We all know people will be buying Call of Duty: Black Ops for the multiplayer. This review will encompass the multiplayer only, and I have not referred to the campaign. COD campaigns have for a number of titles now been a sideshow to the main course that keeps us all sitting in front of our systems for hours: the online experience.
The sad thing for PS3 gamers is that Black Ops right now for PS3 brings a sub-par multiplayer package due mainly to one thing: technical issues. But first, let's discuss all the great things these technical hitches take away from.
Map design is top notch, with levels presenting a wide variety approaches to enemy positions allowing for all sorts of tactical play styles. Where Modern Warfare 2 maps became 'shooting galleries', Black Ops maps give you wide options for flanking maneuvers, cover, surprise attacks and more- you'll constantly be having to watch your back and have your friends cover blind spots. Maps also feel bigger than anything in in previous COD titles, and this opens up the gameplay to see the main battles moving to different spots across the maps as opposed to players being driven to a single flash point.
The new customisation options for weapons, player tags, logos and even the colour and even logo of your scopes are great ways to individualise your online experience and keep things fresh.
There's also the new COD Cash system, that means you purchase unlocks after you earn them, which means that your faced with the prospect of carefully considering which purchase decisions to make, and gives you incentive to work towards something aside from just expecting to happen. The Cash system is made even more interesting by wager matches, allowing you to bet your earned money on various match types, making these games surprisingly thrilling if your gambling a lot of money, and can change the dynamic of the game entirely. Black Ops also addresses some balancing issues that appeared in Modern Warfare 2. For example, the knife has become much less of a threat than it once was, and you won't find people running endlessly and being able to go 28-4 without firing a single shot.
Aside from this, and the addition of a few new killstreak rewards like the Remote Control Car Bomb, it plays out like other recent COD games online, which isn't a bad thing, and makes for some great matches.
Yet all this is mired by the fact that on PS3, the game runs like a hot mess. It suffers from constant frame rate and lag issues, which are immensely frustrating. Futhermore games constantly drop out, and you'll be lucky to be in a lobby that will last a straight 5 games. You will miss a lot of kills and die a lot of times, because this game simply does not run smoothly. I describe it to people that ask as 'juttering'. Enemy players will disappear and reappear metres away from where they were, frames skip making it impossible to follow moving or strafing targets and shooting often comes down to guess work and spraying in a general direction as opposed to lining someone up in your sights. The game also can't seem to handle a lot of action at once, and if battles get particularly heated and big firefights and grenade volleys break out, then be prepared for some very noticeable slowdown. All this means that many matches you'll find yourself more frustrated than entertained.
There is also an issue with the sound in multiplayer that is particularly annoying. Essentially you can't hear the weapons or footsteps of enemies or even friendlies very well, so unless you acutally see someone on your screen you have no clue where they are. For example, numerous times you'll have people shooting at you from the side or behind from only a few feet away with a big gun, but the only sound that comes through your speakers will be the ricochet of the bullets off a nearby wall, so you'll have no idea where your being shot at from. To frustrate you even more, if you watch the killcam all you'll hear is the punchy sound of their gun firing that you should have been hearing. Sound is important in an FPS game, and the sound in Black Ops can only be described as broken. People can also easily sneak up on you and knife you as footsteps of other players seem to be non-existent, and buying the Ninja perk is rendered useless.
So to round out, Black Ops has potential. If patches eventually do fix what right now seems like an unfinished online package, then it will be a great pick up for any person who likes a thrilling online experience. But at the moment, I can't recommend you purchase this game for your Playstation library. The technical issues are deeply frustrating if you compare it to Modern Warfare 2- which, for all its balancing problems, ran as smooth as silk which was a key to its success.
The video on Black Ops 1 shows some separate rooms, assets, and other features which exist outside of the boundary of the game.
Jacob writes: "What do we have with the original Call of Duty: Black Ops? Quite simply, one of the best Call of Duty titles of all time."
Andrew says: "The intrinsic values of COD are the following: memorable campaigns, meticulous multiplayer marathons, and lobbies populated by screaming 12-year-old kids that think puberty is the evolved form of Jigglypuff."
Nice review, wow, Ps3 version sounds gimpped, it's a shame Treyarc didn't put the effort in to the Ps3 version. Black ops is the best cod since four and surpasses 4 imo. Best Cod game so far, I hated MW2 and thought WAW was just ok. It's a shame Treyarc messed up with the Ps3 version.
Edit---Also MW2 had quite good graphics, Treyarc don't seem to have bothered with them in this version.
I've had no issues besides not being able to retrieve recent games from time to time. There's occasional minor lag but it's manageable and expected when someone on dial up is chucking grenades everywhere.
The hit detection is an absolute mess in this game.
Its times like this I'm glad to be an offline player.
The net is abuzz with complaining for Black Ops but I enjoyed the game without any major issues.
Graphics were fine, sound was fine and it ran fine.
Other than that it was just Call of Duty again, occasional brilliance in set pieces, some bewilldering game design choices and dopey AI resulting in trial and error gameplay, but over all I'd give a solid 8.
I really enjoyed the satelite surveilance mission, it really should have been expanded on, way to short.
But not much wrong here per say, I think were all just a bit sick of this franchise.
Personally I'd like to see Brothers in Arms resurected, its always been the better game, tactically, at least in single player.
The single player campaign isn't bad, but the AI is not the greatest, and your team mates are always sitting spots that I want to be in, so I can shoot the enemy without shooting my team.
Playing this game on verteran is almost worse than WaW, as there is a part of the game that seems impossible to beat.
Lag has been a bit of a problem online, and the graphics are a bit of a downgrade from the previous three CoD games.
That being said, 5.5/10 is not a fair score for this game at all. I think its an 8 - 8.5/10. It still plays like CoD, and its loaded with content, which is more than I can say for games like MoH.