Black Ops 3 campaign is the best campaign according to that one guy you knew at Community College who thinks Soundtrack of the Blind by Swans is a masterpiece because of its runtime. It’s not. It’s a social commentary that romanticizes a portrayal of a world so detached from empathy and meaning that humans are nothing more than mechanical beings who serve as iconography for a time when individuality mattered. It is a game that delivers its message so badly that serves as an accidental explanation for the title of the franchise.

Answer me this: What does Call of Duty’s title mean?

Does the title Call of Duty play on the people who were drafted to fight honorably when they were called for duty?

Or is Call of Duty a meta and social commentary on how governing bodies will enforce people to fight in conflicts as pawns in chess?

Maybe I’m reading too deep and Call of Duty is a reminder of what it means to be a cultural phenomenon.

Or it could literally just be that Call of Duty is a nice sounding title.

It also answers another very simple yes or no question as if it needs to recite a story as gripping as Romeo and Juliet. It asks you “Is war good or bad?” then makes you go through an acid trip of insulting and pretentious nothing statements for 8 hours to say “No, I think that war is bad.”

I’m glad it did answer what title Call of Duty means though. It means when it’s available to purchase, some 26 year old Taco Bell manager is going to put $100 on the preorder of the deluxe edition so he has a game to play when he puts his son to bed.

Rating: It’s asinine to assess this game like it’s even entertainment.
Genre(s): A frivolous reminder of how greed and success of a $60 video game can warp the integrity of an entire art form for an entire console generation.

NOTE: I played the Zombies and Der Eisendrache and Gorod Krovi, as well as the Chronicles remasters of most maps, are easily the best maps in Zombies history. But if I was ranking it on that alone, it still would only be a C because I hate it's multiplayer and despise its campaign.

NOTE 2: I beat the campaign again to see if I missed something and I didn't. There's nothing to it. It wants you to fall for its allusion of an ocean of metaphors but it is as basic as "War is bad" which any number of people can tell you with the same level of profoundness as this campaign, just without eight hours of time wasted. The map design fucking sucks, too. There is nothing to it. The game just fucking sucks except for Zombies which doesn't save the experience.

Black Ops 3 has a whole lot to offer. It's just that most of it is god awful.

Longest campaign with coop included! Sounds good but then you play it and its a pretentious confusing story that has good ideas but it feels like you need 3 wiki pages, one stupid long youtube video and 3 reddit posts open at the same time simply to understand what happens. It's not that its a deep and complex story but rather that the story telling is absolutely terrible and things just kinda happen without explanation, apparently there's like 2 different timelines going on at the same time in this game and I just tapped out and stopped trying to understand it a while ago.

The multiplayer expands on AW's mp and it is fun at times but the map design is once again too restrictive and boring for this type of advanced movement. The gunplay feels pretty generic and mediocre, a step down from AW's gunplay imo. Also loot boxes once again can be found in the game and all the DLC weapons are placed in them for some reason, why pay like 10$ for DLC weapons when you could pay 100$ for loot boxes for a chance to get them and not even get close to getting one!

There's like 3 zombie modes for some fucking reason. There's the normal 'zombies' mode which has ONE singular map with the rest being payed dlc, yeah go fuck yourself Activision. There's like a version of the campaign but with zombies and why the fuck would anyone want that? And there's that dead ops arcade thing from BO1 that's back and just as fine as before.

Besides that there's also a crappy freerun mode that feels slapped together and cheap.

Best thing that I can say is that I appreciate the fact this game has workshop support for steam ig. Still, terrible game imo.

Parapolitical, climate doomer, cyberpunk thriller disguised as a Call of Duty game. Treyarch presents gamers with their toughest challenge yet: Be able to read.

