WTF "SAME AS LAST YEAR" brand? Riptide gets the medal, but CoD, the king of Copy and Paste, didn't receive it.
Call of Duty: Black Ops II Review
By
Chris Watters, Editor
A sinister villain, some tough choices, and a new kind of multiplayer arena invigorate the reliably intense action in Call of Duty: Black Ops II.
When you first enter league play, you must play a few rounds so that Black Ops II can calculate your skill level. Then, you are placed in a division, and your subsequent league play games pit you against players who are roughly your skill level (your numbered rank is not displayed). You can rise and fall in the league standings, and at certain intervals, leagues will be recalculated to allow players to move up to the bigs or get busted down to the minors. Whether you relish running with the wolves or are tired of getting trampled, the quality of play increases when players are better matched.
League play also represents a significant change in competitive play because everything is unlocked from the start. This kind of freedom was previously relegated to the small ponds of custom games, but now there's an ocean of players who have all chosen from the same available options when they enter a match. This levels the playing field and lets you leverage the full power of the Black Ops II arsenal right from the start, which is great news for players tired of having their options restricted. However, this also means that you don't gain experience in the way you may be used to; the only XP you get from league play is a nominal reward at the end of a match. Without the ever-present possibility of completing challenges, unlocking new gear, and leveling up, league play feels detached from modern Call of Duty tradition. It's a strange sensation, but it feels liberating, allowing you to focus on the action at hand without the temptation to play in certain ways to target certain rewards. League play has the potential to shift the way that people play the game they've been enjoying for years, and that's an exciting prospect.
There are also some new sharing tools aimed at making the multiplayer experience more social and more extroverted. You can link your PlayStation 3 to your YouTube account and live stream your league play matches, but after trying on multiple systems in multiple locations we were unable to broadcast a single successful stream. The first barrier is the audience; you must have at least 10 viewers on your stream before it will go live. The game gives you a link to share and leaves you to recruit a crowd. The second, more substantial barrier is technical. The systems we tried crashed numerous times during loading screens (a problem we did not encounter in regular play), and the few times we managed to play a match and gather the necessary viewers, the viewer number abruptly fell to zero and the stream failed to start. This novel feature is currently non-functional, so your best sharing bet is still theater mode. There, you can watch your previous matches, edit highlight clips (or let the game take a shot at it for you), grab screenshots, and upload media to share with those on your friends list and the community at large.
Another new feature, so-called "codcasting," aims to introduce a new player type to the Call of Duty scene. By queuing up a game film and selecting this feature, you can watch the match with a suite of tools that let you highlight the action. You can track different players, watch certain areas with a free-roaming camera, and even use a picture-in-picture mode to see the standings and the action side by side. Though this has the potential to allow players to generate some dynamic, entertaining play-by-play videos, its current manifestation is very limited. You can only codcast saved films of games you have played in, and with no streaming option currently active, your only potential audience is the five other players you could invite in to your lobby. Future updates to this feature could make it more useful, but as of now it just feels like a shell of what it could be.
Black Ops II also heralds the return of zombies mode. Now in its third incarnation, this cooperative survival mode is still frantic, challenging, and home to some weird humor. But though some of the new missions play with the formula by adding a bus to catch or a competing team to watch out for, the core action has grown stale. Shooting the bullet-sponge zombies lacks the satisfying immediacy that Call of Duty thrives on, and dealing with their lurching, single-minded attacks grows dull even as they get faster and more numerous. The new maps feature veins of fire that flare up when you cross them and obscure your vision, adding more visual sludge to the already murky environments. Perhaps the fire is intended as some kind of platforming challenge--jumping frequently seems to be the best way to avoid it--but hopping around doesn't make the environments any less ugly or the enemies any less boring.
Though zombies mode is stagnating and the novel new social features are a flop, the rest of Black Ops II is lively and entertaining, and it's great to see some shifting in the familiar structure. Developer Treyarch's storytelling prowess has once again resulted in an engaging, exciting campaign, and the addition of league play to the online multiplayer arena is an intriguing change that could reinvigorate the formula that has endured for so long. By reaching forward while remaining rooted in the things it does so well, Black Ops II offers a great shooter experience.
By
Chris Watters, Editor
With his Apple IIGS as the spark and his neighbor's NES the fuel, Chris Watters' passion for gaming caught fire early. Years later, you can find him aiming down virtual sights, traipsing through fantastical lands, and striving to be grossly incandescent while desperately avoiding sunburns.
