Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 Review

Now let's get this out of the way first, I enjoy playing the Call of Duty franchise despite it being regarded as the most popular one trick pony in the world. So the question is, does Black Ops 2 try to set itself apart from its brethren?


More after the jump








The story in Black Ops 2 has to be handled carefully in its explanation. Mainly because there are two separate time periods, one happening during the  Cold War in the 70s and 80s and the other happening in the year 2025. Another matter that has to be taken into consideration are the multiple endings that Black Ops 2 has in which choices made throughout the game will affect the final ending.

The overall story in Black Ops 2 is simple, Nicaraguan drug lord Raul Menendez declares war against the capitalist governments (more specifically the United States) by using cyberattacks to cripple their infrastructure. At the same Menendez wants revenge against the men who took something very dear from him and will stop at nothing to get even.

As previously stated the story takes place over two time periods, the first being in the Cold War where players either take control of the seemingly cured Alex Mason(seemingly being the operative word) and the ever lovable Frank Woods. In these levels we see Menendez's rise to power and his reason for revenge. The writing of the Cold War levels seem more human and more engaging than it does in the 2025 levels and throughout these section of the games it shows that Menendez is more than just your crazy drug lord with access to the internet. At the same time the usual path of "the protagonists can do no wrong" behavior is scrubbed off, Frank Woods, Alex Mason and Jason Hudson each have their own sins that they must answer for and in the case of Woods and Mason their intense trauma causes them to cause more harm than good. Menendez on the other hand is shown to be more than your evil villain, we get to see his origin story and why he does what he does and in one instance he shows far more humanity than any of the main protagonists in the game, this humanity taking the shape of his sister Josefina who will become the main catalyst to his ascension to all out villain.

Getting to the office is getting more dangerous nowadays. 

Storywise the 2025 levels seem less engaging than the Cold War plot line, it tells of the war between Menendez's loyalist army and the superpowers namely China and the USA and at many times it's referred to as the Second Cold War. Menendez being at the height of his power invests heavily in technology which include state of the art infantry gear, drones and a cyber worm that is supposed to render the defense systems of the United States worthless. This plot line feels so cold, sterile and outright predictable that it ceases to be entertaining. The main protagonist here is David Mason son of Alex Mason, David is your very stereotyped Navy SEAL down to his look. At first glance David is nothing more than that...a stereotype. But one moment in his  story  we see him show some shred of emotion then it goes off and this moment of engagement between player and character disappears never to be seen again which is a shame. The only saving grace of this story section is David Mason's fellow SEAL Mike Harper who despite being a stereotype SEAL member gives some humor and humanity to the otherwise cold story line.

In addition to Raul Menendez (played by Kamar de los Reyes), Mike Harper (played by Michael Rooker) the only other strong character is Frank Woods (played by James C Burns). Woods plays a far greater role than he did in the first game and he is acted brilliantly by James Burns who has the ability to shift from hard chinned Marine in the Cold War section to a severely traumatized old war veteran in the 2025 section.

The other voice actors do a great job as well and in the case of Menendez I really felt that his actor carried on the character's emotions spectacularly and as for Harper, Michael Rooker portrayed him as a cross between a friend who will never let you down no matter what and a guy who will laugh at a helicopter gunning toward him. Finally we have the foul mouthed Admiral Briggs (voiced by Tony Todd) who will rip apart the entirety of Menendez's cartel single-handedly if given the chance. So hats off to all the voice actors for doing a brilliant job.

On a side note the main campaign story gives a tip of the hat to those who have studied the Cold War by introducing some real life characters like Jonas Savimbi, Manuel Noriega and even David "I can't keep it in my pants" Petraeus makes an appearance.

Lads, I have to say...this is not exactly a wise idea.

Gameplay in Black Ops II can be divided into three sections, the main campaign, multiplayer and the ever famous Zombie mode.

The campaign itself can be divided in two sections, one being the main storyline and the other are the Strike Force Missions.

The story mission is your typical objective based campaign, some real typical mission objectives include go to this area and await further orders and on your way expect heavy resistance. All in the campaign missions are nothing really special but at the same time does nothing really wrong. It feels like an average campaign nothing more and nothing less. Granted the game does its best to try to vary things up by giving the player control of drones, a jeep, a jet and fight on horseback but these sections are short and feel tacked on. There is one stealth mission where the player has to hide in the shadows from drones who would gun them down if they are spotted but once again this feels tacked on and in the end feel really unnecessary.

The level design is varied some levels include the jungles of Myanmar, on an aircraft carrier, in the deserts of Afghanistan and the futuristic floating city of Colossus. The levels themselves are linear but this is remedied somewhat of allowing the player to maneuver around combat zones which tend to have a respectable size to them.

