Difficulty:

Easy

Time Spent:

20 to 40 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Ambitious"

Call of Duty has been criticized for lack of innovation over the past few years. Each year the game smashes it's own records but the contingent of people who dislike the game keep on growing. Black Ops 2 is probably the most ambitious COD title in recent years. It tries to explore and ventures into different paths, unknown to the series.

We'll start off with the campaign. It's the same old COD with top-class action set pieces, interesting characters, A-level shooting mechanics and for once an okay story But one of the biggest changes in BO2 are the strike force missions. here, there is no main character. The player controls a team of soldiers, drones etc. and is given a set of objectives to complete.The interesting twist here is that ,if the player fails to complete certain objectives then the outcome of the entire story changes. This adds a huge amount of replay-ability to the game. Plus you have the option to select weapons and equipment before each mission which is also a nice touch. But these thrills are now getting old and after playing for an hour, the excitement starts to wear off.

Next we'll move onto the graphics and sound. Black ops 2, to the disappointment of alot of people, still runs on the 6-7 year old engine. PC still makes it look pretty(pretty is still an understatement) but on consoles the graphics are simply pathetic. The sounds are well done, the voice acting is solid and the sounds of gun shots etc. are all above par.

One of the best things about BO2 is the game world. All the futuristic weapons, attachments and equipment add a sense of excitement to both the single and mulitplayer of the game. scopes that can detect enemies or the various drone types in the game are a few examples. Activision has done a really good job of creating a disturbing image of the future and this game world might be second to only the World war 3 scenario from the last game.

Now onto something everybody loves(or hates) about COD. THE MULITPLAYER! Maps are still small even smaller than the last few games which is a real disappointment. The new guns are a load of fun to use and all the old perks are still present But personally for me the new unlock system is huge disappointment, as you level up you gain unlock "tokens" which can unlock either a gun,perk,lethal or tac grenade or a wildcard. Why is this bad, you ask? well in BO2 you level up much faster than previous games and you rack up unlock tokens pretty fast. For me this takes away the sense of achievement you got when you bought guns in BO1 with your hard-earned COD points. The lack of game modes is another problem, "Hardpoint" is the only new game mode and is just another variation of "domination" but is still pretty much fun. The most interesting new feature in BO2 multi is "League Play". Here you are paired against players of the same skill level and you compete in matches to get placed into leaderboards, in league play everything is unlocked and so the battlefield is balanced. It is a very interesting new direction. There is also another interesting feature in BO2 called "wildcards", wildcards a re basically extra perks, there are many types. some let you add another perk from tier 1, and one lets you replace your pistol with an SMG or special weapon But you must sacrifice something to include a wildcard cuz you can only hold 10 items in one class. So you may have to take out an attachment or your lethal grenade to include the wildcards.

I would love to write about zombies but i haven't played it yet, unfortunately.

All in all, it's not a perfect COD in anyway but it is the most ambitious COD in recent years, it's encouraging to see Activion try something new with COD and maybe, just maybe, the future isn't black for the series.