Gigantic budget shooty game is two parts "Yeah, that's what I expected" and one part "Wait, did I just play a Far Cry story?"
First, let's just get this part out of the way: Yes, there is a multiplayer and zombies mode for this version of Black Ops. They are exactly what you'd expect. Mutliplayer is some war games with some other people of mixed ability, zombies is bunches of zombies until you die, either solo or also with other people. The multiplayer is iterative improvements over, what, decades, of ruling the genre. It is very familiar and easy to jump into if you've played any of the Call of Dutys. It's honestly fun, but kind of repetitive. The zombies games are kind of whatever, some people like them, I guess.
The campaign mode is what I'm into these days and this particular version was interesting and also kind of weird and dumb? You start the campaign by instantly realizing that probably a bajillion dollars and hours went into creating the assets and levels for this game. Super detailed environments and yet nothing really seems there just to be there, it all has a purpose and place in the world. Anyways, what you've got here is an espionage story during the 80's and I'll say I fully expected the corporate giant that made this to lean into the myth of American exceptionalism. However, it was only 60% about America being the great good in the world and everyone else being evil and the rest was kind of a weird story about double crossing or maybe not double crossing and... mind control? Also nukes, since... cold war, and all. There was definitely a Far Cry feel to the story with lots of flashbacks and induced memory hallucinations or whatever. I didn't feel motivated to deal with too many of the side quests, but it seemed you actually had to read some of the random scraps of data yourself to get into the weeds with this one? I zoomed past the weeds and through the main story and thought it was dumb at times, but a decent enough bit of entertainment.
Will I play it again and get some of the secrets? Or spend more than the hour or so I already did in multiplayer or zombies?
No. No, I won't. Besides, there'll be another one coming out soon enough, I'm sure!
Review from thedonproject.com
First, let's just get this part out of the way: Yes, there is a multiplayer and zombies mode for this version of Black Ops. They are exactly what you'd expect. Mutliplayer is some war games with some other people of mixed ability, zombies is bunches of zombies until you die, either solo or also with other people. The multiplayer is iterative improvements over, what, decades, of ruling the genre. It is very familiar and easy to jump into if you've played any of the Call of Dutys. It's honestly fun, but kind of repetitive. The zombies games are kind of whatever, some people like them, I guess.
The campaign mode is what I'm into these days and this particular version was interesting and also kind of weird and dumb? You start the campaign by instantly realizing that probably a bajillion dollars and hours went into creating the assets and levels for this game. Super detailed environments and yet nothing really seems there just to be there, it all has a purpose and place in the world. Anyways, what you've got here is an espionage story during the 80's and I'll say I fully expected the corporate giant that made this to lean into the myth of American exceptionalism. However, it was only 60% about America being the great good in the world and everyone else being evil and the rest was kind of a weird story about double crossing or maybe not double crossing and... mind control? Also nukes, since... cold war, and all. There was definitely a Far Cry feel to the story with lots of flashbacks and induced memory hallucinations or whatever. I didn't feel motivated to deal with too many of the side quests, but it seemed you actually had to read some of the random scraps of data yourself to get into the weeds with this one? I zoomed past the weeds and through the main story and thought it was dumb at times, but a decent enough bit of entertainment.
Will I play it again and get some of the secrets? Or spend more than the hour or so I already did in multiplayer or zombies?
No. No, I won't. Besides, there'll be another one coming out soon enough, I'm sure!
Review from thedonproject.com