The AI in the campaign mode is mediocre at best, they will take cover and at times will try and flank you but for the most part they are stupid and will charge you head on or ignore cover completely. However continuing on with tradition the AI's skill with grenade lobbing is on par with a god. AI enemies will throw grenades from across the map and it will land right in front of you so be prepared to run. The AI relies on its strength in numbers to take on the player. They will try to make use of drones to try and even out the odds but a competent player with the right weapons will make short work of them.

The drones in this game range from this cute little thing to a cute little flying thing armed with a machine gun. 

The Strike Force Missions is an attempt to keep the campaign fresh. Here the player is given real time command over a group of soldiers and/or drones. The player can either command these units in a very basic RTS style command system or take personal control of them . These units will then have to complete a set of objectives much like the main campaign but here player death is permanent in the sense that when you take control of a soldier or drone once that asset is killed he/it cannot be revived and the player is teleported to the next available soldier for him to control. This permanent death mechanic is not big of a deal on the lower levels of difficulty but it will seriously cost you on the higher ones since enemies will take full advantage of the player's dwindling army. For example in the first Strike Force Mission I was pinned to a corner and was down several men and the enemies were swarming my final position with drones and infantry while my own forces were dropping like flies, I never recovered from my losses and I failed that mission. The Strike Force Missions like the campaign is nothing special but it does have some hint of being fresh. I just wish that more was done with it, I wanted to have been more control over my men rather than pointing them in one direction and then having to fend for themselves because unless the player is controlling that asset personally the AI is in control of most of the units and in the end the moronic AI comes back to make this mode an average experience.

OOOOH!! As a nerd I have been waiting to see this my whole life...robots with machine guns dueling one another. 

However there is one thing that Treyarch has done right with the campaign and that is the branching story paths. Let me get out of this out of the way first, I am a HUGE fan of branching story paths since it forces the player to seriously think on his or her actions before pressing the button. The players actions in both the Strike Force Missions and main campaign will in some way affect the main ending. Some of the choices even are heart wrenching to make but in the end it gives the player some sense of what its like to deal with a mad man and all out war. So despite the predictable plot we as the player can still determine the outcome of the overall game and most of the endings do make sense as does the choices affecting those endings...unlike that space RPG that shall not be named...


The next mode that Black Ops II has is the zombie mode, to the uninitiated the default Black Ops Zombie mode known as Survival is basically like a horde mode where unending waves of zombies come after you and try to eat you alive. In Black Ops II the mode has received a very welcome upgrade. The first major upgrade being the Tranzit mode which is something like Survival mode but rather than being stuck in one area there is a bus that will shuttle you around to the other areas the mode has to offer. In this mode you are able to craft objects much like you would do in Dead Rising 2 granted it's not nearly as engaging but works well for the most part, one object in particular allows you generate power to get access to certain areas. This mode is fun mainly because it forces the players to scrounge around the level for parts to make the machine and if they are too late the bus will move on without them. The players can wait for the bus to come back to the destination but being left alone in a zombie infested bus station is not exactly wise. Also if players were to harass the robotic bus driver they run the risk of being kicked off and left in the middle of nowhere which is a death sentence. While being shuttled around in the bus the zombies will not let up and even attack the bus forcing players to fight in a very close quarters environment.

BLAUURGHH !!BUT I GOT MY BUS PASS RIGHT HERE...

One other mode is the Grief mode which is basically like a team based Survival mode. Players are split between two teams, the CDC and the CIA. Each time have to last as long as they can against the hordes of enemies. If a player is down he/she can only be revived by a member of the same team and the opposing teams cannot fire upon each other. The last team standing against the undead army wins the match. This mode does something that I love and that is reinforce the team mechanic in a competitive way, the team is not only motivated to survive but to win which in my mind is one of the best forms of multiplayer.

Other things to take note of in this mode are the various powerups, the random weapon generating toy box and and the weapon purchases all make a comeback. Also since the world is now a literal hell hole there are pools and streams of lava all around the map and merely touching it would set the player and zombies alight.

The Zombie mode's only drawback is that it just works on a multiplayer setting. There is a single player option but between building the devices, repairing barricades and killing zombies this mode is not nearly as fun or as survivable if it were to be played by an individual. I just wished that we had some AI controlled partners to at least take down the zombies while I as the player build the machines and repair the barricades or scale the level of zombies according to the number of players.

Dude you're on fire!!! Here let me help you by putting a bullet in your head. 