I think that there is an important discussion to have about how much of your plot, setting and world-building are supposed to be shown/told, but I won't bother with it right now. I'll only say that winks and nods towards a deeper, richer world in the actual game that you are playing are probably not actually enough to engage most people and this is a legitimate criticism.
BUT, if you are interested in what the campaign is about, there is a whole in-game wiki which explains the setting and backstory of the plot, factions, history and characters, its actually insane. Down to the caliber of each weapon in the game, what metal alloys the robots are made out of, which countries form part of the Winslow Accord (super NATO, basically) and the CDP (super BRICS, kind of) and even WHEN they were incorporated.
And that still is not the whole picture. The collectibles you find unlock extra lore which amounts to little more than flavor text, but I personally love stuff like that. You can tell that a LOT of effort went into the setting of this game. One collectible in particular that you find in one of the Egypt levels unlocks a wiki link that takes you to a fictional blog of an Egyptian soldier before the NRC invasion, which is crazy since you can only access it through the link in the collectible entry inside the data vault. The only explanation you are given about the importance of the place you visit is given two lines in a cutscene and they are basically: We need to find a guy here and people are fighting over water. That's it. The wiki gives some very welcome context and personality to the game. Another collectible gives you information regarding the implanted chips the main characters get: How they, in essence, allow full VR-like experiences down to extrasensory phenomena like melding memories, what the hallucinations that you see in the game might be and why they look so real to the main character. Again, nothing explained in depth during the main story, besides some allusions to things.

Why did they choose to hide so much of the game? I don't know the real answer, but I speculate that it was two things: The way that the community engaged with the Zombies game mode easter eggs and the fact that if a lot of the background writing was translated into gameplay it would have been easily three times bigger than it is, I'm talking RPG levels of size and something like that was likely way too ambitious for a Call of Duty campaign. They most likely expected a similar level of engagement with the story from players, but fans certainly made it known that this is not what they were looking for, unfortunately.
The campaign itself is perfectly fine at worst, I genuinely do not understand the hate it got. Most COD campaigns (I would argue a lot of FPS games) are trite! At least here they designed more open levels and you can progress your character by unlocking stuff for your loadouts like in the multiplayer mode which makes it immediately more interesting than previous campaigns since there are now abilities and perks tailored to aggressive, passive or movement heavy playstyles. Cloaks, boosters, charge attacks, multi-target stuns, anti-robot abilities, possession mechanics(!), gear suited for robot or humans enemies. Tons of ways to play. Also, a scoring system and challenges are in there if you like replaying levels that way as well.
From the amount of hate the campaign got one would think that it was completely broken or unfinished or something, but it totally is the opposite of that. The other COD games only really stand out by having big set-pieces or very scripted, linear missions which are fine and what the majority of fans want, I suppose, but none of those stuck with me more than this game. Finding out that the game is basically about a second cold war with a bipolar world created by actual conflict and tensions around today was so fascinating to me, no other COD game even tries something like this one.

This game makes me a bit sad knowing how much talent and creativity they had at Treyarch at the time and how they are relegated to making Call of Duty games seemingly forever. They clearly wanted to do more, but we can only imagine what could have been if their situation was different.
Oh and by the way, this was easily the best "jetpack era" Call of Duty muliplayer mode.

The only Call of Duty that I have played that I consider to be genuinely great. It has its issues but it does so much right and it does it damn well. To get the two elephants out of the room, the monetization sucks. It's not the worst that I've ever seen, which says a lot about the industry, but still pretty bad. The other elephant is the campaign, it's very not good. It's stupid and barely makes sense, it is fun on co-op if you have no interest in the narrative. These are two pretty gnarly blemishes on a pretty decent game. However, I do feel the good greatly outweighs the bad in this package.

Multiplayer, at least at the time the game was being actively supported, is really good. Call of Duty introducing a Sci-fi setting and exosuits never bothered me, I'd even go as far as to say that I liked it. When you were tethered to the ground in Call of Duty, most gunfights are pretty straight forward, pull the trigger faster than your opponent. Of course that's an oversimplification but Call of Duty never really had any crazy level of depth or expression. This is remedied in Black Ops III with the exosuit. You can do more than just strafe left and right, there's a whole new dimension added in each gunfight. At the end of the day, it's still just point and shoot but the exosuit allows you to maneuver in a way to trip up opponents that you simply couldn't do before when you were stuck to the ground.

To reiterate, that was a review of the multiplayer back in its heyday on console. I assume the servers are filled with sweats and/or hackers these days. I'm also aware that playing public multiplayer on pc is a genuine risk to your computer and everything on it. Hackers can execute code that gives them access to your computer. If you wanted to play public matches I'd say stick to consoles.

