Call of Duty: Black Ops 2

[Sir Hilary Bray]

Churn baby churn.

[DPrinny]

No comment

[Freestyler]

I'm not trying to troll in any way (and please, I'm being absolutely honest here) EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU has already decided whether you'll be buying this or not, REGARDLESS of what they reveal. Or whether they reveal anything at all.

The CoD franchise has become such a massive zerg machine that even if the game is absolutely outrageously bad it'll still sell 20-30 million copies. That's not to say it will be, but there's no real motivation to be innovative if it's not really going to bring in extra customers. Bunging a few extra weapons and a couple maps (along with a "new" gameplay conceit) will be more than enough. Guaranteed seller.

Who buys CoD strictly for single player anyway? 4 hours for £60? Even 3D Cinema isn't that expensive!

[HalcyonDaze00]

well if they revealed there was no multiplayer I wouldnt be buying

[samhain81]

ZOMG!!!! A new Call of Duty is out in the month of November! Alert the press!!!

[Freestyler]

To be honest, even though I detest the "CoD mentality" these games bring I can certainly see the logic in them. I forget who it was, but someone here said they've chalked up over a thousand hours on one of the titles. A thousand hours!

No two ways about it; that level of enjoyment for what amounts to a forty or fifty quid purchase is exceptional value. Exceptional. Here's me thinking a 100hr title is worth it! For all it's faults (Haters because it's so successful, Fanboi's, rampant cheating and CoD mentality) it still represents a significant step forward for gaming as a whole.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go wash my mouth out with soap and water.

[The Angry Jock]

I've yet to complete a Treyarch COD, I just lose the will to live after a couple of hours. IMO the SP is nowhere near as good as MW.

I'll probably still pick it up at some point, I won't be going online with it though, I gave up on that with Black Ops.

[thl]

Black Ops isn't that bug ridden. The online is smooth (and has been for a long time - spawning issues are not a problem now) and was a vast improvement over MW2's floaty feel. Before Black Ops I would of agreed with you that the treyarch games were vastly inferior (In fact Black Ops was the only Cod game i've not bought a special edition for because I was expecting nothing after WaW), but Treyarch made a much better online game than MW2 was. For one thing they remembered to put the fun in the game (something MW3 seemed to forget), and as a multiplayer game it feels like an up to date version of Quake 3/UT mixed with the original COD. In fact, it's the closest any of the COD games has got since 4, to the original game's multiplayer.

I didn't came across that much bugs on the Xbox 360 version as it plays fine. Compare it to the PS3 version which can be laggy and it does seemed to put the enjoyment on the halt.

Originally I was unsure on how Treyarch approach this franchise as it's mainly pass on to Infinity Ward. Yes I understood how disappointed everyone was with Call of Duty 3 probably due to time constraints, meaning that it still looked incomplete. When Call of Duty: World at War arrived, there was some sense of potential going on there. Although there's mass improvements made to the concepts, I thought it was really good. The multiplayer may feel very different to Call of Duty 4 and it does delivered at that standard. Despite everyone are not too keen about the World War settings, it's likely that it'll get ignored and does seem very overlooked nowadays.

As for Call of Duty: Black Ops, I thought Treyarch done a great job with this one. It stuck to the route that Call of Duty 4 had, in which the gameplay felt very balance and does brings some depth to it. The removal of the stopping power perk was a clever move as it proved to be an advantage found in previous CoD games. Plus the addition of the contracts seemed to help prolong the lifespan too, which can be very challenging afterall. I doubt I reach 15th prestige as you never know where you go from there.

MW3 was, and is, a mess. The loadout system was a mess, the maps are awful mazes and it felt like running through treacle. BO was everything a COD game should be, MW3 was awful.

I thought it was a big improvement to Modern Warfare 2. I find the the profiencies and attachments very interesting as there're so much to choose from when customising the weapons. Really liked the Specialist package too, which comes in useful as I'm usually the lone wolf during the multiplayer.

As for the maps it does take some time to get use to, especially when there's so many narrow paths and can get confusing. Didn't had any problems with the compact structure of Dome and Arkaden, which get picked very often. Very impressed with Interchange too. Plus I discovered some maps might have been reworked from Call of Duty 4, notably Bakaara (e.g. Crash) and Fallen (e.g. Overgrown).

[James A]

Confirmed as a near future setting. First trailer out tonight in America during one of the footy games.

So roughly translated as Treyarch have reskinned MW3 and probably ballsed it up in the process.

[crusto]

Confirmed as a near future setting. First trailer out tonight in America during one of the footy games.

So roughly translated as Treyarch have reskinned MW3 and probably ballsed it up in the process.

Ha ha, I like that. Ive always thought that Treyarchs flavour of Cod is inferior. I havent enjoyed any of their releases, black ops graced my 360 for less than a day before it was taken back.

[HalcyonDaze00]

I wasn't keen on World At War, but Black Ops online is awesome.

MW2 was great but too easy to abuse with some of the game breaking perk combos (MLC), and as the months went past the onlines games just became crazy noob tube battles and everybody trying to play like Sandy Ravage.
Its a brilliant game and its probably a case of blaming the players rather than blaming the game. Lets not forget it was plagued by the god awful boosting scum bags who would ruin games just to boost their stats.

I think the big difference is that the community support for Black Ops was stunning -hackers, cheats, glitchers and boosters, as well as racist scum bags, could be recorded, reported and removed. The support for MW2 was non existent.

MW3 was good with some superb additions (kill confirmed, specialist perk set up) but it was made a little too easy for poor players and although there are some good maps (interchange) its not as balanced as Black Ops.

[James A]

Future setting so ill go on a limb here and say it'll be the Russians who are the enemy again

Looking forward a year though it'll be interesting to see what Infinty Ward will do, All the rumours pointed at them doing a future one after MW3.

Thinking about it though the series really is running or has run out of gas.

[Hitman_HalStep]

i really hated world at war,i think i reached level 20 and never played again,black ops is the best COD multyplayer to date but only after they patched the crap out of it,the most balanced and enjoyable version though i still think the first MW had the best maps.as for MW3 i was enjoying it until i encountered my first spawn campers and then again on a different map which has completely ruined the experience for me.
i stopped buying the map packs after the first one for black ops,it's just too overpriced for me,as things stand i won't be buying another.

[RetroMartin]

I never encountered many if any bugs at all in any COD since Modern Warfare and I played them a lot (got to max level and prestiged at least once on all but COD4.) I buy the games for the single player which as I like cinematic experiences, I quite enjoy.

Black Ops itself I felt had a fantastic single player with lots of cool set pieces. I will of course get Black Ops 2 as previously mentioned, as I'm sure it will be fun, however I'm not to sure about the setting.....would have loved to continue with the Cold War setting (the actual cold war not this "cold war 2") however we shall see.

[Joey]

I still regularly play Modern Warfare and World at War as they are by far the best of the series. Great maps, no gimmicks and everyone has the same 3,5 and 7 streaks, brilliant!

I really disliked MW2 due to the over emphasis on kill streaks, constant boosting abuse and stuff like the care package and javelin glitches and hacked lobbies that ruined the game at the time. Not even the Treyarch games have had so much trouble as this.

Black Ops was a return to form with a good online balance and fun game modes.

MW3 is ok though I feel the maps are too over engineerd and don't flow as well as previous games, still a massive inprovemt generally over MW2.

So yes I am looking forward to BO2, they know how to make a good online shooter!