Now it is time for what is arguably the meat of the entire game, the multiplayer. The multiplayer mode in Black Ops 2 boasts 14 maps and several game modes. You have your Call of Duty mainstays like Free For All, Team Deathmatch and (Why-Is-This-Mode-So-Popular?) Domination. A new mode known as Hardpoint is basically like King of the Hill where competing teams have to fight for control of a hardpoint to score points for the team, this hardpoint shifts to different locations in the map throughout the match. One other major improvement is the new multi team mechanic, rather than have just two teams duking it out we can have 3 teams of 3 players trying to kill each other. Now that may seem like a minor addition but what it does is reduce the team number to a cohesive unit so it means that players are more motivated to talk to one another, come up with strategies and yell at the failures in the team.

Other changes include the removal of killstreaks for scorestreaks, rather being awarded a game changing asset like a remote controlled explosive device or escort helicopter through just kills players are now rewarded through the points they make which is a welcome change because now it gives players the incentive to go after the objectives rather than zoom around the map looking for people to kill.

One other great addition is the ability to fight with bots in a reimagined Combat Training, I know to some fighting with bots seems like nothing more than child's play especially considering what I said about the AI previously but it does give the newbie player some training with how a game mode is supposed to work, how the weapons feel and what kind of class works out for him or her.

Which brings me to the next new add on is the heavily modified Create a Class system which is by far one the of the most modular class systems in any game.The best way I can explain it is through a visual example.

^
 Basically you have 10 slots, these slots can be filled with anything from weapons to weapon mods to perks which will augment your character with special abilities like being able to run faster or being cloaked from radar. In this example setup I have customized this class to be a rapid mover by investing in the movement perks Lightweight and Extreme Conditioning but I also have Dexterity (a perk which will make me faster in raising my gun after sprinting ) on Perk 3. In order to have both the Extreme Conditioning and Dexterity perks I have to invest in a wild card which will allow me to have two Perk 3s but I had to sacrifice my ability to throw Tactical grenades.

It is this level of modularity that makes this system so worthwhile. You can have a huge number of classes each catering to the individual player which is always a plus.

Going to the gameplay side of the multiplayer there isn't really too much to say other than the most of the skirmishes that I have been in were fast paced and close up. There were engagements where I faced off against enemies far away but for the most part I was close to my enemy and the first person who fired the trigger first tends to win the skirmish.

The maps in multiplayer range from the boring to the entertaining, my favourite by far is Express which has several close quarters environments surrounding an open area and there is also the matter of a rushing train that appears from time to time that will crush any player in its way. One downside is that spawn system has to be fixed I have had instances where I was killed mere seconds after being respawned.

The game modes as previously mentioned are your standard Call of Duty fare but that doesn't mean it's not fun. Most of the game modes are thoroughly entertaining especially Search and Destroy famous for its no respawn rule and its tension. Other game modes like Gun Play and Headquarters round off some of my favourite modes.

So there is a variety of game modes available and each one is more or less entertaining. I do however wish that Treyarch gave us randomized playlists, it is hard when you have a full lobby of your friends and you are stuck with the mode you selected in the beginning and if you want a new game mode you would have to recreate your lobby again and again.

Those little flying things? Yeah those will screw you over in a million different ways. 

Before I give a final summary I want to make some final points, the graphics of the game look good considering it's a modified version of the engine seen in the first Black Ops. It runs smooth and not once during the single player, zombie mode or multiplayer did I suffer from any game breaking glitches.

What this game has is one of the best soundtracks I have ever heard, the soundtrack was headed by the absolutely brilliant dreamteam of Jack Wall and Trent Raznor. While Avenged Sevenfold makes a very entertaining and humorous cameo.

In summary the game is good, it has strong multiplayer, a strong zombie mode, a good multiple branching plot mechanic some absolutely brilliant voice acting and an excellent soundtrack.

At the same time I felt that the story was predictable even with the branching paths, the AI even on higher difficulties rely on nothing more than their strength in numbers, the Strike Force Missions could have been done better and some characters despite being voiced well felt uninspired and unlikable.

My score is  an 8 out of 10 with a Macho Man Approval, it is a fun game for sure but it could have been a great game if more care had been given to the story, the AI and character development. I enjoy this game's multiplayer and I can see myself having hours of fun with it.

On a final note I would like to give an example of the brilliant soundtrack to the game so that you could hear it for yourself.

Call of Duty: Black Ops II 
Developer: Treyarch 
Publisher: Activision 
Platforms: PS3, Xbox 360, PC and Wii U
Platform Used for Review: Xbox 360
My Purchase Date of the Game: November 15th 2012