Now onto the best part, Zombies. Zombies is an absolute blast to play with friends. You can feel the passion oozing out of these maps, some of the best in the series, (unfortunately all but one are locked behind DLC). The storyline did get rather convoluted and frankly stupid but honestly who cares. You have to go out of your way to piece together the story, I just enjoy the wacky hijinks that the cast of characters get up to. Some of my best memories as a teen come from attempting high rounds and failing easter eggs. My favorite moment being finally completing Der Eisendrache's easter egg, albeit with abusing a glitch involving the Dead Man Walking Gobblegum.

Call of Duty: Black Ops III is by no means a perfect game but one that does so many things right and created so many good memories that I simply do not feel that its drawbacks hold much weight.

the death of call of duty. a game where the player themself is fully subsumed, fed into a never-ending loop of simulated war. the only way out is to let go, stop playing. walk away. but if you choose to play, your psyche is trapped.

it's kind of the perfect answer to Spec Ops: the Line. Except not nearly as preachy about its messaging. Maybe because here the metatextual is even more incestiously about the very nature of the series itself. not neceassily video games but just Call of Duty; how it will never end and just keeping going on and on, from its roots as a WWII game, feeding the player a narrative about courage and and bravery all that bullshit. it views WWII as the original sin of the franchise, that inevitably cannibalises itself, twisting and transforming into a frankestein'd monster of various online game modes; zombies; stories about confusing US interventionism; future warfare about drones and robots. you're not even playing war any more. you've transcended beyond history and you're literally shooting AI bots. by Black Ops 4, you don't even need story. only multiplayer and zombies; endless war. the way the single player in this has a scorecard and stats not unlike the multiplayer further blurs the line between game and reality. you're just a clog in the machine.

fun game.

My three stars is an average review for all three modes in the game, but I'd like to cover each one individually.

For starters, I'd give the campaign a 1.5/5. The only thing I really enjoyed about it was the core gunplay of BO3. The levels were too long, the story was too convoluted and uninteresting, the encounters weren't fun. I wouldn't recommend this campaign at all.

My memory of the multiplayer is a bit hazy since I played it years ago, but I'd give it a 3.5/5 if it's accurate. The core gameplay of BO3 is so satisfying and Call of Duty games have such an addictive gameplay loop when it comes to leveling weapons up and getting new attachments/camos. In the modern times however, it doesn't seem very feasible to play multiplayer on PC due to the excessive amount of hackers so I guess my review of it's current state is 'don't play it'.

I would say zombies is as good as both of the last modes added together. The sheer amount of maps in the base game is fantastic and they all feel unique and fresh. The biggest plus for the game is its modding community however, as you have access to endless amounts of custom maps and modifications for the game. Don't like the weapons in the normal maps? Just install a mod to put in ones from other CoD games. Need something fresh to play? Go to the workshop and browse the top maps from whatever period you want. I wholeheartedly would recommend getting BO3 just for the zombies alone since you'll have near endless amounts of hours of content with it.

Now you might look at this score and think I’m on crack, the only reason it’s this high is because this is single handedly the best zombies experience on any COD game hands down. I do not care about multiplayer or Campaign. The zombies mode is honestly too good, you have DE, Gorod, SOE, Origins, all in one game. Not to mention you also have customs so even if you miss idk mob of the dead? You can play it. That’s not even to mention the other maps, ZNS is a flawed but extremely good map, the BO1 and WAW maps are also extremely helpful for beginner, there is literally something for everyone in this game when it comes to zombies. Just perfect

“Do you have any idea just how much technology has changed every single aspect of our daily lives? You can’t begin to imagine the… countless strains of research and development we had to watch over for the betterment and safety of the Human Race. Every new gimmick and gadget that was embraced by the public, each one presented new ways for our enemies to compromise our security. Society doesn’t just happen. The people need to be protected. If the only way to prevent future attacks is to monitor the thoughts and desires of the population, then the choice is obvious. We need to know who are enemies are and what they are planning! That how we save lives!” – by Elon Musk do Black Ops III

Por mais que a trilogia Black Ops (fodase o 4) seja estupidamente problemática, desde enaltecer um imaginário social pró exército estadunidense sobre eventos conturbados - como os do Vietnã e do Panamá – até a literalmente uma fodenda defesa ao sistema capitalista, Black Ops ainda tem os seus méritos que tornam a trilogia tão sensacional (e foda).

