Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 Review

I’ve never been a big fan of the war games.  I play them simply because my friends play them.  But in all honesty, unless there’s a chance of something either undead or mutated trying to kill me, I usually don’t give a crap.  I’ve just never been into war games.  I played Hell’s Highway some years ago, and barely got through it with my sanity intact.  I’m a horror fanatic, and games like that bore me to tears.  It’s not the developer’s fault.  It’s just the way I am.  My mind is a horrific playground that must be fed.

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a first-class zombie fanatic.  And when Call of Duty started adding zombie campaigns to its gameplay, my ears perked up.  Flesh being eaten?  Is that what I’m picking up?  Yes indeed, it was.  I played through the zombie campaign in World at War and was thoroughly satisfied in the end.  It turned out that game developers who spent their time designing games where live humans were killed might be pretty good at taking out the undead ones as well.  When Black Ops came out, I also bought it just for the zombie campaign.  And I wasn’t disappointed.

And now I get the opportunity to review Black Ops II.  This one takes place in the near future, and as usual, the world is at war with itself.  However, most of the cast has been abandoned, save for the few times you interact with them in various parts of the game.  It seems that Treyarch, the developers, have tried to focus on a more developed backstory and character storyline than actual gameplay.  That may not sit well with gamers who want a full blown world war experience.  That, and throw in the theme song composed and performed by Trent Reznor, and suddenly things don’t seem as sunny in Black Ops II.

The storyline is about the fall of Raul Menendez.  Although we are given a glimpse into what turned him into such an asshole, not much else is revealed about him in the game.  Personality-wise, that is.  But we see as soon as we meet him in-game that he is obviously a lunatic, and the further you go the crazier he gets.  Suddenly he’s just a bat crap loon and all you want to do is blow his brains out.  That’s all well and good, but I like for the antagonist in a game to try to convince me of why his way is right.  Not just be crazy as hell and bent on killing because the voices tell him to.

The one thing I did like about the main campaign is that the storyline changes with your actions and decisions.  Choosing whether to keep this non-drone A.I. character alive or plug him one can have an effect on the rest of the game.  It actually makes you want to play the game again just to see what would happen if you let the guy who acts like a jerk die early on.  Except I would have to play it again and see what would happen if I had protected him.  I didn’t like him at all, and I let him catch a bullet at the earliest opportunity.

Overall, the gameplay left much to be desired.  The main campaign focused on the storyline, with much failure in the execution, and let the gameplay fall to the wayside.  I simply couldn’t let myself be drawn into the game.   I never felt myself disconnect with reality and become completely engrossed with the virtual world.  To me that’s always been the trademark of a great game.  If you forget the world around you and all you see is a lush jungle or derelict buildings and all you hear is gunfire, and not even an explosion in your front yard distracts you, then you have a great game.  Black Ops II simply doesn’t have it.

Zombie Campaigns

I hoped against hope that the zombie campaign would bring more to the table than the main campaign did.  And if you enjoy figuring the whole thing out with little to no help from the developer, then it’s awesome.  Zombie mode offers three sub-modes.  Survival, Tranzit, and Grief.

The Survival campaign was pretty much the way of life on the zombie campaign of Black Ops.  If you played it, then you know what it’s about.  Basically, you kill and try to stay alive.  But the two new campaigns, Grief and Tranzit, take all that to a whole new level.

In the Grief campaign, you get to play against other teams in a “last man standing” type battle.  You can’t shoot your opposing team, but you can throw chunks of meat and send the hordes of zombies rushing toward them while you and your team reload and get ready for the undead to turn attention back to you.  You can also run over and knock down a player or two on the opposing team.  Generally, you can just make life difficult for them, and they for you, but you can’t shoot each other.  In the end, the last man standing’s team is the winner.

The Tranzit campaign is for those who don’t want to stay in one spot and shoot nonstop.  With Tranzit, you can travel to and from four locations; A farm, a store, a gas station, and a power plant.  In between you ride around on a modified anti-zombie city bus with a big plow on the front for taking zombies out at the kneecaps.  As you travel between locations, there are secrets aplenty to be found and challenges to be completed that can open new areas.  The only issue is that you have no idea what the end game is.  Nothing is apparent except that the world is full of zombies and you have to survive it.  The final destination is not apparent nor is there a story of any kind.

You can find things in the world to build new equipment, but finding them is a pain.  They don’t glow; they’re not distinct from the surrounding world.  You have to be right up on top of them to find them, and then have to be looking directly at them to pick them up.  It’s a game of Where’s Waldo with zombies trying to tear you apart and teammates rushing around shooting while you try to focus on finding this stuff.  I’m sure it gets easier each time you play it, but I can’t see myself wanting to do this over and over.

Honestly, if you have never played any of COD’s zombie modes, then you will probably be completely lost.  The steps to unlocking new areas can, at times, be nothing less than cryptic, and piecing the storyline together and getting the whole thing to make sense is really more trouble than it’s worth.

The saving grace in this game is most certainly the Multiplayer Mode.  With the ability to stream the game to other players in League Play and the multitude of options available, including being able to swap weapons for perks at the beginning of the game, you’re going to get the most bang for your buck with this game in multiplayer.

Treyarch included a system called “Pick 10”, in which you can choose between weapons, perks, or anything in between to take with you in the map.  Each item costs one point, and those ten items are all you are allowed.  That sounds like a limitation, but it’s not.  Having ten items to choose from, none costing more or less than others, is a great addition for short-game play like what is found in multiplayer.  It means that you can go in with exactly what you want and not have to worry about scrounging for gear in-game.

There are fourteen maps to choose from, and each is loaded with kills for your pleasure.  The weapons selection is nothing to sneer at either, and include the following:

This is just a short list of the dozens upon dozens of weapons that are included in all of COD Black Ops II.  But picking between them and using them in multiplayer is by far the best experience I had with them.  Combine that with the ability to stream games via League Play, and then play back the best moments of the match for all to view with the “Highlights” feature, and multiplayer is an instant hit for all those who enjoy fragging the hell out of other players, then gloating about it in playbacks.

I think that this game was headed in the right direction, but they tried to focus on what was least important about it and failed.  That wouldn’t have been so bad, but the gameplay suffered as well, and that affects us gamers.  Game developers want to give us a story, and that’s all fine and good if they can deliver, but nothing should ever take away from gameplay.  Black Ops II falls short in the main campaign, but attempts to revive itself in zombie mode, and then actually does in multiplayer.  It’s possible that with some DLC and patches in the future, this could become a much better game.