58 comments
Good story, poor that al those kids are whining and bitching in every multipayer match that someone is a hacker while its just a player who is better then the bitching kid. I just like to play normal match with poeple that dont yell and bitch all the time and just playing a good match. Due the fact that i hate fanboys cuz their the ones who are bitching most of the time. But yeah i like battlefield games to and other games such as amnesia and fear and those kinda games. BO2 is just another cod game with just a good story, the multiplayer is rather fun unless people are bitching and the fun is also gone due the crappy lagg compensation, still its a enjoyable game.
1 Like I dont hate CoD.I hate the fanboys,haters and flamewars surounding the franchise.
1 Like Well I see why it got an 8, well its just a multiplayer online that's about it. I have not even touch the main story of the game yet. I only play online, but I got to say this game gets you really angry and fast!!
2 Like "Sinister Villain?" only sinister Villain is the puppet George Bush sr., Ronald Reagan, Hillary Cunton, the CIA, and the Contras who raped and killed Menendez people. After seeing what happens to the Villain in this game, you really start to feel for him. This game teaches us that terrorists don't just SNAP for no reason or because they are jealous of our freedom, they SNAP usually as a result of blowback from all of the US governments policing and terrorizing of the world.
@uhlv Black Ops 1 has a better campaign and better feel. the multiplayer and Zombies are also better in BO1.
Honestly from my own opinion, the BO2 gameplay and the visual effects are much better than MW3 however I think the stories on BO2 aren't better than MW3 but overall I think the BO2 campaign is good enough especially for those who never played any previous CoD games. Things that I really dissapointed in BO2 is the multiplayer because the MW3 multiplayer is still much better than the BO2. Okay there are a lot of new weapons variaties and new maps also in BO2, I admit that. But I didn't get the excitement and the joy from BO2 Multiplayer and definetly the MW3 multiplayer is better.
if someone wants a hack in bo2 multiplayer of 11 prestige and im not lying and if u just think that im lying u can see my prestige its 11 prestige and add me in ps3 onlinefire and send me a message in ps3 that u want 11 prestige hack
@obey21 I thought it was the weakest COD campaign yet. the hitmarkers that show up as an X every time you shoot an enemy was really distracting and made the campaign feel less immersive. Throughout the campaign, controller was constantly ripped from my hand where I was forced to watch annoying cut-scenes, when I could of been interacting myself. this game has more scripted scenes than any COD to date. overall this was the worst COD campaign yet.
@Dredcrumb9 @obey21 sure all of those things are a bit annoying at times, i should of been more specific when i meant 'campaign'. i actually mean how well developed the story is, not the gameplay.
1 Like This Game SUCKS!!...
I Bought the first BO aftre playing MW and i am telling u guys i broke the game cd after 4 days!!...
Tryark are peice of crap!!
After i spent my money on this rubbish BO2 i promiised my self i never buy any of there game any more!!,
and i didnt!!
i didnt buy the BO2 and N im sooooo happy...
MP are sooo bad, te engine of the game sucks, even the single player is not so good for the single game i have better games such as far cry3!
bottem line...
waiting to the Next MW!!!!!!
1 Like Worst COD campaign ever, each level feels like 5 minutes worth of gameplay. To make the campaign worse we have Resistance fall Of man style hitmarkers in the campaign that really took away from the immersive feeling of past COD campaigns. Please release a patch for those of us who don't wish to see an X hitmarker show up every time you make a hit. treyarch's beautiful, signature graphic violence is enough to know I hit an enemy, seeing an X show up on the screen is distracting. Leave visible hitmarkers for multiplayer or easy difficulty only.
@1337hackz must of never played a good FPS campaign if you think this campaign is great. Play Halflife 1 and 2, Goldneye 64, and Perfect Dark 64, and FEAR campaigns, than tell me this campaign is great for a FPS campaign. Black Ops 1 and W@W campaigns were good(for being cod), but this campaign is a step down. The visible X looking hitmarkers that show up for each hit, cheapened the campaign and took away the immersion. Each level is 2 mins of gameplay and the rest is cutscenes that rip the control form your hands every minute, this campaign was not great, it sucked.
@Dredcrumb9 @W I've played those I've played those campaigns I just liked this game it's fun. Every mission felt fresh and original, it wasn't just go to this area and shoot these bad guys like it usually is.
1 Like @alexmason132222 it deserves less than this. Black Ops 1 was great, this sequel was supposed to be better not worse.
hahah good, i hope they go bust, BF4 will kill any shoting game, i mean BF3 turned me right of MW, i hate the fanchise, MW is for little boys while BF is for men and skilled players.
1 Like @khaos_6 BF3 isn't that good....people who act like the best FPS is either COD or BF are just as idiotic as Americans who believe Obama and Romney are different kinds of politicians. BF and Cod are equally shit.