Os tempos mudam, da mesma maneira que as pessoas também se transformam, e do mesmo modo que a tecnologia se modifica, se enraíza, e se consolida. Em todos os jogos da série Black Ops (novamente fodase o 4) há essa leve reflexão sobre como a tecnologia muda com o passar do tempo; sobre como que a medida em que a tecnologia se modifica novos conflitos surgem; sobre como o armamento bélico cada vez mais se torna visceral e brutal nos conflitos contemporâneos. Essa leve reflexão é algo intrínseco à base do Black Ops. No primeiro jogo assistimos a ameaça de uma arma química, enquanto no segundo presenciamos um ciberataque em larga escala nas principais potencias mundiais.

A tecnologia muda
As armas mudam
E os conflitos mudam

E isso é bem visível no ritmo e nas gimmicks de cada jogo. No primeiro Black Ops temos ferramentas como um Lança granadas embutido nos fuzis de assalto, bestas com virotes explosivos, escopetas com munição incendiária, uma missão onde controlamos via aérea um esquadrão, o fodendo projeto de lavagem cerebral MK Ultra, etc. E no Black Ops II a situação muda: miras que rastreiam inimigos, dispositivos de invisibilidade, um lançador de granadas de pulso, e drones, muitos drones. Tanto os conflitos quanto o ritmo de ambos jogos são absurdamente diferentes por causa de tais ferramentas bélicas. Black ops II é muito mais dinâmico que o primeiro jogo, e tem muito mais gimmicks por conta da presença dos drones. O fato que podemos controlar os drones, bem como o uso de granadas eletromagnéticas EMP para atordoa-los, mostra como os conflitos do segundo jogo são diferentes do primeiro.

E Black Ops III vai muito mais além no periférico.

Transumanismo; corpo como uma carcaça metálica para a máquina bélica que a mente humana é. Em Black Ops III nós somos a arma. A mente é muito mais do que a consciência em si, é uma arma de guerra capaz de manipular o campo, e dilacerar os inimigos em sua frente. Esse dilema entre a máquina e o homem é o cerne de Black Ops III. O conflito agora é muito mais desumano. A facilidade que é enfrentar outros soldados; a fantasia de poder que é incendiá-los; A velocidade que é instantânea.

“The Botched assault meant it took six hours for the ZSF to get that information. Outcome? Train go boom. Took you just six minutes.” - Taylor durante a simulação.

E a única coisa que compete com a nossa força é a própria máquina.

Essa agressividade; essa visceralidade; essa brutalidade é o que a gameplay de Black Ops III é. Muito mais pé no chão que os outros jogos, Black Ops III impõe um novo conflito e um novo ritmo. Um jogo muito mais violento e dinâmico. E do mesmo modo novas ameaças surgem, que no caso é a própria mente humana. A Rabbit Hole que Black Ops III consegue ser por conta disso é insana. Quem somos nós? Somos nós mesmos ou somos outra pessoa? Isso é real ou não? São questionamentos que a bizarrice do Black Ops III traz ao jogador sob a forma de uma história totalmente incoerente. Isso é tão similar ao que o primeiro Black Ops aborda com o MK Ultra, mas de uma forma muito mais isotérica, deixando ao jogador um forte sentimento desorientador ao final.

Black Ops III é, para além de uma fantasia de poder, uma tremenda Rabbit Hole.

E esses aspectos é o que tornam Black Ops III tão singular como COD. A experimentação e a criatividade é algo que permeia a série Black Ops comparado aos outros jogos da série COD, mas que no terceiro título assume uma forma insana e isotérica. Mesmo ele sendo um jogo mais chato e maçante que os anteriores, Black Ops III ainda consegue ser um COD tão único, e que consegue fechar uma trilogia tão problemática (fodase o 4).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnJM_jC7j_4