is lag, it's very frustrating to say the least. This is another thing treyarch is supposed to be patching "soon"

I held off on a review for a few day's because I feel you cant accurately judge a game with just a hour or so of game time, now I have around six hours of multiplayer time and I've beat the campaign and played zombie mode. I feel now I can honestly say it's a unique Call Of Duty and it's a lot of fun when you actually get the chance to play in a room. When Treyarch fixes the issues, it'll be the best or one of the best in the series.

For now I give Black Ops 4.5 T-Bags out of 5.