3 Like Black Ops 2:
The good: A great and touching single player with a fantastic story - The action is bloody and extremely fun in singleplayer
The bad: The multiplayer is not fun at all, and It's not changed - Zombies is a total disappointment - The graphics engine is pretty dated - A dull sequel
Final Verdict: 5.5
Black Ops 2 is a disappointment with a dull MP and a sluggish "Zombies", but with a fantastic singleplayer.
1 Like @ElectronReviews the campaign sucks, I never thought i would say this, but MW2 and MW3 have better campaigns than this. And I am one who loved Black ops 1 and W@W more than any MW title. Each level in Black ops 2 is like 5 minutes worth of gameplay, even on veteran it's super easy. the resistance styled hitmarkers that show up as an X makes the campaign feel very cheap and less immersive than previous COD campaigns, so it no longer has that cool cinematic feel. What was touching about this campaign? I found the characters to be shallow and hard to care about. Menendez and Woods are the only decent characters in the game but even they feel superficial.
Wayyyyy better than MW3, story is great, seeing the multiple endings make the campaign worth playing, customizing your loadout is gawd's gift to CoD, Zombies and multiplayer is still fun to play, specially with friends, anyone who says this is the same as last year us lying.
4 Like This game is a waste of money! The only reason I decided to get it was to have some MP matches with and against my friends. I hadn't played a first person shooter for a while so in an attempt to get back to my previous level of skill I played through the campaign. The campaign is such an incoherent mess and even on the hardest setting a walk in the park. The main character David, has no character, he's an incredibly shallow person, no depth, not a thing is interesting about him. At times playing mission from the POV of other characters, like Alex Mason and Frank Woods is nice break from David.
The story itself is so f*cking ridiculous and uninspired and the whole time I was thinking the original Black Ops had a decent story to it, this is just garbage, if that. And then you get to the end, anti-climactic to the extreme, disappointing as hell and taking down the bad guy to end the game felt like such a cheap finish, I kinda felt like turning the game off and breaking the disc in half. Hell the "music video" at the end is probably the best part of the game.
And then there's the MP. It's a mess from start to finish. The menus are a pain in the ass, no overview whatsoever, finally do get the option to turn off aim assist, thank god for that, it screws up my shots more often than it helps, but the MP is even worse than it was in the original Black Ops. MW3 is a masterpiece compared to the level of crap BO2 is.
@NegasBlack I agree Black ops 2 had a horrible campaign and on Veteran it was extremely easy. I never thought Treyarch would make a game worse than IW but BO2 is worse than MW3, and I hated MW3. The hitmarkers that show up as an X each time you make a hit, took away from the immersion of the story and forces you to look at a stupid X every time you shoot somebody instead of seeing treyarch's beautiful blood and gore death animations. This game was an insult to me as a big fan of Black Ops 1 and W@W. This game was made for Non gamers.
1 Like I knew that will happen to new series of BO2 Lolz, cuz they can't beat EA yeaaaaaaaah
1 Like I bought Black Ops II on day one, and I fail to see changes other than a campaign with choices, maps, guns, and the Pick 10 system. I also don't buy CoD for zombies. I came here expecting to see the "Same As Last Year" demerit, but am curious as to whether GS thought the changes were big enough to omit it.
3 Like I'd give it a 6 if lucky, lack of support, MP broken on release, PS3 users fucked over again, Never buying a COD game again. Back to BF3 i go
1 Like you probably say that every year lol, I said that after the abomination mw3 was but with games being so cheap these days I decided to give black ops 2 a go and so far it is pretty good. MP runs smoothly, campaign is good, the graphics look nice not as bland as past games ( except mw2 which was the best looking COD title so far) and the balance is a lot better in this game and finally a cod game without last stand.
1 Like Just finished the story mode (took less than a day). Overall, I like the new RPG elements approach - making choices that drive the story. I wish there were a little more clarify about the choices though - it's very unclear how some of them are tied to the other, and it's not clear when you make a story choice as opposed to just making a meaningless choice. Still - this boosts the SP replay value quite a bit. Good job, Treyarch!
@siarhei RPG elements aproach? i beat the game 3 times and found no such thing. This was the worst COD campaign ever. Black ops 1 is still better.
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Game Emblems
The Good
Black Ops II may very well be the biggest embarrassment to the franchise, with terrible visuals and re-used gameplay.
Call of Duty: Black Ops II
Not Following
- Publisher(s): Activision
- Developer(s): Treyarch
- Genre: Action
- Release:
- PEGI: 18+
Call of Duty: Black Ops II Navigation
