Call of Duty: Black Ops (Xbox 360)

You play, for the most part, a kick ass Black Ops soldier, fighting for America, during the Cold War. You are awesome. Truly, truly awesome. You cheat death, you eat Russians for breakfast, and you breathe fire. No, wait. One of those is a lie.

Anyway, my point is that you are the American equivalent of what would happen if you combined Soap, Gaz/Ghost, ANZAC, and an old Chinese voodoo lady with a very, very bad temper. Yes, in short, you are a deadly and lethal death machine of death. And doom.

I'll divide this review into three sections (you can skip to whichever part you're interested in) -- Singleplayer, Multiplayer, and Scoring (where I assign arbitrary numbers to various categories).

SINGLEPLAYER
Remember MewTwo's woefully (and, frankly, insultingly) short and underwhelming campaign? Well, you'll be pleased to know that Black Ops is the opposite.

The story takes place partly in the same location as the main menu. It's a pretty bleak, grim introduction -- without giving too much away, you're being interrogated by an unknown party who wants to know what you and your team were doing during the Cold War.

The game is played in flashbacks -- your interrogator brings up topics that bring back memories in the character you play (Alex Mason). Occasionally, you'll play flashbacks to other characters (who, for the sake of spoilers, will not be named). And, there's an entire section that takes place in World War II -- including some great throwback references to World at War.

Yes, Black Ops campaign truly throws some great twists and turns at you. People and characters you don't expect show up. To be honest, it feels like the campaign took the best parts of Modern Warfare 2 and World at War, and used them as inspiration for an epic singleplayer experience.

There's some new mechanics -- you'll operate a camera and guide a squad of Spec Ops soldiers, who are moving through a zero-visibility blizzard in Russia, from a Blackbird recon plane (and you'll occasionally switch to one of these ground troops in order to play out some action sequences). You'll rappel down walls and smash through doors and windows. You'll have some great stealth-action sequences where you get to play stabby-stabby with your combat knife. Oh, and did I mention you get to blow stuff up with rockets? Yeah, there's quite a bit of stuff to blow up. It's a lot of fun.

The story truly is one of the best campaigns in the history of the Call of Duty franchise. It's cinematic, it's thrilling, and it's intense. That's not to say it's without flaws -- a lot of things are never really explained: how on earth do you get from one location to another, and what's with the game leaping forward, missing out months or years? There are so many enemies, you might feel like there should be an 'assume fetal position' button on the controller. Oh, but that shouldn't be a problem because, for once, a Call of Duty game arms you to the teeth with 50,000,000 bullets at the start of each level. Another thing I noticed, which I thought was kind of cool, is that some combat sequences almost feel reminiscent of 007: NightFire -- that might have just been me, though.

MULTIPLAYER
As with any CoD game, there are some balancing issues. But for those who were worried about a Modern Warfare 2 rehash, fret not!

Treyarch has clearly worked their asses off. All but one or two of the maps are a lot of fun to play on, and they're a lot better designed and a lot more balanced than those found in this year's installment of the Halo franchise. For the most part, weapons and killstreaks are pretty well balanced. And even the perks are pretty sweet.

Black Ops has an insane customization scheme that really lets you play -- for better or for worse -- how you want to play.

You can 'carve' your clan tag into the side of your weapon, you can create your own personal emblem (similar to MewTwo's emblems, only better) which can then be emblazoned onto the side of your weapon. You can go straight to buying red dots, ACOGs, or whatever else you want to stick on the end of your gun -- no more unlocking attachments: if you have the money, you can buy it.

Weapons work similarly -- you unlock them when you reach a certain rank, but you don't get them for free. You have to 'buy them' using points that you win by killing enemies and destroying killstreak rewards, winning matches, completing challenges, and just generally being awesome.

There are 'wager matches' -- where you bet your 'money' against other players in a Free-for-All match -- and the top three players split the pot, er, winnings. There are also 'contracts' -- you buy a contract for a set amount of money, and you have to complete the goal of that contract in 40 minutes of game time (yes, that's time you spend in game, so it doesn't count down while you're in menus). If you complete the contract, you get double your money; if you fail the contract, you lose the money -- these contracts can range from anything from "Win a Match" to "Get 3 Kills Without Dying" to weapons-specific challenges, like "Get 25 Headshots With an M16" or "Kill 3 Players with a Ballistic Knife."

Nuketown is one of the worst maps in Call of Duty history. You're pretty much guaranteed to get spawn-killed at least five times in the first minute of the game.

The MP5K is a rape-machine and, at close to medium range, is pretty much guaranteed to win against anything (except maybe a rocket launcher).

Additionally, even though "Commando" was removed as a perk, it honestly feels like everyone inherently has it. There are quite a few cheap knife kills -- some of it probably down to lag, but also partly due to the fact that everybody's knives work like Halo's Energy Sword.

Finally, there is the FAMAS. It has a ridiculous amount of kick, but it's really too powerful compared to other weapons.

As for killstreaks, well thankfully there is no longer a "Tactical Nuke." In fact, as I said earlier, most of the perks are pretty good. Chopper Gunner is quite hard to get, which is good, and Attack Helicopters are fairly easy to avoid (they now hover in one place, as opposed to flying around the entire map). One of the few cheap killstreak rewards is the "RC-XD" -- a little remote control car that moves too quickly to shoot, and can kill you with ease.

As with the weapons attachments, you can get any killstreak at any time. But you do have to buy them with your in-game points. The low-kill rewards range from 1,000 to 1,600 points -- but if you want something good (like Dogs or Chopper Gunner) then you'd better start saving up: they can cost anywhere from 2,400 to 4,000 points.

Overall, multiplayer is a lot better experience than [i]Modern Warfare 2[/i]. If you had a bitter taste in your mouth from the broken gameplay of MW2, then you'll be pleased to know that Black Ops is a lot cleaner, better paced, and a lot, lot less broken.

SCORING
Story: 8/10 (Epic, cinematic, and beautifully written)
Voice Acting: 7/10 (Mason could have been better, other characters well voiced)
Sound Design: 8/10 (MP5K sounds like airsoft gun; so does M14 reloading)
Soundtrack: 9.5/10 (Sean Murray delivers compelling soundtrack coupling rock and orchestra; clearly influenced by Balfe's MW2 score but with throwbacks to WaW)
Replay Value: 9/10 (Even if you get sick of online multiplayer, Zombies and Dead Ops Arcade will keep you coming back)

FINAL VERDICT: 87/100 - GREAT

(NOTE: final score is not an average)

CLOSING COMMENTS: It's nice to see a serious game tackling the Cold War. Vietnam, especially, is a sore point in American history -- while not a huge part of the game takes place there, Treyarch did a good job of (from what I've learned about the Vietnam War) making you feel badass (as a Spec Ops guy should) while making you feel vulnerable. They make you wonder if you're going to die when you turn that next corner... and as a gamer, it's great to be kept on the edge of your seat with intense action scenes.

This review can also be read on the Escapist.