It has been more than a week since the latest Call of Duty was released by Treyarch. Although many expected that without Infinity Ward behind it there would not be a great impact, the case has been totally different, since it has broken all sales forecasts.
With 5.6 million copies sold in the USA and the United Kingdom, revenues of more than 360 Million dollars have been generated (Remember that Modern Warfare 2 sold 4.7 million last year, and became the best-selling video game in history on the day of its launch).
But are we in the case of an outstanding product? Or is the latest Call of Duty a total failure? I’ve been playing it since the day it was released, giving it a lot of effort, and I’m going to try to convey what I felt when playing it.
Story Mode
El juego nos pone en la piel del capitán Alex Mason en plena Guerra Fría, con la Unión Soviética y Estados Unidos en plena lucha armamentística. No es precisamente el personaje que más me ha gustado del juego y lo noto un poco falto de carisma, sobre todo para ser un protagonista.
The beginning (somewhat confusing) places us in 1968. We find ourselves in a room completely immobilized and we are being interrogated by a voice-over (which we will end up uncovering at the end of the game), about everything that Mason has done since his mission in 1961 (a mission that consisted of assassinating Fidel Castro and which has generated a lot of controversy in Cuba).
Each of Mason’s memories will be a mission that we can play, placing ourselves in various places such as Cuba, Russia, Laos, etc…
Another character who will have a lot of weight throughout the story is Viktor Reznov, a sergeant from the Soviet Union betrayed by his comrades, who is without a doubt, one of the most charismatic characters in history. We can also play with him in a mission in 1945, which will explain the relationship between the Nazis, the Soviet Union and the feared biological agent Gas Nova 6.
For me the Black Ops campaign is epic, you can tell that Treyarch knows how to tell a story. There are several moments that leave you hooked on the controller, and for my taste it leaves its predecessor in a bad place, since although Modern Warfare 2 did not have a bad story, many missions were very bland, and you really only enjoyed the glory of the game when Price appeared on the scene.
In addition, the campaign is varied, we can control a helicopter, a boat going up a river, and even a Blackbird reconnaissance plane. Although you can’t ask for miracles, it is a first-person war game, so many phases will be spent firing shots trying to advance. At least the effort to introduce certain mental game elements very similar to those seen in Assasin’s Creed 2 is appreciated, which have managed to change the mechanics of such a predictable game a little.
One thing I can’t skip is the Spanish dubbing. It is one of the worst dubbing I have seen lately, and not because of the quality of the voices, which are more than acceptable, but because of their synchronization. It is embarrassing that a game from 2010 has the characters moving their lips for several seconds after finishing the sentence, and even overlapping sentences between characters, making the player’s immersion with the game’s dialogue null. A 0 for Activision and for the game’s Spanish dubbing studio.
Online Multiplayer
I have to admit that Call of Duty Black Ops has not invented anything in this section, but it has been able to listen. There were many complaints from users with the online mode of Modern Warfare 2, so Treyarch has made a masterful move by creating a multiplayer practically identical to the latter but fixing almost all the things that people complained about.
You will not find anything extremely new, that is, the only thing that changes compared to Modern Warfare 2 are: the new maps, the new weapons and the new kill streaks, but they have managed to eliminate 80-90% of the things that bothered the previous one from the game. The truth is that I find it very entertaining to play and much less overwhelming than Modern Warfare 2. I will probably dedicate many more hours to it in the coming weeks.
In addition, they have managed to reduce a very important issue, lag. In most of the games I have played, the lag has been acceptable if we were not the host of the game and barely zero if the host was Spanish. Halo Reach should learn from this since lately I’ve been frustrated by how bad some online games have been.
Still, I have to give Treyarch a slap on the wrist in this section. The multiplayer is a little polished, since in the first weeks they have been quite afflicted by errors in the online mode, although it seems they are preparing a patch to solve the most possible ones.
Note
- Presentation: It is not a game that stands out in any section on its own, but rather stands out more as a playable set. It cannot be said that it has innovated too much in any field, but it has a very well-told story, with some great touches. 8
- Graphics: The graphics are well below Modern Warfare 2, although it is not an important section since I prefer the gameplay of Black Ops. 7
- Duration and Engagement: The story mode in the simplest configuration has a duration of about 6 hours, which will surely go up to 10+ as soon as we raise the difficulty to veteran. The online mode gives us the possibility of endless hours glued to the controller. 9
- Final Note: Perhaps the most negative point of the game is its terrible dubbing, but in everything else it is a solid purchase, which will give you many hours of fun. Furthermore, as a general rule, Call of Duty maintain a good value on the second-hand market over the months, so you can always recover a large part of your investment.8